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Sendak bristled at the notion that he was an author of children’s books and told People magazine in 2003 that he wrote stories “about human emotion and life.”
“They’re pigeonholed as children’s books, but the best ones aren’t — they’re just books,” he said.
A few posts I think are worth your time…
Anglachel: Where Can I Piss?
Spousal Unit commented that the Wilentz article reminded him of something his own professor, John Schaar, said in response to a student’s question about why the Civil Rights movement’s use of very lofty ideology wasn’t a liability. Schaar responded it was because the high-minded rhetoric was always joined to very concrete aims like “where can I piss, you know?” Civil Rights mattered not because of the concept that all men are created equal, but because equality is enacted or denied in the most mundane circumstances, such as being able to relieve yourself in a private and sanitary manner, or order some eggs and toast when you are hungry, or sit on the first available seat on the bus, or have a sip of water from the cooler on this floor, not the one in the basement. The right to vote is, ultimately, the right to piss where everyone else does.
But how do you make bathrooms available to everyone? You have to institutionalize the normalcy of taking a piss. It’s not something exceptional, it’s not special treatment, it’s not a zero sum game where my gain is always and automatically your loss. It’s just about ordinary human affairs – you eat, you eliminate. To normalize a particular activity or condition means that it is institutionalized. Institutionalization is the proper goal of a political movement.
Atheist Camel: Probability or Purpose?: How do your religiously infected friends explain this?
Want to know how deeply your theist friends have swallowed the Kool Aid of unquestioning religious non-think? Want to gauge exactly how encompassing is their self delusion and surrender to vacuous apologetics? Want to witness what complete abandonment of reality sounds like? Ask them to explain Zahra Baker, then stand back and watch the dance of denial.
Glenn Greenwald: Democrats and the rule of law
Obama took a Constitutionally-mandated oath of office that he “will to the best of [his] ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” I wasn’t aware that Constitutional guarantees and the rule of law could be dismissed with the wave of a presidential hand because members of the President’s party in Congress want it to be. If that is true, then that reasoning justifies most of what Bush and Cheney did as well. The whole point of having a Constitution is that the Government is barred from doing certain things (e.g., depriving someone of liberty without due process of law) even when majorities demand it. This is Obama’s doing; he ran on a platform of restoring the rule of law and the Constitution even when political expediency demands otherwise; and nothing forced him to abandon Holder’s decision.
Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone): Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners
You’ve heard of Too Big to Fail — the foreclosure crisis is Too Big for Fraud. Think of the Bernie Madoff scam, only replicated tens of thousands of times over, infecting every corner of the financial universe. The underlying crime is so pervasive, we simply can’t admit to it — and so we are working feverishly to rubber-stamp the problem away, in sordid little backrooms in cities like Jacksonville, behind doors that shouldn’t be, but often are, closed.
And that’s just the economic side of the story. The moral angle to the foreclosure crisis — and, of course, in capitalism we’re not supposed to be concerned with the moral stuff, but let’s mention it anyway — shows a culture that is slowly giving in to a futuristic nightmare ideology of computerized greed and unchecked financial violence. The monster in the foreclosure crisis has no face and no brain. The mortgages that are being foreclosed upon have no real owners. The lawyers bringing the cases to evict the humans have no real clients. It is complete and absolute legal and economic chaos. No single limb of this vast man-eating thing knows what the other is doing, which makes it nearly impossible to combat — and scary as hell to watch.
Related to Taibbi’s piece . . .
Ian Welsh: Wiping out property law and destroying counties to save the banks
I’ll spell out some of it here: the major banks are bankrupt. Bankrupt. Still. This is a massive giveaway to the banks if it occurs, and it will bankrupt most American counties, permanently, as well as putting record keeping on who owns and owes what not in the hands of a third party, but in the hands of MERS, a creation of the lenders. Given how the lenders have relentlessly engaged in fraud to try and foreclose on houses they do not have title to, this seems… unwise.
Riverdaughter thinks outside the box: I support overturning Roe v. Wade and so should you
But the parties have no intention of getting rid of Roe. The Republicans have just as much to gain from keeping it as a whipping girl as the Democrats need it as bait. Roe will just become a specter and personally, I don’t want even my proxy rights to be degraded into nothingness. It’s hard enough being a woman in the corporate R&D world, let alone as a second class citizen of the United States whose rights are negotiated away on a daily basis. As long as Roe is the law of the land, the focus will always be on “morality”. Whose morality? Does the state get to decide morality for everyone or just women? Are women always going to be at the mercy of someone else’s conscience? Does the establishment clause in the first amendment apply only to men? Those are the questions that need to be answered, not whether you have the right to decide in private to do something you do not have the means to carry out.
Yes, it’s scary to dump Roe. Yes, a lot of women depend on it to move forward in their lives. But killing Roe would send shock waves through the country. We should not be afraid to stand up for ourselves and demand recognition as free and equal persons, competent and able to decide for ourselves our own religions, consciences, bodily integrity and destiny.
So, take it down. Take it down now. The sooner the better. Give the Supreme Court a reason to reverse it. I not only dare you. I WANT you to do it, John Roberts. I have two daughters and I am not afraid of losing Roe. I’m more afraid that they will lose everything else.
The Heraclitan Fire: Language and the Will to Power – Part 1
I’m bemused by the trend, in recent years, of obfuscating, conflating and downright deliberate abuse of our language – especially our political language. It has left people confused (perhaps intentionally) about some basic terms and that, in turn, has left them confused about the realities of our current social/political/economic situation. This may seem picayune to some, after all harping on the language used to describe events can’t hold a candle to actually dealing with those events, right? Well, not so much; to the extent that we use and abuse language we define or obscure what we’re talking about. This is done in two ways: first by ignorance, people who are not clear about their subject or the definitions of the words they are using are red meat for the propagandists. The second way is by design. This is the special world of propaganda/advertising where the word and the meme are deliberately twisted to serve a commercial and/or political end. As Orwell pointed out, this is an unparalleled tool for establishing and maintaining control of a market or a society. And tyrannies of the left and the right have used it assiduously even a casual look at history will provide numerous examples.
Us atheists, that is.
Go read Ray Garton’s latest.
Here’s the opening salvo, but I recommend reading it all for a fact check about the often obscured truth about Nazism and Christianity. Ratzy is using his British tour to rewrite history. Be sure to bookmark Ray’s post for reference the next time someone insists that Hitler was an atheist and the Nazi’s were an “atheist regime.” Full of quote-y goodness! 
The pope — the CEO of this conglomerate of child-fuckers and their protectors, enablers and financial supporters — is making a personal appearance in Britain as I write this. Tens of thousands of people are gathering to catch his stand-up act. He has wasted no time in getting to the point. From the Guardian:
Benedict XVI used the first papal state visit to Britain to launch a blistering attack on “atheist extremism” and “aggressive secularism”, and to rue the damage that “the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life” had done in the last century.
The leader of the Roman Catholic church concluded a speech, made before the Queen and assembled dignitaries at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, with the argument that the Nazi desire to eradicate God had led to the Holocaust and a plea for 21st-century Britain to respect its Christian foundations.
Atheist extremism? Did I miss a news story about atheists flying planes into buildings? Have atheists been showing up at funerals with signs reading “The Universe hates god-botherers?” Have atheists been calling for the imprisonment and execution of Christians — as Christians have been calling for the imprisonment and execution of homosexuals? I think I would have noticed those news stories — I’ve been busy lately, but I haven’t been that busy.
Me neither. Garton continues:
From the Guardian:
“Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society,” he said. “In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate.
What traditional values and “cultural expressions” might those be? Mindless obedience to YOU? Forcing cartoonists into hiding? Honor killings? The subjugation of women?
“Let it not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms; and may that patrimony, which has always served the nation well, constantly inform the example your government and people set before the two billion members of the Commonwealth and the great family of English-speaking nations throughout the world.”
The pontiff’s speech set the wide-ranging tone for his four-day visit: despite attacking atheism, he paid tribute to the UK’s historic achievements and offered “a hand of friendship” to all its people.
Well, all its people, that is, except the atheists.
Well, we’re not really people doncha know. “Patrimony?” Echoes of “the Fatherland.”
Ugh.
I’m currently reading South of Broad. It is exquisite. A snippet:
Then I cracked like a pane of glass, and the twins broke with me. They cried to see me cry, as hard as I did. My tears mingled with the saltwater of the tides, until there were no more tears, and all the tides of sorrow had drained the marshes in me dry. We floated in absolute silence for the next five minutes.
Then I said, “I ruined your perfect moment.”
“No, you didn’t,” Sheba said. “You added to it. You told us something true about yourself. That never happens.”
“You gave us part of yourself,” Trevor said. “Perfect doesn’t just mean happy. Perfect can have lots of different parts.”
Go. Read.
Teh Portly Dyke has an incredible post up.
Honor Your (Radical) Ancestors
. . . And to those who think those radicals were nothing more than a flash in the pan — to those who think that such radicalism has nothing to do with them, I want to say:
There was a time when being “out” at all (much less considering legal marriage) was not really a choice for any queer — but some radicals made that choice anyway. They chose to be out, even when this might, and probably would, mean complete ostracization by society, severance from their families, and beatings on the street. Or worse.
There was a time when shaving your legs or not shaving your legs, wearing a bra or not wearing a bra, wearing pants or not wearing pants, leaving your abusive spouse or not leaving your abusive spouse — was not really a choice for any woman — but some radicals made that choice anyway. They chose to do things that they knew might, and probably would, mean they would be judged and criticized and fired and expelled and divorced and disowned and beaten. Or worse.
Perhaps those radicals weren’t thinking about you when they did these things — maybe they were only thinking about themselves and what they could stand in that moment — what they felt they must do for themselves in order to make life bearable (actually, in a way, I hope they were) — but I know — I absolutely know – that I walked into a future where I was more free to choose because of what they chose. . . .
You absolutely must read her whole post. It is an amazing reminder of how far we have come and upon whose shoulders we stand.
Another “new to me” blog: If I Ran the Zoo
I think you’ll like it.
