#FridayReads, March 14–Jan Wong’s Memoir of Depression, “Out of the Blue”

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Out of the Blue


Triggered by a death threat targeting her for a story she wrote, Wong–a career reporter–does a superb job investigating and striving to understand her own illness.

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Toboggan Days with Noah

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The above picture with my dog Noah patiently waiting for me as I prepared to slide down a hill was taken during an outing for students of the School on Magnolia, the alternative high school I attended in Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1970s. In those days, my hair was sort of like that of NBA star Anderson Varejao, who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Anderson VarejaoThe second picture here was taken by my late brother Joel, in the living room of the home we grew up in, in the suburb of Shaker Heights, a few years after the wintry picture.  Noah

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Judith Butler, Once More a Target of Critics Who Would Silence Her

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Readers here may recall I’ve written and shared about literary scholar and contemporary philosopher Judith Butler, a frequent target of criticism by right-wing conservative Jewish commentators, owing to positions of hers such as support for the boycott/divest/sanction (BDS) movement with regard to Israel. Some people in this debate–like Peter Beinart in his book The Crisis of Zionism–support boycotting only those goods that come from the Occupied Territories, not all of Israel. That’s my position, too. I’m not certain where Butler lands on that point–but regardless, unlike her opponents, I fully support her right to freely express herself and be heard, in all realms–political, critical and aesthetic.

All this comes up again because of a new instance of the Jewish establishment trying to banish her voice from the communal conversation. In the current episode, Philip Weiss writes in a blog post headed, “Jewish community commits intellectual suicide before our eyes,” that Butler had been asked to participate in a March 6 discussion of Franz Kafka at NYC’s Jewish Museum, but the invitation was withdrawn, owing to what Weiss believes was ‘pressure from donors.’ Weiss writes, “One critic said, ‘The hosting of [BDS] advocate Judith Butler by The Jewish Museum is a slap in the face to every Jew,’ Richard Allen, head of JCC Watch, told JNS.org.” This, all about a discussion of Kafka, with no direct relevance to Israel.

In the same vein of craven submission to angry types, the museum also recently canceled a panel that was to discuss John Judis’s important new book Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Many Jews on the right are nowadays inflamed by discussions like these, and many organizations, whether or not they share the same conservative ideology, succumb to threats and pressure.

This is all kind of personal to me. Judith Butler and I grew up in the same Jewish community in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, where her father, known to all his patients as “Danny,” was a friendly family dentist. He looked after the teeth of all five Turners. He resembled Jack Paar, but nicer looking. Judith’s sister Diane was in my same year in school, where we knew each other. She moved to NY at around the same time I did, as part of a modern dance company, and we continued to see each other in the city from time to time. I occasionally heard from Diane about her sister, Judith, already then a professor, and a rising star in academia. She is an honorable person and a serious scholar. She should not be castigated or exiled for what I know to be an honest expression of belief, arrived at through careful deliberation and the weighing of difficult moral choices. As an example of her thoughtfulness, I submit this transcript of a talk she gave last February at Brooklyn College. It is well worth reading, and all in her own words.

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Clumsy Mansplaining Strikes the Republicans Yet Again

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Chinese finger trapClumsy mansplaining about the Clintons by Rand Paul & other Republicans shows, I suppose, that they want to try and shame Hillary out of the public square, and weary her of the race before it starts, before she can even declare in our out for 2016. But I don’t think it’ll will have that effect, not on her decision, nor on many key voting groups. In fact, it’s more likely to just lock in natural and growing Democratic advantages among key demographic groups nationally.

First, younger voters, many of whom weren’t even alive in the ’90s, will wonder why the enormous bother about illicit sex of a sort that surveys show is more and more common among that cohort. Women voters over forty will loathe the badgering of another woman, one whom history has shown they empathize with, especially when this issue is continually forced into the media by Republicans. In short, this is just the sort of innuendo campaign that drives negative inferences about the opposition up to the stratosphere. Over the past 2-3 decades, the Republican party has become an increasingly unsupportable proposition. I’m reminded of the Chinese finger trap, the toy you stick your fingers in at opposite ends where the harder you pull, the greater is its grip. That is the effect of Republican positions on their standing with voters—the more they cling to them pandering to their narrower and narrower base, the deeper they fall in to their toxic grip, making themselves less and less acceptable to large chunks of the electorate for national and federal offices in states that are not deep red politically.

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A Congressman’s Profile in Contempt

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This congressman from Oklahoma dishonored his office by listening to constituents at a recent town hall urge violence against Pres Obama w/out denouncing them and never saying “stop” to them. This link is to a local story with the 4-minute videotape. They urged something I don’t even want to type a second time. He laughs with them throughout. Now it’s this federal officeholder who should be denounced. The phone number at his Tulsa office is 918-935-3222; in Washington it’s 202-225-2211.

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Toxic Chemical Spills, as American as Cherry Pie

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Monday Feb 10 Update: The same AP reporter whose story I’d linked to below has a new article on the toxic coal ash spill along the Dan River in North Carolina. Michael Biesecker reports that NC state officials have twice interceded in lawsuits that environmental quality groups had filed against Duke Energy, the company responsible for the horrible spill last week. Ludicrously, the state imposed a scant penalty of $99,000 against the utility, which made no admission of wrongdoing. Rachel Maddow reported on this article and the spill tonight, adding a couple telling nuggets: 1) Duke Energy is a company with annual turnover in the billions of dollars, and 2) NC Governor Pat McCroy took office in 2012, after 28 years with Duke Energy.
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Coal ash spill Dan RiverOn the heels of the chemical spill in to West Virginia’s Elk River, a second horrible toxic incident is fouling a river that runs through two other southern states, with tons of coal ash leaking from a 27-acre pond through a busted pipe that is flowing in to the Dan River near Danville, VA. AP reporter Michael Biesecker, downriver in North Carolina, reports seeing “gray sludge several inches deep, coating the riverbank for more than 2 miles,” as seen in the photo above by Gerry Broome. Biesecker also writes,

“Since the leak was first discovered by a security guard Sunday afternoon, Duke Energy estimates up to 82,000 tons of ash mixed with 27 million gallons of contaminated water has spilled into the river. Officials at the nation’s largest electricity provider say they cannot provide a timetable for when the leak will be fully contained, though the flow has lessened significantly as the pond has emptied….Environmental regulators in North Carolina say they are still awaiting test results to determine if there is any hazard to people or wildlife. Coal ash is known to contain a witch’s brew of toxic chemicals, including lead, arsenic, mercury and radioactive uranium….Municipal officials in Danville say they are successfully filtering out contaminates in the drinking water for the city of about 43,000 people….Environmentalists and government regulators have been warning for years that the 31 ash ponds at Duke’s power plants in North Carolina had the potential for calamity, especially after a similar pond in Kingston, TN, burst open in 2008.”

  • Water undrinkable or at risk–a situation that more than 300,000 residents of West Virginia have endured since early January.

  • Duke Energy has thirty-one other ponds like the one that just ruptured?

In the best of worlds, chemical companies and energy providers like Freedom International and Duke Energy would be better stewards of the land, but that is clearly too much to hope for. Failing that, I’m disappointed the federal EPA is unable to do a better job preventing hazardous incidents, but I hold states largely responsible for the failure. A lecturer in environmental health at George Washington University said, “West Virginia has a pattern of resisting federal oversight and what they consider EPA interference, and that really puts workers and the population at risk.” The EPA can’t succeed without buy-in to the process from state officials.
This is sick. When will we ever learn?

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