Stuff...and one good thing
Aug. 20th, 2017 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Already irritated for various reasons not worth going into, a shelf fell on my head, while I was attempting to get my grill out from the lower shelf. Luckily only plastic ware was on the shelf. The little plastic thingamigs that held said shelf in place broke off or came undone for no discernible reason and the shelf fell. This is worrying me, because its the second shelf that's fallen. And I don't know if the shelves holding my glasses will follow suit. I complained to the super but the prior shelf, but nothing.
So, am sending an email to management company tomorrow to advise that the shelves keep falling and it's dangerous. And I need someone to fix the shelves that they clearly constructed in a poor and faulty manner.
2. I have eclipse glasses, whether I'll use them or not, no clue. I will be working at the time. And the eclipse is around 2:45 PM. I've set my television to record the news specials on it, where they are showing it live around the country.
Also there aren't really that many trees around my building or places to see it. I work in a city.
Apparently there are people out there who have no idea what an eclipse is. One wonders about our educational system.
Actually, I've been wondering about it since the Doofus got elected.
3. Here's a nifty Trailer for a Television Anthology Series Based Solely on Philip K. Dick stories entitled Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams. It's apparently Australian produced, with Bryan Cranston and Ronald Moore at the executive producing, show-running, etc helm. Amazon has rights in the US, Channel 4 has rights in Great Britain.
4. Bloody tired of the seemingly endless debate on the ugly confederate statues and monuments.
Anyhow, I got irritated enough to waste time doing a bit of research on the topic.
The NY Times has a good article about the bloody statues, which were erected by, the Daughters of the Confederacy, along with various other white supremacists over time. Confederate Statues and Our History"
And Where and When they Were Erected -- although not sure how accurate that is.
From: Confederate Monuments History..
* From the Atlantic The Stubborn Persistence of Confederate Monuments
Hmmm, maybe the people who want they to stay up should be taxed for their preservation?
* Aha, found the article stating that the silly statues were mass produced from pre-fabricated parts and as artistic as well the wrought iron molding on your gate, although some people see that as art, I guess.
Why Those Confederate Soldier Statues Look a Lot Alike
* List of Hate Speech Cases From the US Supreme Court Note, Hate Speech is NOT protected under the First Amendment. But, most people don't know what it is.
- Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice William Brennan argued that "the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
-"[A] State may choose to prohibit only those forms of intimidation," Justice O'Connor wrote, "that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm."
In other words, I can call you a misogynistic pig, an asswipe. I can say, I want to flog you prissy white ass to kingdom come. But what I cannot do is incite people to mow you down on the street, lynch you, burn you, etc. If my speech results in such actions or can be perceived to result in such actions, it's hate speech. The speech by the white supremacist protestors in Charlottsville and the resulting action is "hate speech" and not protected under the first amendment. The speech by the anti-facist, anti-racist, Black Lives Matter group is protected under the first amendment. What's the difference? One incited people kill people, the other didn't.
In terms of works of art? A swastika printed on a wall, saying death to all jews, is not protected under the First Amendment. The swastika all by itself is. Flag Burning is, but not when associated with burning an effigy of a person and not in a way in which someone can get hurt. (ie. Burning the flag in protest to the Vietnam War was permissible.) Burning a cross is permissible.
The reason for protecting this speech...is it is actually better to know where folks stand than repressing it. Also, if you don't protect it, you don't protect your own.
There's a slippery slope either way regarding the First Amendment. Why? Because people are frigging extremists and persist in hyperbole. Hence my irritation and need to vent. If you go too far in one direction, you don't permit speech at all, and no changes, artistic expression or critiques can be made. If you go too far in the other direction, then you can incite mob lynchings, and well, end up with an innocent twenty something woman killed by a car in the middle of a public street. That's why we have rules about these things, some nitwit goes too far and abuses their privileges.
There's also a slippery slope regarding artistic expression...and what is considered art and what is considered merely political propaganda. The Condefederate Statues fall under the definition of political propaganda, in much the same way as the swastikas, statues of Hitler, etc did. It's not art. It's created for political reasons not as an expression of an individual or groups inner ideals or feelings, or critique of society, etc. It's important to understand the differences. While it is tempting to lump everything under the classification of art, and pontificate that well art is in the eye of beholder. If something is mass produced, commissioned to serve a specific political purpose or agenda, and in numerous quantities, that's not art. It's not the same as commissioning Micheangleo to paint the Sistine Chapel, or for an artist to paint a portrait of a public figure. Now some political art -- does work as artistic expression. Such as campaign posters. But that's a foggy area.
If the art is meant to hurt another, the question arises is it our moral imperative to remove it to a location in which it can do no harm? The art still exists, it just doesn't hurt any longer.
From my perspective, we have rights to the degree they do not harm or interfere with another persons rights. There's the slippery slope. People in the US have annoying habit of proclaiming their right to do things at the expense of others or in spite of others. We are self-absorbed, self-interested, self-centered, nasty little culture at times. I've lost count of the number of people who have told me with firm moral commitment that they feel same-sex marriage is a violation of their religious rights. When I prod them on that point, they state, oh, it offends me. Yes, well your religious belief offends me. I don't see why your rights come before mine or my friends. What makes you so deserving? (I actually said that to a co-worker once, it did not go down well, as you can well imagine. But I was annoyed.) Or, oh, I think I should have the right to say racist things and hurt people with them. Then of course they get all pissy when you call them a Nazi or a bigot or a racist. I mean seriously the difficulty with free speech, is it tends to be a double-edged sword.
There are restrictions on free speech. You can't use hate speech. You can't plagarize or infringe on copyright. You can't defame or libel another. You can't incite a riot. You can't defame public buildings or people's homes. You can't put up art wherever you plan. It's not like anything goes.
Okay enuf pontificating and venting. Halfway through, my screen got tiny and I had to use reading glasses to finish writing it.
5. Finally saw the film Rogue One, which was a lot better than I expected. Saw it for free on Netflix. Okay, maybe not for free, considering I pay for netflix. Anyhow, it was better and tighter plotted than the last movie, possibly because it wrote itself -- or rather Star Wars set it up nicely. Star Wars the movie, not the entire franchise.
I'm going to review this elsewhere. It's a bit hidden here.
So, am sending an email to management company tomorrow to advise that the shelves keep falling and it's dangerous. And I need someone to fix the shelves that they clearly constructed in a poor and faulty manner.
2. I have eclipse glasses, whether I'll use them or not, no clue. I will be working at the time. And the eclipse is around 2:45 PM. I've set my television to record the news specials on it, where they are showing it live around the country.
Also there aren't really that many trees around my building or places to see it. I work in a city.
Apparently there are people out there who have no idea what an eclipse is. One wonders about our educational system.
Actually, I've been wondering about it since the Doofus got elected.
3. Here's a nifty Trailer for a Television Anthology Series Based Solely on Philip K. Dick stories entitled Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams. It's apparently Australian produced, with Bryan Cranston and Ronald Moore at the executive producing, show-running, etc helm. Amazon has rights in the US, Channel 4 has rights in Great Britain.
4. Bloody tired of the seemingly endless debate on the ugly confederate statues and monuments.
Anyhow, I got irritated enough to waste time doing a bit of research on the topic.
The NY Times has a good article about the bloody statues, which were erected by, the Daughters of the Confederacy, along with various other white supremacists over time. Confederate Statues and Our History"
And Where and When they Were Erected -- although not sure how accurate that is.
This is hardly the first time that a society has confronted the issue of dealing with art harnessed to objectionable causes. Art museums are filled with medieval and early modern Western art that is offensive to many of our contemporary values — depicting rape, the slaughter of Muslims, or demeaning images of non-Europeans. Like those works of art, those Confederate monuments that have aesthetic significance can and should be preserved in museums where they can be properly interpreted by curators and docents. In such settings, they will serve as historical artifacts rather than civic monuments.
But many Confederate monuments were essentially “mail order” sculptures mass produced by Northern and Southern foundries during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Whatever value they have as historical artifacts, they were not the work of some latter-day Michelangelo.
From: Confederate Monuments History..
* From the Atlantic The Stubborn Persistence of Confederate Monuments
The many public sites identified in the SPLC report point to one of the most compelling critiques of Confederate monuments. Maintaining them requires taxpayer dollars. Even when there’s strong support at a local level for an individual monument, many of them exist in part by taxing populations that may not otherwise support them, but have no choice—like any black Southerner whose property taxes support a school named for Nathan Bedford Forrest. As Steven Weiss pointed out in The Atlantic several years ago, the federal government has spent millions of dollars in recent years alone to create and install headstones to Confederate veterans. Federal monies also fund such odd sites as the Stonewall Jackson Shrine—it’s really called that—a National Park Service site in Virginia where the general died.
Hmmm, maybe the people who want they to stay up should be taxed for their preservation?
* Aha, found the article stating that the silly statues were mass produced from pre-fabricated parts and as artistic as well the wrought iron molding on your gate, although some people see that as art, I guess.
But dozens of statues North and South are all but precise copies.
“I’ve spent hours staring at the creases on their pants and, Yankee or Rebel, they’re often exactly the same,” said Sarah Beetham, an art historian at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts who has studied the mass production of Civil War monuments.
Indeed, the Union and Confederate versions of the soldier statue were probably constructed from the same prefabricated parts.
The meaning of a memorial is never set in stone. The people who commission it might have one message in mind, but those who view the monument in generations that follow may draw entirely different lessons. One generation’s hero becomes another generation’s symbol of inhumanity — one reason Americans eventually turned away from statues of great men on horses, instead choosing stones decorated with lists of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
In the case of the Confederate statues that have turned into powerful and, to many, disturbing symbols more than 150 years after the war, the Southern women who paid for most of the statues between 1880 and 1920 said they wanted a place to honor their fallen husbands and fathers. But the communities that erected those statues were also looking for a way to assert their doctrine of white supremacy at a time when they were passing Jim Crow laws to codify the separation of the races.
To the Monumental Bronze Co. in Bridgeport, Conn., it was all just business. Union or Confederate, a customer was a customer, another $450 for a zinc statue that could mean whatever you needed it to mean. It was a business model that could appeal to President Trump — a highly profitable product that could dress up a drab little town and make many Americans feel great again.
Why Those Confederate Soldier Statues Look a Lot Alike
* List of Hate Speech Cases From the US Supreme Court Note, Hate Speech is NOT protected under the First Amendment. But, most people don't know what it is.
- Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice William Brennan argued that "the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
-"[A] State may choose to prohibit only those forms of intimidation," Justice O'Connor wrote, "that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm."
In other words, I can call you a misogynistic pig, an asswipe. I can say, I want to flog you prissy white ass to kingdom come. But what I cannot do is incite people to mow you down on the street, lynch you, burn you, etc. If my speech results in such actions or can be perceived to result in such actions, it's hate speech. The speech by the white supremacist protestors in Charlottsville and the resulting action is "hate speech" and not protected under the first amendment. The speech by the anti-facist, anti-racist, Black Lives Matter group is protected under the first amendment. What's the difference? One incited people kill people, the other didn't.
In terms of works of art? A swastika printed on a wall, saying death to all jews, is not protected under the First Amendment. The swastika all by itself is. Flag Burning is, but not when associated with burning an effigy of a person and not in a way in which someone can get hurt. (ie. Burning the flag in protest to the Vietnam War was permissible.) Burning a cross is permissible.
The reason for protecting this speech...is it is actually better to know where folks stand than repressing it. Also, if you don't protect it, you don't protect your own.
There's a slippery slope either way regarding the First Amendment. Why? Because people are frigging extremists and persist in hyperbole. Hence my irritation and need to vent. If you go too far in one direction, you don't permit speech at all, and no changes, artistic expression or critiques can be made. If you go too far in the other direction, then you can incite mob lynchings, and well, end up with an innocent twenty something woman killed by a car in the middle of a public street. That's why we have rules about these things, some nitwit goes too far and abuses their privileges.
There's also a slippery slope regarding artistic expression...and what is considered art and what is considered merely political propaganda. The Condefederate Statues fall under the definition of political propaganda, in much the same way as the swastikas, statues of Hitler, etc did. It's not art. It's created for political reasons not as an expression of an individual or groups inner ideals or feelings, or critique of society, etc. It's important to understand the differences. While it is tempting to lump everything under the classification of art, and pontificate that well art is in the eye of beholder. If something is mass produced, commissioned to serve a specific political purpose or agenda, and in numerous quantities, that's not art. It's not the same as commissioning Micheangleo to paint the Sistine Chapel, or for an artist to paint a portrait of a public figure. Now some political art -- does work as artistic expression. Such as campaign posters. But that's a foggy area.
If the art is meant to hurt another, the question arises is it our moral imperative to remove it to a location in which it can do no harm? The art still exists, it just doesn't hurt any longer.
From my perspective, we have rights to the degree they do not harm or interfere with another persons rights. There's the slippery slope. People in the US have annoying habit of proclaiming their right to do things at the expense of others or in spite of others. We are self-absorbed, self-interested, self-centered, nasty little culture at times. I've lost count of the number of people who have told me with firm moral commitment that they feel same-sex marriage is a violation of their religious rights. When I prod them on that point, they state, oh, it offends me. Yes, well your religious belief offends me. I don't see why your rights come before mine or my friends. What makes you so deserving? (I actually said that to a co-worker once, it did not go down well, as you can well imagine. But I was annoyed.) Or, oh, I think I should have the right to say racist things and hurt people with them. Then of course they get all pissy when you call them a Nazi or a bigot or a racist. I mean seriously the difficulty with free speech, is it tends to be a double-edged sword.
There are restrictions on free speech. You can't use hate speech. You can't plagarize or infringe on copyright. You can't defame or libel another. You can't incite a riot. You can't defame public buildings or people's homes. You can't put up art wherever you plan. It's not like anything goes.
Okay enuf pontificating and venting. Halfway through, my screen got tiny and I had to use reading glasses to finish writing it.
5. Finally saw the film Rogue One, which was a lot better than I expected. Saw it for free on Netflix. Okay, maybe not for free, considering I pay for netflix. Anyhow, it was better and tighter plotted than the last movie, possibly because it wrote itself -- or rather Star Wars set it up nicely. Star Wars the movie, not the entire franchise.
I'm going to review this elsewhere. It's a bit hidden here.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-21 10:03 pm (UTC)The eclipse proved underwhelming in our area, but we'll have another shot in 7 years.
I actually liked Rogue One better on my second viewing than the 1st. I found it much more moving.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-21 11:49 pm (UTC)Super agreed to fix shelves tomorrow night. (I pissed him off by contacting the management company, but it also put a fire under him.)
The eclipse was great where I was -- shared my glasses with co-workers. Okay, it was impressive if you could look at the sun through the glasses, and look at the shadows dancing on the sidewalk. The sky didn't get dark.
If you are in the zone of totality, between the 100-80%...you get it. But if you have cloud cover, won't see much. My parents saw very little, except that it got dark in Hilton Head, SC. I didn't look long at it though.
I thought Rogue One was moving on the first viewing. Not sure I want to watch it again, though. ;-)