The Future of U.S. Race Relations: Are We Starting to Think Like Brazilians?

Karthika's post has engendered a lot of conversation about the future of race relations in the United States. What strikes me about the way that young people especially, but also society at large, are talking about race relations is an increasing denial that race really matters. People, and you really see this among students, simply don't believe that race is a major barrier to success in modern America. Their obvious point of evidence is the election of Barack Obama.

Certainly race is changing. The legal structures of racism have largely broken down. The more intractable issue of individual racial prejudice is also declining. We have made real progress as a society.

However, I worry that the Obama election may actually lead to less discussion of race in this country. For the most part, I and others I have talked to find that young people are generally reticent to talk about race. They love talking about gender and sexuality. They are by and large great on GLBT issues. But race makes them uncomfortable. It seems that they believe we are forcing this non-issue down their throats.

But of course race still matters in this country. A lot. The rise in people denying this seemingly obvious fact begs the question: Are we beginning to copy the Brazilian model of race? I really think the answer might be a qualified yes.

First, let me set out in very general terms the Brazilian racial paradigm. Naturally, my small school doesn't have any of the major books on race in Brazil in its library and it has been a few years since I've read the relevant literature that I hoped to review. So if I am missing any key points in this discussion, please let me know.

Basically, most Brazilians deny that racism exists in their society. They point to never having a system of legalized segregation, as opposed to the United States; the ability of individual people of African descent to rise to positions of power, and the interracial mixing of the population as reasons none of this matters. While all these points have merit, it serves to obscure the severe racial problems in Brazil that extend back to slavery. The darker you are, the higher the chance that you are poor, live in a favela, experience police brutality, have limited opportunities for education, economic advancement, and access to health care.

Brazilians think about race in a very different way than Americans. The United States has long been defined by the "one drop" rule, where even people of only 1/8 African descent were legally defined as slaves. That Barack Obama is defined as black in our society is a sign of how powerful these ideas remain. The man is 50% black and 50% white, but he is black to most of us. In Brazil on the other hand, your behavior, social class, and way of carrying yourself, as well as your skin color, define your whiteness. Thus, you might see a very dark skinned individual, clearly of almost all African descent, refer to themself as "white," an assertion that would be accepted by much of society. Rather than focus on a blood quantum, it is behavior that matters.

Of course, all the positive attributes a person can have are considered "white." Skin tone, wealth, education, employment, neighborhood of residence, marrying a light skinned person, etc. Thus, all the negative attributes are "black." Living in a favela, gang membership, begging, unemployment, poverty, etc. Moreover, as people have pointed out in comments to Karthika's post, Brazilians will throw around racial epithets left and right, all the time denying that they are in fact epithets or negative in any way.

Essentially, Brazil is a society with massive racial problems and a total unwillingness to admit that any of those problems have anything to do with race at all.

Now, the United States is obviously a different nation, with a distinct history and race relations. Certainly there are a lot of Americans who are confronting race all the time, i.e., the African-American community. We have a long history of dealing with race fairly directly, whether that be through slavery, lynching, or fighting racism. But I really think that is changing. The promotion of Martin Luther King as the great American national hero with little black children and little white children playing together as the key construction of his dream has made a big difference over the last 30 years. Today, you have white kids throughout the nation who have grown up with black kids. They did play with them. They are friends with them today. They date and marry them. Because those old racial taboos have fallen, because their sanitized understanding of King's dream has been fulfilled, and because we have elected a black man to the highest office in the land, haven't we entered a post-racial society? Those old demons of race belong to the dustbin of history, just like Al Sharpton, Bull Connor, Jesse Helms, and Martin Luther King. What's particularly remarkable is that I've even heard this kind of talk from children of mixed-race relationships.

Here's the problem and here's what I think could ultimately lead us down a Brazilian path of racial denial in the face of massive racial inequality. Americans, both young and old, are largely unwilling to deal with issues of class seriously. We are still the descendants of Horatio Alger. Ragged Dick pulled himself up by his bootstraps and made himself a leading member of Gilded Age society. Barack Obama had a peripatetic childhood without a lot of inherent advantages and he grew up to become president. Why can't everyone be Ragged Barack? If they try hard enough, they can make it too. Like in Brazil, this can now happen on a case by case basis. This is particularly true because of the huge growth in the black middle and upper class since 1970. Today, lots of African-American children have significant advantages that the poor do not. Latinos also share in some of these advantages, though that is incredibly complicated and has a lot to do with ancestral nationality, time in America, where you grew up, and what social class your parents or grandparents were in before they came to the U.S.

But also like in Brazil, the poor in America are disproportionally people of color. There are an almost endless number of structural barriers to the poor reaching financial and political success--bad schools, lack of health care, parents having the ability to spend time with their kids, exposure to drug abuse at home, police brutality, and perhaps most importantly, a general sense of hopelessness and lack of expectations that life can get better. This isn't all that much different in the hills of West Virginia, the ghettos of Detroit, the reservations of South Dakota or the fields of California. But there is one important exception. Those white Appalachian kids are going to be accepted into a wealthy white society with greater ease than Latinos from the Rio Grande Valley, Pueblo Indians from New Mexico, or African-Americans from Compton. The ability to overcome class is greater if you are white.

When you combine the significant class biases and barriers that are already exacerbated by racism with the racial stereotypes and expectations that still inhabit the souls of too many Americans, you can see the incredible difficulty of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. To give one of hundreds of possible examples, tomorrow my class is reading Gregg Mitman's excellent history of allergies, Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes. One chapter is dedicated to the asthma epidemic in inner cities. Mitman shows how racism and structural inequality combines with terrible housing conditions to create conditions that lead to high rates of asthma among inner city children, again largely children of color. Dilapidated public housing provides perfect cockroach habitat, a frequent cause of allergies. For decades, allergists ignored inner-city neighborhoods in their research. The pharmaceutical industry has little interest in getting drugs to poor families and the for-profit medical system does not serve these children well. Thus, they get sick at higher rates, miss more school, and fall behind. This is on top of the already significant disadvantages they have when competing with privileged white kids (or privileged black kids for that matter) for college, jobs, and career advancement.

Until this inequitable public housing is taken care, we do not live in a post-racial society. Until racial discrepancies in asthma rates are eliminated, we do not live in a post-racial society. And until hundreds if not thousands of other racial and class differences are resolved, we do not live in a post-racial society. I believe the post-racial myth to be one of the most threatening ideologies we face as a nation today. That I see it so prominently in young people is alarming. Moving to a Brazilian race system of individual advancement masking overwhelming signs of racial inequality combined with an unwillingness to discuss race would be a disaster. Certainly it would happen differently here than in Brazil, but any move in that direction is not healthy. I see it as my duty as a teacher of U.S. history to point out the severe problems with this idea and to give students an understanding of our racial past and present that demonstrates the intractability of structural racism that continues to shape our lives today.

Aaron Sorking and The Flaming Lips

Apparently, Aaron Sorkin is working on a musical version of The Flaming Lips' album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

This has been floating around for a couple of years now, but I just heard about it. At least according to the Seattle indie station KEXP, this is still happening.

I really like The Flaming Lips. But this also sounds like arguably the worst idea I've ever heard.

RIP John Updike

John Updike dead at 76. I haven't read an abundance of his stuff, but what I've read, I've really enjoyed. Rabbit Runs has what is quite probably one of my two favorite endings both in terms of ways to end a book and in terms of linguistic structuring (the other being Portnoy's Complaint), and the collection of short stories that came out a few years ago offers a great argument that Updike is one of the greatest short story writers ever in any language. Certainly, his New England regionalism may not be everybody's cup of tea, and I've heard that his longer novels could be hit or miss. Still, his passing marks the loss of one of the greater literary talents of the 20th century.

Economic Stimulus

This is the email I sent to my Republican senator, Arlen Specter, today.

Feel free to use it and email your own senators to support the stimulus bill.

I am writing to urge you to support President Obama's economic stimulus bill. This election was nothing if not a referendum on the economy and whose economic policy Americans wanted to move forward. Barack Obama won, including a decisive victory here in Pennsylvania.

We support a package that includes public works, benefits for low-income families (including contraception for low-income families that can ill afford another child in this time of economic stress), and job creation. This is what we voted for in November and what we urge you to support now.

Historical Image of the Day

Pile of horse and human bones, aftermath of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, aka, "Custer's Last Stand," 1876

John Conyers is Win

"Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it," ... "After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk"

John Conyers, mah hero.

Re-subpoenaing Karl Rove, Conyers laid down the effing LAW. And it's hot.

Let's see what happens now, eh?

My Year of Opera (III): Philip Glass, "Akhnaten"

I first got into Philip Glass's music around 14 years ago, and one of the first compositions I fell in love with were selected scenes from his opera, Akhnaten. Though I only got my hands on a full recording of the opera around 10 years ago, it has probably been my favorite Glass composition since I heard his music. For well over a decade, I'd hoped to catch a live performance of the opera, but the challenge was significant; prior to this January, Akhnaten has been performed only 7 times globally. Fortunately, the Atlanta Opera was putting on a performance this year; even more fortunately, I had a place to stay in Atlanta; and most fortunately of all, I knew somebody who was involved in the production of Atlanta's performance, and was able to get a ticket. So this past weekend, I flew down to Atlanta to catch what was the eighth performance of Akhnaten.

The opera is part three of Glass's trilogy of "biographical" operas (the other two being Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, about Gandhi in South Africa). Aknaten narrates the ascension of the titular pharoah and his decision to abolish all other Egyptian deities and worship only the "aten," or sun-disc, thereby creating what many have argued was the world's first monotheistic religion. Glass's opera focuses on Akhnaten's epiphany, his relationship with Nefertiti (his wife), his creation of a city devoted only to the Aten, and his subsequent downfall as he alienated his subjects and the priests of the old gods. The opera closes with tourists walking around the remains of Akhetaten, the city the pharoah built for his new religion, while the ghosts of Akhnaten, Nefertiti, and Queen Tye (his mother) wander about.

Although the story is simple, it is incredibly dependent on stage directions, moreso than any other opera I'm aware of (which, admittedly, is limited). Several of the scenes are composed only of wordless singing (most notably, the scene in which Akhnaten and Tye order the Temple of Amon be destroyed). Thus, the stage directions have a lot of action that they must convey that the recorded version of the opera couldn't possibly convey, and a lot hinges on the body language and facial expressions of the actors, as well as the broader directions given.

Fortunately, the stage direction was outstanding. Richard Kagey's directions and decisions were remarkable. The tension and violence of the destruction of Amon's temple, non-verbally acted out on the stage, was remarkable and perfect; likewise, the budding love of Nefertiti and Akhnaten in Act II, Scene 2 gave an even greater emotional heft to the music. While these two portions were highlights, the entire opera was outstanding in terms of acting. There were virtually no setpieces due to space restrictions (the only "sets" were a chair and table that served as the throne of the pharoah, and some veils that were taken on and off the stage repeatedly and that functioned as curtains, religious symbols, and royal opulence). However, the sparseness on stage was unimportant, Kagey's stage design and the acting performances and nuances he brought out of his singers gave the performance an emotional depth and heft that one could never conceive the opera had just listening to a recording.

The other highlight of the opera (aside from finally hearing and seeing something live that you've wanted to see for close to 15 years) was the Atlanta Opera Chorus. They sat on the stage in all black, functioning almost like a Greek chorus, overseeing all. The sheer power of the ensemble, though, was breathtaking to the point where words almost fail. In comparison to the Met's chorus, Atlanta's was far and away much better in every sense, from nuance to power, from emotion to accuracy. They could take your breath away with sheer volume (as in Act I, at the end of the Funeral of Amenhotep III) or with sheer, huanting, devastatingly beautiful quiet (as they sang Psalm 104 at the end of Act II).

I did have a few minor complaints about the performance. The bass was unable to really make his voice heard over the chorus in the funeral scene for Amenhotep III; I suppose you could blame the chorus for this, but they are supposed to be loud, and he just couldn't keep up. Also, I've listened to the recorded version of the opera enough to pick up some subtle musical shifts that very well may have been in the score but not on the recording (most notably, the addition of cymbals in "The Window of Appearances" at the end of Act I). Additionally, the orchestra (composed only of woodwinds and percussion, and a violin-free string section composed only of violas, cellos, and basses) seemed rather muted; it may have been I simply couldn't hear them as well from my seat (which was only about 6 rows back from the stage and pit), but perhaps not. I felt occasionally that the orchestra may have been a bit off, too, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, as I was simply going on memory of a recording, while they had the score in front of them. The conductor himself seemed to do a fine job, though, and aside from these minor quibbles, I had no complaints.

Indeed, after almost 15 years of waiting to see a live performance of Akhnaten, I was actually kind of anxious going into it, fearing that I would have built it up so much in my hopes and expectations that it couldn't possibly match them. Mercifully and gloriously, it was even better than I'd hoped and proved to be as triumphant, if in radically different ways, as any live performance of any style of music I've ever seen. And while I couldn't find any other reviews of the Atlanta performance online for anybody interested to read, I did find a highly amusing comparison of Obama and Akhnaten (and even a completely unsubstantiated claim that Obama is Akhnaten reincarnate! They even look alike! Color me convinced!)

[And an apology for reposting this - those who know me are aware of my technical struggles, which in this case manifested themselves in the accidental deleting of the previous posting.]

Misogynist Pig of the Decade

Silvio Berlusconi.

Relations between Brazil and Ecuador Normalize

Last month, I wrote about Ecuador defaulting on its loans to Brazil. At the time, I commented that the defaulting, combined with tensions between Brazil and Ecuador over dams Brazilian companies constructed in Ecuador, had created a lose-lose situation for both Brazil and Ecuador; the former was paying financially and had strained relations with one of its "leftist" allies on the continent, while the latter was isolating itself and creating a situation that would cause problems both presently and in the future both in terms of diplomacy and in terms of Ecuador's on infrastructural development.

Apparently, cooler heads have prevailed, though, as a couple of weeks ago (I haven't really had time to get around to this until now) Ecuador has paid back Brazil's BNDES for the funds to build the dams, and, in response, Brazil has sent its ambassador back to Ecuador, thereby reopening normalized relations between the two countries. While Brazil does gain a bit here diplomatically, it's really Ecuador that wins out in resolving this problem. Brazil was one of the few friends and willing foreign creditors able to help out Ecuador as the global economies deal with crisis; had Ecuador continued to alienate itself from Brazil, it would have faced real obstacles in infrastructural development, financial aid, and diplomatic relations in the region. I completely agree with Boz that Ecuador blinked first because it really couldn't afford not to, and this does help Brazil strengthen its position in the region even further. Overall, I think it's a satisfying end to what was a point of contention between the two countries that could have been increasingly damaging (particularly for Ecuador) had it been drawn out further.

Bolivian Constitution Passes

Bolivian voters ratified the new constitution yesterday with 56% of the vote, the latest step in Evo Morales' democratic revolution. The indigenous majority again flexed their political muscle, taking control of the nation from the eastern whites who had oppressed them for the last 450 years. One can certainly quibble with the expanded executive authority the constitution gives Morales, including the ability to dissolve Congress. It's far from perfect, as is Morales. But one cannot question the democratic nature of these changes. The document is designed to give the indigenous people actual power for the first time in the nation's history, including autonomous judicial systems and mineral rights, as well as limiting individual land ownership. Whether Morales will actually be able to go into the eastern ranches and take people's farms away is a whole other question. Personally, I doubt it and believe that this is more symbolic than real. As it stands, the law is not retroactive, but I have trouble seeing people in eastern Bolivia even thinking about adhering to this law, particularly given their lack of respect for the government's legitimacy.

What I find amusing is how the eastern white economic elite is whining about the undemocratic nature of the Morales government. First, they did not care one whit for democracy while they were in power. The indigenous people simply did not matter to them except as a source of cheap labor. Second, Morales is democratic. One might question the appropriateness of democracy when the people decide to give almost all the power to one individual, but nonetheless, welcome to a democratic world. But most annoyingly, the economic elite has learned nothing from this episode. Once they return to power, which someday they no doubt will, is there any question that they will again pursue policies that line their own pockets at the expense of the nation's people?

John Crabtree has more.

Tightening Emissions Standards

I usually find the decentralized, state-dominated aspect of American government annoying. As a fan of a big centralized national government directing policy, it's easy to see the states as obstructionists dominated by petty local concerns and lobbyists. But sometimes the progressive states can lead the way on issues. In these cases, the federal government can use the states to its advantage, creating change without burning political capital.

Such is the case with Obama allowing California and other states to create their own, stricter, auto emissions standards. The reality is that Detroit is not going to make different cars with different emissions rates. It is in their interest to make only one car. They hate the California law because it forces them to adopt far tougher standards, but if 13 states, representing nearly 1/2 the auto market in the U.S., are going to adapt lower emissions, it means Detroit is going to make all their cars this way. This is a huge environmental victory that the Bush administration opposed, and Obama is able to do this without spending one bit of political capital.

Historical Image of the Day

General George Thomas. Thomas was a non-treasonous Virginian who fought with the Union during the Civil War.

There’s a new color in town: beige

If you thought the question of race in America wasn’t complicated enough, Hua Hsu writes in this month’s Atlantic that we now have a new race: beige is the color of the new post-racial America, he argues, one in which race will no longer be a factor. Pointing to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau Hsu assesses that by 2042, all groups that qualify as racial minorities will account for a combined majority of the population. Hence, any child born hereon will belong to the first post-racial generation. This beiging of America, of course, was proposed in the late nineties by Michael Lind who predicted that intermarriage among the races would lead to a mixed-race majority.

Hsu is not talking merely about the color of skin though. What he is suggesting is that in a landscape that allows a child born of Indian immigrants to become the governor of Louisiana, and a man with a Kansan mother and a Kenyan father to hold the highest office in the nation, the mainstream in America might finally be reaching a post-racial state. Citing examples such as hip-hop, which gradually entered the realm of pop culture, and Tiger Woods, who defied the stereotype of golfers as white country-club elite, Hsu makes the case that multi-cultural is now mainstream.

That’s not new. When we look at Broadway shows celebrating the dazzling colors of the Punjabi sharara and clubs devoted to Latin American dances we know that diversity is already embraced in America, or at least in some parts of it. As my half-white, half-Indian friend puts it, “it’s good to be the ‘other.’” But could “other” ever become the norm, merely owing to increasing numbers, and equal opportunities?

As this embrace of diversity and ethnic cultures pervades America, Hsu argues, interracial marriages will make white or black or brown obsolete, and render everyone beige. It has been predicted previously that by 2050, five percent of Americans will describe themselves as multiracial.

Hsu uses the increasing popularity of mocking the so-called white-person stereotype as a testament to his proposition. “Flight from whiteness” is the best defense for white people in a country that is growing increasingly resentful of the privileged white man, according to Hsu. White kids, born of white parents are plagued with identity crisis according to him, a problem hitherto restricted to immigrant and inter-racial children.

But the question is, if America does turn beige, will white soon become a “socioeconomic class” as opposed to a color? Granted, it is sort of a class right now, but one that is filled with white people. Then again, what is “white” other than the color of skin? Sure, it is a culture, it is a stereotype, as Christian Lander wittily and entertainingly continues to illustrate, and it is most often a privilege. But as Samhita Mukhopadhyay describes in the Prospect, culturally, intellectually and economically, wealthier people of color are about as white as white people, and hence, white is as much about class as about race. You need a good amount of disposable income to appreciate or relate to it, she says. Is it just a circle that you belong to then, a status that you attain, and once you reach it, you’re white? For instance, Italians and Jews did not assimilate into the white community for many many years after their arrival.

Or disconcertingly, as Lind observed, might black people be excluded from this broad community, while other races – including Hispanics and Asians – continue to make inroads?

One of the more profound points Hsu makes is the role of the Internet in shaping multiculturalism. There’s no question that blogs that focus on esoteric subjects, and Facebook groups, which cater to people with similar interests straddle racial and ethnic divides more than any offline group could. But even if all these factors – the popularity of ethnic lifestyles, the influence of online networking, and generation Y carrying less of a racial baggage – may cause a cultural and demographic shift, there is no saying that it will end racial divisiveness.

Being post racial does not have to necessarily mean that we are beyond racial divisions, it is just that race is becoming less relevant in the way we identify ourselves or relate to one another.

As Richard Benjamin writes in the Huffington Post, we haven’t reached a post-racial moment, we have merely reached a multi-racial moment because the increasing numbers of Asians, Hispanics and blacks is turning minorities into majorities. In so celebrating lone heroes (such as Martin Luther King and Obama), we tend to obscure the larger issues that still need to be resolved.

From Colony to Superpower, Part IX

This is the ninth installment in the 20 part series Rob Farley and I have commenced to review George Herring's From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776. See the Herring Review tag below for previous entries. As you may have noticed, it's been several weeks since the last entry. This is because Rob lost his book. Amazingly, someone found it and shipped it back to him. This begs further explanation. Does he put his address in all of his books? I hope he tells us.

This week covers the period from 1901-13, or the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. This is a period of great importance in the history of American foreign relations. Having gained colonies in 1898, America had to figure out what to do with them. Was the nation comfortable as a hard colonialist power or did it prefer a softer colonial relationship without constant physical occupation (and the expenses that incurred)? Moreover, the United States all of a sudden found themselves a fully realized power and began to think about how to use that power and prestige on the world stage.

The central figure in this interesting chapter is Theodore Roosevelt. To no small extent, Herring buys into the Roosevelt mythology, calling him "a genuine American hero." (347). What does that even mean? Whatever, I personally loathe Roosevelt, but there's no question that he is the dominant figure of the era and that he represented the thoughts of many Americans when it came to both foreign and domestic policy. He represented both the worst and best (well, mostly the worst) of American beliefs toward the world in the early 20th century. He held all the racial stereotypes of the day (few know that he was close friends with Madison Grant, writer of The Passing of the Great Race, the most important American eugenic tract and a big influence on the young Adolf Hitler), believed that American civilization was a model for the world to follow, and had no problem deploying American power against weaker nations to get his way.

On the other hand, he was geninuely interested in promoting peace around the world, especially when it served American interests. I was newly impressed by Roosevelt's efforts to end the Russo-Japanese war and to force the expansionistic Germans to lay off the French in Morocco. This was also the period when the Red Cross began. Meanwhile, Progressive men and women (and Herring explicitly mentions women) were working toward peace around the world. All of this had limitations--America ultimately could not permanently check Japanese and German expansion and non-governmental attempts at peace ended in failure. Moreover, virtually all American activities with other nations, even the powerful Japanese and European Russians, were dominated by ideas of American superiority. Nonetheless, the root of good existed in American foreign policy of this period, even it it so often took a back seat to darker impulses.

The worst of these impulses involved Latin America. Herring spends a decent amount of space on Latin America, but certainly doesn't center it as the key to understanding American foreign policy during these years. I do see US-Latin American relations as the single most important issue. For it was during these years, even more so than the Spanish-American War, that policy makers and business leaders created the neo-colonialist relationship that marked relations between the two regions during the twentieth century. The roots of Nixon and Kissinger supporting Pinochet and Reagan supporting the Contras are in this period. The most obvious example is Roosevelt breaking off Panama from Colombia to build the Panama Canal. Not even Herring can defend TR here, writing that "even by the low standards of his day, his insensitive and impulsive behavior toward Colombia is hard to defend" (368-69).

But it was so much more than Panama. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine provided the ideological groundwork for U.S. domination of the region, even if it had the side benefit of telling the Europeans to step back in the Americas. United Fruit and other fruit companies completely dominated Central America during these years--this is the root of the term "banana republic." When things got hot in these countries, the fruit companies would just call in U.S. troops to put things right. We were happy to erect dictatorships in Cuba that were unresponsive to the people's needs, laying the groundwork for Fidel Castro. We dominated the Dominican Republic and turned Puerto Rico into a true colony. Particularly after William Howard Taft became president in 1909, the nation happily sent the Marines to occupy any one of these Caribbean and Central American nations when our economic interests were at stake.

None of this is excusable, and certainly Herring doesn't try to do so . I just wish he had stressed more how foundational this period was to our relations not only with Latin America, but the entire developing world during the 20th century.

Finally, the one benefit of American colonialism was the spread of baseball. Herring mentions that Filipinos picked up the game in the early 20th century. I demand to know what happened with that? Why don't we see Filipino major leaguers today? I feel that we are missing out on some serious talent.

There's a lot more to talk about, particularly concerning Asia, but I'll pass it over to Rob for his response.

Historical Image of the Day

Spillway construction at Grand Coulee Dam, Washington, 1937

Historical Image of the Day

Terence Stamp as Billy Budd in the Hollywood movie of the same name, adapted from Herman Melville's story, 1962.

Levee Money in Stimulus Bill

After a long conversation with one of my favorite bloggers, I realized that I should spend less time feeling guilty about not being back in New Orleans, and more time actually following what's going on down there.

As the fight heats up over Obama's promised stimulus package, Senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter have requested funding for "more than $6 billion in coastal restoration and levee construction projects in an economic stimulus bill now moving through Congress."

It's about friggin' time. This fall will mark four years since Katrina, and according to the article, "[Army corps of enginieers] officials have said there's a backlog of projects ready for construction that totals more than $65 billion."

Let's get on it, shall we? Let your Senator know you support funds for rebuilding the Gulf, as well as many other infrastructure-related projects.

Is the airport in Mexico City...composting?

I flew into Mexico City yesterday, and almost nothing made me happy about that airport.  After waiting in line for 45 minutes at the immigration line, I finally got my luggage, which I had a feeling was about to go into the unclaimed luggage pile.  Going through customs was actually really easy, but when I got out of there, I was bombarded by guys asking me if I needed a taxi.  They were probably right in asking because I'm sure I looked pretty damn lost...and as a tall girl with red hair, I stood out pretty well, too.  The restaurant where I was supposed to meet someone had apparently changed names, so I walked up and down the same corridor 4 times where the same guys asked me if I finally needed a taxi.  I finally asked information, and she confirmed that the restaurant had changed names, and I was actually standing right next to it.

Ok I'm getting off track, but the one thing that made me really happy about the airport was that I noticed all the trash cans had two compartments, labeled "inorgánico" and "orgánico."  That's right, the airport in Mexico city actually composts!  Apparently Mexico City is behind this effort, which isn't going that well so far, but at least they're trying.  Also interesting: there was a noticeable lack of "advertising" for their composting program.  Certainly, if a U.S. airport started composting, there would be some cheezy signs around saying something like "We're going green!  Help us compost!"  But there was none of that, for better or for worse...

I've never seen composting in any city in the U.S., but maybe it's out there somewhere.  Southwest airlines started including recycling bins at their gates, so I guess they're trying too, but I don't know how much success they're having.  It seems like composting would be a lot easier to control and implement, but maybe I'm wrong.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Passes

And you know Obama's going to sign that shit. Hell, he even had Ledbetter herself on his whistle-stop tour.

The vote was 61-36 in the Senate, which is a disgusting margin if you ask me. 36 votes against? What year is it, again?

The House of Representatives approved a similar measure on January 9, three days after the 111th Congress convened. Because the Senate made modest changes in the House version, the House must pass it again. Once it does, as is assured, this will be one of the first bills that President Barack Obama signs into law.

This culminates a two-year effort, mostly by Democrats, that made onetime tire plant supervisor Lilly Ledbetter a civil rights icon and a political star.

The legislation overrides a May 2007 Supreme Court ruling that Ledbetter, a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company employee in Gadsden, Ala., couldn't sue her employer for pay discrimination because she didn't file suit within 180 days of the alleged discriminatory act.

It's a good day to be a feminist.

David Berman

For you Silver Jews fans out there, you know that David Berman is a really weird dude. I was shocked that they toured this fall and was lucky enough to attend the Austin show. It was pretty good. I'm glad I did so, because Berman is retiring from singing.

What really amused me was the punch in the gut Berman gave to his father, the Republican, business lobbyist, anti-regulation hack Richard Berman (I didn't know they were related):

"My father is a despicable man. My father is a sort of human molestor. An exploiter. A scoundrel. A world historical motherfucking son of a bitch. (sorry grandma)"

Of course, knowing Berman he could just be making this all up. Who knows. He's really freaking weird. But the Silver Jews are such a good band.