a sense of joy and then a panic

Some poetry reading thing at the White House, a rapper named Common is invited (didn't this guy date Serena Williams?), Fox News goes crazy because he's a misogynist and a cop-killer, apparently.  Jon Stewart responds.  Title is from the first half of the segment, which is here (that half goes into how ridiculous this reading of Common's poem is). 

I posted the second half not for Jon Stewart's attempt at rapping but because the hypocrisy/double standards (Johnny Cash and Ted Nugent) are pretty hilarious/pathetic.

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The comments at EW are interesting - many of them agree that Fox is going after the wrong target, but they're now disagreeing if race has anything to do with Fox's response.  It's just because he attacked Bush in a poem, not because he's a black rapper.  So now they're arguing about the race card and etc., and it reminds me of something I thought of a while ago - I think the way kids are taught about racism in this country is all wrong.  Racism is seen to equal the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis, and maybe Jim Crow, and everybody agrees that the KKK and Nazis are totally evil and crazy, so basically what it comes down to is "I'm not racist because I'm not evil and crazy."  Or, "I'm not racist because I don't literally want to kill every member of another race."  And basically it means that for the accuser, being accused of racism is worse than racism itself.  So of course we end up talking about that instead of about racism itself. 

And the whole thing is a false connection, because that isn't what racism is.  It's not genocide.  It's not "the absolute worst thing a human being can do" (not that I know what that is).  It doesn't make you a KKK Grand Dragon Whatever and it doesn't make you Hitler.  It doesn't mark you as someone who would beat up or spit at someone of another race.  All it does is put you in the company of most of the other people who share your one-ethnicity-dominant country.  It's a problem at the system-level, not the individual-level, and I wonder if maybe that's part of the problem - we don't want to admit we function inside a system, or even a society?  Regardless, painting it as this big Boogey Man that individuals are supposed to, like, ward off with torches just makes people less and less willing to admit to their own racist behavior without actually putting an end to racist behavior itself. 

Do we need a new word?  Because I think racism, as a word, is almost useless at this point.  It's just this incendiary flashpoint.  Should we start using xenophobic or some variant?  It seems to trigger less of a knee-jerk "no no no I am not that!" response, although I don't know why.

I'm making this call based somewhat off comments on Idol-watching blogs and somewhat off the American political scene today.  And a bit based off American Idol's own trends. 

American Idol's past three winners have been different versions of the same basic type: the safe white male (by safe I mean unthreatening to middle class, white America).  First we have David Cook, who I liked.  In the finals he was up against an extremely tweeny, made-for-Disney little LDS boy, David Archuleta.  Next season, I believe, was the breaking point.  It was spring of 2009 and Obama was new in office and conservatives were beginning to freak out over "losing our country."  In AI world, Kris Allen defeated Adam Lambert in the finals.  Lambert is my mother's favorite Idol contestant of all time.  He's also openly gay.  One might even say "flamboyant."  Kris Allen wasn't a bad singer, but he was very boring, and he was very safe - especially contrasted to Adam Lambert (who got the Teen Choice Award over Allen).  Churches in the South, where Allen is from, got mobilized to vote Allen in over Lambert, and were at least somewhat supported by AT&T.  Season 9's winner, Lee DeWyze, is in my opinion the worst winner - or finalist - Idol's ever had.  He was up against a white mother who sang pretty good folk music and wore dreadlocks, Crystal Bowersox.  But I predicted, correctly, that DeWyze would win - because the judges were pumping him up as a "steadily improving" diamond in the rough, and thus an "underdog," and because he was totally, totally, safe. 

I would also say that from Cook to Allen to DeWyze there has been a slide toward country music.  Further, AI has always had a voting bloc dominated by women who don't like other women, meaning female contestants drop like flies unless they have very solid fanbases.  In general, a bad male singer will last longer than a bad female singer on AI, and will often last longer than a good female singer as well. All this is especially interesting given that Seasons 1-6 were won by two black girls, two white girls, one black guy, and one gray-haired white guy.  So basically after six seasons of various kinds of diversity, we suddenly had three seasons of white male winners.  I hope it doesn't coincide with the racial hysteria gripping the country, but I'm pretty sure it does. 

So here we are in Season 10.  These trends are coming to a head.  We've got a boatload of talented singers who are all, in some way, threatening to middle class, white America. 

Among the men: scruffy Casey Abrams, who's white but sings like Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Hot Topic-inspired James Durbin, who has Tourette's and Asperger's and wears a tail, weird ass Paul McDonald, who's Thom Yorke on antidepressants, ballad-singer Stefano Langone, who's Italian, and Jacob Lusk, who's the most frightening of all.  He's black.  He comes from gospel, and sings like it.  He's emotional.  And the judges really, really, really like him.  There's been incredible blowback against Lusk from women on the internet named "Barbara" and the like, who think he can't sing, think he's over the top, can't handle his gestures or movements or facial expressions, and are basically just terrified - terrified! - of gospel.  My mother thinks he's the next Adam Lambert, and is in love.  I also like Lusk a great deal. 

Among the women: ballad-singer Pia Toscano, who looks like a lost Kardashian sister but sings like Celine Dion, country Christian blonde Lauren Alaina, who isn't really all that country and is not near as glam (nor, I predict, as presentable) as Carrie Underwood, lounge singer Haley Reinhart, who's white but sings funk and Motown and is probably going home tonight, sweet little boring Asian girl Thia Megia, who is probably going home next week, and Naima Adedapo, who actually broke out the African dance routine last night.  Yeah, good luck to you, Naima.  The public has already succeeded in knocking off "baby Diana Ross" Ashthon Jones and "baby Selena" Karen Rodriguez, who actually said things like "America needs a Latina idol" and sung songs partly in Spanish.  Yeah.  Bad move, Karen.

My mother and I have been watching since Season 1 and my mother thinks it's the most talented group they've ever had - I would certainly say it's the most interesting.  But there's not a lot of options here for the conservative AI fanbase to get behind.  Pia and Lauren will be the last two girls standing, and some say Pia will win because she's such a classic Idol type, but I doubt it.  The guys' field is more open, but there's a real lack of a Safe White Male in that bunch.  

BUT WAIT.  I'M MISSING SOMEBODY.  I'M MISSING THE ONLY OPTION... THE ANSWER TO ALL OUR PRAYERS... YOUR NEXT AMERICAN IDOL... SCOTTY MCCREERY. 

Scotty McCreery sings country.  That's all that Scotty sings - it was Motown night last night and he turned a Motown song into a country song, because damn if he's gonna sing Motown, y'all.  Whereas all those other weird/multi-ethnic contestants all claimed to grow up listening to Motown, Scotty had never even heard it!  Now the fact that he sticks to his genre is totally A-OK, even though Jacob is totally not allowed to stick to gospel.  Now, he is more country than AI usually goes.  AI has never gone for someone this country.  Carrie Underwood could and would sing mainstream pop songs when she was on AI, and Scotty, I predict, will not.  But part of Scotty's appeal is his extreme country-ness, this "back to your America" Americana that he presents.  He plays on a baseball team.  He looks like a cross between Alfred E. Neuman and George W. Bush.  He's young: 17.  He comes across as a nice guy.  He's utterly lacking in any kind of "crazy."  Lots of girls scream when he comes on the stage.  And he's Christian, wears a big cross.  In the words of one CNN iReport writer, he "can do no wrong," despite an unimpressive voice and an extremely narrow range. 

The AI public's going to be faced with an exaggerated version of the same choice they've had to make in the past couple seasons: safety versus talent (exaggerated because Scotty is so white that he's almost a parody of white America, and because he is surrounded by so many singers of superior talent).  I think they're going to go for what's safe.  They need something to cling to, after all, what with all the illegals trying to take their jobs and the Muslims trying to blow them up and the blacks trying to take their promotions and the black socialist Muslim Kenyan president in office. 

So there you have it: you heard it here first (maybe).  Scotty McCreery, American Idol 2011.

Oh dear.

I particularly like Rep. Jack "Solitaire Dude" Hennessy's apology:

"It was certainly bad judgment for me to play a computer game even for just a few minutes during the final House session on the budget. I am embarrassed, and I apologize to each and every person in the North End and to people across the state."

Meanwhile, Rep. Larry "The Ignored" Cafero says:

"This has made international news because it captures the frustration of the public. While Rome is burning, they're playing solitaire."

Does it make sense to be proud to apologize?

Is this a British phrase? 

Comments are pretty insane though (and that's just the ones I can understand).

I fucking TOLD YOU Indonesia would never give the fundamentalists control over the country. Did I not?! 

Disclaimer: I don't have a problem with religious parties in general, and I certainly don't have a problem with Islam.  But religious governance doesn't fit Indonesia - leaving aside the problem of the people in Indonesia who are not Muslim, everybody practices Islam so differently.  It doesn't work to force people to follow sharia when some of them still worship spirit-gods.  And a lot of Indonesians, quite frankly, are not into modesty and propriety - no matter what the anthropologists tell you.  Indonesia needs to stick to the Pancasila (its Constitution) - non-denominational acknowledgment of religion and spirituality.  Respect!

Indonesia’s Voters Retreat From Radical Islam. 

On a deeper level, some of the parties’ fundamentalist measures seem to have alienated moderate Indonesians.  Although final results from the election on April 9 will not be announced until next month, partial official results and exit polls by several independent companies indicate that Indonesians overwhelmingly backed the country’s major secular parties, even though more of them are continuing to turn to Islam in their private lives.

It makes me so proud.  SBY FTW!!!  This man is my home-boy.  So is Azra.  He's a smart cookie (and he's in my thesis!). 

So, the Oscar Noms are out.  And we're back to our regularly-scheduled Oscars: crappy, mundane, and appealing to the saccharine better angels of our nature.  Remember last year?  When there were movies like No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood and The Assassination of Jesse James and 3:10 to Yuma and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in the running for awards, and even the standard fare was the fairly un-standard Atonement?  Remember how great that was?  Well, no more.  I mean, look at that Best Picture list.   It's about as propagandistic as the Oscars get. 

I suppose in some ways this old way is better, because actually having a horse in the race last year was too tense for my taste.  I think the best movie I saw this year was Synecdoche, New York, and of course it's not nominated for anything, because that's the kind of movie that scares the Oscar committee.  Actually, no, I have one horse - Encounters at the End of the World, for Best Documentary.  That's a tie with Synecdoche, New York for my favorite movie this year.  But Encounters won't win for the same reasons Synecdoche wasn't nominated: too existential, too lacking in a conventional narrative, not "life-affirming" enough. 

So I guess I'll be watching for the dresses again.  On the homefront:


Good news 1.  Apparently Obama's going to close down Gitmo Bay.  Amazing, right?  I thought so. 

Good news 2.  Caroline Kennedy is Outie McOuterson.  For the record, I don't care if it's illegal housekeepers, taxes, a sick uncle, or the stench of nepotism.  I would be happy enough never hearing from anyone with the surname Kennedy ever again.  Ever. 

Good news 3.  None.