December 31, 2002
Iraq about to attack U.S.?
This holiday message comes from the de facto leader of the nation which dominates the world:CRAWFORD, Texas/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - President Bush warned a world partying into the New Year that Iraq had the power to unleash economic chaos if given...
fearing art
The City still doesn't get it, or at least the police and the Daily News still fail to understand, making the second Union Square box incident this month look like it was as worthy as the first. Ani Weinstein was...
December 30, 2002
STOP THE CHURCH! STOP THE STATE!
We've been aware for a long time that ours is not a secular society, and in fact that ours is not a secular government, in spite of the purpose of its founders and the Constitution's intended guarantees of freedom of...
December 25, 2002
we truly do have nothing more to fear than fear itself
I thought it would be safe to read the feature article about Christo and Jeanne-Claude's The Gates Project for Central Park, even though the NYTimes account was written by the nasty Michael Kimmelman. I was wrong. Half of the way...
December 24, 2002
and on earth peace, good will to men
The very best of the Christian message, but we must hold it to be more than Christian....
December 22, 2002
Criminal art?
I guess I didn't provoke much of a discussion with my post on the 18th about Clinton Boisvert's art, his jailing and a piece in the NYTimes written by their chief art critic. The paper did not print my letter...
December 21, 2002
snaring criminal nuns and teachers
If we survive as a republic, it won't be because we ignored the people who want to destroy it. Columbia save the activists!DENVER, Dec. 14 — The Denver police have gathered information on unsuspecting local activists since the 1950's, secretly...
December 20, 2002
But where do we go from here?
In the current (December 30) issue of The Nation there is a brilliant piece of writing about a brilliant man writing about a brilliant generation of queers, and you'll feel brilliant if you read it. Richard Kim writes about Douglas...
December 18, 2002
fear battles fear battles fear
Alright, calling especially all artists and arterinas out there! The [black "FEAR" box] story has been bugging me since I first heard that a subway station had been evacuated on account of what was obviously an artist's installation. What do...
Bethlehem skips Christmas; Bethlehem is hell
Bethlehem will go without Christmas this year.BETHLEHEM - There'll be no Christmas tree in Manger Square. No festive lights. And no singing. Palestinian Christians decided yesterday to strip the traditional symbols of joy from the celebration of the birth of...
lifestyle protections
Yuck. So the Catholic Church was "fiercely lobbying" up to the last minute to defeat the modest, and decades-overdue, extension of the New York State Nondiscrimination Act (to include homosexuals and bisexuals). It managed to pass yesterday, although minus any...
December 17, 2002
what a woman!
I had the privilege of watching New York City Councilmember Christine Quinn in action this afternoon. Well, actually I admit she was only idling, compared to what she can do when warmed up and ready to open the throttle all...
December 16, 2002
this has got to mean war, and not the one Bush is talking
I'd rather see it fought on grounds even more essentially moral, but this one will definitely do.As the Bush administration draws up plans to simplify the tax system, it is also refining arguments for why it may be necessary to...
"GOP neck is looking mighty red"
So reads the excellent headline on Stanley Crouch's excellent column in today's Daily News. My favorite sentences, here pulled out separately from the whole:What stands before the Republican Party, however, is something much deeper than the Day-Glo red in Brother...
protecting also those who need it most
The Daily News this morning printed my letter responding to a piece by their own editor, Jonathan Capehart, published last week. Capehart had suggested that Tom Duane was destroying the chances for enacting a state act protecting homosexuals because Duane...
December 15, 2002
"we haven't been quite ourselves lately"
this spunky little site makes a fine statement. Maybe it looks a little chauvinistic, but if it helps to direct a boastful nation to its ideals, I can take the bunting and the suggestion of former virtue....
December 14, 2002
they're all playing with fire in Venezuela
Following the unsuccesful American-backed military coup in Venezuela last April, when asked whether the Bush administration now recognizes Mr. Chávez as the nation's legitimate president, one White House official replied, "He was democratically elected," then added, "Legitimacy is something that...
December 13, 2002
the Blue Button Project
Those who know me have seen the blue button I have been wearing for the past two months, and some already know what it means. If you are still curious, or if anyone else reading this might be curious, please...
and Mandela calls him a national hero!
The Guardian's series on AIDS has produced an excellent report on a great man. The man is dying of AIDS, but he refuses to take the drugs that would keep him alive, until South Africa's government makes them freely available...
we hit the trifecta today!
Lott stays, for now, sorta hanging out there in the breeze for all to enjoy, neck in a noose; Kissinger drops out, deciding he can't take the heat just yet, will wait for the fires of hell; and Cardinal Outlaw...
"the American administration is now a bloodthirsty wild animal"
Because of an experience of my own, Pinter's introductory analogy reads as particularly genuine, but the main text of this address should read as genuine to all.By Earlier this year, I had a major operation for cancer. The operation and...
Cardinal out-Law
Can we all agree on one thing? If there realy were a god, he wouldn't be working with a Cardinal Law. Law's outrageous assaults upon those who trusted him, and those who never would, did not begin or end with...
getting the priorities right
Awwww. That's so sweet. It's nice to know that Christian tourists may not be too discomfited by the repeated brutal Israeli invasions of Palestinian Bethlehem during this joyful Christmas season. Resident Palestinian muslims however, including especially the elected Palestinian leader,...
December 12, 2002
Austria exiles Saint Nick, again
It seems that even our beloved Santa Claus has been dragged into the growing world resistance to American commercial and political hegemony. Yea! Yea indeed for Austria, where there is a campaign to throw out the fat old elf. The...
Save Trent Lott!
I say, Please, please, please don't get rid of Trent Lott! After Bush himself, Lott is the most spectacular evidence we have for the stupidity, disconnectedness and pure malevolence that has descended upon Washington. For those who might worry about...
December 11, 2002
helping only those who need it least
Jonathan Capehart may only be pretty, dumb and clueless, but his popularity with the media as a safe right-wing gay spokesperson, exceeded only by another establishment lacky, Andrew Sullivan, is more than just an embarassment to thinking and caring queers...
UN dead, US dying?
The UN is dead! The organization operates as an arm of our de facto executive in Washington or not at all, and this week it physically, if not formally, handed over its responsibilities to the White House when it gave...
December 10, 2002
solstice stuff
We really try to ignore the more commercial propiquus/ubiquitous/iniquitous holidays (which will remain nameless) ourselves, in favor of the solstice, but sometimes you just want to give, er, a gift. How about real art, I mean real art? The gift...
December 9, 2002
a deadly banality at all cost
We'll be waiting for at least a few more years, and maybe we'll wait forever, but at least some of us know what we are waiting for.The New York Philharmonic was 160 years old on Saturday, with more history than...
stormy weather, but they're not all dead
(the American radicals, that is) History says, Don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up And hope and history rhyme. --Seamus Heaney A son of...
December 7, 2002
going art-ing tomorrow
Barry and I will be scampering about the galleries in Chelsea tomorrow, but only after a hop down to Tribeca and the Apex Gallery, where the artist Nancy Hwang will be offering gift-wrapping services to Apex visitors, who can in...
Philip Berrigan
A great heart and a great mind is gone.BALTIMORE - December 6 - Phil Berrigan died December 6, 2002 at about 9:30 PM, at Jonah House, a community he co-founded in 1973, surrounded by family and friends. He died two...
December 6, 2002
making it clear once again,
only welfare programs for corporations are moral in the American political ethos Could they make the nexus any more clear? A special government board earlier this week rejected a $1.8 billion loan guarantee request by troubled United Airlines. On friday,...
December 5, 2002
supper, St. Nicholas' Eve
As a born-again atheist, it's the only way I can bring myself to relate in any way to the Xmas madness. It has something to do with a connection to my ethnic heritage. After tonight, the only feast I will...
it's good to be reminded regularly--
--that the man sometimes described as the President of The United States is capable of awesome profundity. To wit:"Sometimes, Washington is one of these towns where the person—people who think they've got the sharp elbow is the most effective person."...
December 3, 2002
MONEY + FLAG + CHRIST
Unfortuantely I cannot find an image online, but there's an incredible photograph on page B4 of today's NYTimes which appears, I guess without any intended irony, and it says it all. The image is one of two which ostensibly only...
Baritone "trips" with Schubert
We were part of a very lucky audience at John Jay College last night where Trisha Brown Dance Company, Simon Keenlyside and Pedja Muzijevic opened with their production of Franz Schubert's magnificent "Winterreise" (winter journey). There are five more performances,...
December 2, 2002
could the choice have been more cynical?
Fortunately we have already seen an enormous number of articulate essays expressing outrage that Henry Kisssinger has been appointed to head the outrageously tardy formation of a commission charged with investigating the terrorist attacks of Sept.11. Here's another. Unfortunately, nothing...
