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Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:04:44 GMT

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Words as music

MARGARET DORIS — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:27:41 GMT

Alan Lupo was many things — among them, the best metro columnist Boston may ever see
He originally set out to be a jazz critic.

STUFF RIGHT: In addition to his print work, Loops was a valued member of WBZ’s I-Team in the late 1970s.

Friends remember Alan Lupo.

The people's gravelly voice: Alan Lupo, 1938 - 2008. By Clif Garboden.

He originally set out to be a jazz critic. Alan Lupo, who died September 29 at a “very young” 70, loved jazz. Swing jazz in particular, and especially Artie Shaw, the child of immigrants, the poor Jewish kid from New Haven, the product of a broken home, who managed to become both a failed writer and a brilliant jazz clarinetist.

Lupo — or as he was known in these parts, Loops — was a more than adequate musician himself. But he wasn’t much for reading music. Mostly he played by ear, from the heart. So when he first showed up at UMass-Amherst marching-band practice back in the mid 1950s, an enthusiastic Lupo fell right in step — or so he thought — with his band mates belting out The Washington Post March. As the score’s last triumphal notes faded into the ether, one lone clarinetist kept going. And going.

They all — the trombones and the tubas, the flutes and French horns — turned around and looked at him. Finally, someone clued him in: “You cut those notes in half.” Make the count twice as fast as written. Cut time.

Lupo survived, to become a devoted member of not only the marching band but the concert band. His other ambition did not fare as well. By the time he hit the Columbia School of Journalism, in 1959, Lupo had morphed from a fledgling music critic to a faithful interpreter of the lives most often overlooked.

“He could hear the music of peoples’ voices, the music of urban speech, and he could replicate it perfectly,” remembers his wife of nearly 50 years, writer and BU journalism professor Caryl Rivers. Lupo and Rivers met at Columbia and, in a profession studded with nearly as many broken marriages as empty bottles, they became one of journalism’s great love stories. A Jewish guy from working-class Winthrop and a Catholic girl from middle-class Silver Springs, Maryland — a recipe for sitcom disaster, except, “He thought I was perfect,” explains Rivers. “And I thought he was.” They raised two kids, Steve, now an FBI agent, and Alyssa, an actor, and doted on three grandchildren.

Hoover? Damn!

STEVEN STARK — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:25:34 GMT

George W. Bush’s failures may have set off a tectonic shift in US presidential politics, commencing a Democratic Party reign
It doesn't matter how many negative ads are broadcast or how many moose are slain on the tundra, candidates and their actions don't transform our politics nearly as much as outside events and circumstances do.

It doesn’t matter how many negative ads are broadcast or how many moose are slain on the tundra, candidates and their actions don’t transform our politics nearly as much as outside events and circumstances do. Thus, if Barack Obama ends up winning a substantial victory next month, it may as much mark a revolutionary turning of the page in our politics as it would be a triumph for him. A decisive Obama win could have profound effects for at least a generation, ushering in a new political era marked by Democratic Party dominance (and triggered by the failures of George W. Bush).

Our presidential politics tend to be fairly consistent, divisible into eras clearly defined by national traumas that radically redraw party lines. The Civil War not only gave birth to the Republican Party, for instance. It also launched a long era during which the GOP’s supremacy on the presidential level was rarely challenged. Of 18 elections held from 1860 through 1928, the GOP won 14. The Republicans lost only when the Democrats nominated an extremely conservative candidate (Grover Cleveland — who won twice) or when the Republicans split themselves in half (1912, with the effects extending to the 1916 election).

But the Great Depression redefined the political landscape (with an assist from Herbert Hoover’s initial bumbling reaction to the crisis), giving the Democrats the upper hand in almost a mirror image of what had previously transpired. From 1932 through 1964, the Democrats won seven of nine elections. They ultimately lost power in that period after the GOP nominated Dwight Eisenhower, an apolitical national hero whose ideology was so amorphous that even the Democrats had sought him as a national candidate shortly before he began his political career as a Republican.

In 1968 the political map again dramatically changed, when the unrest caused by the Vietnam War — combined with conservative reaction to the civil-rights revolution — gave the Republicans another demographic and cultural advantage. Beginning in that year and continuing until our most recent election, the Republicans have won eight of 11 presidential contests. Modern Republican dominance has, in fact, been broken only when both the Democrats nominated a more conservative candidate from the GOP’s southern base (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) and when the GOP was either split in half (thanks to the candidacy of H. Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996) or the nation was facing the aftermath of the only presidential resignation in history (1976, following the bowing out of Richard Nixon two years before).

Friends remember Alan Lupo

CLIF GARBODEN — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:44:45 GMT

The Boston Phoenix is collecting memories from all those whose lives were touched by our friend and colleague, Alan Lupo.

Words as music: Alan Lupo was many things — among them, the best metro columnist Boston may ever see. By Margaret Doris.

The people's gravelly voice: Alan Lupo, 1938 - 2008. By Clif Garboden.

“Because I grew up in a family and in a neighborhood that had no voice, I have tried in some small way to be a voice for those whose feelings are too rarely heard, or even expressed. I hope this was not presumptuous, and I hope that I can continue to do that, for in today's neighborhoods there are also large numbers who do not "fit."
“I am still — foolishly, perhaps — enough of an idealist to believe that the media are too often the only ones in town to help redress the grievances of those who have nobody to lobby for them in the corridors of public and private power.
“I still believe that it is our job to raise hell responsibly and comfort the afflicted, to focus public attention on issues and events that people in power would just as soon see disappear from public discourse.”

— Alan Lupo
December 31, 1993

The Boston Phoenix is collecting memories from all those whose lives were touched by our friend and colleague, Alan Lupo. If you have thoughts you'd like to share, please e-mail them to Clif Garboden, Senior Managing Editor, the Boston Phoenix, cgarboden@phx.com or Margaret Doris, contributor, the Boston Phoenix, MEDoris@bu.edu.

The first time I laid eyes on Alan Lupo he was delivering a guest lecture to a class I took at Boston University called Magazine Writing. This was either in 1969 or 1970 and our teacher was, as we called her, "Mrs. Lupo" — a/k/a Caryl Rivers, wife of Al Lupo (subsequently I learned that she called him "Loops"), and a well-regarded journalist in her own right. She was also one of the two or three best teachers I've ever had.

At the time I was 21 years old; Al was 31, and well on his way in a career as a first-rate cityside reporter. For which local paper he worked at the time I cannot say, but I'm pretty sure it was the Globe. He was a burly, plain-spoken guy with a gravelly voice and a Boston accent, but in no way was it Kennedy-esque or George Plimptonian.

Al had curly black hair and corny sideburns. I regarded him as another "old" guy who'd missed the sturm und drang and hurly-burly of the hippie ’60s (mostly because he was out earning a living) and was trying to look semi-hip. Nevertheless, I immediately thought to myself, as he figuratively opened to we students the reporter's notebook that was his life, "This is a man I would like to be."

At almost the exact same moment I thought, "This is a man I will never, ever be."

Because upon initial inspection, my hipster-wannabe self knew unquestionably that Al Lupo was the goods, a guy who loved the spade work, walking the streets, talking at some length to the subjects of his stories, and telling those stories as clearly and concisely as possible. His definition and mine of the verb "to dig" were worlds apart. Al knew the value of hard work; I, on the other hand, was — and, unfortunately, am to this day — an aesthete, a snob and a dilettante.

I lived in my head. Al lived in, reveled in, and reported expertly on, the Real World. Straight, no chaser.

Years later, Al and I were colleagues, after a fashion, at the Boston Phoenix. I doubt that he remembered my face from the small crowd that day in his beloved wife's class, but at the Phoenix he was only great to me. Friendly, funny, and a guy who seemed to have more than a passing interest in early rock 'n' roll (e.g. Big Joe Turner) and some jazz, although I imagine he'd have told me that he couldn't carry a tune in a wheelbarrow.

I hadn't seen Alan Lupo for some years before I learned on the evening of Monday Sept. 29, 2008 that he'd gone from this life into that. He was smart and compassionate, one who actually believed in the perfectibility of humankind, a notion in which I, too, would like to believe but, alas, cannot . . . at least not yet. Al never took himself too seriously — his family's dog and cat were, after all, named "Jane" and "Kitty Widdums," respectively — but he took his work very seriously.

What better way to live a full and valuable life?

— James Isaacs 10/2/'08,
former Phoenix music columnist

Losing common ground

DAVID KISH — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:52:17 GMT

A rift between science and activism is undermining progress in the fight against AIDS
Among the chaos of fractious voices at the 17th International AIDS Conference, it’s hard to discern a clear message, and even harder to know who might be receiving it.

MEXICO CITY — I cross the street where Cortez crushed the Aztecs, and things start to bubble. A crowd forms, banners appear, T-shirts are donned, chants overtake other chants. From pickup trucks, women distribute free strips of condoms to giddy men who hold them over their heads like trophies. Police are everywhere, some foppish in sombreros on horseback, most deadly with fingers on triggers of automatic weapons. Someone thrusts the string of a pink balloon into my hands and suddenly I’m in an AIDS protest. The mob moves and, surrounded, I move with it. Caught in the frivolity and righteousness of the moment, we inch toward the vast Zocalo plaza where Annie Lennox, in halting Spanish, will encourage us to keep doing what we’re doing. But what exactly are we doing? Among the chaos of fractious voices, it’s hard to discern a clear message, and even harder to know who might be receiving it.

Mexico’s capital, renowned for its street demonstrations, hosted the 17th International AIDS Conference a few weeks ago. It was the first time the International AIDS Society held its signature event in Latin America, where infection rates are on the rise. The classic AIDS red ribbon, deftly redesigned to resemble the local ancient god Quetzalcoatl (the plumed serpent), became the official logo and was plastered everywhere: lampposts, billboards, buses, buildings, tote bags, literature, and (in the form of temporary tattoos) even people. Under this unifying banner 30,000 scientists, activists, politicians, students, and journalists descended upon the largest city in the Western Hemisphere to take stock of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Far from a united front, however, the week-long conference highlighted a growing disconnect between the tactics and expectations of AIDS activists, and the scientific realities facing researchers.

The previous conference was held in the much less chaotic city of Toronto, where scientists were optimistic that a cure was in sight. But it has been a very bad year for HIV research; two human trials of Merck’s most promising vaccine were stopped when it was realized that the vaccine may have actually increased HIV susceptibility among some subjects. The problem may have been the adenovirus (common cold virus) used to deliver the candidate vaccine, since everyone’s immune system responds differently to the common cold. But no one’s really sure. Several trials of other potential vaccines have now been delayed. International AIDS Society executive director Craig McClure admitted, “In terms of scientific breakthroughs, this is not the year for breakthroughs.” One word notably scarce in this year’s multifaceted discourse was “cure.”

Photos: Bulls on parade

KATHY CHAPMAN — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:28:58 GMT

"Security" at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN, September 3, 2008.

Law-enforcement officials from as far away as Arizona converged on St. Paul for the Republican National Convention this past month. With them they brought tear gas, Tasers, and riot gear, as well as a police-state attitude that led to approximately 800 arrests and several violent clashes with protesters.

Photo by Kathy Chapman

Among the Republican thugs

ANNE ELIZABETH MOORE — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:32:41 GMT

Fear and pepper spray in St. Paul
Minnesota is known innocently enough as the Gopher State, but for one terrifying, riot-gear-and-grenade-filled week this past summer, it was a police state.

Police use pepper spray to break up a group of protesters during a rally at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., Monday, Sept. 1, 2008. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

• Rolled: Where's the outrage over media mistreatment at the RNC? By Adam Reilly.

• Photos: Bulls on parade: "Security" at the Republican National Convention. By Kathy Chapman.

• Photos: Republican National Convention 2008

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA — Since 11 am on Tuesday, September 2, the first (albeit rejiggered) full day of the Republican National Convention (RNC), masses of cops indistinguishable from one another had suited up in riot gear pulled from the backs of open Ford Expeditions. Now, they were forming a thick perimeter around the St. Paul Capitol grounds, where happy young people had gathered to listen to bands, flirt, and trade colorful flyers advertising varieties of social justice. These men were dressing for a specific kind of evening on the town, and by 8:30, they were hot and bothered. Had they gotten all dressed up with no place to go?

They’d seen action the night before, of course, with 284 arrests, and in raids for several days beforehand. Millions of bucks in federal funds had been shelled out for their new gear, along with a massive insurance policy to cover lawsuits in the event of misuse. But having trailed a march for several hours to a downtown location in front of Mickey’s Dining Car, the officers were ready for more.

That’s when the rumbling began. Not low stomach rumbling, a literary device conveying impending danger. This was the sound of motors rumbling. From snowplows, dump trucks, massive city vehicles. The trucks were establishing a blockade on the dark summer streets of my hometown, forming the outer barricade in a series of three impasses — the two others created by rows of riot cops — penning in politically engaged Americans.

Confused, hungry, and with a sudden awareness that conspiracy to document a riot might be considered a felony under Minnesota’s USA PATRIOT Act, I headed in the opposite direction for dinner, hoping to meet along the way with an exhausted videographer whose two camera people were still in jail. A young girl walking nearby turned to me. “I’m not a protester,” she explained. She was heading to the capitol to sit on the grass to rest.

Clearly, she’s from here, I thought: that’s exactly the kind of boring night I used to have in this town when I was her age.

Stock stupidity

KARA BASKIN — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:57:11 GMT

Self-declared financial ignoramus revels in the fact that investing ‘geniuses’ probably know less than she does
In my wildest dreams, I never thought my stock-market ignorance would be something to brag about.

In my wildest dreams, I never thought my stock-market ignorance would be something to brag about. But, as you probably know by now — unless you’re even more of a financial rube than me (not possible) — Wall Street has been reduced to rubble. Lehman Brothers? The Jonas Brothers are now more reliable and solvent prognosticators. And the government’s taken control of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG. I’m no economic scholar, but I think this means that the US is now more communist than China.

I won’t attempt to unravel the minutiae of this fiasco, as I’m fairly sure my humble editors frown upon plagiarizing Wikipedia. So I’ll write from the heart, which is where most people are affected by this crisis, anyway (besides their wallets, of course): I’m the type of person who, in better times — in other words, up until this past week — watched with envy as friends bought McMansions with impossibly crafted, illogical mortgages that looked like pyramid schemes. I cursed my stock stupidity when people offhandedly referenced their juicy investment portfolios.

Flipping through Money magazine always left me with load rage. The worst were the profiles of people in financial “distress.” I loathed the smug couples with their cookie-cutter homes and their tales of woe: “But we only have $500,000 in savings! Oh, Tripp, how will we ever afford our second property on a golf course?”

Me? Once, tipsy on Yellowtail chardonnay, I logged onto sharebuilder.com and bought a couple stocks. The only one I remember purchasing is Harley Davidson, and that’s just because its stock symbol is HOG.

As for the rest of my assets? I’ve got one paltry bank account and a slightly anemic 401(k) plan. I don’t know why I never got motivated to learn more about investing. Maybe it’s because I dropped out of math in 11th grade. Maybe it’s because my version of “financial planning” is throwing myself and three pounds of crumpled receipts at the mercy of a robotic H&R Block representative every April 14.

Regardless, I could never escape the feeling that most people out there knew something I didn’t, that I was somehow inferior as a crazy creative type. There must have been a secret investing handshake that no one told me about, because while I furnished my rented apartment with IKEA’s finest plywood furniture, everyone else was leasing BMWs and coming up with fat down payments on mini-manses in Weston.

Captain chaos

STEVEN STARK — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:33:57 GMT

Steering a suddenly lost GOP ship,
The past two weeks or so have seen at least one historic meltdown.

The past two weeks or so have seen at least one historic meltdown — the virtually unprecedented disintegration of the credit markets. The question that won’t be answered until November 4 is whether they’ve also witnessed a secondary collapse — the self-destruction of the John McCain candidacy.

If so, the two will have been obviously related. When the economic crisis hit, it was bad news for the country, but also a godsend for Barack Obama’s campaign — as long as voters are focusing on the economy, it benefits the Democrats. And, more important, the crisis and the bailout that could have dearly cost taxpayers reminded voters how much they dislike the incumbent, George W. Bush, who, incidentally, hasn’t covered himself in glory over the past fortnight. Anyone connected with him — and in case you needed reminding, he and John McCain are members of the same party — was bound to suffer as a result.

But so far McCain has taken a bad situation and made it worse. In a presidential campaign, voters evaluate the candidates to see how they will handle the rigors of the office. This situation offers an ideal test of coolness and vision in a crisis. So far, Obama has successfully navigated it; McCain has hit an iceberg.

Impulsive to a fault, in the past several weeks McCain has certainly been anything but steady at the helm. The economy is good — oops, no it isn’t. I’m for the Paulson plan — no, maybe I’m not. I won’t be going to the debates unless there’s a bailout deal — oh, I guess I’ll go. All along, McCain’s trump card had been that Obama was too inexperienced to offer voters the stability the nation requires. That argument looks a lot shakier today.

Against all odds, again
If it persists until Election Day, that impression of volatility will particularly hurt McCain among women. Commentators frequently misunderstand the gender gap. Women voters actually don’t tend to be that much more liberal than male voters, as is commonly thought, but rather, historically speaking, they tend to be more risk averse. That is why Richard Nixon actually carried the female vote against John Kennedy in 1960.

Since then, however, with their threats to partially dismantle the welfare state, Republican presidential candidates have usually come across as riskier and more bellicose, thus appealing less to women than men.

Odium at the podium

STEVEN STARK — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:09:21 GMT

This year, with such a close contest, the debates could have an impact like never before. Here’s what to watch for.
In most presidential elections, the importance of the debates is over-rated.

In most presidential elections, the importance of the debates is over-rated. Most voters end up deciding that the winner of the debates is the candidate who they were already leaning toward. In fact, there have been only two campaigns — 1960 (Kennedy vs. Nixon) and 1980 (Carter vs. Reagan) — where the debates arguably changed enough minds to affect the outcome.

This year, however, the debates will likely have a profound impact on the election. Part of that is because this race is so close. But it’s mostly because — for the first time since 1928 — neither presidential candidate has any formal connection to an incumbent or a former administration. As a result, both Barack Obama and John McCain are still relatively unknown, and the impression they make in their three widely watched joint appearances will probably prove decisive.

Who will benefit the most from the debates? Apply these rules and you’ll know.

1) Debates are about memorable lines and key moments
What voters tend to recall are knockout lines and exchanges. This is especially true in that the media replays these moments again and again, reinforcing their importance.

In 1980, the headline replay was Ronald Reagan’s “There you go again,” and later, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” (which came in his closing summary, so voters could really remember it). In 1988, it was Lloyd Bentsen’s riposte to Dan Quayle, “You’re no Jack Kennedy.” Note that, in each case, the comment was short (the better to be rebroadcast on the news) and that two of these three comments were directed at the other candidate (rather than the audience), thereby highlighting the drama.

2) Gaffes take center stage
The annals of presidential debates are filled with far more instances of candidates who hurt themselves with their performances than help themselves. This helps explain why these joint appearances seldom end up moving many voters: the candidates are so afraid of making a mistake that they don’t take many chances, either.

What defines a debate gaffe? They’re not really factual mistakes, but instances when candidates reinforce the public’s worst fears about them. Gerald Ford’s description of Poland as “free” in 1976 confirmed for many that he might not be intellectually up to the presidency, just as Michael Dukakis’s professorial defense of his opposition to the death penalty (in answer to a question of what he’d do if his wife were raped or murdered) indicated to many that he was a member of the elite and out-of-touch with the common voter.

Blunt object

CHRIS FARAONE — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:06:06 GMT

The political fight over a November marijuana-reform ballot question has sparked a Battle of the Bong
Question 2 supporters claim Massachusetts district attorneys committed “at least 15 violations of Massachusetts campaign-finance and election laws” in the runup to the marijuana-decriminalization vote.

These days, Howie Carr is not the only smug bully stereotyping pot smokers as dangerously naive dingbats. With Election Day’s Question 2 ballot initiative threatening to reduce the penalty for less than one ounce of weed to a mere civil slap and $100 fine, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe is leading a coalition of the Commonwealth’s heaviest hitters — including the other 10 Massachusetts district attorneys, Governor Deval Patrick, Mayor Tom Menino, and Attorney General Martha Coakley — to stand united against marijuana reform. But, as the state’s fiercest civic power brokers are quickly finding out, the war over Question 2 is not your typical suits vs. stoners scrum.

Firstly, operatives with the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy (CSMP) are hardly Spicoli-styled dimwits. Together, they gathered signatures from more than 125,000 constituents representing all but one Massachusetts municipality (Mount Washington in the Berkshires) to actually get Question 2 on the November ballot. They’ve also raised nearly $650,000 since 2007, which is a major bummer for Question 2 opponents, who have stashed fewer than $28,000, and who resent CSMP’s feasting on out-of-state contributions, such as the $400,000 the committee received from billionaire Wall Street–tycoon-turned-liberal-activist George Soros.

The CSMP accuses O’Keefe’s organization (dubbed the Coalition for Safe Streets) of more than just openly opposing statistical evidence, scientific research, and the will of Massachusetts residents. In a press conference held outside the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse this past Thursday morning, CSMP Campaign Manager Whitney Taylor claimed the district attorneys committed “at least 15 violations of Massachusetts campaign-finance and election laws.” Among the alleged infractions: the Coalition for Safe Streets began accepting contributions and spending funds before it registered with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF), and the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association (MDAA) published lies about the CSMP initiative on its Web site.

“Their opposition statement against Question 2 promoted false statements about what the question would do if passed,” says Taylor, who stressed that CSMP is not a libertarian group looking to get high, but is instead seeking to minimize consequences for small-time offenders who are often denied access to student loans, housing, and employment due to Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) reports that are filed upon arrest. Currently, even first-time pot offenders are placed on probation.

Are universities selling out to oil nations?

HARVEY SILVERGLATE — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:16:28 GMT

As big bucks beckon, Gulf campuses of American universities are booming
As Academia searches for elusive dollars in a downward economy, oil-rich nations are enticing American schools to open satellite campuses in the Gulf.

Oil's well: American universities with Persian Gulf campuses. By Harvey Silverglate and Kyle Smeallie.

Old school? No way.
Dozens of elite American universities are establishing satellite campuses in the United Arab Emirates, a region with bottomless petro-dollars but — in the modern era — limited (if not restrictive) academic history and culture. Some of these campuses have the look and feel of an upscale theme park. The UAE University is the oldest institution in the country, established in 1976. Walt Disney World, in Florida, is five years older.

I arrived on the Princeton campus as a bewildered, Brooklyn-born-and-bred public-school product, suddenly thrust into the Class of 1964. The first week, at dinner in the freshman commons, I glanced across the 12-man table (it was only men in those days) to see two austere, well-dressed, neatly bearded undergrads. Overhearing their conversation with another student, I learned that the two fellows bore the last name al-Faisal. “Any relation,” I naively asked, “to the dictator of Saudi Arabia?” Promptly, both stood up and exited. It turned out that they were indeed members of the royal family; one, Prince Saud al-Faisal, would later become the long-serving minister of state for foreign affairs of Saudi Arabia.

For better or worse, this type of encounter will become increasingly more rare in the United States. That’s because foreign potentates, especially those from oil-rich sheikdoms, no longer need to send their children to this country to hobnob with the heathens (and boors) in order to acquire world-class degrees. Enticed by seemingly bottomless petro-dollars, American universities are flocking to the Persian Gulf to establish satellite campuses. And these aren’t the traditional study-abroad programs — they are, rather, elegantly designed campuses with state-of-the-art facilities that bear such prestigious names as Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, and New York University. Now, the well-born-and-bred children of well-heeled oil billionaires no longer have to wander far from the royal palace to do some learning — they can get an American degree right at home.

This development raises questions for universities involved in exporting education — indeed, whole campuses — to far-off very wealthy lands: how will a foreign branch affect the home campus? Will Western educational values clash with the very different cultures of these foreign states? Will certain subjects, such as humanities courses that challenge traditional views about academic freedom or gender roles, be taboo? Will earning a Georgetown degree in Qatar — not DC — require the same intellectual rigor and hard work? And, most fundamental, what is motivating American academic institutions to set up remote campuses in such seemingly unlikely places where a culture of learning as we know it has not exactly taken root? The answer tells us much about the trend toward the corporatization of American higher education.

Personally speaking

DEIRDRE FULTON — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:15:45 GMT

Abortion and Life tells whole truths
For decades, feminists have rallied behind the phrase “the personal is political,” meant to remind us that our personal lives are intrinsically affected by politics.

"I had an abortion: A Portland woman’s story," by Anonymous

"Where they stand: McCain and Obama on repro rights," by Deirdre Fulton

For decades, feminists have rallied behind the phrase “the personal is political,” meant to remind us that our personal lives (including our reproductive choices) are intrinsically affected by politics. Yet even while they remind society that public acts can penetrate private spheres, many members of the pro-choice movement still shy away from telling personal abortion stories, finding it more comfortable to talk about reproductive rights as intangible concepts rather than concrete situations.

This keeps the pro-choice cause stagnant, and struggling to be relevant to a wider audience. It also hurts women who have had abortions. Jennifer Baumgardner’s new book, Abortion and Life (Akashic Books) is one step toward shifting that paradigm, first by acknowledging that many people (feminists included) are still “afraid to discuss abortion in polite company,” and then by underscoring the importance of storytelling.

Part of the lingering stigma attached to abortion is based on anti-choice rhetoric and scare tactics. But just as insidious is the pro-choice movement’s reluctance to delve into the emotional nuance that comes with terminating an unplanned pregnancy. For example, it’s largely unacceptable for a pro-choice woman to be ambivalent about her own abortion (she would seem too vulnerable). Nor is it considered appropriate for a woman to express an excess of relief, or an outright absence of emotion, about the event (too callous). It’s as though women’s experiences of abortion have been passed through a filter for years, with only “on-message” stories allowed to reach the public. The results: a society that still considers abortion a clandestine act; a diverse group of women who feel both isolated and lumped together; and a movement that feels quite impersonal and manufactured, focused single-mindedly on a concept rather than a reality.

Enter Baumgardner’s “pro-voice” strategy, which started taking shape in 2004. That year, as a throwback to second-wave feminist efforts in the 1970s “to put a face on this diverse issue,” she made the first batch of T-shirts that read: “I had an abortion.” The T-shirts, distributed first at an abortion-rights march in Washington DC and then nationwide through Planned Parenthood, were wildly popular (and controversial) — more than she’d ever expected them to be — and indicated an untapped desire among women to destigmatize the abortion experience.

I had an abortion

ANONYMOUS — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:07:07 GMT

Forty percent of American women have abortions by the time they're 45. I'm one of them.
Does anyone think about us, the people who have actually gone through with an abortion, and accepted that it was the right decision, for whatever reason, at that time?

"Where they stand: McCain and Obama on repro rights," by Deirdre Fulton

"Personally speaking: Abortion and Life tells whole truths," by Deirdre Fulton

Every few months, the abortion debate comes back into focus in the mainstream media — like it did a few weeks ago, when the news broke of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, and her mother’s stance on abortion rights. That’s when I started feeling guilty, and angry.

The circumstances of my abortion were incredibly mundane. I was 19 years old, a junior at a college in Boston, deeply in love with my boyfriend (J.), and doing well in school. I worked full-time at our school newspaper, heading there daily after class and staying regularly past midnight. I was taking birth-control pills, but my schedule — which forced me to value every last moment of sleep — made me irresponsible about taking the pills at the same time every day. Sometimes I would miss doses entirely and take two in one day to make up for it. Occasionally, I would have (what I didn’t really think of as) unprotected sex; I believed I was protected not only by my inappropriately administered Ortho Tri-Cyclen, but also by young-adult invincibility.

I found out I was pregnant on a Sunday, thanks to a home-pregnancy test that I bought at CVS after discussing with J. that my period was late. I don’t remember being nervous about taking the test. But when I saw the results — positive — I left my dorm suite bathroom and literally crumpled to the floor just outside the door, weeping out of fear and for the decision I knew I would make.

I wasn’t ready to have a child. That’s it. Not financially, not emotionally. There was nothing else to think about. I called J., called Planned Parenthood, and scheduled my abortion for Halloween 2002.

My memories of that day are unformed. They aren’t fuzzy, or hazy, as people describe memories; I believe they literally never took shape. I know that we walked to the Planned Parenthood clinic across the street, and made our way past the protesters who stood — only a few strong — in a cluster outside the state-designated “buffer zone.” Inside, I found out that I was approximately six weeks pregnant. I know that a Planned Parenthood doctor gave me one RU-486 pill at the clinic, and another to take at home. (I’d decided to have a medical abortion, rather than a surgical one, because I thought it would be less physically painful and less invasive — more private. Also, I was within the eight-week time frame when it’s still an option.) She warned me that shortly after taking the second pill, I would experience some pain.

Sarah, get your AK-47

STEVEN STARK — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:00:50 GMT

The Alaska governor is dominating the election as we head into the fall — Why that is bad news for the Obama campaign
Ever since John McCain selected Sarah Palin to be his running mate, she has been the focus of the campaign.

Ever since John McCain selected Sarah Palin to be his running mate, she has been the focus of the campaign — whether it’s been igniting the GOP base or inviting parodies on Saturday Night Live (where Tina Fey, a real doppelgänger for the Alaska governor, kicked off the show’s season debut with a much-discussed impression this past weekend). Unfortunately, if you’re a Barack Obama partisan, this attention has played right into the Republicans’ hands, by taking focus off of both McCain and Obama.

By and large, voters will judge Palin to be qualified for the vice-presidency because historically they find almost anyone to be qualified for the vice-presidency. Like politicians, they don’t think much of the office. (James Nance Garner, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vice-president from 1933 to 1941, once compared the post to a “pitcher of warm piss.”) And, apart from standards for the office, Palin’s persona is the type that appeals to a large number of Americans.

Palin may not have much of a résumé, but that only puts her into a long tradition of vice-presidential selections, many of them successful (at least in an electoral sense). There was Republican Spiro Agnew in 1968, himself a one-term governor, who began his acceptance speech by saying, “I stand here with a deep sense of the improbability of the moment.” Or Barry Goldwater’s 1964 choice, obscure New York congressman Bill Miller, whose claim to fame was that he later went on to appear in an American Express commercial. (“Do you know me?” he began. No one did.)

Going back even farther, there’s Thomas Wheeler, a New York congressman who was the convention choice in 1876 to share the GOP ticket with Rutherford B. Hayes. When informed of the selection, Hayes asked, “Who is Wheeler?” Or Democrat Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana in 1912, who provoked the head of the ticket, Woodrow Wilson, to complain, “But he is a very small-caliber man!”

Is competence an issue? When Henry Gassaway Davis was put on the Democratic ticket in 1904, he was 80 and labeled “the reminiscence from West Virginia.” He entered the history books for his immortal analysis of the problems with fiction. He never read novels, he once said, because “the people in the stories are not real.” And perhaps the vice-president most relevant to Palin watchers today is Chester A. Arthur, who got to run as James A. Garfield’s number two in 1880 (and later acceded to the presidency), despite having gotten canned two years earlier as customs collector of New York for loading up the office with his buddies.

Fall preview 2008

PHOENIX STAFF — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:47:06 GMT

Your arts bible with sneak peeks at the best TV, movies, books, video games, and more

Murder in six degrees

MIKE MILIARD — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:10:13 GMT

Peter Ivers — pals with john Belushi to the Circle Jerks — was killed in 1983. A new book recalls his fascinating life — and mysterious death.
You’ve probably never heard of Peter Ivers.

SUBTLE PERFECTION: Peter Ivers was endlessly accomplished, with legions of devoted friends. Now, 25 years after his mysterious murder, the lost legacy of his life is being reclaimed.

Peter Ivers was freakishly gifted on the harmonica. None other than Muddy Waters, in the midst of a 1968 jam at Cambridge Blues Club, proclaimed him to be “the greatest harp player alive.” His debut album, Knight of the Blue Communion (Epic, 1969), is considered a forgotten masterpiece of outré psychedelia. As a student technical director and score writer at Harvard’s Loeb Theatre, he was close with such actors as John Lithgow, Tommy Lee Jones, and Stockard Channing. His best friend was Harvard Lampoon editor and (National Lampoon founder) Doug Kenney, who’d go on to co-write Animal House and Caddyshack. His band opened for Fleetwood Mac. He was asked by David Lynch to co-write “In Heaven (The Lady in the Radiator Song)” for Eraserhead. He was good pals with John Belushi and Harold Ramis. As co-creator of the LA-based UHF-format TV show New Wave Theatre, he brought punk bands, including Dead Kennedys and the Circle Jerks, into the living rooms of America.

You’ve probably never heard of Peter Ivers. But the Brookline-born, Roxbury Latin- and Harvard-educated free spirit — a sort of Zelig of the late-’60s-to-early-’80s pop-cultural scene, who was murdered in 1983 — was a one-of-a-kind talent, says Josh Frank, co-author, with Charlie Buckholtz, of In Heaven Everything Is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre (Free Press). “If anyone’s story deserves to be told, it’s Peter’s.”

Ivers was endlessly accomplished. He was well-loved by all who knew him, be they Hollywood high-rollers or bile-spitting punks. And his promise was snuffed out far too soon. “He did more in his 36 years than any pop star that gets press daily for brushing their teeth,” says Frank. “He inspired all of the top people from the world of film and TV and music. You name anybody, and they either knew Peter or their best friend knew Peter. And the reason he didn’t get a chance to shine was not because he was less talented than the others; in fact most of them would say, ‘Compared to Peter, I’d done nothing back then.’ But then he was murdered.”

‘What do we do, Starsky?’
On March 3, 1983, in an artist’s loft in a seedy section of Los Angeles, Peter Ivers was bludgeoned to death in his bed. Just hours later, not long after the LAPD had first arrived at the murder scene, the loft was descended upon by dozens of Ivers’s Hollywood friends.

Peacock problem

STEVEN STARK — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:35:06 GMT

MSNBC is in Barack's corner, which may cause an electoral backfire for the Democrats
A recent Rasmussen Report poll shows that about half the country thinks the press is out to get Sarah Palin, with a full quarter saying this makes it likelier they’ll vote Republican.

When Campaign 2008 began, few would have predicted that distrust of the mainstream media — especially NBC — might end up as one of the defining issues of the election. But it seems that the Peacock Network has unwisely painted itself into a corner, and that could actually hurt Barack Obama.

A recent Rasmussen Report poll shows that about half the country thinks the press is out to get Sarah Palin, with a full quarter saying this makes it likelier they’ll vote Republican. If that trend continues, it could have huge consequences.

Keith Olbermann and MSNBC are commonly recognized as the leaders of the pro–Barack Obama movement in the mainstream media (through no fault of Obama’s, by the way). It seems odd that a cable TV host, on a network with a relatively small audience, could help swing an election. And yes, NBC moved this week to rein him in, taking Olbermann and Chris Matthews off their hosting duties for live political events, including Election Night and the debates. And yes again, Olbermann’s self-declared enemy, Fox News, is often every bit as partisan as he is.

But in the age of YouTube and the Internet, even a cable host can have a large, instant impact, magnified by his critics. And what Olbermann and MSNBC are still doing may be helping the Republicans and many of the old supporters of Hillary Clinton unite in a common cause against an old target of populism: the press.

From its birth as an American political movement in the late 19th century, populism was loosely linked to the Democratic Party — the traditional home of the working classes — and party rhetoric and policy still assume that this state of affairs exists. But since the 1960s, the Democrats’ identification with the multiple rights revolutions — and with big government supported by high taxes — has allowed it to be increasingly portrayed as a defender of cultural elites, not the common man.

As populists drifted away from the Dems, distrust of the mainstream media became one of the movement’s strongest rallying cries, often overriding even distrust of government and large corporations. But while the Democratic Party was reliving its past glories, the Republicans heard this anti-media cry, and used it to their advantage.

Photos: March on the RNC

KATHY CHAPMAN — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:52:17 GMT

Protesters rallied in St. Paul

Thousands of antiwar protesters gathered at the Minnesota State Capital building for a rally before heading out on a march to the Xcel Energy Center site of the 2008 Republican National Convention. Over 10,000 people marched largely peacefully in the "March on the RNC" which wound its way through downtown St. Paul and past the barricaded Xcel Center.

“March on the RNC,” St. Paul, Minnesota
September 1, 2008
Photo credit: Kathy Chapman

Dawg days

STEVEN STARK — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:58:44 GMT

The 2008 campaign is turning out to be our first-ever American Idol election
Despite gains by blogs, podcasts, and social-networking Web sites, television is still our dominant mass medium.

Despite gains by blogs, podcasts, and social-networking Web sites, television is still our dominant mass medium — the entertainment source that most often sets the trends for everything else in our culture. What proves popular on its airwaves more than likely will play in Peoria — and everywhere else.

Thus, given the popularity of reality shows, it is no surprise that, in 2008, the nation is being treated to an American Idol election. The search for undiscovered electoral talent has led the Democratic Party to nominate Barack Obama, its least-experienced candidate in memory. And this past week, the Republicans trumped that exponentially by elevating Sarah Palin from the relative depths of political obscurity to the nation’s center stage.

Though the show has well-known British origins, there’s something very American about the Idol concept, as anyone who has ever come across a Horatio Alger story or watched one of the 35 Rocky movies can tell you. But until now, the Idol blueprint had extended only to other TV programs — it hadn’t entered our more hallowed political realm. (Frankly, I’m amazed it’s taken this long. Our politicians have always pretended to be more humble than they are, as anyone familiar with the career of corporate lawyer, a/k/a rail-splitter, Abe Lincoln knows.)

Today, politics are deemed above the pop-culture fray by the Sunday-morning talk-show set, but, for the rest of the country, they’ve been a branch of entertainment for years. Remember that, going back to the 1800s, politics was our national sport, with large cheering rallies, parades, and voting taking place in saloons.

Having television dictate our political trends is only an extension of that tradition, and it, too, is actually nothing new. The 1960 debates, right down to their format, were a direct rip-off of the quiz shows that had mesmerized the nation in the 1950s. It’s an odd concept that we should select a president based on an evaluation of who can stand behind a podium, in front of the cameras, and best answer questions. (That is, unless you’re so addicted to game shows that you can’t conceive of a better format.)

The only deviation we’ve really had in the configuration of those debates came courtesy of Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey, who popularized the idea in the ’80s that those in the studio audience, not the guests, were the real stars. So now in each election cycle we get one debate in which the audience gets to ask the questions and get some face time of their own.