Thanks, Jeanne Manford!

Jeanne Manford, the founder of Parents and Friends and Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), died 8 January 2013. She showed a lot of us the way. It’s a sorry time, because she was such a pioneer. As PFLAG says, “It is with great sorrow that we share with all of you the passing of PFLAG’s founder, Jeanne Manford.”

Madness on the DT Mall?

Did you know that there’s a mad woman loose on Hookville’s downtown mall? It’s more than an idle rumor. It’s actually The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giradoux, re-imagined by Kay Ferguson and a troupe of veteran players who have been engaged in intense physical training for months as they developed their version of the 1940s play.

The Madwoman of Chaillot is the story of a witty, eccentric woman who rallies a band of artists, workers, and down-and-out characters in a clever plan to disrupt avaricious plans of powerful figures who are bent on sacrificing beauty to obtain profits. As Ms. Ferguson says, the story sounds a lot like “Right Now, USA.”

The first performance is 6:00 PM 6 September 2012, and it’s running all through the month of September. The troupe is using a novel approach to the production, starting with a first act for free on the mall, then parading to The Haven, where they’ll accept donations for the second act, part of which will go to The Haven. Read all about the project, the players, and more.

Ms. Clinton on religious freedom

Many people who know me will know that I hold little truck with religion. At best, I consider religions woe-begotten variations on reasoned ways to live one’s life humanely. However, as much as I find religions untenable, I shall defend folks’ right to espouse religious—or anti-religious and especially non-religious—views. Thus I was thrilled to hear the US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Remarks at the Release of the 2011 International Religious Freedom Report” in which she delivered one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom I can remember hearing.

Whether you might agree or disagree with Ms. Clinton’s political positions, I think most people will agree that the core of her remarks are a spirited defense of foundational principles of human freedom. I hope people everywhere, regardless of political stripe, can watch or read this talk. There are, to be sure, the usual segments of the talk that have to do with thanking contributors to the talk, thanking allies, and calling out miscreants. But there are, as I heard it live while driving home from a meeting yesterday AM, sections of the talk that discuss fundamental human aspirations. Reminders of the ideas of principles on which the US and other democracies were based hundreds of years ago.

Technology in the wild

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have wasps nest in the headphone jack of your computer? How about border guards questioning why you’re transporting a computer with a dead battery? Dolly Joseph doesn’t question why these things occur. She’s lived them, and she connects them in an enlightening post about technology and the environment. Recommended.

Who’s the 99%?

Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir have an answer to that question. It’s actually pretty obvious, ’cause the 1% (really the one-tenth of one percent) are all those folks you and I see pretty much every day. May Day is just around the corner.

sopa pipa

search sopa & pipa at  free speech (I care about my copyrights, but some things are more important.)

La-la-la Labor Day. Let’s sing along

It’s just a marvelous day to remember that most of us, even we professors, are working stiffs. So, I was listening to some music that made me wiggle, shuffle, clench my teeth, stamp, say “arrgh,” and smile. Here are a few of those tunes with links to performances by certain artists (but there’ve been many others’ covers of these, too):

• Union Made by the New Harmony Sisterhood Band
• Joe Hill by (good golly!) Paul Robeson!

Here’s to these presidents

These folks have got some out-and-out strength! Here’s to them!

DADT passage

As much as I regret that anyone anywhere has to perform military service, I am glad that my elected representatives in the US government have voted to ensure that such service is not conditioned on a person’s sexual orientation. Thank you, Rep. Perriello, Sen. Warner, and Sen. Webb for voting to repeal H.R. 2965, the “Dont Ask, Dont Tell Repeal Act of 2010.”

Rev. Billy Reaches Out to California

Leave it to the Right-on Reverand Billy to tie about forty-eleventy strings into one bow.

According to Reed Johnson of the Los Angeles Times, Rev. Billy, Savi, and a bunch of the other of them are holed up in LA doing some gigs. They’re trucking along that lefty coast singing the gospel.

On a drizzly evening earlier this week, the Rev. Billy, who calls Mickey Mouse “the Antichrist,” was denouncing the evils of mindless consumerism at CalArts, the Valencia college partly founded and funded by Walt and Roy Disney.

Thursday night, the Rev. Billy and his Life After Shopping Gospel Choir will be preaching their puckishly anti-capitalist message from the bully pulpit of REDCAT, the multipurpose venue tucked inside Walt Disney Concert Hall. A late-night performance was added after the first one sold out.