They’re Not Going To Pla–ay–ay This Year’s “Rent”

Ken AshfordSex/Morality/Family Values, TheatreLeave a Comment

The principal at a high school in California said "no" and shut down the drama club's production of Rent.  Mind you, this was the "school edition" of Rent, a cleaned-up version created by the show's producers with Jonathan Larson's estate.  Rent: School Edition cuts some of the harsher language and takes out "Contact" (the orgiistic sex number), but that wasn't good enough for Corona del Mar High School's principal.  She had issues with the fact that the musical contained teh gay:

Drama students at Corona del Mar High School were excited to push the envelope with a spring production of the Bohemian love story "Rent."

But the drama teacher at the Newport Beach school says the principal told him to cancel the show because she disapproved of the gay characters in the musical.

Fal Asrani, the school's principal, disputes that she pulled the plug on the production, saying that she only asked to review the script, according to district officials.

***

Ron Martin said he chose "Rent," the story of artists struggling in New York City, for the spring musical because he hoped it would be a vehicle for teaching tolerance after overhearing students using homosexual slurs.

"My responsibility as a drama teacher is to expose my students to a variety of different types of plays," Martin said. At a recent meeting with Martin and a union representative, Asrani shut down the plans for "Rent," saying that she needed to review the script because of "prostitution and homosexuality," Martin said, adding that there is no prostitution in the musical.

Asrani did request a script, a common practice in the school district, but was not provided one, said Newport-Mesa Unified School District spokeswoman Laura Boss. The principal has discretion over anything that occurs on campus, but she "emphatically denies" canceling the show, Boss said; that call was made by the drama teacher.

"We feel confident at the role the principal played," Boss said, adding that district officials will follow up on the matter when students and staff return next week from a break.

Asrani "gets to the bottom" of things, said Dana Black, president of the Newport-Mesa Board of Education. The district, Black says, does not shy away from edgy subject matter, but, "we don't want anybody feeling alienated."

And it makes sense for a principal to review potentially sensitive material, Black said. "I'm just kind of surprised, to be honest with you, that there was any controversy."

Asrani did not return calls seeking comment; Martin stands by his account of the meeting.

Martin said that in the five years he's worked at the school, Asrani had never asked to review a script before a production. The teacher had already discussed the abridged school edition of "Rent" — which cuts out same-sex contact — with actors' parents and says none had a problem with the material. And previous shows such as "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" portrayed adult themes without raising administrators' eyebrows.

A parent complaint about this winter's production of "No Reservations," which included light profanity, a kissing scene and a gay character's monologue, prompted Asrani to attempt — unsuccessfully — to edit the show after it had opened, according to Martin and students in the department.

Upon hearing the news that their spring musical was canned, drama students, about 20 of whom had already been cast for roles in "Rent," were flabbergasted.

"We've all been angry," said Tim Dyess, 17, president of the Drama Club. "The reason why it got canceled was completely ridiculous."

He and other students have plans to distribute fliers and buttons and post YouTube.com videos criticizing what they view as a discriminatory move. Some have called the American Civil Liberties Union.

This isn't the first time a high school's production of Rent has been cancelled because of the content.

Anyway, now the drama club at Corona del Mar High School is stuck doing You're A Good Man Charlie Brown for its spring musical.  School officials are looking into the possibility that Peppermint Patty is a lesbian.

Okay, Let Me Explain This Facebook Thing

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

Facebook recently changed its terms of service and now thousands of Facebook users are in an uproar.

Opponents claim that Facebook wants the right to own and use your information even after you have cancelled and deleted your account.

ZOMG!  Because I just posted a Facebook note that rivals James Joyce's "Ulysses", and why should Facebook get the rights to that????

Get a grip, people.  Understand something.  When you sign on to Facebook, you give them the right to your information and writings.  Specifically, you give them the right to pass on your information.  You tell them to do that.

For example, if I write on Emily Mark's wall, I am implicitly giving Facebook permission to take what I type and put it on Emily's wall, knowing full well that her "wall" is public (or viewable by people of her choice).  THAT IS ALL THAT FACEBOOK IS GIVING ITSELF BY ITS TERMS OF SERVICE.  In other words, you acknowledge that you give Facebook permission to pass on information that you want to be passed on.

The so-called "new language" in the terms of service merely clarifies that Facebook still has the ongoing obligation to retain that passed-on information even after you cancel and delete your profile.  Returning to my example, suppose I write something to Emily Mark's wall and then, the next day, I cancel my Facebook account and delete everything I have there.  What I wrote on Emily's wall still remains there.  All Facebook is doing, by changing the legalese of their terms of service, is to get you to acknowledge that even after you delete your profile, information and writings that you had up there and passed on to others, will still be available.

It is nothing more than language to protect their own asses.  They are not taking things from you and selling it.  They are not doing anything other than what you expect they would do.

So chill.

Eliminationist Rhetoric

Ken AshfordObama Opposition1 Comment

From the blog of a white supremicist:

After the pending Second American Revolution results in killing the people who have wrecked this country — yes, you KNOW who I'm talking about — what are we going to do as a nation to move forward?

There are lots of very very serious things to consider. What to do with the people who are presently living solely on social security? What to do with people who depend solely on medicare? What about the infirm, the retarded, the disabled?

What to do about the debts incurred by the people we got rid of? Repudiate them? That causes wars.

As you might imagine, these are serious issues not to be left to haphazard guesswork after the fact.

I want to form serious working groups; think tanks, to seriously consider these matters.

Getting rid of the scumbags who wrecked the country is the easy part. We can take them out in under an hour. The REAL hard part is what to do once we've gotten rid of them?

This is going to require considerable analysis and forethought. The solutions they came up with over the past 50 years have literally bankrupted the nation. We can't go back down that road so what do we do in the immediate aftermath and then what do we do for the long term?

Your serious thoughts are urgently needed. I suspect the killing will have to begin very soon; likely within a couple months.

For those of you totally perplexed by who it is that has to go and why, read this article from WorldNetDaily that demonstrates the obligations of the feds now exceed the GDP of the entire WORLD!

Any of you foolish enough to think this can be resolved in any manner other than bloodshed are delusional.

You got that?  Killing the liberals is the easy part.

What Will The Stimulus Bring To Forsyth County?

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & Deficit, Local InterestLeave a Comment

According to this fact sheet (PDF) put out by the White House, 7,800 jobs will be saved or created by the stimulus package in North Carolina's 12th District.  The 12th District covers most of Forsyth County, parts of Guilford County, and extends to Charlotte.

NC-Congress-12 

The 5th District (where I actually live, just west of Winston-Salem) will see 7,700 jobs saved or created.

NC-Congress-5 

North Carolina as a whole will see 105,000 jobs saved or created by the stimulus package over the next two years.

Well, that's the hope…..

Don’t You Have To Win In Order To Take A Victory Lap?

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & Deficit, Obama OppositionLeave a Comment

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) has created a YouTube video set to the tune of Aerosmith’s “Back In The Saddle” boasting that zero Republicans voted for the recovery package. The video is called “The House GOP is Back.” Watch it:

I'm not quite sure that having near-unanimous opposition to the stimulus bill is a political winner.  After all, the public seems to approve of Congress's passage of the bill:

Gallup's latest congressional job approval rating, from a Feb. 9-12 poll, shows a sharp 12 percentage-point increase from last month, rising from 19% to 31%. While still quite negative on an absolute basis, this is the best rating for Congress in nearly two years.

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Of course, not all Republicans are in the Canter camp.  As a matter of fact, there is clearly a Republican divide forming, and that was made clear in the party's approach to the stimulus bill.  Jason Linkins at Huffington Post has a great article on this.  In it, he quotes Bush 41 speechwriter David Frum, who made reference to the GOP assertion that the stimulus bill would give millions of dollars to salt-marsh mice:

The problem with the story is not that it was false. The problem with the story is that it was stupid.

The US economy has plunged into severe recession (94% of Americans describe economic conditions as "bad," according to the Feb 2-4 CBS poll, and 51% say conditions are getting even worse).

President Obama and the Democrats have responded by steering the US radically to the left. Since World War II, the federal government has most years spent less than one dollar in five of national income. Once the stimulus gets underway, the federal government will spend more than one dollar in four. The cost of everything the Democrats want to do comes closer to one dollar in three.

We're facing more regulation of everything from high finance to the ordinary workplace. The Democrats are expanding Medicaid to crowd out private insurance. The federal government wants a huge new role in redirecting private investment in transportation and energy in the name of "green jobs."

And facing all this – we're talking about mice?

Could we possibly act more inadequate to the challenge? More futile? More brain dead?

We in fact have a constructive solution to offer, one that would deliver more jobs faster: the payroll tax holiday, an idea endorsed by almost every reputable right-of-center economist. But that's not the solution being offered by Republicans in Congress. They are offering a clapped-out package of 1980s-vintage solutions, including capital gains tax cuts. Capital gains! Who has any capital gains to be taxed in the first place?

Actually, the "story" that the stimulus bill would give millions to "mice" is false.  It gives $30 million to wetlands preservation, some of which might go to marshes in the West Coast, some  of which contain salt-water mice (as well as other creatures and flora).

I think the Republicans had a point when they attacked the stimulus package as creating a huge deficit that will increase the burden on future generations.  This is, no doubt, true.  But the problem for Republicans politically is that they were silent for years, when Bush 43 ran massive deficits.

Fiscalconservatism    

It just seems odd to be so concerned about fiscal conservatism now.

Short Takes

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

(1)  Kudos to Bristol Palin for being realistic about abstinence-only education.  (And she oughta know).

(2)  Really?  A book which re-tells the story of Bambi…. from the hunter's point of view?  Really?

(3)  Michelle Bachmann really is scary-stupid.

(4)  Not surprisingly, Republican governors support Obama's stimulus package.  Governor Sanford of South Carolina doesn't, though.  But Paul Begala has an idea for Sanford.

(5)  Aaron Sorkin fans: If you haven't seen Sports Night, Sorkin's first foray into television, do yourself a favor and buy the complete series DVD while it is 15% off at Amazon.  It is some of his best writing.

(6)  Looks like another Madoff-type scandal.

(7)  I don't know when it happened, but Jump the Shark really jumped the shark.  Probably when it was bought by TV Guide.

Malkin, Idiot

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & Deficit, Right Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

I really should let this go, but I can't.  Michelle Malkin today writes:

On Nov. 4, after Barack Obama clinched the White House, the market closed at 9,625.28.

In mid-morning trading today, the day President Obama signs his massive Generational Theft Act into law and a day before he unveils a massive new mortgage entitlement, the Dow dropped to to 7,606.53.

Now, imagine if President Bush had presided over a 2,000-point stock market tumble in the same time period — during the first few months of his presidency.

Great start, O.

This is, of course, beyond stupid.  For one thing (and this should be obvious), Obama wasn't president starting on November 4.  When Obam took office on January 20, the Dow was at 7,949.  Right now (as I write this) it's at 7,588 — that's not even a 400 point drop.  Here's the chart:

Chrtsrv

And Malkin asks "what if" there was such a precipitous drop during the time Bush presided? Uh, Michelle?

Chrtsrv2

John Cole has the last word:

Everyone knew they would attempt to blame the Bush administration’s failings on the Democrats and the Obama administration, and the facts really are stacked against them so they have a tough job, but quite honestly, I thought they would be a little bit better at it than this. The crazy people ranting about black helicopters have more credibility, and at least try to make a coherent argument. The nut of her argument is “If you pretend Obama was President two months and a few weeks before he took office, he is to blame for the market declines during that time period.” Really, it is that stupid.

Two Americas (What Digby Said)

Ken AshfordRepublicans1 Comment

I was going to blog about this, but Digby beat me to it, so I'll just pilfer her post:

If you get a chance to see the HBO Alexandra Pelosi documentary about the McCain campaign called Right America: Feeling Wronged, do it. If you ever doubted that this is actually two countries, and that there is a very real divide that is unbreachable by any single politician, you won't doubt it after you see these people. I have been hearing various versions of this crap my whole life. They never change. And their most distinguishing characteristic is that they never, ever back down.

These folks were already convinced that the election of Obama ushered in the end of western civilization and all that follows will be seen as a result of that. The inept George W. Bush never existed. (Except he saved us from the boogeyman.) I'm sure these people aren't representative of all conservatives and the film doesn't claim they are. But they sure as hell are representative of the dittoheads who pull the strings of what's left of the Republican party.

I found the documentary rather depressing.  These people patted themselves on being "real" Americans, the kind of salt-of-the-earth bread-and-butter workers who live between the East Coast and West Coast, and who keep America going.  Which is fine.  But then when they utter Hannity-like talking points — like Obama being a Muslim, etc. — I began to despair for this country.

Digby is correct that the people featured in the documentary are not representative of all conservatives.  But it did cause me to think — what if there are people even more rabidly wingnutty?  People who actually take their despair about the "liberal" movement, and turn that despair into action?  Oh, wait:

It was a simple plan, he wrote, borne out of hopelessness but rooted in patriotism.

“The future looks bleak,” the ex-soldier lamented. “I’m absolutely fed up! So I thought I’d do something good for this country — kill Democrats ‘til (sic) the cops kill me.”

With what he believed to be his last pen strokes, Jim David Adkisson urged other suicidal soldiers against the “liberalism that’s destroying America” to leave their own trail of carnage behind.

“I’d like to encourage other like-minded people to do what I’ve done,” Adkisson wrote. “If life ain’t worth living anymore, don’t just kill yourself. Do something for your country before you go. Go kill liberals.”

These people scare me.

The Upside Of A Bad Economy

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & DeficitLeave a Comment

Muzak's financial difficulties:

Muzak, the company that put pop, string-filled arrangements of rock songs in your elevator, filed bankruptcy papers Tuesday after it missed a $105 million payment to creditors.

The pipeline of easy listening will continue to flow as Muzak restructures its debt during the Chapter 11 process, the company said.

"Muzak is a solid business with an outstanding customer base, but we are burdened with substantial debt obligations established over a decade ago," Muzak CEO Stephen Villa said.

Spending As A Percent of GDP: Socialism?

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & Deficit1 Comment

Reader Brett Borowski points me to this little presentation:

In the video above, the commentators are bowled over by the fact that government spending in 2010 is going to leap to 40% of the country's gross domestic product.  "OMG!  Socialism!" they cry.

I'm not going to quibble with the numbers — if they are off, I suspect that they are not far off.  There's no question that this is a massive stimulus package, and that it will create large deficits.  Nobody disputes that.  

But there are a couple of things to keep in mind when considering data like this:

(1) Government spending as a percentage of GDP is certainly one way to look at the stimulus package, but it is important to keep in mind that GDP isn't a constant.  GDP is going DOWN and expected to go down significantly next year.  So even if there was no stimulus package at all, and the government spent as much in the coming years as it did in the past few years, there would still be a spike of several percentage points.

(2)  39.9% is high.  But it doesn't mean "socialism".  Look at all the countries that have greater than 40% spending as a percentage of their GDP (2007 data):

Country GE as % GDP
1. Iraq 87.3

2. Cuba

 81.4
3. Slovakia 66.2
4. Timor 65.5
5. Romania 65.5
6. Moldova 63.4
7. France 61.1
8. Seychelles 60.3
9. Hungary 59.1
10. Guyana 58.8
11. Czech Republic 58.8
12. Sao Tome 58.3
13. Sweden 58.1
14. Denmark 58.1
15. Iceland 58.1
16. Malta 57.9
17. Qatar 57.2
18. Kuwait 56.1
19. Belgium 56.0
20. Norway 55.8
21. Uzbekistan 55.6
22. Colombia 55.3
23. Italy 55.3
24. Netherlands 54.7
25. Austria 54.3
26. Finland 54.2
27. Portugal 54.1
28. Lesotho 53.8
29. Libya 53.0
30. Belarus 52.9
31. Cyprus (no Turk-adm) 52.6
32. Ukraine 52.1
33. Yemen 50.9
34. Greece 50.7
35. Brunei 50.5
36. Georgia 50.4
37. UK 50.0
38. Bosnia/Herzegovina 50.0
39. Bulgaria 49.9
40. Swaziland 49.9
41. Germany 48.8
42. Malawi 48.2
43. Canada 48.2
44. Latvia 47.7
45. Jordan 47.6
46. Egypt 47.5
47. Spain 47.3
48. Slovenia 47.1
49. Ghana 47.0
50. Croatia 46.8
51. New Zealand 46.6
52. Oman 46.5
53. Estonia 45.8
54. Zambia 45.4
55. Papua New Guinea 44.9
56. Angola 44.8
57. Namibia 44.2
58. Azerbaijan 43.9
59. Lithuania 43.9
60. Jamaica 43.9
61. Lebanon 43.7
62. Zimbabwe 43.7
63. Israel 43.6
64. Australia 43.6
65. West Bank/Gaza 43.4
66. Algeria 43.1
67. Uruguay 43.0
68. Serbia 42.8
69. Ireland 41.5
70. Venezuela 41.1
71. Saudi Arabia 40.4

Looks like a hodge-podge of all different kinds of countries and economic systems.

(3)  The video closes with the announcer saying "our nation is being taken away… and perhaps forever".  They call the government spending on this stimulus package "unprecedented".

Dudes…. get a grip.

Astute observers may wonder why they start their analysis in the year 1947.  I'll tell you why.  They don't want you to think about the years prior.

Hmmm.  I wonder why.

Government Spending As A Percentage of GDP: 1940-2004

Outlays-per-gdp-graph.php
The above chart shows the same data: government spending as a result of GDP.  It is plotted from data derived from the same source, the OMB.

One of the memes that conservatives like to spout is this: FDR's spending programs didn't pull us out of the Great Depression, World War II did.  Okay.  Now they have to eat their words.  It was the spending of World War II that pulled us out.  In 1943 and 1944, government expenditures were 43.6% of GDP, higher than the 39.9% that is projected in 2010 under the stimulus plan.

And then what happened after WWII?  Was our country "changed forever"?  Did we become socialist?  Hardly.

The bottom line: yes, it is a massive spending package.  But if what we're facing is comparable to the Great Depression — and most economists think it is — then the government needs to inject as much money into it (as a percentage of GDP) as we did in Roosevelt era.  And as for the deficits?  We've had them before (especially after WWII).  We can get out of them again.