On the way, we found this moose in the parking lot. Apparently, he couldn't remember where he had parked his car:
APU President Doug North's letter has elicited a lot of comments:
Other people have emulated his idea of pinning one's thoughts to the board, rather than using the available pens and going at it. This is a fairly eloquent protest to the exhibit:
Someone has posted new examples of questioned flag display, including flags signed by former President George Bush, and by Sen. John McCain:
Here's a terse defense of Prof. Gonzales:
The current wall, from the east:
Eric reading, from the west:
Mariano Gonzales will remove the exhibit tomorrow late afternoon. I will be performing a version of Shards there at 4:00 p.m.
APU President Doug North's letter has elicited a lot of comments:
Other people have emulated his idea of pinning one's thoughts to the board, rather than using the available pens and going at it. This is a fairly eloquent protest to the exhibit:
Someone has posted new examples of questioned flag display, including flags signed by former President George Bush, and by Sen. John McCain:
Here's a terse defense of Prof. Gonzales:
The current wall, from the east:
Eric reading, from the west:
Mariano Gonzales will remove the exhibit tomorrow late afternoon. I will be performing a version of Shards there at 4:00 p.m.
Update - 10:00 p.m: Krestia deGeorge at the Anchorage Press has posted an article at the Press Web Site, questioning whether my call - that the removal of Mariano Gonzales' installation is censorship - is accurate. He and I had exchanged emails over the past two days on this, but, for three reasons, I was reluctant to participate in his article.
The exchange only raised more questions, and my final reply, which attempted to answer his initial query on what my working definition of censorship is, came too late to be included, according to Krestia.
I've invited him to come listen to Shards Thursday, and witness the installation's removal. His email response indicated that he won't be able to do that.
4 comments:
deGeorge has some skill as a wordsmith but the superficial understanding of censorship in that article doesn't advance conversation about what and how we talk about difficult things in public -artistically, politically, openly, in or out of our children's hearing...
Not one bit.
The foolishness in refusing to understand that obscurantic thought and action EFFECTIVELY silence many important ideas and voices seems to elude deGeorge entirely...
This is not to say that all that is said or thought has value, far from it.
I didn't see this exhibit but have seen similar ones and some comments were flippant, obnoxious, inflammatory, dumber-than-dirt... you name it.
I personally would prefer to "hear" these unmediated comments rather than live in the sterile world of endless public-pulse surveys built by canned, often misleading questions.
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I am puzzled by the fears that children attending a special workshop might see bad things on their way through the hall...
How old are these kids?
What lives do they lead that swear words about politics or the government might unduly damage them?
What parents do they have who think cocooning their kids until they are grown is an effective prepartion for taking on their own life direction?
I am fully aware of the Platonic notion of exposing children to "the good" being the best preparation to life...
That notion is carefully grounded in the good being development of critical thinking skills and enough practice with reality mediated by family support to help young folks step into their own adult shoes with confidence.
Somehow we are going to 'help' our kids by pretending dueling notions of what is right as a country don't exist?
Or that the questionING is always tidy?
Or that grownups never swear?
Somebody please explain what this is protecting ...??
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And Mr Phillips' letter...
I so wish we could sit and talk over a cup of coffee...
Those carefully folded flags around benches/coffins...
They put me right back at every funeral for every soldier I know who has died in service to our country. they make the questions the artist is asking very,very real...
Starting with the funeral of my cousin- killed in Viet Nam... the closest I ever had to a brother...
I watched my father and all my uncles, all veterans of WWII , slowly drift together and slightly apart from the rest of us... slowly stand at attention...
I cried for them when I realized their eyes, each and every one of them, were on somewhere none of the rest of us could see...
somewhere NOT good.
The rest of us flinched when the honor guard performed the 21 gun salute.
Not them...
They stood taller.
I so wish we could have coffee and I could tell you that, from that day over 40 years ago, I have seen myself as one of the stars on each flag draped coffin, one of the relatives, one of the friends, one of the neighbors of each and every service man and woman we have had to welcome home in a ceremony of mourning.
I would like to be able to tell you just HOW seriously I take that form - and how seriously I think we have to take asking our service men and women to put their lives on the line...
Best wishes Mr Phillips.
alaskapi,
Krestia can be extraordinarily obtuse.
from the looks of it, the exhibit got people talking and into vigorous debate. thus, it succeeded. part of the problem of the long-running 'wars' in iraq and afghanistan is our lack of awareness about them.
Thanks Phil-
obtuse...
Kinda wondered...
Makes sense.
Glad to read another voice there but won't go back.
I've got to stop my own trying to inspect every lil rock along the path .
So many of them turn out to be UBRs-Ubiquitous Brown Rocks.
obtuse...
maybe even delibrately obtuse
UBR #567,923,761
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