Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels – Page 30

Netanyahu & the Right Wing vs. President Obama

February 29, 2012/3 Comments/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

Trenchant and disturbing analysis by Andrew Sullivan, who sees a disturbing strategy by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in concert with right-wingers in the U.S., to depose President Obama. From Sullivan’s piece, “Obama’s Most Dangerous GOP Opponent.”

I don’t think you can understand the Republican strategy for this election without factoring in a key GOP player, Benjamin Netanyahu. He already has core members of the US Congress siding openly with him against the US president. . . . Netanyahu’s war would be designed to rile up not only his own neo-fascist base, but also encourage American evangelical voters to turn out against Obama, the “anti-Christ”, while other Greater Israel fanatics, like Sheldon Adelson, keep bankrolling as many Greater Israel GOP nominees as they can. A global war which polarizes America and the world is exactly what Netanyahu wants. And it is exactly what the GOP needs to cut through Obama’s foreign policy advantage in this election. Because it is only through war, crisis and polarization that extremists can mobilize the emotions that keep them in power. They need war to win.

It should be noted that Majority Leader Eric Cantor has already made clear he will side with the PM in a confrontation with President Obama. Following the midterm elections, in November 2010, after a one-on-one meeting with Netanyahu, Cantor said “The new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration.” About this, veteran correspondent for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Ron Kampeas wrote, “I can’t remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president.”

So, if Israel attacks Iran, and Cantor and the Republican presidential candidates are all watching Netanyahu’s back, who’s going to be in the President’s corner?
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A late add-on to this post: TPM is reporting tonight on a poll conducted of Israeli citizens regarding their attitudes about Iran.

19% of Jewish Israelis support a strike against Iran even without the backing of the United States.
42% say they support only if there is US support for the move.
32% say they don’t support it under any circumstances.

A clear majority, 74%, either don’t support attacking Iran or would do so only with the support of the U.S. Yet, Netanyahu is showing signs of going it alone. His unilateralism is reminiscent of George W. Bush’s prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Meanwhile, as Peter Beinart has reported that Israeli intelligence officials and military officers have urged that their country refrain from attacking Iran, also reminiscent of the stance that prevailed in much of the U.S. intelligence and military community before 2003. Unfortunately, it turned out that even their opposition couldn’t stop Bush’s war. In the current situation with Israel, a dangerous situation is only made worse by members of the U.S. Congress who would enable Netanyahu’s war.

An Unspeakable Affront to Personal Autonomy

February 17, 2012/0 Comments/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

Like a horrible nightmare that comes true the morning after, a bill mandating violation of a pregnant woman’s bodily autonomy has been passed by the Virginia legislature and VA Governor McDonnell has indicated he will sign it into law. If carried out as its proponents intend, it will unquestionably infringe on human rights, women’s rights, and doctors’ rights. I hope and imagine Planned Parenthood and other organizations will immediately file suit to prevent its implementation, but meantime it will be on the books, threatening every woman in the state, and every decent-thinking Virginian, female or male. For a political party that purportedly believes in keeping government out of the lives of citizens this legislation by Virginia Republicans is a breathtaking violation of its supposed principles. Dahlia Lithwick’s excellent column in Slate explains what is at stake, as does Michael Tomasky’s Newsweek/Daily Beast piece.

Hyp–Hyp–Hypocrisy!

February 10, 2012/0 Comments/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

From Saturday’s NY Times: “Although Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York has been leading the national fight against requiring Roman Catholic hospitals, universities and charities to cover birth control in their health insurance plans for employees and students, some Catholic institutions in his own diocese and others throughout New York State have for 10 years been complying with state law mandating precisely that coverage. The state began requiring contraception coverage in 2002, and Catholic institutions, after losing a court battle over the issue, have followed the law. . . . ‘We currently follow New York State law,’ Mr. Howe [Fordham’s director of communications] said. ‘For employees and students, we provide insurance coverage that includes contraception. That’s the law.'”

Governor of New York State in 2002? Republican George Pataki.

It’s pretty obvious the Catholic bishops’ opposition to the Obama’s administration’s policy of requiring contraceptive coverage is really all about opportunism, and trying to give President Obama a hard time.

Such hypocrisy.

Hey, It Is the Twenty-First Century

February 9, 2012/0 Comments/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

Feb. 10 Update: I think the White House’s accommodation on this issue–announced a few hours ago–is smart. Though the right-wing opposition to contraception won’t be quelled, it should accomplish the goal of all American women having equal access to contraceptives, with insurers absorbing the cost rather than employers, if the latter claim a religious objection to providing them. Although the health insurance lobby will object, insurers should accept this because it’s preventative care, always less expensive than the alternative, such as a pregnancy or the cost of an abortion. Politically, this will force the many right-wing politicians who’ve been raising a flurry about the administration’s policy to show their true colors–whether their objection is really one founded on religious freedom, as they’ve claimed, or simply stems from the regressive urge to block women’s access to reproductive choice.

I recognize that progress in human history isn’t inevitable, but we are living in the 21st century–oral contraceptives have been widely able since the 1970s, and we shouldn’t be going backwards. Yet you wouldn’t know it judging by how willing (mostly male) politicians are to take medical advances away from women that have been available for decades. As Irin Carmon wrote in Salon this week,

“Why are we still arguing about contraception in 2012? The Catholic bishops are free to make as many incendiary comments as they want, and they have, but that doesn’t mean that pundits should assume there’s a constituency beyond a bunch of celibate men and likely Republican voters that is actually going to be swayed by this. New polling on the topic shows, for example, that ‘a 53 percent majority of Catholic voters … favor the benefit, including fully 62 percent of Catholics who identify themselves as independents.’” // more. . .

Read more

Ari Fleischer, Gone But Not Forgotten

February 3, 2012/4 Comments/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

Update: A day after reporting Fleischer’s role in advising Komen, ThinkProgress’s Judd Legum is now reporting that Fleischer’s role with Komen is ongoing–he’s still advising them. Komen is paying the ex-Bushie to help them try to recover from the public relations disaster of this past week. Our donations to Komen at work. #WontBeFooledAgain.

As I wrote on this site a month ago in “George W. Bush, Skunk at the Party” Republican candidates this year have shunned W.’s memory and never mention his administration. I was struck by this again tonight in reading Judd Legum’s report in ThinkProgess that Ari Fleischer, W.’s longtime press secretary, advised the Komen Foundation in December 2011 on hiring a Senior V-P for Communications and External Relations–a reader points out it seems they may have anticipated dealing with bad press from a controversy such as de-funding Planned Parenthood. Even while many right-wingers feign amnesia, a salutary result of the Komen scandal would be if it serves to remind voters that though W. and his minions are gone from the West Wing we must remember the baleful influence of the Bush presidency lest the country fall under its malign spell again.

Never too Late for Justice

January 30, 2012/0 Comments/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

Just desserts won by a former slave, eloquently expressed in a wonderful letter he sent to his former master. Be sure to read to the end. H/t to Lisa Christiansen of CBC Radio 3, @LisaChristCBC @NealBrennan @lettersofnote and their neat website, LettersofNote.com.

A Timely Exhibit of Burmese Artists

January 21, 2012/1 Comment/in Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

April 16 2018 Update: It’s been more than six years since I attended this exhibit of Burmese artists in exile, held on the cusp of pivotal changes in the Asian country. It is distressing to know that despite much positive change, recent months have seen human rights abuses directed against the Rohingya people. There was no sign of this on the horizon when I wrote up the exhibit in 2012. It’s a pity that when positive change takes place—like the Arab Spring of last decade, and the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s—it is often followed by a decline in freedoms, as rivalries are loosed and opportunistic politicians angle for ways to help themselves gain or maintain power.
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I was excited then when I entered Gallery 35 last Saturday night, and detected a buzz of activity in the large, lighted space. I was first aware of the crowd–New Yorkers you might see at any art openings plus the Burmese artists, their friends and family. The work was striking, with much of it overtly on message about the years of military repression they’ve endured, but also full of brilliant color, vibrant shapes and strong composition. There was painting, fiber, sculpture and photography on display. I had a conversation with female painter and performance artist Chaw Ei Thein. She and others I spoke with are pleased, but wary about the regime’s new policy of relaxation. They hope it continues, but none of them is ready to believe in it wholeheartedly. Chaw Ei Thein placed this statement on her website in September 2011, prior to the current relaxation of repression:

Many of my friends are in prison, far away and inaccessible. There are over 2000 political prisoners in Burma. Some have been sentenced to 56 years of imprisonment, some 65, some 102. All are committed to their fight for freedom and justice in Burma, and for our people. I am lucky because I am not in prison like them. But I always think of them: how they spend their time in the prison, and how they have sacrificed. I cannot help them to be free. So I am doing this performance as a tribute to them and what they have done for us. In this performance, I explore the “poun-zan”: a form of torture common in Burmese prisons, in which prisoners must hold a physically excruciating and psychologically humiliating position for a long period of time. My performance is their real performance in those prisons.

I photographed her two-fingered peace sign painting in the Gallery 35 exhibit. If you’re in New York I urge you to check the gallery’s hours and go see the powerful and beautiful work in this timely exhibit. It is up until February 25, and there will even be a closing reception on that Saturday next month. Meantime, here are pictures I took at the opening last week. // more . . .

Russell Hoban, Just a Great Writer

January 20, 2012/6 Comments/in Books & Writing, Personal History, Family, Friends, Education, Travels /by Philip Turner

Update: Turtle Diary has now been reissued. See my new post about it, published July 12, 2013.
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When longtime novelist and children’s book author Russell Hoban died last month, it was reported widely, deserving for an author who’d written the perennially popular children’s book series featuring the badger Frances (Bedtime for Frances, etc.) and the daring novel Riddley Walker (1980), set in a post-nuclear world. With an ingeniously minted alternative language, the protagonist is an appealing dystopian hero, unlike the menacing Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange. I read the obituaries memorializing the 86-year old Hoban, and today was delighted to find another really good piece on him was just published by Irish novelist Kevin Holohan.

The book of Hoban’s that I loved most was Turtle Diary, a 1978 novel about two lonesome adults, strangers to one another at the start of the book, who happen to meet and befriend one another in front of the sea turtle tanks at the London Aquarium. Hesitant to converse at first, they quickly realize they’re each pondering and worrying over the fate of these large reptiles in their too-small tanks that mirror the limits surrounding their own lives. Soon, they hatch a conspiracy to spring two of the great, heavy aged beasts from their confinement, and with the help of an agreeable aquarium guard, set them free in the sea. In my bookstore, Undercover Books, we sold stacks of the Avon mass market paperback edition. In 1985 the novel was made into a memorable film with Harold Pinter adapting Hoban’s novel, Ben Kingsley and Glenda Jackson playing the unlikely couple, and Michael Gambon the guard who facilitates their plan, and their relationship. We sold many copies of Hoban’s books at Undercover Books; I recall that Riddley Walker was prominently reviewed in the New York Times Book Review by Benjamin Demott and again in the daily Times by John Leonard, who wrote, “His patter is an extraordinary compound of Middle English and Black American, an unpunctuated slanguage that achieves -despite some internal contradictions -the poetic. After 30 pages, we stop reading and start listening. The ear becomes our organ.”

When I was with Carroll & Graf Publishers, a literary agent offered us rights to the next Hoban novel, Amaryillis Night and Day, then being published in Britain. I made a modest bid for U.S. rights, but the author evidently thought it too modest and it ended up being published here by another house. It would have been a personal high point to publish a book with Mr. Hoban, but it was still a treat to read him in manuscript.

If you’ve never read one of Russell Hoban’s fine books, I urge you to remember him and the next time you’re browsing, especially in a second-hand bookstore, keep an eye out for his name on the spine of a copy of Riddley Walker, or even better, Turtle Diary. Don’t hesitate to take a copy home. He was just a great writer. And if you see a copy of the old video of the film “Turtle Diary,” grab that too, because Netflix doesn’t have it.

March 5, 2012, Happy News Update: The book imprint from the New York Review of Books, NYRB Classics, is reissuing Turtle Diary, so soon there will be no need to to find it secondhand.