Whoopi Goldberg said a few years ago, “I’m too old to compromise.” She meant compromise on her principles, not on other things. At my age, I understand what she means. In the past year I turned a corner where I came to say “Fuck It” to just about everything. I’m too old to nickel and dime myself into a corner on questions of value. My aging role models should be able to illustrate what this means. Traditionally, youth means power for women because they are judged on beauty. Age means power for men because they are judged for their accomplishments. But we are in anRead More →

In Django Unchained, the “N-Word” occurs 109 times. Occurs? Is used? (Look at how awkward that statement is; it’s an active sentence about a word spoken, but without a speaker doing the action.) I twitch to imagine Tarantino saying the word himself. It just sounds wrong. It sounds like some clumsy white dude trying to sound cool while he hangs with his homies. When Samuel L. Jackson says it, it’s quite cool and melodious. As a director, Tarantino can say the “N-word” one hundred and nine times with whatever accent, register, or inflection he desires. With gusto, in fact. Fortunately, at least for my auditoryRead More →

Since the summer, I have volunteered for a radio show called Third Place on WHYR 96.9 Baton Rouge Community Radio. A “third place” is a public, non-commerical place where people engage in civic discourse about important ideas and issues. The show is something like a local left-leaning NPR. Initially, everything on the show was pre-recorded and edited,  and now it’s all live. Everything is archived on MixCloud. Here is the link to the archive: 3dP on MixCloud Some fun shows: Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray, and female sexuality Beasts of the Southern Wild Our Walmart and the WalMarch

Today the WMST-L is discussing having students write their own Vagina Monologues. This recalls the incident a Michigan state representative was banned for saying “vagina” on the floor. All that week I used the word vagina in as many Facebook posts as possible. Women should write their own Vagina Monologues. And they should have some teeth to them.