By Aron Hsiao, October 7th, 2012 
Mitt Romney’s “Big Bird moment” in the first presidential debate of the 2012 election season is no small thing. Analysts have not yet, in my judgment, understood its full importance. Governor Romney both disrespected a great American symbol, Big Bird, and attacked a broadly respected and supported public institution, PBS. The China connection was especially provocative. Mitt’s argument against Big Bird and PBS, which leveraged popular anti-China sentiments, came off as elitist, cynical and opportunistic.
In 1983, well in advance of the warming of the Cold War, Sesame Street’s Big Bird introduced a generation of Americans to the culture of a rising China. Big Bird did this in a way that was intellectually generous, humanitarian, and even graceful at the same time. Though there are those that might regard Big Bird in China as simple children’s fare, few in America could have done the job that Big Bird did without having egregiously politicized it, even if unintentionally. In contemporary discussions of U.S. – China foreign policy, it is often forgotten that many in the current generation of American consumers, producers, business leaders, and politicians first encountered the then waking dragon of Chinese society through Sesame Street’s Big Bird.
Big Bird belongs to that rarefied sphere of public figures that are beyond criticism, politics, or reproach, as a normative matter, to be embraced and admired. In Big Bird’s case, this is not only because his cognitive development is that of a young child, and our culture constructs childhood to be a time of innate innocence, but also because he is something of a foundational cultural universal. Since the ’70s, several generations of American children have learned important life lessons from Big Bird—lessons about social norms, tolerance and diversity, culture and difference, everyday pragmatics, life events such as birth and death, and the gestalt core of human experience.
The Governor, elaborating on budget cuts that might be necessary at the federal level under his economic plan, offered Big Bird and PBS as examples of federal allocations that might have to end. “I’m sorry, Jim,” said Romney. “I’m going to . . .
Read more: Romney’s Big Bird Moment
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 11th, 2012 
Today, we remember “9/11.” It’s a depressing day. I feel it personally, having lost one of my best friends, Michael Asher, 11 years ago, a victim of a terrorist attack, an attack that initiated deep and wide global suffering. Distant suffering, the deaths and mortal wounds of individuals and groups large and small, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and elsewhere, including the four corners of the United States, combines with personal loss. The day is doubly depressing in my judgment because, tragically, remembering poorly has provoked more suffering than the terrorist act that started the whole mess, and this continues, guaranteeing that the suffering will not end. The term “9/11” and its remembrance are dangerous.
When I went to the ceremony commemorating the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks with my dear friend Steve Assael, a survivor, I heard too many blind patriotic cries, saw too many signs celebrating retribution and military might.
On the day Osama bin Laden was killed: I viewed with dismay the wild celebrations of young people outside the White House and elsewhere in the country. As I wrote here, their enthusiasm confused me. I didn’t understand it, though later with irony, I pretended I did as a way to call for the end of the war on terrorism.
And even as I shared my enthusiasm for the clarity and fundamental soundness of the Democratic Convention last week, specifically as it contrasted with the Republican Convention, the repeated reminders that Obama killed Osama turned me off. “Osama Bin Laden is Dead and GM is Alive,” Biden’s favorite slogan, I believe points the American public in the wrong direction. I understand why this served good partisan purpose, but find this deeply depressing.
Action is the major antidote for depression, and I have been self-medicating here at Deliberately Considered. Thus, . . .
Read more: 9/11: A Post on Memory and Forgetting
By Gary Alan Fine, August 6th, 2012 
August 1, 2012 will be marked in American history as Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day. Typically on such celebratory, capitalist occasions business owners show gratitude to their diners by a discount or a balloon. That Wednesday was topsy-turvy. Dan Cathy’s customers reversed the tradition, showering this Atlanta-based corporate CEO with consumptive love. Lines stretched around the block, a record-breaking scene. It was a bad day for poultry; a good day for cows.
I admire Cathy’s chicken sandwich and waffle fries as much as any fried mercantile repast, even though my patronage is spotty. A business that closes on Sunday so that diners can attend church has made a financial bow to belief. One can hardly imagine Einstein’s Bagels, say, closed on Saturday.
But several weeks ago, Dan Cathy crossed a line. He didn’t change his opinions, but those opinions became newly publicized. Mr. Cathy was quoted as defending traditional marriage – for God’s sake! – suggesting that gay marriage is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation.” I am not in the business of discerning God’s judgment. My concern is more parochial.
After Cathy’s remarks were broadcast, several politicians suggested that there was no place for Chick-Fil-A in their blue-state communities. Rahm Emanuel, no shrinking violet, opined that Cathy’s values were not “Chicago values.” Surely the Daleys would not have forgotten the Catholic Church down the street. Pandering attempts to banish the chain because of politics are clearly unconstitutional, particularly in the absence of evidence that they deny service to any customer.
Citizens properly have the choice to patronize whichever business they wish. Private boycotts for political reasons fall within our rights. The question is not whether such boycotts are legal, but whether they are wise.
I am troubled by choosing consumption based on the boss’s belief. Let us take the case – the case at hand – of “gay marriage.” In the United States today we are equally split . . .
Read more: Reflections on Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day
By Gary Alan Fine, June 25th, 2012 
On a bright June 15th President Obama directed the Department of Homeland Security to use their prosecutorial discretion to discontinue the deportation of those young undocumented immigrants under the age of 30 who had arrived in the United States before they turned sixteen, had lived here for at least five years, had not been convicted of a crime, and had graduated from high school or are currently in school. The standing rhetorical trope was that these youngsters should not be punished for being brought to America “through no fault of their own.” While some complained that the president did not have the right to determine which laws should be enforced or that the policy turnabout was cynical, so close as it is to a hard-fought election, much of the response, including the reaction from many Republicans, was that the policy, if not the process, was right.
Again and again we heard the mantra that children should not be punished for acts that were not their fault. How could a three-year-old decide whether to live in Tampa or Tampico? How could a seventeen-year-old valedictorian decide to return “home” to Veracruz when her family lived in Santa Cruz? According to surveys, most supported the idea that it was fundamentally unfair to prosecute and persecute these children.
This rare bipartisan comity raised an underlying issue. Many things happen to children through no fault of their own. Do we as a society have the responsibility to respond to these generational fault lines? Most dramatic are the pernicious effects of poverty. Just as some children are brought across the border in violation of immigration laws, other children are born into home-grown poverty through no fault of their own. Or they are brought up in familial environments of violence, drugs, neglect, and abuse. Does society have any responsibility in ameliorating the damage?
Perhaps we claim that these are fundamentally different matters. In the case of undocumented children, we are merely deciding that, if they pass our moral hurdles, they be left alone. This seems like a sturdy . . .
Read more: “Through No Fault of Their Own”: Immigration, Social Injustice and the Bank Bailout
By Irit Dekel, June 19th, 2012 
Euro Cup 2012 started last week. On the day before, walking on a central street in Berlin with colleagues, I saw in a drugstore, and immediately purchased, the dishwashing liquid: “fit Spuehl Fuehrer.”
I checked out the maker’s website to find traces of “corporate Germany” celebrating consumption and sports, as was the case in the World Cup six years ago, when tabloids and supermarket chains cooperated in selling the newspaper/beer/ flag. The website had nothing about this newly minted product. There was also no reflection on it in the press: unsurprising, perhaps, as there has been no interest in the overall presentation of the flag this time around.
The maker of the dishwashing liquid (TIP) advertises another product with the flag, a “fan hat” with a bear and a flag on it. Something you’d wear going to see the game outside. I also learned from the website that the liquid is slightly cheaper than their normal dish soap.
That afternoon I saw the same product in a different drugstore in my neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg, again, in very visible outdoor stand, and got it to share with family and friends, and to test again, now in a different part of Berlin, whether there would be any comment made about my purchase. There was not.
Sometimes a flag is just a flag, I guess, and fans everywhere celebrate their national teams. But how should one read the association with the fuehrer?
I posted the photo on Facebook and some friends living in Germany assured me that it is benign. That Hitler is not a part of it; “they” did not think about it that way. Of course “they” did, and playfully, with reference to another term: “Spiel Fuehrer”— “the man of the match.”
The flag colors combination is everywhere in Germany, related to games. Restaurants and cafés fly flags, indicating that they are broadcasting matches. The flag colors are on ads all around town, including my son’s new sneakers, which he chose, and my daughter Brio toys’ packaging.
. . .
Read more: Politics in Sports? Notes on the German Flag, the Führer and the Playfulness of Symbols
By Daniyal Khan, June 12th, 2012 
“Do you think it matters, Daniyal? Do you think anybody cares about your senior project? All that matters is the people around you, and your senior project doesn’t make a difference to anyone.”
All I could do was to look at my friend with a blank expression, completely stunned and humbled. These words weren’t spoken with the least bit of aggression, as one might think. Rather, they were delivered with a straight, honest face and in a soft-spoken manner, and still managed to convey all the seriousness in the world. The words struck me more so for two reasons. Firstly, I consider my undergraduate senior thesis to be the culmination and high-point of a grueling intellectual journey undertaken over five years. Secondly, my project is dedicated to my friends because they have often been my most ardent supporters as well as my harshest critics during this journey. Yet, there she was, a friend mind you, effortlessly reducing my best academic work to a heap of worthless trash!
In retrospect, her attitude towards a piece of academic writing and a person who aspires to be an academic was not surprising at all. Current opinion on the value and worth of the institutional home of the academic — the university — is far from being conclusively positive. My friend had recently experienced and witnessed some of the worst tendencies of academia at a conference at which she presented a paper. Rather than asking a question about the presentation, a philosophy instructor in the audience had chosen to speak to my friend in a patronizing manner, suggesting that her interest in her chosen subject of inquiry was worrisome, thinking that it was unhealthy for a girl of her age.
Thus, understanding the source of her disdain towards my project was not difficult. Academics and university professors aren’t always worthy role-models, to say the least. Many people I’ve spoken to insist that academics don’t really do anything, just talk; and you can bet there’s going to be a lot of self-serving conversation (at academic conferences, for example, not to say that there aren’t constructive conferences). No wonder academics are often . . .
Read more: Academia: Reflections of an Undergraduate Student in Pakistan
By Michael Corey, May 29th, 2012 
At The Tippler, a New York City bar located behind an inconspicuous door under the Chelsea Market, a patron described as a Saudi billionaire spent $60,000 on a special, limited production, extra-large bottle of Armand de Brignac (aka Ace of Spades) champagne. (A standard size, retail bottle of Armand de Brignac Brut Gold sells for about $350, but it may be found for about $250). While this purchase was the most expensive bottle of champagne ever sold by the club, and perhaps the most expensive sold in New York City, the expenditure pales in comparison with a double Nebuchadnezzar or Melchizedek (30 liters) bottle of Midas Armand de Brignac champagne that a “financier” bought for 125,000 British pounds in the Playground nightclub located at the Liverpool Hilton Hotel. The “financier’s” total bar bill for the evening was 204,000 British pounds including an 18,500 British pound service charge. The “financier” reportedly also bought forty standard bottles of Armand de Brignac for single women that were in the bar.
The Melchizedek, “gold-plated” bottle weighted about one hundred pounds, and it had to be carried to the “financier” by two servers. The “financier” has been described as being in his twenties, perhaps a foreign exchange trader. The club DJ played dramatic, iconic music from the science fiction film 2001, A Space Odyssey as the bottle moved to the table. After the cork was popped, glasses of champagne were distributed to everyone that was in the VIP area of the club. People in the room were described as having a great time as they toasted the “financier.” One report noted that although the financier arrived with about ten of his friends, after the cork was popped, the party attracted a large number of beautiful women.
Was his status affirmed? Did this elicit envy? Did some feel less worthy? The young “financier” out conspicuously and invidiously spent U. S. gambler and businessman Don Johnson who ran up a tab of about 168,000 British pounds in June of 2011 at the One4One nightclub in London’s Park Lane. Johnson . . .
Read more: Artisanal Champagne and Conspicuous and Invidious Consumption
By Gary Alan Fine, May 23rd, 2012 
Marriage season is now upon us, and in year 2012 there are stirrings. Perhaps not in heteronormative quarters, where divorce remains a spectator sport, but unfecund passion is blooming where moral fences and rocky laws abound. Just recently our president, commander-in-chief of the bully pulpit, revealed that he has evolved, no longer uncomfortable with what was once termed, with slight derision, gay marriage, but is now known as “marriage equality.”
Perhaps President Obama was pushed to catch up to his verbose Veep or perhaps he saw this revelation as a strategy to open the promiscuous wallets on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, but he was historic, rhetorically. So much for Barack Hussein Obama as closet Muslim fundamentalist. True, he did not call on states to act on his pronouncement and certainly didn’t call on the Supreme Court to do so, but the occasion was remarkable partly because here as elsewhere Obama was leading from behind. But leading still.
When I teach classes on social movements, I attempt a dangerous feat. I ask students to imagine how not so very long ago – indeed, in my conscious remembrance, a half century back – American citizens could believe that segregation was right and proper. While many other citizens disagreed, the defenders of segregation in 1962 were not wild-eyed, in-bred, or illiterate. They were, some of them, responsible, highly educated, and often compassionate. Most were soon to decide that they were wrong, even if they did not phrase their racial conversion narrative in that way. But in the American South between 1964 and 1972, many former segregationists recognized that they were standing on the “wrong side” of history, or, as Leon Trotsky acidly phrased the matter, in the “dustbin” of history.
Perhaps we need be grateful that contemporary students have so much difficulty in figuring out how a plausible segregationist argument was possible. Today such a policy seems more than wrong; it seems inexplicable.
And perhaps we are at a branching point today – or soon – in that much the same will be said of our current marriage debate. Someday students may puzzle . . .
Read more: Marriage Equality and the Dustbin of History
By Anna Lisa Tota, May 21st, 2012 
I was in New York at the end of April in the days preceding the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death, there to take part in a conference on Memory Studies at The New School for Social Research. An American colleague of mine, Alexandra Delano, along with Ben Nienass, presented a paper on the invisible victims of 9/11: the illegal Mexican workers who were in the towers at the time. During the conference, Alexandra movingly declared that these illegal workers had not had rights, alive or dead. Their names are not listed on the sides of the two big pools, which constitute the memorial for the victims of the terrorist attack of 9/11.
I really loved the idea of giving a voice to the invisible, so I decided that it was time to pay a visit to the 9/11 National Memorial. I set out for a long walk across Manhattan to reach downtown. I hoped that the walk would prepare me for what I was about to confront. Once I got to the vicinity of the commemorative site, I found countless signs that explained to me where to book my tour. Everything was organized in a very efficient way, and after waiting for less than an hour, I was able to enter.
I found myself standing in line together with many visitors, thoroughly watched by many kind and smiling policemen, and when I say many, I mean that they were so numerous that it came to mind that there must be a clear and present danger to watch out for. They asked me to let them scan my purse into a metal detector in order to make sure I did not carry a weapon. Finally, after walking along a closely watched path, I stepped into a garden.
There were two enormous water pools, as if they were two gigantic swimming pools with high walls from which two immense water falls flowed down with tremendous force and energy. I noticed that there was absolutely nothing one could tamper with, so I kept on asking . . .
Read more: On the National 9/11 Memorial: An Italian Perspective
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, April 13th, 2012 
Remember Preston Brown? He is the senior lifeguard at the Theodore Young Community Center, where I go for my daily swim. For a long time, Preston and I have been joking around about current events, joking with a serious punch. I play the role of the privileged white liberal, he, the skeptical black man. We first developed our parts in a year-long confrontation over the Obama candidacy. The skeptical Preston laughed at my conviction that Obama would be the Democratic nominee, and he thought it was absolutely hysterical that I thought that Americans would likely elect either a black man or a white woman to be President. As I have reported here, we made a couple of bets, which became the source of general community interest, and which Preston, to the surprise of many, paid up. We had a nice lunch at Applebee’s. It ironically, but presciently, ended with a small racist gesture coming from our waiter. We celebrated together, and we sadly noted that while things had changed, the change had its limits.
As a participant observer of Solidarność in Poland, the great social movement that significantly contributed to the end of Communism around the old Soviet bloc, I appreciate limited revolutions. Solidarność called for a self-limiting revolution. Perhaps this is even the time that I should approve of Lenin: “two steps forward, one step back.” Yet, I must admit, I have been disappointed with the stubborn and sometimes very ugly persistence of open racism after the momentous election of President Obama. While I think there is more to the Tea Party than racism, the calls to “take our country back” and the refusal of many to recognize Obama’s legitimacy have been extremely unsettling. Preston’s skeptical view was wrong about the majority of Americans, but he was right about a significant minority. And his concerns have a lot to do with the recent doings in Sanford, Florida.
Yesterday, Preston and I had a brief discussion about Trayvon Martin, which revealed to me, once again, how it is that race is . . .
Read more: Race and Racism in Everyday Life: Talking about Trayvon Martin
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