Here are a few items as I wonder if anyone will show up to my evening class:
Two pieces from Mother Jones with reference to Tea Partiers. One points to the results of a survey which shows, among other things, that 61% of self-identified Tea Party members believe that discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against African-Americans and the members of other minority populations. I think this is an interesting follow-up to Justin Smith’s 3QD piece on ‘whiteness’ and the Tea Party, which I highlighted earlier.
The other MoJo entry looks at Tom Ricks’s proposal for national service, which includes a “libertarian opt out”. Under that option, anyone who wants to keep their time to themselves can, only they should also expect government workers to do the same in return. This part of the proposal is appealing, because I have often thought that libertarians can afford to rail against taxes, government regulation, public schools, etc. because in the back of their heads, most know that there is very little risk that they will ever actually have to live in the fully privatized and market-driven world of their ideals (although, as I have seen suggested by others, anyone who is serious about living that way is welcome to move to a place like Somalia where there is no effective public sector or government and see how they like it).
I’m a little late in recommending this interview with Martin Scorsese at The Guardian (link via Slash Film). The article covers a number of topics, including Scorsese’s current project, shooting in 3-D, which has been getting most of the attention, and working in TV:
As somebody with such a profound sense of cinema, it’s surprising that some of Scorsese’s recent successes have been on television, a medium which he has credited with providing “what we had hoped for in the mid-60s… this kind of freedom and ability to create another world” with the luxury of “the long form of developing character in a story”.
Finally, on Juxtapoz is a the documentary short “Skateistan”, which looks at a co-ed skateboarding school in Afghanistan. Running just under ten minutes, the film effectively places what it means to skateboard in conditions of war and deprivation, especially for girls in a harshly patriarchal place.
A Weird Fish 