Sunday Reads: Forget Rubenesque Women, Try Willendorf
Posted: March 3, 2013 Filed under: Fox News, History, morning reads | Tags: Metropolitan Museum, Willendorf figures 53 Comments
Morning Everyone!
Still feeling a little off, but somewhat better…I even tried to write this post on Friday night, only I just could not get it all together.
If this post doesn’t make much sense, blame it on my lack of brain activity.
Some GOP idiot was pulling an Akin over the weekend, by that I mean she was spouting crap about rape. Little Green Footballs takes a look at a California GOP Leader: Rape Pregnancy Is Rare Because “The Body Is Traumatized”
When are Republicans going to learn that when the subject of rape comes up, they should shut the front door?
This time it’s the president of the California Republican Assembly, Celeste Greig, who thinks a woman who is raped is less likely to get pregnant because “the body is traumatized.”
All this when the California GOP is trying to change their image. Calif. Republicans seek to restore party’s luster
They sure as hell won’t get a sparkle continuing to talk shit about rape.
Of course with Fox and Friends pushing the right’s meme….You May Have Seen These Fox Graphics Before — In A GOP Press Release according to Media Matters
Fox aired on-screen graphics that mimicked images included in the NRCC release in order to criticized what they termed Obama’s “sequestration priorities.” Here are those images, with the Fox versions on the left and NRCC versions on the right:
Fox News has repeatedly cut and pasted or otherwise parroted GOP materials without disclosing the partisan source of the research. In graphics used for one 2009 segment, Fox News even replicated a typo that had been included in the Republican research document that the network was reproducing without disclosure. After anchor Jon Scott subsequently apologized for the typo. CNN host Howard Kurtz castigated Scott at the time, saying that the Fox anchor should apologize for repeating “partisan propaganda from the GOP” unsourced.
Funny huh?
Then you have news from Wally World, Why Are Walmart Billionaires Bankrolling Phony School ‘Reform’ In LA? | Perspectives, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com
For years, Los Angeles has been ground zero in an intense debate about how to improve our nation’s education system. What’s less known is who is shaping that debate. Many of the biggest contributors to the so-called “school choice” movement — code words for privatizing our public education system — are billionaires who don’t live in Southern California, but have gained significant influence in local school politics. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent contribution of $1 million to a political action committee created to influence next week’s LAUSD school board elections is only the most recent example of the billionaire blitzkrieg.
For more than a decade, however, one of the biggest of the billionaire interlopers has been the Walton family, heirs to the Walmart fortune, who have poured millions into a privatization-oriented, ideological campaign to make LA a laboratory for their ideas about treating schools like for-profit businesses, and treating parents, students and teachers like cogs in what they must think are education big-box retail stores.
As a business chain, Walmart has spent a fortune — in philanthropy and campaign contributions — trying to break into the Los Angeles retail market with its low-wage retail stores.
Now the Walton family — which derives its fortune from the Arkansas-based Walmart — is trying to use that fortune to bring Walmart-style education to Los Angeles.
You know, even in my half-organized loopy sense of things, I can still appreciate the irony of this. I’ll explain after another quote from the Moyers blog:
The Waltons have long supported efforts to privatize education through the Walton Family Foundation as well as individual political donations to local candidates. Since 2005, the Waltons have given more than $1 billion to organizations and candidates who support privatization. They’ve channeled the funds to the pro-charter and pro-voucher Milton Friedman Foundation for Education Choice, Michelle Rhee’s pro-privatization and high-stakes testing organization Students First, and the pro-voucher Alliance for School Choice, where Walton family member Carrie Walton Penner sits on the board. In addition to funding these corporate-style education reform organizations, since 2000 the Waltons have also spent more than $24 million bankrolling politicians, political action committees, and ballot issues in California and elsewhere at the state and local level which undermine public education and literally shortchange students.
Read more at the link.
I wonder if these folks in Alabama would think Walmart has an agenda: Alabama GOP Official Warns Obama Plans to Indoctrinate Children | Right Wing Watch
I have to give you the rest in link dump fashion.
The rest of today’s reads deal with history…
Rise and fall of black America’s first fighter pilot – The Independent:
Out of America: Honoured by the French as a war hero, Eugene Jacques Bullard ended his days as a lift operator.
From The New York Times: The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking
THIRTEEN years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.
What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.
New York Fashion Museum Shows its ‘Shoe Obsession’-Voice of America
The museum’s current show, “Shoe Obsession,” presents some of the most extreme examples of those objects of desire: fantastically wrought sky-high heels by leading designers, with prices equally unreachable.
Read about the history of shoes at that link, and you can look at more pictures, since they have a gallery at the link too.
And finally, this last story which connects to the title of this post. Seeking Meaning in the Earliest Female Nudes
Changing styles. Prehistoric female figurines started off voluptuous like the Venus of Willendorf (left) but then became schematic like these “Gönnersdorf” style statuettes (right), possibly signaling a shift in their meaning.
Credit: Bildersturm/Creative CommonsAbout 35,000 years ago, prehistoric artists across Europe suddenly discovered the female form—and the art world has never been the same. The explosion of voluptuous female figurines sculpted out of limestone, ivory, and clay directly inspired Picasso and Matisse. Researchers have debated the figurines’ meaning for decades. Now, two scientists think they have the answer. Presenting their work here last week at the European Palaeolithic Conference, they claimed that the objects started off as celebrations of the female form, then later became symbols that tied together a growing human society.
The talk, part of a special exhibition on Ice Age art at London’s British Museum, surveyed the more than 20,000 year-history of female figurines, which are found at dozens of archaeological sites from Russia to France. The earliest such objects, which include the famous Venus of Willendorf from Austria (see photo) and a statuette recently found in Germany that some have called the “earliest pornography,” date from as early as 35,000 years ago and are generally called the “Willendorf style” of prehistoric art.
Y’all have a good Sunday.
Sima
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
fiscalliberal
grayslady
Minkoff Minx
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Take care, JJ. Thanks for the roundup.
How the sequester will hurt scientific research
For anyone who cares about basic research, this is frightening. But I guess as long as it doesn’t keep Wall Street from doling out bonuses, it’s OK with the psychopaths in charge.
Nina Totenberg explains why Justice Roberts was completely wrong when he claimed that Massachusetts has worse black voter registration and turnout than Mississippi.
But George Will catapaults the propaganda anyway.
So sorry about my last few post, it usually takes a while after a seizure before I can think straight. Well, not that straight.
Have you seen the neurologist yet? Is this related to your migraines?
I go to neurologist on April 1st. I don’t know about the migraines, but when I was on anti-seizure meds that are also used to prevent migraine, I still got them.
All this is related to my disability though…it is very frustrating because I am so aware of my limitations, and the slowness in my brain processes.
JJ —
If *your* brain processes are slow now, you must have been genius level to begin with!
Take care of yourself and whomever you need quickly. Don’t let this slide even a day.
” whomever”
Computer acting up…
“see whomever”
Have you all seen this? New York Fed Agreed to Testify for Bank of America – NYTimes.com
Another banking link for you, this time from the UK: HSBC set to unveil one of the biggest profit hauls in UK banking history with announcement of £15.6bn profits – Business News – Business – The Independent
Scientists exhume the heart of Richard the Lionheart.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/03/the-king-is-dead.html
He’s baaaaaaaak!
Think Progress:
Well why was Romney smart enough to do it……..gifting that is.
Damn………why WASN’T Romney………..
I could live without ever hearing from Rmoney again. Still a douchnozzle.
Yup
Just seeing his face and hearing his voice, I felt queasy.
Politico: Romney says “It kills me” not to be in the White House solving all our problems.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/mitt-romney-it-kills-me-not-to-be-president-88332.html
You know … maybe he should just keep on talking right up until the midterm election.
One can only hope it does just that!
Oh, come on. Don’t you miss this?
Beata, OK but only that one 🙂
OK, I do miss that.
But, but – if he can’t win, he’s got those sqeaky clean sons who he controls who might be able to – doncha see. One man’s obsession becomes a family objective to ensure his vision is fulfilled, goddess forbid.
Today in Well, Duh Once more into the breach with Paul Krugman.
This is actually good news for us normal people. Obama can offer a grand bargain to the Republicans until he’s blue in the face. They don’t want to cut “entitlements.” They just want to make Obama look weak and ineffectual.
Well, actually they want Obama and the Dems to cut entitlements then they’ll run against them because of it. But I hope you don’t think the GOP doesn’t want them cut.
No, I know that. They want the cuts but only if they don’t get blamed. They’d like to scrap the programs entirely.
I was sure you did! 🙂
Virginia’s Feast on U.S. Funds Nears an End
They’re nowhere near the real world and won’t be much closer after these defense cuts.
It’s going to kill us here in the Boston area. Our main industry is education, research, and medicine. MIT is running scared right now. But we have other research universities–Harvard and Boston University rely on federal funds for research, and Harvard’s endowment isn’t what it used to be. One entire area of Boston is devoted to teaching hospitals.
We will lost something like 56K workers due to the Defense cuts then a lot more because Houston has become a large medical complex in the past couple of decades.
MIT Technology Review: R & D Faces Its Own Fiscal Cliff
Harvard and MIT are two of the biggest employers in the Boston area.
The final sequester cuts from the OMB:
NIH loses $1.5 billion.
That was for the “fiscal cliff” chapter of Dysfunctional America. But it almost certainly hasn’t changed in this “sequester” chapter.
original is gone, oh my.
Why is Walmart sticking it’s nose in to education? Money. Government investment in public education has been slashed by the conservatives so that public schools can no longer afford to provide school supplies. Enter Walmart. All parents go marching over to Walmart every year to buy what used to be provided, at lower cost to each student, by the school systems. After all, why have “inefficient government” buy supplies directly from manufacturers at volume discounts when we can inject Walmart, Target, and Staples as middlemen and pay them for the supplies along with a little profit as well? Not to mention the cost of transportation to these retail outlets and what we spend on incidentals while we are in the stores. It’s a scandal I’ve been railing about for years. We are at the point that we have an entire generation of people who don’t even remember that schools used to provide school supplies and we all spent less for them.
Walmart is getting desperate. They are losing millions because low income people don’t have as much money since they cancelled the payroll tax vacation. We are already approaching European-style austerity. I wish Obama would wake up before unemployment goes to 10%. Customers who do show up find empty shelves.
Good.
My husband says the suits in his district feel another reason for the crappy same store sales is that the tax refunds are being held up.
I’m being really cynical here, but it’s not just the lack of consumers. If they don’t dumb down education how will they ensure an endless supply of workers who will settle for their shitty wages and no benefits? Slave labour here we come.
David Gregory says the Washington press corps and Washington “establishment” don’t particularly like President Obama.
http://www.today.com/video/today/51003528#51003528
That’s good because as “journalists” they aren’t supposed to like or dislike him but be objective.
Popping that Popcorn – Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money
This is good, it refers to a post about Tom Friedman…
Some terrific comments to that piece, jj. Thanks for sharing.
I’m concerned about you too. I wish you could see the neurologist sooner than April 1st. Please take it easy.
100 Years Ago Today
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/03/100-years-ago-the-1913-womens-suffrage-parade/100465
Good article Fannie, thanks. Lest we forget – however some have and we’re fighting the same fights today – some people even want to revoke the women’s ability to vote. How far have we come – after the 80’s, one step forward and two steps back.
So true HT……..
Right Fannie, and that’s what scares the hell out of me. I’m toast in terms of life expectancy, but I have a young daughter and son (I was an old preggy) and the thought of my children (who are now adult) going through what I went through in the 1960’s gives me the dry heaves. I don’t know what I can do to stop it. My kids don’t see the danger because they never lived through it. I’m terrified that they wil give up their rights because they don’t see that their rights are being attacked. Both of them just pooh pooh my concerns, and quite honestly I won’t live to see the mess that their lack of attention will result in, however I love the idiots and want to ensure they and their children (should they choose to have any) have a future free of this interference in their lives. I don’t want my beloved children in a distopiac version of Handmaid’s Tale, which if the religious ass##les have their choice will occur.
I just watched the entire three hours of “Makers”. It was really good until the last 15 minutes when I started to get pissed off and by the end, my jaw dropped. No mention, NO MENTION, of Hillary Clinton’s historic run in the Democratic primary campaign for POTUS. 18 million what? Nothing.
JJ – try to get into see your specialist sooner, and in the meantime, do take care of yourself. Like other skydancers, I am concerned.