I'm old enough to remember....

I’m old enough to remember when people thought censorship was an inherent evil. Now censorship is the go to solution for every public ill. https://t.co/dLUKBOl89X

— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) January 26, 2022

"Spotify sides with Joe Rogan after Neil Young ultimatum."

The Hill reports. 

Spotify is removing Neil Young’s music after the musician gave the streaming service an ultimatum, saying it could not provide a platform to both him and Joe Rogan due to the podcast host’s “fake information” on COVID-19 vaccines. “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both,” Young wrote in a letter earlier this week to his record label and management team....

Well, of course, Spotify should side with Joe Rogan. The person who makes an ultimatum like that should lose. It's ridiculous. If that worked, there'd be an obnoxious celebrity throwing his weight around every day. 

So much for "rocking in the free world," Neil, you big jerk.

"But his themes are part of the inheritance of modernity, ones that he merely adapted with a peculiar, self-pitying edge and then took to their nightmarish conclusion..."

"... the glory of war over peace; disgust with the messy bargaining and limited successes of reformist, parliamentary democracy and, with that disgust, contempt for the political class as permanently compromised; the certainty that all military setbacks are the results of civilian sabotage and a lack of will; the faith in a strong man; the love of the exceptional character of one nation above all others; the selection of a helpless group to be hated, who can be blamed for feelings of national humiliation. He didn’t invent these arguments. He adapted them, and then later showed where in the real world they led, if taken to their logical outcome by someone possessed, for a time, of absolute power. Resisting those arguments is still our struggle, and so they are, however unsettling, still worth reading, even in their creepiest form."

From "Does 'Mein Kampf' Remain a Dangerous Book?" by Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker).

In this short article, Gopnik uses variations on the word "creepy" 5 times: "not so much diabolical or sinister as creepy.... The creepiness extends toward his fanatical fear of impurity.... Creepy and miserable and uninspiring as the book seems to readers now.... Putting aside the book’s singularly creepy tone.... it contains little argumentation that wasn’t already commonplace still worth reading, even in their creepiest form."

That suggests that, if we readi the book, we will feel an instinctive revulsion against the writer, even as the writer was endeavoring to inspire revulsion against designated others. Is it good to rely on this instinct to deliver us from evil?

"Until this fall, the National School Boards Association was a noncontroversial, bipartisan lobby group. Then its leaders wrote President Biden a letter."

"It alleged that the threatening and aggressive acts against school board members across the country might be a form of 'domestic terrorism' and asked for federal law enforcement intervention. Now, the association is at risk of total collapse....  If the school board association’s goal was to tamp down conservative parent protests, it had the exact opposite effect, galvanizing a movement that coalesced last fall around the idea of parental rights.... In one email, an NSBA board member wrote that [its interim director Chip] Slaven had said the letter had been requested by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona for use by the White House. In another, Slaven wrote that the letter included 'additional information on some of the specific threats,' as requested by the White House.... Five days after the NSBA letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland responded. He directed the FBI to work with U.S. attorneys across the country to convene meetings within 30 days with federal, state and local leaders to discuss strategies for addressing threats to school personnel...."

From "National School Boards Association stumbles into politics and is blasted apart/Its leaders compared aggressive school protests to ‘domestic terrorism.’ The backlash was fast and severe" (WaPo).

"'Gone with the Wind' was pulled from HBO Max while the long-running TV show 'Cops' was outright canceled..."

"... a sign that entertainment companies are re-examining the content they offer in the wake of nationwide protests for racial justice and against police brutality.... In a statement, HBO Max said 'Gone With the Wind' is a 'product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society.' When the movie returns to the platform it will be 'with a discussion of its historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. If we are to create a more just, equitable and inclusive future, we must first acknowledge and understand our history.'... On Monday, John Ridley, who won an Oscar for the adapted screenplay for the movie '12 Years a Slave'... call[ed] for 'Gone With the Wind' to be taken off HBO Max.... 'Cops,' once considered a groundbreaking look at the day-to-day life of police on the beat is now also out of fashion. Featuring the song 'Bad Boys'—with the lyrics 'Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?'— ...  'Cops' presented a very positive look at policing, showcasing officers handling everything from domestic disturbances and drunken driving to robberies and sex crimes...."

The Wall Street Journal reports (and this was not behind a paywall for me).

Sign posted in my neighborhood tells white people we "don't get to criticize" the choice of protesters to resort to rioting.

It's "white privilege," we are told, to express a desire for order and security:



A second sign attempts to convince us to abolish the police because they "uphold an inherently racist system" and "protect whiteness and capitalism":



ADDED: I anticipate that my post title will be criticized on the ground that there were a lot of peaceful protesters and we don't know whether any of them participated in anything that can properly be called "rioting." I want to keep the facts straight, and I want to know the facts. I agree that that those who broke windows and looted shops may have been an entirely different set of people from the people who were there to protest police brutality. I await the news reports and investigations that can bring these facts to light. I keep looking!

But that post title is just telling you what the sign says! It's one of the many problems with the sign. Whoever wrote that sign made no effort to separate the peaceful protesters from the rioters. It tells me to shut up about any objection I might have to the rioting because those in the oppressed group get to choose how to fight their oppression. This implies that the form of protest chosen was, in fact, theft and vandalism, and white people are not even allowed to criticize this expression.

Censored. Me. Really.

Shuttered. Closed down. Censored. Moi? Really?

My duo show with Stu Chait, Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space was closed on July 18 by RIT-NTID’s Dyer Gallery because the nude figure paintings might be offensive to young campus visitors. It seems like just yesterday that I was saying issues of censorship didn’t raise their ugly heads here in Rochester.

At our first meeting with the gallery, I specifically asked whether nude figure paintings would be a problem. I pointed out that the primary work dealt with difficult themes of how women are marginalized in the 21st century. I am a feminist, and my figure work deals with things like religious submission, bondage, slavery, prostitution, obesity, exploitation, etc.

The Laborer Resting, 36X48, oil on canvas. Available.

These paintings were reviewed, accepted and hung by the gallery with no problems. The opening was well-attended, and there were children present. (For that matter, my son regularly schleps paintings for me, and his biggest complaint is that he’d rather be using his computer.) The show was featured in RIT’s University News  and mentionedin City newspaper. It was not until administrators saw the work that it was deemed unacceptable.

The cynic in me thinks that if I painted coy, sexy Odalisques there would have been no objection to the show. Young people are exposed to sexually-charged but non-intellectual images every day; in fact, this is part of the problem I am painting about.

Meanwhile, kids who go to malls are exposed to images like this on an everyday basis. And this really is obscene, because it uses sex to sell clothing.

If difficult issues of women’s rights can’t be examined in a college gallery, where can they be examined?

I have occasionally pulled individual pieces that were too challenging. Last month I had a show at AVIV Café and Gallery at Bethel Church on East Avenue. The director pulled one work because its depiction of starving Africa frightened children. But since he left the bulk of the work intact, this was no problem.

Aviva Sleeping, 36X24, challenges the notion that an obese woman cannot be a beautiful one.

Of course, I’m in Maine, so Stu Chait and Sandy Quang had to deal with the work of pulling, wrapping and moving around 60 large paintings. And visitors to the show will find the gallery empty. What a pity.

Sorry, folks. My workshop in Belfast, ME is sold out. Message me if you want a spot on my waitlist, or information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.