Nation
Blood Dread
Novelist Jesymn Ward first posted this short meditation on what Obama’s rise meant in the deep South in 2008.
First Thoughts on OWS
First writers and readers – Amiri Baraka, Jeremy Brecher, Benj DeMott, Diane di Prima, Mark Dudzic, John Fullerton, Dr. Donna Gaines, Ty Geltmaker, Lawrence Goodwyn, Adam Hochschild, Staughton Lynd, Greil Marcus, Deborah Meier, Dennis Myers, (AKA) Nolemonomelon, Jedediah Purdy, Aram Saroyan, Fredric Smoler, Tom Smucker, Scott Spencer & Richard Torres – comment on OWS.
From Obamaphilia to Obamaphobia
“I know the Duke’s faults,” said Phineas [Finn], “but these men know nothing of his virtues and when I hear them abuse him I cannot stand it.” Anthony Trollope, The Prime Minister
Express Yourself
Barack Obama went back to (the black) church during his Tucson speech as he brought good news about Gabby Giffords – “She opened her eyes! She opened her eyes! She opened her eyes!” His little improvisation reminded me of Al Sharpton’s gospel triad at Michael Jackson’s funeral – “Michael never stopped! Michael never stopped! Michael never stopped!” In the following piece, Nick Salvatore – author of the biography of the great African-American preacher C.L. Franklin, “Singing in a Strange Land” – meditates on Franklin’s singular contribution to the tradition that’s helped shape Obama’s best “black and more than black” self (and songs). B.D.
Icons & Assassins
“Violet Sacks” originally posted this critique of “progressive” reactions to the shootings in Tucson at her website, www.reclusiveleftist.com.
Grounded: Thinking Through the “Ground Zero” Mosque
Prologue: New York Story
I went in for the matzo ball soup and ended up married to a Muslim. I met my wife-to-be while she was working as a hostess at Carnegie Deli. Her New York immigrant story has been in my head as I’ve read political narratives about the “Ground Zero” mosque. I might have given New Republic editor Martin Peretz the benefit of doubt when he wondered whether he should “honor” the people behind the mosque by “pretending they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment when I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse it.” But I knew in my gut he was out to lunch once he’d spelled out his own bias in his now notorious statement: “[F]rankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.” When I read that line, I flashed on my wife leading me around a Senegalese Sufi cemetery on a blindingly hot day in search of her beloved grandmother’s grave.
Truth & Time
A week is a long time in politics, as Tip O’Neil once said.