Beth Arnold

Letter From Paris: Freedom and Ai Weiwei

Image of artist/activist Ai Weiwei via Wikipedia

Today on this American Independence Day I'm celebrating freedom.  Freedom meaning an absence of undue restrictions and an opportunity to exercise one's rights and powers: freedom of speech or conscience; freedom of movement.  Freedom to create and display art.

I zipped over to London a couple of weeks ago (where I attended film school) and found one of the highlights of my trip at beautiful Somerset House.  It was there in its historic courtyard that I saw the 12 bronze animal head re-creations that Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei stunningly produced of the traditional Chinese zodiac sculptures which once adorned the fountain of Yuanming Yuan, an imperial retreat in Beijing. These incredible heads (which were displayed until June 26th) surrounding Somerset House's sparkling fountains were made more powerful by the fact that Ai Weiwei had been detained by Chinese authorities on April 3rd.  While I wandered the open courtyard admiring Ai Weiwei's fine work, he was imprisoned.

Chinese officials said they had detained him on suspicion of "economic crimes," but as we know from past experience, what Chinese officials say doesn't accurately reflect a freedom of speech or a freedom of press reality.  From The Guardian...

He (Ai Weiwei) is the most high profile of dozens of activists and dissidents arrested, detained or harassed in recent months in what campaigners called China's most severe crackdown on human rights in over a decade. Several are still held and many of those who have been freed are understood to have been released under strict conditions.

Letter From Paris: Shame On Anyone Who Doesn't Vote!

King Vakhtang Gorgasal statue in Tbilisi, Image by Blazej Mrozinski via Flickr

I spent part of the last week in the Republic of Georgia, where I had been invited to attend their second ever Fashion Week. This showcase is a way forward-thinking Georgians are trying to regenerate their country and support young Georgian designers, who don't know how to make their way into the larger world. Situated at the dividing line of Western Asia and Eastern Europe--and on the old Silk Route--Georgia is still quite isolated. Georgians benefit from outsiders bringing in breaths of fresh air, making connections with them, and getting feedback. And I don't just mean business speculators swooping in to make a killing on a country trying to build itself back up.

 

 

In Tbilisi

How Can American Journalism Save Itself?

Crossposted at the HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

Happy July 4th everyone! This weekend, while we're celebrating our Declaration of Independence, we've just witnessed another example of the failure of the American press. The Internet, cable, and network news, and the few print-periodicals-that-have-somehow-survived, have been churning with pieces about Rolling Stone's crack coverage of (now former) Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal's out-of-control attitude and actions, which, thankfully, got him fired. As Frank Rich so pointedly asked, where were the journalists whose beat this was? How did they miss this story that had to be staring them in the face?

My personal feeling is that the good general having worked and politicked his way to the military top, knew exactly what he was doing spilling his guts to Rolling Stone's freelancer Michael Hastings. The general who "spent five years running the Pentagon's most secretive black ops" doesn't make a hair-brained mistake like this.

What was his point? I don't know, but I suspect it lies under the public's political radar, which is exactly where it will stay.

Letter From Paris: It's Safe to Come Home Now

Crossposted at the HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

By guest columnist Carla Chanel, an American actress and writer who recently returned to Ventura, California, after living in Paris for the last four years.

I asked friend Carla Chanel to report on what it has been like for her to return home to the USA after her expat life in Paris.  Here's what she said:

My friend's email written a day after the Presidential election was short and to the point. "It's safe to come home now." 

A touch of bleeding heart liberal humor but nevertheless fitting.

As expatriates living in France for several years, we had seen Barack Obama become a sign of change not just for our nation but for the international community as well. The shops along the tourist-driven streets of Paris were filled with Obama tee-shirts. His face was on the cover of every magazine.  His name was part of every café conversation.

Boogie Man: The Parable of Lee Atwater

Crossposted at HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

Casually dressed black musicians are warming up the stage. The drum beat rolls, first guitar licks hit, and one lone white man in coat and tie--Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater--starts cranking up his electric guitar. With Atwater's rhythm and blues pumping in the background, we see and hear Ronald Reagan in his chirpy B-actor voice being sworn in as President of these United States. Nancy, in her smart red suit and hat, is gazing adoringly at him as she always did, the super-wife who wasn't much of a mother but sat on her husband's lap at a rally in Philadelphia, Mississippi, to appeal to the base instincts of the rednecks in attendance. (I'm Southern, by the way--proudly from Arkansas. I can tell you that you don't have to be Southern to be a redneck.)

Within a few more seconds, and in between more shots of Atwater rocking a mean splits and hitting his licks lying knees bent and back down on the floor--virtually owning the stage--George H. W. Bush and then his son, W., are also sworn in as President while Atwater is wailing, "Well, I'm a bad boy. I'm a long long way from home. "

"Can you understand American politics if you don't understand Lee Atwater?," the voiceover says, "I believe not."

"He couldn't teach me rhythm," says whiter-than-white George H.W. Bush, "but he taught the Democrats to sing the blues, and I believe they're just starting."

Let me just say, it is brilliant irony that Atwater took the blues away from the Democrats and made it his and the GOP's own, and that is but one example--a microcosm of the macrocosm--of how he turned the American blue collar masses into Republican voters even though every time they voted for a GOP candidate they were voting against their own best interests.

Obamarifix: Goldman Sachs Hell

The President and First Lady, Barack and Michelle Obama, at the White House:

The Selling of The American Soul

Crossposted at HuffPo.com.  Comments not included here.

Rachel Maddow spoke Monday in Little Rock at the Clinton School of Public Service. I was told that when she announced the passage of the Health Care Reform legislation the audience rose for a standing ovation, and Maddow said something like, "Does your senator (referring to quasi-Democrat Blanche Lincoln) know you exist in her state?"

I have been away from Arkansas for more than seven years now, and the political landscape has changed dramatically. I would like to remind my readers that in the early 1970's Arkansas had the most powerful delegation in Congress, with Senator John L. McClellan as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator William Fulbright as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Congressman Wilbur D. Mills as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee--all Democrats and all strong leaders, no namby-pambies among them. The only elected Republican from Arkansas in D.C. at the time was from the northwest corner of our state, where hard-core white survivalists The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord eventually lived and had their siege (in which a surrender was finally negotiated without a firefight) with Federal marshals in 1985. That was the only real Republican part of the state, and look who populated it.

Notice I said white. I want to make a racial identification here, because there is no other color for these misfits. From Wikipedia:

The CSA also had links with other radical organizations, including the Aryan Brotherhood, The Mountain Church, and The Order, all dangerous white supremacist organizations which advocated the violent overthrow of the United States Government.

(For more information about hate groups and civil rights, check out the Southern Poverty Law Center by clicking here.)

Obamarifix: Barack Almighty

I knew Obama would pull off Health Care Reform!  This is an amazing moment for the USA and all Americans.  A moment when we were fortunate enough to witness our Congress do the right thing, even with tremendous odds against it, and even with the usual crowd choosing their own self-interest above their country and its citizens.

It may not be perfect, but hallelujah and amen!  It's a miracle from ...

No Country For Young Women

Image via Wikipedia

Crossposted at the HuffPost.com.  Comments not included here.

My daughter Bret graduated from college in December as a dean's list student and a favorite of her professors because she worked hard and well, and cared about the work she turned into them. And now she is on the job market. With a major in Mass Communications (and a minor in Gender Studies), she followed in her family's footsteps with a desire to work in the Media. The girl's got game, right? She is on the verge of the American Dream -- to create her adult life with the advantages of a solid (and privileged, to some degree) childhood, education, and ability and desire to do good work. To build on this foundation and make her own fortune and mistakes, to follow her dreams, to be true to herself and her values, and to live a life that is meaningful to her.

That's the way it is, right? Or the way it's supposed to be in the United States of America. In this moment of time and consciousness, the USA is the most powerful nation on the planet -- the master of technology. Americans know no bounds, and we can reinvent ourselves both metaphorically and materially.

But Bret has one little problem. She has no health insurance.

Obamarifix: Cougar Town

Image via Wikipedia

In News of the World:

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama on Sunday praised the "historic" House vote to pass a bill overhauling the nation's ailing health care system, and said now it is time for the Senate to "take the baton" and complete its work.

                                                                      ---CNN

At the White House: