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Saturday, February 19, 2005 |
Sometimes this blogging thing makes me feel like...
Thanks to Rhino's Blog reader Steve
Tobin for
sending this photo of a bronze he created!
THE QUOTE:
"I'm also mindful that man should never try to put words in God's mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else, to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God.""
(Appearing on ABC's 20/20, Washington D.C., Jan. 14, 2005)
http://slate.msn.com/id/76886
- - President George Dubya Bush
THE HISTORY:
February 19, 1473 --Astronomer Nicholas
Copernicus born.
Blasphemer who foolishly postulated the theory that Man isn't the center of the universe.
February 19, 1940 -- Smokey
Robinson, American singer and
songwriter was born. Famous for his songs "Tears
of a Clown" and "Tracks
of My Tears."
February 20, 1927 -- Sidney
Poitier, American actor, born.
He became the first African American to win an Oscar for his role in "Lilies
in the Field."
February 20, 1941 -- Native American international activist pop star Buffy
Sainte-Marie born on Cree reserve in Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan. For info on Buffy's work check out:
THE SITE TIP: T-Shirt Humor Dot Com
http://www.t-shirthumor.com/Merchant2/poli1.html
RHINO HERE:
Thursday night I attended the annual Shoah Foundation Ambassadors For Humanity
Award dinner which featured Steven Spielberg presenting this year's award to
Bill Clinton. Clinton's acceptance speech was inspirational especially when
juxtaposed to such presidential fare as the moronic quote above and the other
linguistic trashing the shrub offers
up on a regular basis. (see The Complete Bushisms, http://slate.msn.com/id/76886
) Clinton said that he believed that
all incidents of genocide, including what happened in Germany, in Bosnia, in
Rwanda and in The Sudan, were done for political power. He believed that the
politicians who drummed up the hatred in their people didn't feel that hatred
themselves, but only wanted to secure more power for themselves. But that they
couldn't accomplish it if there weren't a latent fear & hatred for what he
deemed "the other." He
lauded the work of The Shoah Foundation as a great example of fighting against
that latent hatred.
What follows are a few excerpt/links for your President's Day Weekend reading
including 2 memorials of recently passed American Patriots; one on Ossie Davis
by Barbara Ransby an associate professor in African American studies & history
at the University of Illinois at Chicago and one honoring Arthur Miller written
by playwright and screenwriter, David Mamet.
(o/)(o/)(o/)
Editorial: A Window into the Blogosphere
AlterNet, February 17, 2005
Dear AlterNet-izens,
Two weeks ago we sent you a survey seeking your opinion on weblogs or "blogs." Your response was overwhelming, with nearly 8,000 e-mails flooding our inbox. The results were fascinating, and after cogitating over them for a good few days, we wanted to share them with you. A good percentage of you ˆ 68 percent, in fact ˆ are blog adherents. Your reasons for visiting blogs are that they keep you informed and that they go deeply into issues that you care about. Not surprisingly, AlterNet readers overwhelmingly visit political and/or general news blogs for their blog-reading pleasure...
MORE: http://www.alternet.org/story/21289/
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POLITICAL OSCARS 2005
By Arianna Huffington, 1/26/05
˜ Best Sequel: "Shrek 2."
Worst Sequel: Bush-Cheney 2004.
˜ Performance by a Grizzled Veteran:
Best: "Million Dollar Baby's" Clint Eastwood gets another shot at glory when he trains a female boxer to fight for all the marbles.
Worst: Kentucky's Jim Bunning gets another term in the U.S. Senate despite running a confused and incoherent campaign that leaves observers wondering if he's lost all his marbles.
˜ Creative Writing:
Best: Charlie Kaufman for his mind-bending screenplay, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
Worst: Alberto Gonzales for his morality-bending memo calling the Geneva Conventions "quaint" (a.k.a., "Eternal Torment of the Enemy Mind")...
More at: http://ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=756
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11:42:28 AM 
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Attention Must Be Paid
By DAVID MAMET, NY Times Op/Ed, February 13, 2005
DUSTIN HOFFMAN was playing Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman." I met Arthur
Miller backstage after a performance. "Arthur," I said, "it's the oddest thing,
but in the scene between Biff and Willy, it was as if I was listening to a
play about my own relationship with my father." I went on a bit, and looked
over to see a small, distracted smile on his face. Of course, I thought. He's
not only heard this comment thousands of times, he has probably heard it from
every man who ever saw the play. It is the great American Domestic Tragedy.
And "The Crucible" is the American Political Tragedy. He wrote it to protest
the horror of the McCarthy era. The plays are tragedies as each reasoned step
brings the protagonists closer to their inevitable doom. We pity them as they
are powerless to escape their fate. We feel fear because we recognize, in them,
our own dilemmas. This is the purpose of drama, and particularly of tragedy:
to allow us to participate in the repressed. We are freed, at the end of these
two dramas, not because the playwright has arrived at a solution, but because
he has reconciled us to the notion that there is no solution - that it is the
human lot to try and fail, and that no one is immune from self-deception. We
have, through following the course of the drama, laid aside, for two hours,
the delusion that we are powerful and wise, and we leave the theater better
for the rest...
MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/opinion/13Mamet.html?th
Ossie Davis: A Life of Passion, Principle
by Barbara Ransby, Miami Herald, February 15, 2005
I not only admired Ossie Davis; I adored him. The actor and activist, who
died Feb. 4 at age 87, personified the beauty and complexity of the black experience
with all of its travails and triumphs. Born in Cogdell, Ga., in 1917, Davis
attended substandard black schools and watched as the Ku Klux Klan threatened
his father. As a student at Howard University in the 1930s, he came to know
some of the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. Davis had hoped to be a writer
but made his most successful creative expressions on the stage and later in
film. He starred in Lorraine Hansberry's legendary play, A Raisin in the Sun,
on Broadway, performed in the historic miniseries Roots and had small parts
in several films by Spike Lee. Davis and his life partner for 56 years, Ruby
Dee, earned the President's National Medal of the Arts in 1995 for their path-breaking
artistic careers. But they received no presidential medal for their careers
as political activists, visionaries for a more-just society and symbols of
the triumphant spirit of oppressed people the world over...
MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0215-31.htm
(o/)(o/)(o/)
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(rhino@kifaru.com)
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All copyrights belong to original publisher.
9:53:31 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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