Westing

It is global warmy, outside.

Oh, Hattie Newman (paper artist, extraordinary)

The NFL, NBC, and M.I.A. have all apologized. Tim Winter of the Parents Television Council, whose job is to get mad, got mad about this “offensive material.” So we have two subjects: the incident and the artist.

The outrage is tiresome and deeply hypocritical, in all the tiresome ways you’ve been tired out by before. M.I.A. was illustrating her line, acting out the attitude of the words: performing. Fine, it may not be legal to flip the bird on television, but that’s simply a remnant of the fifties we haven’t shaken. Unless somebody was handing out Xanax with the foam fingers, Lucas Oil Stadium was ringing with the music of profanities last night. More to the point, television viewers were submitted to ad after ad that likened women—negatively—to sofas, cars, and candy. Mr. Winter didn’t have anything to say about that, so I’d like to raise both of my middle fingers to him and anyone who thinks profanity is somehow more harmful to our children than images of violence and misogyny. (My two sons, fourteen and eleven, thought the Fiat ad was corny, so I guess they will be safe without Mr. Winter’s intervention.) I say we get out of The Pretending To Be Moral game altogether and use the Internet for important things like posting pictures of cats looking at croissants and PDFs of sensitive government documents.
(Sasha Frere-Jones) — The NFL, NBC, and M.I.A. have all apologized. Tim Winter of the Parents Television Council, whose job is to get mad, got mad about this “offensive material.” So we have two subjects: the incident and the artist.

The outrage is tiresome and deeply hypocritical, in all the tiresome ways you’ve been tired out by before. M.I.A. was illustrating her line, acting out the attitude of the words: performing. Fine, it may not be legal to flip the bird on television, but that’s simply a remnant of the fifties we haven’t shaken. Unless somebody was handing out Xanax with the foam fingers, Lucas Oil Stadium was ringing with the music of profanities last night. More to the point, television viewers were submitted to ad after ad that likened women—negatively—to sofas, cars, and candy. Mr. Winter didn’t have anything to say about that, so I’d like to raise both of my middle fingers to him and anyone who thinks profanity is somehow more harmful to our children than images of violence and misogyny. (My two sons, fourteen and eleven, thought the Fiat ad was corny, so I guess they will be safe without Mr. Winter’s intervention.) I say we get out of The Pretending To Be Moral game altogether and use the Internet for important things like posting pictures of cats looking at croissants and PDFs of sensitive government documents.

(Sasha Frere-Jones)

“Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty” at the National Museum of American History.
Cannot wait, can’t wait, can’t wait to explore this nefarious paradox.

*National Museum of African American History and Culture
*National Museum of American History; exhibit page
* Monticello; “Landscape of Slavery: Mulberry Row at Monticello” — “Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty” at the National Museum of American History.

Cannot wait, can’t wait, can’t wait to explore this nefarious paradox.

*National Museum of African American History and Culture

*National Museum of American History; exhibit page

* Monticello; “Landscape of Slavery: Mulberry Row at Monticello”

In Norway, after the massacre

“Balancing Act”

But my husband has seen me at my worst, at my most vile. And he has seen me at my best. He knows the things I don’t tell anyone, and the lies that I tell everyone but him. I have made sacrifices for him and been angry about it. Sometimes his flaws are so egregious, so blatant, they are all I see. And sometimes his kindness is so stunning that I am humbled.

And that’s love.