February 13, 2018 6:00 AM
Morning Reads for Mardi Gras 2018
Happy Mardi Gras! Here’s your soundtrack for today. Pro bono publico.
- Columbus native, Clark Atlanta alum, and the High Museum’s Driskell Prize winner Amy Sherald painted former First Lady Michelle Obama’s official portrait.
- Here’s an in-depth interview with Sherald.
- The Trump budget plan includes money for the Port of Savannah. Is it enough?
- The flu has killed 66 Georgians.
- What happened to all the money left over from the Trump inaugural fete? It was supposed to go to charity. Okay.
- In Iceland, Bitcoin mining uses almost as much electricity as people.
- EYE WORMS. They are a thing.
- There’s a GOP Senate candidate in Wisconsin who come from a family of ardent Democrats. How ardent are they? Well, they maxed out to the Democratic incumbent their son is running against.
About Author
Teri
Teri Anulewicz is a Democrat who represents House District 42 in the Georgia General Assembly. She previously spent nearly a decade on the Smyrna City Council. A native New Orleanian and quasi-Texan, Teri graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1998. She's been a front page contributor since 2015, and she compiles each Tuesday's Morning Reads.
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The painter that Obama chose, Kehinde Wiley, likes to paint black women holding the decapitated heads of white women up like trophies. He proudly shows one of his decapitations on the front page of his web site (http://kehindewiley.com/) . I’m sure that wasn’t an oversight and likely was why Obama selected him.
I fail to see your point. I did not enslave, lynch and systemically discriminate against an entire race. Yet, I still find some of Wiley’s art pretty offensive. Are you saying if you are offend by this artist you cannot also believe slavery was one of the darkest parts of our great country? Can you not be offended by what is clearly a racially motivated painting and also think that the racial discrimination was a very real and terrible thing. Again, I fail to understand your point.
I am where I am today because I am white? Is that what you are saying. Please correct me if that is not what you are saying. I fully understand that our country has had very bad times. Learning from them and not repeating them is important. Those terrible times should never be forgotten or glossed over.
But….
I tend to get a little pissed when people insinuate I was given what I have because I’m white. My grandfather was truck driver that picked cotton in the 195os to help his parents pay rent in south Georgia. My dad was a mechanic and then a pipefitter who worked his way up in his company to the number two guy over 30 years. Without a college degree. I’m the first person in my family to ever graduate from college and have a pretty damn good career. Not because I’m white, but because I worked my ass off just like my grandfather and father worked their ass off so that their children would be better off than they were.
Eiger, that whole “I didn’t do anything, so….” is such a cop-out, and highlights how so many folks can’t see personal responsibility beyond the tip of their own nose.
Some use it such great effect as to refuse to acknowledge or address the past or present results of it, much less be part of the solution. The painting would probably offend me, too, and that’s the point. The artist was probably offended by the past wrongs that affected his family and community.
You don’t think you personally benefitted from systemic oppression of brown-skinned ppl? You fail to recognize your privilege. If your ancestors were black, they would have been much less likely to even have the opportunity to own land, or get paid to pick cotton. Or be able to have white customers. Did they work hard? Sure, great. Congrats. So did most everybody’s. Did you still nevertheless benefit from NOT being casually arrested, assaulted, discriminated against, denied business opportunity, etc.? Yep.
Welcome to your white privilege. You should just recognize it.
Then you do have at least have some personal responsibility, at least to understand the problem, and maybe even use your powers of compassion and policy going forward to be real about the problem. Not like Mike, who seems to criticize policy and art from his position of selfishness only.
“You fail to recognize your privilege” Piss off.
“If your ancestors were black, they would have been much less likely to even have the opportunity to own land, or get paid to pick cotton.” My grandfather’s parents didn’t own the land. They were Irish share croppers picking cotton on someone else’s land just like their black neighbors. So, yeah, wrong on that point.
“Did you still nevertheless benefit from NOT being casually arrested,” Twice. Once was probably my fault. The other not so much.
“Welcome to your white privilege.” Again, piss off.
I’m not ashamed of where I come from, but the same people like you that want me to be ashamed, have called me and my family white trash for decades. Again, piss off.
You misunderstand.
Do not be ashamed.
Just be responsible to the reality of the past and present and future.
A reality that goes beyond your own personal story..
‘Appreciate those links, ACP. Such a raw story, and there’s a reason it’s resonated through the centuries.
Why do you think I know nothing? Yes, I immediately recognized the sophomoric imitation by Wiley of some classic works. But by doing so, isn’t Wiley appropriating white culture? Isn’t that what Leftists call it?
Wiley is a unskilled political statement artist who advocates for violence against whites and perpetuating racial division. That’s why Obama hired him …they are two peas in a pod. Like all Leftists and Democrats, Obama sees everything through a black vs. white lens.
Long term, Obama will be known our nation’s greatest racial divider. He had a chance to bring our nation closer toward Dr. King’s dream of a nation where Americans are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. He intentionally sowed strife and distrust among the races.
You can continue calling me an uneducated, bible thumping, gun toting, ignorant racist. I need to point out that People like me prefer the term DEPLORABLE. It’s shorter and since we dropped out of school at the 5th grade so we can’t spell all them adjectives.
Finally, while the Leftist are running around calling anyone with an opposing view a “Racist” and discovering nano-aggression, 2nd Amendment supporters here in Georgia worked hard for a law to prohibit Stop and Frisk, against Gov. Deal’s and the Democrat’s objections. That law prohibits pretext stops, which in other states (NY) are always based on imagined presence of a gun and 90% of the time find nothing. The law is 16-11-137 (b) … (b) A person carrying a weapon shall not be subject to detention for the sole purpose of investigating whether such person has a weapons carry license.
So next time you meet a DEPLORABLE, thank him or her for their work to protect the civil rights of others.
Placing my Art History hat on my head, Wiley is known for taking the subject and staging of famous pieces of art work and using modern subjects and inserting them in mundane backgrounds. In an interview he has stated he inserts black and brown individuals into the typically all-white history of Western art. Wiley has done two different versions of ‘Judith with the head of Holofernes’. He has well over 200 known pieces, and TWO are women cutting off another woman’s head. His technical work is phenomenal, skill and research wise. The National Gallery paintings have always been more relaxed and modernist. Kennedy’s in 1966 was considered horrid in the press.
Is it political, controversial? Of course. Most major pieces of Art through history have been. (Paging the De Medici family benefactors, how about French painter David – favor related subject work of Wiley.)
As I always say… Context.
I’m looking forward to the ‘outrage’ over staging gang members as Christ.
The Ice-T Napoleon based on the Ingres is just so over the top.
Good blog on the non- linear aspect of Art and Art History
http://allthingsruffnerian.blogspot.com/2012/01/art-history-is-not-linear-no-4.html
Don’t acknowledge the horrid optics that the Obama artist has in his past collection of work, Drew. Noooooooo, just Ring, ring, ring, ring!!! Gobble them racist pellets, Pavlov!!! Why don’t you and Anita Ward do a remake of her 1979 smash disco hit, “Ring My Bell”? But hey, don’t be jealous when her falsetto is a couple of octaves lower than yours!
Trump’s budget last year predicted a $526 billion budget deficit for the 2019 fiscal year, but it will now easily exceed $1 trillion after the cost of the new spending pact and the tax cuts are added to CBO projections.
From the Washington Post: “Even with upbeat economic forecast and numerous proposed cuts to social programs, most of which will be dead on arrival in Congress, the Trump administration projects that it would run a deficit of $450 billion in 2027.”
Those “upbeat projections”, you know, the dynamic scoring used to argue that tax bill’s loss of revenue would be less, only two months after the tax bill’s passage is being implicitly acknowledged as wrong: “The White House even projected that tax receipts will be $200 billion lower in 2027 than forecast last year, even though it had promised that the plan would fully pay for itself by then.”
2017 is years out, but the implication is tax “reform” gives another $200 billion mostly to the rich.. No worries though. There won’t be any national debt by then. Trump said so hisself. MAGA.
http://www.brainerddispatch.com/news/government-and-politics/4402377-white-house-budget-proposes-increase-defense-spending-cuts
Happy Mardi Gras, y’all https://chamblee54.wordpress.com/
Is the horrible history>snowflake sensitivity logic, displayed by Mr. Pope at the top of this thread, a function of white privilege?
Tax Tax Tax that’s all they want. They don’t know how much it will collect. They just learned last month it is not on gas. They don’t know what they will spend it on but it will be a good thing they tell us. http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/local/story/2018/feb/13/after-rejectithree-months-ago-dade-county-ga/463560/
Maybe the Times Free Press could apply for a grant to get their website into the 21st century.
The one part of the story I admit to being unclear about a bit is the risk of compromise. One ex-wife already had a Protective Order out, right? So, is the risk of compromise that the others will file for Protective Orders if he doesn’t bend to their will? Or that a D.A. will threaten criminal action if they don’t bend to the D.A>’s will? Are their children involved? Every scenario I can think of also has other bad actors involved, and seem to indirectly implicate the victims or prosecutors of doing blackmailing. Otherwise, having the allegations out there seem to imply less threat of blackmail, because now they’re known…
I certainly understand the depth. And maybe the domestic violence charges aren’t the whole story behind the clearance concerns. In fact, to me, it would make more sense if they weren’t because once things like the allegations are out there, there is less fear of public shaming, not more; i.e. less leverage for someone who possesses knowledge. By the same logic, it’s the things that are unknown to the public- but known to the FBI investigators- that could be more compromising.
If it’s about the moral and ethical issues associated with the charges, then OK. But extrapolating the intent and act of one crime and applying it as a propensity to commit a difference kind of crime…that’s usually just not good evidence.
Well if the person didn’t admit it, and the background investigation shows a likelihood that they did do it, then they are showing a lack of trustworthiness.
The CIA may want that person though. A skill at lying is valuable in some jobs.
Having had to sit through a two and a half hour interview for one of these I can tell you they are terrible. How someone who is a wife beater thinks they can get a security clearance is beyond me. How Jared continues to sit in on meetings also is beyond me. He has lied, or “forgotten” about past meetings with questionable characters. I remember being quizzed by my interviewer on why my wife and I eloped to St. Lucia to get married. Why did I pick St. Lucia? Who did I meet while there? Who did I meet? Did some random person come up to me and ask what I did as a job? Then you have Jared meeting with mafia members in the former Soviet Union.
He’s obviously a double-agent.
Yeah, lying/failing to disclose makes sense.
St. Lucia, btw, was one my favorite places (although some infrastructure upgrades wouldn’t hurt). Grandmas, though, clearly can’t be trusted.
Meanwhile…
https://www.axios.com/the-biggest-rivalry-youre-not-hearing-about-1518537189-4c274084-f67b-46cd-9e5b-62fe9a5f078f.html
I learned something new today (that usually makes it a good day).
“Bona to vada your dolly old eek!”
That may seem like a string of nonsense words from Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat or Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange but it’s a real-life greeting gay men in the UK would say to each other in the 1950s and 60s. It means “Good to see your nice face.”
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180212-polari-the-code-language-gay-men-used-to-survive
Nice…
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/hialeah/article199861269.html
The Libs praise North Korea and boo Pence! Lol! This Fall’s commercials just keep writing themselves!
Thanks for the warning. I’ll click on just about any link but I draw the line at getting filled in on Hannity-secret-sperm conspiracies.
As far as Silver’s post, I thought it was typical of a certain part of the deluded right. “Of course the Kenyan usurper would hire a thug to paint his portrait.”
Hannity blames his staff. Sounds familiar.
As does re-posting content written by Russian trolls in 4chan.
Maggot dies of lead poisoning.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/13/intruder-picks-wrong-home-awakes-federal-agent-dies-scene/
Let’s hope it was at least two magazines!
If some bullets are good, more bullets are better. Don’t complicate things.
I’m on my way to ER!!! First time ever I agree with B , even though he was teasing! Our Glasnost has to start somewhere, right?
Oh I don’t know. Surely we also agree that foreign governments trying to interfere in our elections is wrong, right?
Dang right! Hillary should have never hired those blasted Russians to conjur up a phony dossier to sway an election!
Impeach Hillary!
Ohhhhh, okkkkkkkkkk!! Maybe a standard Mozambique?? (That be two to the chest and one to the head…)
National Review and Penthouse Forum?
Does ” Dear PH Forum, I never thought this would happen to me…” Sound about right? Lol!
I saw that last night. Even I was skeptical because that would be so over the top and insulting.
There is another criticism out in DEPLORABLE land. Apparently Wiley used a stencil for the foliage as there are several spots on the painting that look exactly alike. Whatever. That’s just a background.
Setting aside the politics, I’d say the painting is above average and I think does express the positive side of Obama. It’ll definitely stand out from the others and will be an attraction for sure.
In the spirit of Glasnost, I believe Obama was 500 times a better president than John McCain would have ever been. God has protected our nation from the likes of John McCain and Hillary Clinton. We are truly blessed to have had Barack Obama and have Donald Trump as our President.