“Roseanne coined the term “Domestic Goddess” to describe her character.”
— Just doing some reading about Roseanne.
Jennifer Morris, digital video & media person in England.
I like when they go back in time in sitcoms.
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notes about nothing
The rain isn’t dampening the Queen’s day as she and Camilla attend the Royal Windsor Horse Show, England. Photograph: Michael Dunlea/Barcroft Media
“
This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure’s death is not just misguided but dangerous. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power…
But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren’t silent at all. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person’s death to create hagiography. Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: “The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend.” Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms.
Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as “terrorists”, something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein and Indonesian dictator General Suharto (“One of our very best and most valuable friends”). And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milne detailed last year, “across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown.”
”— Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette by Glenn Greenwald
“Jenny Lewis proved that you can be a female singer-songwriter in the brutal, self-lacerating tradition of Liz Phair or Fiona Apple and an avatar for the arts-and-crafty Urban Outfitters set at the same time. Sound familiar? Today the burden of that dichotomy sits most squarely on the shoulders of Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, an artist openly indebted to the music of Rilo Kiley. When Best Coast’s music began to circulate in 2009 and 2010, it sounded uncannily familiar, like the lovelorn Los Angeles ballads of a girl whose music I’d learned about through Livejournal. It turned out I’d been listening to Cosentino since our respective high school days, when she’d upload acoustic tracks under the name Bethany Sharayah. I liked it because it sounded like Rilo Kiley. ‘When I grow up I know that I will be something special/ And the people will know my face/ And call me by my legal name,’ she sung on one called ‘The War of Copy’, mapping out her own trajectory. Cosentino, I learned, never deleted her Livejournal page, even once she became one of the biggest names in popular indie music, worked with Jon Brion or launched a campaign for Urban Outfitters. There she is, still with a bio that reads, ‘It’s hard to celebrate with a headache,’ still a member of a Rilo Kiley fan community.”
— This is a great Rilo Kiley piece by Carrie Battan. (via katherinestasaph)
(via pitchfork)
Me this morning re: this week, which is a week just like any other really, I should sort myself out, but still
(Source: tuesdaysonwednesdays, via juliasegal)
