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Hits of the Day
Shakespeare's Tempest Banned in Arizona Schools
by Doctor Cleveland 1/16/2012 - 3:11 pm
Read the full article at
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest/
- Add new comment
- 198 reads
In the News
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Doctor Who Helped Find Bin Laden Given Jail Term (for...
By Ismail Kahn, New York Times, May 23/24, 2012
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden's location under cover of a vaccination drive was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.
A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region [....]
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Russia lawmakers advance bill on penalties for protesters
By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2012
MOSCOW — Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory.
The bill, which opposition parliament members termed draconian and protested by threatening to file out of a legislative session, calls for fines of up to $50,000 and up to 200 hours of community service for organizers of rallies and demonstrations that grow violent or exceed the approved number of participants.
The sanctions were approved on first reading by parliament's lower house, which is controlled by Putin's United Russia party. They mark a return by the Kremlin to a tough stance against critics after concessions during the recent election campaign [...]
Also see:
Russians back Putin, strong leadership
Washington Post, May 22, 2012A Pew survey of 1,000 Russians found that President Vladimir Putin is well-liked by more than 70 percent of citizens, especially older adults.
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Associated Press, May 21, 2012
HAVANA — It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba's Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island.
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US Army more selective on recruits, re-enlistments
By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press, May 22, 2012
WASHINGTON -- Uncle Sam may not want you after all.
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The Army is also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars less in bonuses to attract recruits or entice soldiers to remain.
It's all part of an effort to slash the size of the active duty Army from about 570,000 at the height of the Iraq war to 490,000 by 2017. The cutbacks began last year, and as of the end of March, the Army was down to less than 558,000 troops.
For a time during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army lowered its recruiting standards [....]
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I'm still not quite sure how the Temptest got swept up in a ban on Ethnic Studies. I mean one really can't get much more a Dead White Male European than Bill.
You'd think not, wouldn't you? But the issue is Caliban:
"This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,/ Which thou tak'st from me," and "For I am all the subjects that you have,/ Which first was mine own king."
Apparently, too close to comfort in Arizona, where Chicano students can actually say that their group was here first, and then colonized by newcomers. And in general, over the last thirty years the play has come to be taught through a post-colonial lens, because people noticed: Hey, a bunch of white people arrive on an island, take it over, and enslave the person who was already living there! We know another story like that!
But that's what it comes down to: any sympathetic statement on the behalf of someone who feels colonized, even if he's a semi-diabolical fish monster, makes the state superintendent of education uneasy.
Probably because Prospero has enslaved the two creatures on the island: Caliban, a sullen "thing of darkness," and Ariel, who is more like a sprite or elf. Caliban rebels, therefore remains enslaved, while the more obedient Ariel is granted freedom.
They should really be banning all books. Does Europe also have multiple ethnicities? German, British, Spanish, French…? Heck, even "British" is itself multi-ethnic: English, Scottish, Irish…
and the Welsh!
Ni fydd y Gymraeg yn angof!
Wizards. No good ever comes of 'em.
Agree. They're 1-11, despite having John Wall.
Great line by Rockets' announcer on Wall's miss early in fourth quarter of today's latest Wiz loss: "All in all it's just another brick for John Wall."
Now, warlocks on the other hand, have done a good job of blending in and accepting the dominant culture. You don't see them asking for warlock studies or national warlock days where they can fly their warlock flags.
Or fly around on their Mansticks.
The weird thing is how the mandate of the law not to teach resentment of any ethnic group means you ban this play but are allowed to teach the history of slavery and the Civil War. Is there nothing in the history of the 19th Century, say, Stampp's classic The Peculiar Institution, that might conceivably promote resentment along ethnic lines? Likewise, can one say that the history of the Holocaust might not provoke resentment against Germans? I guess one can make the distinction that works about the Holocaust are not aimed at that, and you would be right, but is The Tempest really a screed against Caucasians any more than a standard history of WWII is a screed against Germans?
Um, don't talk it up too much, but we're working on the re-framing of The Civil Misunderstanding and The Semite Skirmish at this very moment--both were really unfortunate misinterpretations of our efforts at job creation and profit-sharing.
I wonder if they're banning Bad Day at Black Rock and The Admirable Crichton?
I think Dances With Wolves would have to be a no-no.
And definitely no West Side Story on this year's theatrical offerings
If the ban is successful, maybe Arizona will have a generation of people that are regularly stopped by the police on the basis of their appearance who have no idea who it is they are supposed to resemble.
Plato will be next.
I mean we have to ban that guy who is Greek to me and most folks.
I mean he had the audacity to say that there was a thriving civilization 9,000 years before his time. Now if you add 2400 years to that figure and then deduce that that civilization might have taken 5,000 years to get going, well...
I mean the earth was created in 4,000 BC for chrissakes or for the sake of Genesis!
The only thing that might save Plato's ass is the fact that most right wing Evangelicals think Plato was that dog in Disney cartoons!
You only think you're joking. You've clearly never had a student call one of Plato's major philosophical dialogues "propaganda for homosexuality."
Wish I could say the same.
Just don't tell him he's Plato's ideal student. This could go somewhere bad.
I attempted to help a step daughter break down The Symposium and discuss the issue of homosexual acts perpetrated upon students by teachers. (Since all students and all teachers were male of course)
One of the funniest scenes ever is that Glaucon? running after Socrates for a smooch!
Platonic love and all that as a sub plot.
She thought I was nuts and handed in one of the worst essays I have ever read on the subject.
I mean Bachmann or Santorum or a majority of repubs would certainly ban that book!
You're assuming they'd understand it…
Just for the sake of journalistic honesty here, the right wing did not ban the Tempest. The Tucson school district removed the Tempest from its curriculum to come into compliance with a right-wing law prohibiting "ethnic studies." I doubt that any right-winger would see the Tempest as an ethnic studies work, and in fact, I suspect that someone in the Tucson school district included it to make a politcal point.
That's not to say that the law itself is not an abomination.