Observations from the Road 4.1

It's April Fools' Day and what would it be without those fun peeps at Google freaking people out. They announced on the YouTube blog that YouTube has been one big contest all along and that after 8 years they have found the world's best video so will be shutting down at midnight tonight. Google also announced that Google Maps will now come with a treasure mode.

Semi-seriously speaking of Google, the sudden controversy over yesterday's 'Google Doodle' is too funny. So maybe somebody screwed up memorializing Cesar Chavez on his birthday instead of celebrating Easter. Am I serious? No not really but it looked good. So is the doodle all that important? No. Is Easter that important? No. Is everybody suddenly a Christian? No. Would Google have been better off with Easter eggs and a bunny? Very much so. Messed up world.

My dad was always a big Jeopardy fan and he had some info for me that I wish was and April Fools' prank. Supposedly Alex Trebek is finally going through with a retirement announcement and will leave the show in 2016. The rumor is that the front runner to replace him is Matt Lauer. Please no. I'm more of a fan of the Saturday Night Live version of Jeopardy so maybe Will Ferrell is available.

I haven't done any Sunday Observations for a few weeks but there is one thing I need to mention before I lose the note. I was watching MSNBC one night, probably The Last Word, and there it was, my dream panel. Krystal Ball and Alex Wagner seated next to each other. All I needed was the addition of Mika Brzezinski and I could have died a happy girl right then and that's no April Fools' joke, seriously.

Observations, Why Now?

Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer

The SCOTUS arguments made for an interesting week, interesting and thought provoking. I did a lot of reading, talking, and thinking about the subject because there was just so many opinions and articles out there. Everybody seems to have an opinion on same sex marriage now, it's an amazing thing to watch. One thing I know, you simply can not hear the forty year love story of Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer without tearing up. I suppose you can but than you probably don't understand what these arguments are all about. If you want to read about them this BuzzFeed article is a good place to start, "Meet The Hero Of The Marriage Equality Movement."

I have to be honest and say some of what I read has me stepping slightly back from what I said a couple days ago. While I still think Bill Clinton signing DOMA when it went against everything he stood for is political cowardice I can see where people have been evolving. One thing in particular has me saying that now and it's something I didn't realize before or I should say something I just learned. During the original 2008 Prop 8 vote the Mormon Church and it's members donated an estimated $20 million to help pass the measure. During the 'four state' campaign last year, that resulted in the first four same sex marriage wins at the ballot box, the church gave nothing. On one of its websites the church now says that homosexuality is not a choice. There is a good article on Reuters and if you dare the Mormon website is here.

The question quickly becomes why now? What suddenly changed over the past few years? The obvious first answer is demographics or, as someone said this week, everyday there are more of us and less of them. But demographics alone isn't an answer. What makes people, or a entire church, suddenly change it's mind about gays and same sex marriage?

There is another obvious answer but one I didn't think about until this week, one I didn't really hear discussed much until this week. Every day more and more gays come out of the closet. When I was in high school I sometimes felt like I was alone because I was the only out queer in my class. Not that many years later I know of a handful of others out in that very same class. Being the rebellious outsider sort I relished it at times but at other times I have to admit it did hurt so I'll always say having supportive parents made all the difference in the world. Just ten years later my sister's experiences were so very different than mine.

No matter what your moral, religious, or political thoughts on same sex marriage it's very hard to look a friend, family member, or co-worker in the eye and tell them that they shouldn't have the same rights as anybody else. That they shouldn't fall in love, shouldn't be allowed to have a family, that they shouldn't be allowed to marry. A perfect example is Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio who happens to be a GOP presidential hopeful and whose son is gay. On March 14 he announced that he now supported same sex marriage saying that his son was entitled to the same happiness that he and his wife share.

In 1978 Harvey Milk first gave what became known as his 'Hope Speech' at San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade. "On this anniversary of Stonewall, I ask my gay sisters and brothers to make the commitment to fight. For themselves, for their freedom, for their country. We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions. We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I'm going to talk about it. And I want you to talk about it. You must come out."

Makes so much more sense today.

Observations on Art 3.30

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born 160 years ago today in the Netherlands. To celebrate here is a little something to watch while you throw around the egg dye this Easter weekend. What? Doesn't every family do that?

The Power of Art - Van Gogh

link
the complete series

Observations from the Coffee Shop 3.28

While I was reading some articles last night I found one on Gawker called "Cowardice As A Political Philosophy" that is very good and worth reading. It's about both the Iraq War and same sex marriage but includes a few paragraphs about Bill and Hillary Clinton that struck a nerve. Now I love the Clintons and I always will but what Nolan says is all too true and is also the politics of same sex marriage in a nutshell. In the end it doesn't always mean somebody needs to evolve on the issue.

"People like the Clintons - cosmopolitan, well traveled, well educated, well connected, and liberal - do not really believe that gay marriage is some great threat to America. They would no doubt laugh at the simple-minded odiousness of such a position, in private. But in public, they were all too happy to embrace it for their own political gain.

Bill Clinton signed into law an act which banned gay marriage, because he feared the political consequences of vetoing it. That is a fact. And it is disgusting. Hillary Clinton, like many of her peers, supported that act, and continued to oppose the right of gay people to marry up until just this year. That she supported "domestic partnerships," the most intellectually laughable attempt at a middle ground since the the Three-Fifths Compromise, only serves to expose her own hypocrisy more easily.

Let us be clear about what this is: this is an example of some of the most powerful people in America spitting upon the basic civil rights of a minority group in order to further their own political power. This is the opposite of courage. This is cowardice in all of its repulsive glory."

Observations 3.27

Upon further review, well, maybe I spoke too soon. I'm going to stand by what I wrote yesterday about the Supreme Court and Prop 8 because I still think the Obama "nine state" decision is one of the possible results. After listening to some of the audio I'm not so sure it's very likely. More likely seems that either the court simply dismisses the case entirely or agrees with the appellate court. Either result ends Prop 8 in California but doesn't effect the rest of the country. Listening to the audio you get the feeling that for the most part they wish it would just go away so maybe a dismissal. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud.

As expected what Justice Kennedy thinks will be more important than the other justices, especially the ravings of a mad hatter like Scalia. Kennedy seems to be struggling with the issue, wanting to do what he knows is right but probably goes against his own personal beliefs. Justice Kennedy asked Charles Cooper, attorney for Prop 8, a question about the 40,000 children in California who just want their parents married, "the voice of those children is important in this case, don't you think?" Not wanting to say the children didn't matter Cooper evaded the question. Later Justice Kennedy was the first to bring up just dismissing the case while Chief Justice Roberts and Kennedy both questioned whether Prop 8 backers had any legal standing for defending it in court.

Cooper, responding to a question from Justice Sotomayor, fully admitted that, other than marriage, he could not think of any legal reason to treat gays differently than anyone else. I found this interesting because I didn't see it mentioned much in the media yesterday.

I guess we'll find out in June.

Today SCOTUS hears the DOMA arguments, again beginning at 10 AM, with audio and transcripts to follow in the early afternoon. My gut feeling prediction on this case is easy, DOMA is dead, especially if the court isn't going to broadly rule on the Prop 8 case.

update - Here are the links for both the audio and the written transcript from today's DOMA oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Also here are a pair of links to the Prop 8 and DOMA transcripts on the Oyez Project website. The Oyez Project is at the Chicago-Kent Law School and is a multimedia archive of SCOTUS cases. What makes these transcripts interesting is that they are searchable by word and by speaker. To search the transcript click on the 'oral argument' link near the bottom of each page.

Observations 3.26

At 10 AM this morning the Supreme Court of The United States will begin hearing arguments in California's Prop 8 case. They are scheduled to last one hour, give or take, with arguments in the DOMA case scheduled for Wednesday at the same time. Transcripts are supposed to be released no later than 2 PM both days and I'll pass along links when I have them. Decisions in both cases probably wont be announced until the end of the court's term which, one way or another, will make the end of June rather interesting. Not too any years ago I wondered if I would see legal same sex marriage across the country in my lifetime. Now, other than the flyover belt of the country, I wonder how soon I will see it become a reality. At the end of June I may just find out.

I thought I should throw my opinion out there before arguments start on the remote chance that at some point I'll be able to say I told you so.

The main argument against same sex marriage now comes down to that marriage is between a man and a woman because it "furthers society’s vital interests in responsible procreation and child rearing." That is it, that is their argument. Narrowly the worst case scenario is that the court takes the position that the constitution has no position on the issue thus leaving it completely to the states. It will in no way decide that same sex marriage is unconstitutional because it can't without destroying the right's beloved states rights position. This decision would allow Prop 8 to stand and set in motion a vote to repeal Prop 8 in a state where same sex marriage now is favored by 67% of the voters. In California it's only a matter of time.

The other extreme, and to me just as unlikely, is that the court makes some sweeping decision that hypothetically legalizes same sex marriage nationwide. In all honesty this may be worse than the worst case I just mentioned because, while a reason to celebrate, it would just crystallize opposition from every direction. At the same time this possibly the best result for the Republican Party. Anybody in the party with any kind of sense could walk away from a no win issue, than again this is the Republican Party where common sense is currently in a limited supply.

What remains are the two middle options where I think the decision will fall. The first possibility is to simply uphold the decision of the Ninth Court of Appeals which says California, or any other state, can't take away a gay persons right to marry once the state has given them that right. At the time of the Appeals Court's decision it was thought Judge Reinhardt wrote it with SCOTUS in mind. This is the easiest way for Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy to rule in favor of same sex marriage in California and not have it effect the rest of the country. Along the same lines the court could simply dismiss the case allowing the Ninth's decision to stand as is.

But I think Roberts will do more as he did in ruling Obamacare was constitutional. John Roberts is a student of SCOTUS' history and sees his position as Chief Justice as caretaker of the court's legacy. With the rest of the government SCOTUS lives in a bubble but in the court's case it can be a very leaky bubble and public opinion has shifted twenty percent since 2008, Roberts knows this. Roberts also knows he will be on the court for a long time, he is 58, and probably doesn't want to be remembered for a decision that became meaningless while he was still on the court. It's probably just my gut feeling but I think Roberts and a majority of the court will go with the option favored by the Obama administration and rule that a state can't deny the word marriage to gays while granting them all the rights of marriage in civil unions. This decision would effect the states of California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Colorado.

History is a fickle thing but when its time comes nothing can stop it. Whatever the court decides I think history's time has come and sorry will be those on the wrong side of it. I just don't think John Roberts will be one of them.

update - Here is the link for the audio of this morning's Prop 8 hearing at the Supreme Court. The text should follow but I'm not sure when.

update 2 - I'm a little slow with this but here is the link to a pdf file of the hearing transcript. While I'm at it here is a link to SCOTUSblog which is a very good site to find out what is going on at the court.

Observations on Art 3.24

We stumbled onto a good list in the Art and Design section of Complex magazine's website, "100 Museums to Visit Before You Die." Like I said it's a good list but it doesn't say if it is in any kind of order. I don't see how it can be with MoMA at 56 while the Met is at 3, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is at 4, and the Louvre is at 7. I love the Philadelphia Museum but more than MoMA and the Louvre? No way. Another sure sign of no order is that something called The Simone Handbag Museum in Seoul, South Korea is in the first spot.

Of course everything becomes a competition so we had to compare who had been to what museum and I came out the winner at twenty four. The Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, The Drawing Center, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, International Center of Photography, Brooklyn Museum, MoMA PS1, The Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Arts and Design, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Phillips Collection, MAD Museum, Andy Warhol Museum, New York Historical Society, Centre Georges Pompidou, New Museum, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, American Museum of Natural History, Musée du Louvre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

A few museums not on the list that I think should be are the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, the Shaanxi History Museum, and Shanghai's Museum of Contemporary Art. I think the list totally neglects Chinese art, the art and culture with the longest history, and concentrates on Japanese art.

Off the top of my head the museums on the list that I hope to get to are the Tate Modern, Palace of Versailles, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, the Vatican Museums, Museo Reina Sofia, and the Hermitage. I suppose I need to spend some time in Europe unless I go to China instead. To bad I didn't win that big lottery last night.

Yes I have been busy but that still leaves 76 museums to visit. One less than that if I skip that purse museum in Seoul.

Observations 3.21

Next Tuesday and Wednesday the Supreme Court will hear arguments on both California's Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. The court has announced that it will post audio recordings and transcripts on the SCOTUS website no later than 2 pm on those days.

Twelve year old Daniel's letter to Chief Justice Roberts ....

"My name is Daniel Martinez-Leffew. I'm 12 years old and I live in northern California. I have a younger sister named Salina, and we were adopted by two dads. We were adopted when I was five and my sister was about twelve months old. When I was in foster care I was told that I was considered unadoptable because of my Goldenhar syndrome. That is a genetic disorder that affects the whole left side of my body. I lost my little brother Emilio because some people wanted to adopt him, but they weren't willing to adopt me because of my medical conditions. Lucky for me, that's when my two dads came along.

I recently found out that you yourself adopted two kids, a boy and a girl, kind of like me and my sister.

Family means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but some people believe that you have to have the same blood to be a family. You and I both know that family goes deeper than blood. I was lucky to be adopted by two guys I can both call dad. They give me and my sister so much love. My dad Jay works in San Francisco as a deputy sheriff, and my dad Bryan stays at home and takes care of me and my sister. My dads really encourage me to excel in life. Since I want to be a cook when I grow up, they're letting me take cooking classes. My parents want me to improve, whether it's schoolwork, or my social life.

I know you have a tough decision to make with the gay marriage issue, but my family is just as valuable and worthwhile as any other. It's especially tough for you because I know you don't necessarily believe in gay marriage religiously. Lucky for us, though, you also don't believe in taking away a right, even from people like us. My family and I have spent the last four years making YouTube videos to show people who don't understand that our family is like any other. If Prop 8 is allowed to stand, imagine the pain we would feel knowing that we are not considered equal to everyone else.

I guess to end this, it is important that all families are protected and valued. In our country we may not all be the same, but we are all Americans and deserve an equal chance at bettering our lives. I hope you make the right decision in the end."

link
Published on Mar 17, 2013

"So our kids know that Prop 8 is coming to the Supreme Court soon and that could be a very big deal for our family. When they found out that one of the Justices hearing the case had two adopted children, they said, "Hey! They're just like us!" And so, in a moment that made his dads very proud, Daniel decided to write a letter to Justice Roberts in the hopes that he will see that our families are not so different."

Observations 3.20

I really don't know how to describe this video other than classic. It's so good that when I first saw it I didn't even realize it was a commercial which you might not have either if I hadn't just told you. Be sure you watch till the end so you understand why I think it's classic.

"Le papier ne sera jamais mort," à l'époque où le débat fait rage entre les prescripteurs du 'tout numérique' et les irréductibles défenseurs du papier, Le Trèfle prend position avec son nouveau spot TV intitulé Emma.

"Paper is not dead," at a time when debate rages between the prescribers of 'all digital' technology and the die-hard defenders of paper, Clover has taken a position with this new TV spot titled Emma.

link
vimeo link
Published on Mar 12, 2013

I'm posting both a Vimeo and YouTube link because the video is much better viewed on Vimeo but in their wisdom it doesn't allow embedding. Why I do not know, it's a commercial after-all.

Observations 3.18

I can't say I want to write about rape but something is just freaking me out a bit. First off I have a problem comprehending why some in the media can't seem to grasp three words, rape is rape. See it's a fairly easy concept to grasp. Personality doesn't come into it, nor does the fact that you were 'allegedly' drinking. Rape is rape.

Yesterday Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, 17 and 16 year old Steubenville, Ohio high school football players, were found guilty of raping a girl who they literally carried from party to party. The boys' only defense was the usual one of her consenting because she didn't positively say no. The main evidence against the boys consisted of videos and photos that were posted on Twitter and Facebook that night and over the next few days. Richmond was sentenced to a minimum of one year in a juvenile detention center and Richmond to a minimum of two because he was also found guilty of using the victim, a minor, in pornographic material. With good behavior both will spend less time locked up than the typical drug offender. I have more than one problem with the reactions to this verdict but for now I have a question.

What the hell is the matter with CNN?

Immediately following the verdict announcement Candy Crowley's main thought was of the poor boys whose bright futures were ruined by the verdict. She added that they would in all likelihood be traumatized for life. Crowley said "these two young men, who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their life fell apart." Very little mention of the 16 year old victim of the rape.

Not to be outdone Poppy Harlow, CNN's correspondent on the scene, added "One of the young men, Ma’lik Richmond, as that sentence came down, he collapsed. It was very hard to watch." I'm torn between wanting to ask Harlow how difficult the rape video they posted on Facebook was to watch and wanting to kick Richmond a few times as he collapsed.

Crowley finished by asking CNN's legal expert what the lasting effects of the verdict are for the men. "But in terms of what happens now, the most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law. That will haunt them for the rest of their lives," answered Paul Callan. It should haunt them as I'm sure it will haunt their victim.

I'm not sorry if their lives are ruined, if the town of Steubenville's reputation is ruined, if the boys' "promising futures" as football players is gone forever. They raped a 16 year old girl as their friends took pictures and video than posted them on Twitter and Facebook. I really don't care if they are on a sexual predators list for the rest of their lives, that's exactly what they are. They have nobody but themselves to blame for their ruined lives.

To be fair CNN wasn't the only source reacting this way but one expects more from a serious news source. But than between this and the poop ship chronicles I'm not so sure CNN should be called that any longer.

3/19 update - I saw this yesterday on CNN's website in an opinion written by Ric Simmons, a guest writer from Ohio State's College of Law. Granted he doesn't specifically work for CNN but they published it. In his opinion Simmons said; "A few decades ago, this behavior would probably have been considered inappropriate or 'ungentlemanly.' Today, it brings protesters into the streets and creates a nationwide outcry about sexual abuse." Again we are talking about rape here.

Sunday Observations 3.17

Vivek Shraya is a musician and writer living in Toronto who one day he had a cool idea and asked people what they loved about being queer. He filmed the answers in his living room and made them into a documentary. The film became a tumblr where you can post a photo and your own answer to his question. Now it has become a book which also includes essays by Farzana Doctor, Elisha Lim, Kathryn Payne, and Marilyn McLean. The book can be ordered from his website or in Toronto bookstores if you happen to be passing through.


What I LOVE about being QUEER
Film teaser from Vivek Shraya on Vimeo.
Film and Screening Inquiries 

Observations on Art 3.15

Diana Thater - Day For Night

Armory Week usually brings about a kind of art overload, if that is possible, but there is always something I absolutely love. This year it was a series of videos by artist Diana Thater at the David Zwirner booth. To make the videos Thater said she "placed the flowers on a mirror that reflected the bright blue Los Angeles sky above and filmed them from above on a crane using a day for night filter, which movie directors use to make scenes shot in the day look like they occur at night, and had a rain machine pump rain between the camera and the flowers." The videos were played on the highest of hi-tech screens and are just a stunning shade of blue.

Not long after I mentioned that I have no use for Pinterest I read an article on ArtInfo that listed the ten best art related accounts to follow. Needless to say I'm finding myself addicted to what you could call art porn but I have yet to 'pin' a single thing. That lack of pinning brings to mind a question, how did I get seven followers? If you use Pinterest the article is a good place to start but I would add The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée du Louvre both of which have awesome boards, or maybe I'm just a snob at times.

A quote I posted on tumblr about a month ago has well over 5,000 reposts now. The quote is by Vladimir Nabokov and I'm sure its popularity is saying something about the world we live in but at the moment I don't feel like dwelling on it. This is the quote, "Our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

Speaking of quotes, and possibly in some way related to the above paragraph, today is March 15^th, The Ides of March. This would be the day Julius Caesar was assassinated in the year 44 BC. A seer had warned Caesar that harm would come to him no later than the Ides of March. While going to the Theatre of Pompey that day (eerie shades of Lincoln here) Caesar passed the same person and supposedly joked, "The ides of March have come," meaning he was still alive. The seer answered back, "Aye, but not gone." Four years later Octavian executed 300 Roman Senators on the anniversary of Caesar's death.

I have no idea why I think that is important but yet I do. I think it has something to do with the ignorance of  the currently be held CPAC and what people will think of us 2,000 years from now, that is if there are people. It can't be good.

As William Shakespeare wrote simply in Julius Caesar, "beware the Ides of March." I would stay away from theatres too.

Observations 3.13.1

I always have had a habit of calling my collection of websites my 'empire' because I spend so much time on them. Recently the empire has morphed has morphed into something a bit more important. I've made some important contacts for both Ash and myself, gotten my point across in ways I never imagined, and just gotten a large amount of exposure. The problem with exposure is it can be both good and bad.

For some time I've had a faux Facebook account the primary purpose of which was pushing this blog and some photos into Facebook. I know, totally against the terms of service and hard to do on Facebook but there are always ways. I finally decided it all wasn't worth the effort and stated looking for other options including blogger's dynamic views or just starting another tumblr to re-post this blog on. For various reasons I decided on the new tumblr and after learning some of tumblr's text code, a bit different from blogger's, I published it this week. As I said in the previous post, the tumblr introduction, it's very much a work in progress and looks a bit stale but you can see it here.

Now back to the bad exposure I mentioned, another reason for the change. I never have been much of a fan of Facebook, liked the movie but hate the product. Their statements to the contrary I just don't think they care all that much about the security of your information and they collect too damn much of it. Because of their terrible IPO and poor stock showing they seem more concerned with profit than security, not that it was ever the other way around.

A few months ago I started getting spam mail, the usual "grow your manhood four inches" type of thing, that I can trace back to that Facebook account. Now I began getting spam texts, Facebook is the only site requires/demands you list a cell number, that can only be related to that same account. These just added to my desire for a change and that account will be history as soon as I finish erasing it. I really don't trust them to delete it themselves so I'm doing it manually. It always goes without saying that you shouldn't post anything online you don't want to be there forever because it will be just that, forever. It's another thing entirely when personal information leaks from, or is sold by, somebody without permission and against their own rules.

There is a totally funny side story to all this. Facebook just announced their new design and it looks totally like, yes, tumblr. In a post on its blog Facebook says it developed the new feed using paper, Post-its, and a large blank wall. The blank wall must have looked remarkably like tumblr.

Seems I made the switch just in time.

Observations 3.13

This is something I have been posting on my tumblrs over the past few days. I'll have a better explanation in my next post here but I'm posting this alone so I don't have to re-post it on tumblr ....

Observations: A bit of an introduction
I have been writing a blog over on blogger for over three years now. At the same time I have a few, some not totally safe for work, photo blogs on tumblr. I had been re-posting my blog to a public facebook page but finally decided that was a total waste of time so I decided to combine some of my projects, lose some others, and re-post “Observations” here.

The first few posts will be what blogger calls my popular posts and some art posts I have done over the last week. After that I’ll just re-post what I’m blogging with maybe throw in some fav photos. There is a link to my blog in the header of this so if anyone has any interest there is plenty more to read there.

My thoughts for this are very much a work in progress so we shall just have to see what comes of it.
Katie