I find this quote from Lewis Mumford's The City in History, rather sage with regard to Baltimore.
A multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly, at uniform distances, on uniform roads, in a treeless communal waste, inhabited by people of the same class, the same income, the same age group, witnessing the same television performances, eating the same tasteless prefabricated foods, from the same freezers, conforming in every outward and inward respect to the common mold.
Disbelieve him? Visit Federal Hill or parts of Canton and you'll same the exact same houses, occupied by the exact same type of people with only minor variations in detail among them. Not even the most cookie cutter of surburbs can match it.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Doublespeak on Dialogue
When someone preventively proclaims that "they don't dialogue with bigots," it is often code for "I don't dialogue with people who might know more than me" or "I don't dialogue with whom I disagree" but I will dialogue the lunatic fringe positions of those I disagree with because they are often wrong and easily debunked without a lot effort. Thus, I am allowed to feel superior.
Now there are exceptions, but you'll find them among the truly knowledgeable and important and not the run of the mill activist and armchair pundit.
Now there are exceptions, but you'll find them among the truly knowledgeable and important and not the run of the mill activist and armchair pundit.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Typical Liberal Behavior
Like a common liberal, she rails against the evils of the current system while quietly pocketing its benefits. Without doubt, given she cannot even muster up the ability the ability to boycott the Super Bowl, she and her fellow travelers lack the courage to refuse medical treatments developed through the use of animal testing even though companies would respond to such a boycott by developing alternative products as has been the case with the cosmetic industry and others. Assuming there is such a method. Or she'd rail against companies because they skipped Phase I clinical trials and released harmful chemicals that animal testing would have detected.
I'm going to avoid comment on her unfounded and simplistic idea that banning animal testing would reduce suffering in light of all the suffering that has been eased and prevented through the medical advances invented through the application of animal testing. It is largely an unknowable proposition until someone creates an objective measurement for suffering.
I am not totally cruel. While I believe legitimate medical testing on animals is needed, I personally think what I have dubbed "recreational testing" i.e. cosmetic testing should end. If you want doll yourself up like a common trollop to meet the patriarchal standards of beauty (i.e. get a man) than you should find out whether eyeliner singes your cornea though self experimentation.
Of course, like a common liberal I too rail against the system while quietly pocketing its benefits. I enjoy the view of women dolled up in the best available cosmetics and I am not going to kick an attractive women out of bed for wearing animal tested cosmetics. Unlike Elaine, however, I can recognize and concede my hypocrisy with mere modicum of self righteousness indignation.
I'm going to avoid comment on her unfounded and simplistic idea that banning animal testing would reduce suffering in light of all the suffering that has been eased and prevented through the medical advances invented through the application of animal testing. It is largely an unknowable proposition until someone creates an objective measurement for suffering.
I am not totally cruel. While I believe legitimate medical testing on animals is needed, I personally think what I have dubbed "recreational testing" i.e. cosmetic testing should end. If you want doll yourself up like a common trollop to meet the patriarchal standards of beauty (i.e. get a man) than you should find out whether eyeliner singes your cornea though self experimentation.
Of course, like a common liberal I too rail against the system while quietly pocketing its benefits. I enjoy the view of women dolled up in the best available cosmetics and I am not going to kick an attractive women out of bed for wearing animal tested cosmetics. Unlike Elaine, however, I can recognize and concede my hypocrisy with mere modicum of self righteousness indignation.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Ray Lewis Has a Union. Do You?
Only in America could a working class evolve that simultaneously watches unionized athletes get paid millions of dollars to play children games while unions are bad for them.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Zionism in Baltimore: A Bibliographic Essay
I am tapped out of writing ideas for this blog, so I'm going to dig into my old homework assignments and present to you a bibliographic essay I wrote regarding Zionism in Baltimore.
A little background is in order. The essay focuses on five locations in East Baltimore that had or have strong ties to Zionist history in Baltimore. It also has some pointers where if I (or someone else) could continue further research into Baltimore Zionist past. Enjoy.
Despite its size and importance, Baltimore’s Jewish community has never received the scholarly attention that matched either its size and importance to Jewish history or the Zionism movement. While Baltimore Jewish community has received some recognition for its contributions to the Zionist endeavor recognized, for the most part the story have Baltimore Zionism and involvement with the state of Israel has been have been marginalized and are rarely included in histories of these topics. The purpose of this essay is to guide to interested parties to the best works on the topics discussed during the walking tour.
Baltimore’s Jewish history is served well by three books. The first work is The Jews of Baltimore: A Historical Summary of their Progress and Status as Citizens of Baltimore From Early Days to the Year 1910 written by Isidore Blum and published in 1910. In 1973, Isaac Fein completed The Making of an American Jewish Community, which was updated history of the Jewish community in Baltimore and covered events that occurred in between the publication of that book and Blum’s. Additionally Fein book dealt more with the social aspects of the Baltimore Jewish community and the broader contexts that shaped and created it. Philip Kahn’s Uncommon Threads is the most recent book length history of Baltimore’s Jewish community. Published in 1989, it is a history of Baltimore’s Jewish community until the late 1980s. Each of the books should be read because their different points of focus, source selection, and the amount of time covered within them results in different information and views being imparted to the reader.
As one of the most important and famous Zionists from Baltimore, Henrietta Szold, has been the subject of much scholarly attention. The best short biographies of Szold are the Jewish Virtual Library’s and Henrietta Szold: A Baltimorean by Alexandra Levin. A more extensive biography of Szold is included within The Szolds of Lombard Street which was also written by Alexandra Levin. Despite his somewhat clumsy presentation, Marvin Lowenthal’s Henrietta Szold in Henrietta Szold: Life and Letters is a useful compilation of letters written by Szold. Marlin Levin’s Balm in Gilead: The Story of Hadassah is somewhat dated, but it is still the best history book- length history of Hadassah.
The most famous Baltimore contribution to the Zionist cause, The Exodus has been studied extensively. With a new edition having been recently released, Ruth Gruber’s Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation is an good account, but its primarily value is its photographs which help readers visualize the events that occurred on and around the Exodus saga. David C. Holly, Exodus 1947 is a ship-centric- history of the Exodus itself and gives an excellent accounting of the Exodus when it was the President Warfield. For the best overall history of the Exodus, Aviva Halamish’s, The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine cannot be overlooked. Halamish not only gives the story of the ship and its passengers but also explains the broader international context and challenges many of the popular misconceptions about the Exodus.
Because of their largely supplemental role in the labor movement, Workmen’s Circle, the Jewish Labor Committee, and other Jewish labor organizations have received short shrift from labor historians. Workmen’s Circle was never as large as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters, or the other brand name unions and it never engaged in major strikes. It primarily existed for workers’ education, mutual support, and to foster a secular, Jewish identity among its members. The Jewish Labor Committee was founded by Jewish members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the International Labor Garment Workers Union, and other trade unions. Prominent in the anti-fascist struggle, the Jewish Labor Committee, like Workmen’s Circle led few prominent labor actions or initiatives particularly after the Second World War.
Jewish labor organizations have not been totally forgotten. In 1936, Workmen Circle published The Workmen's circle; its history, ideals, organization and institutions by Maximilian Hurwitz. Judah Shapiro’s The Friendly Society is a sympathetic book that provides information the Workmen’s Circle organization’s view toward Zionism and its engagement with Israel. Chapter 5 of Mary McCune’s “The Whole Wide World, Without Limits: International Relief, Gender Politics, and American Jewish Women provides a good accounting of women’s involvement in the Workmen’s Circle. The Jewish Museum of Maryland has a substantial vertical file on Baltimore branches of the Workmen Circle including an overview of that organization’s history in Baltimore until the 1960s. A leading member’s wrote a history of the Workmen Circle lyceum on East Baltimore Street where much of the Baltimore’s Workmen Circle’s Zionist activity occurred.
For all the praise he received while alive, posthumously Samuel Neistadt slipped into the historic ether. The only published work with a significant amount of information about Neistadt is Walter Levine’s Fifty Year History of Alpha Omega Fraternity published in 1957 for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Alpha Omega dental fraternity which he founded. The Jewish Museum of Maryland possesses significant vertical and archival collections on Samuel Neistadt,
enough to complete an informative biography.
Outside of a series of interviews compiled into an oral history in Abel Wolman, His Life and Philosophy: An Oral History by Walter Hollander Jr. M.D, Abel Wolman has not received sustained scholarly notice from historians despite his a substantial body of published research in hydrology and substantial media attention. When a historian writes his biography, the Jewish Museum of Maryland’s vertical file has a large body of media coverage. His work for Baltimore City is documented in Baltimore City Archive and Johns Hopkins University has the bulk of his documents relating to his time as a faculty member there.
The buildings, structures, and locations of Baltimore’s Zionist movement and more broadly the Baltimore Jewish community languish in obscurity and are not commemorated. The Exodus memorial is the formal monument or marker dedicated to an event, person, or action taken by Zionists or the Zionist movement in Baltimore and the only other formal honoring or remembrance is Szold Drive which was named for Henrietta Szold.[1] The primary reason behind this destruction of Jewish culture was the construction of Flag House Courts and Lafayette Courts in 1956 and 1955 respectively. The construction of these housing projects gutted “Jew Town,” the Jewish neighborhood that once thrived in Jonestown.[2] Some of what survived this destruction was later destroyed. The Russian Night School building was demolished at an unknown date. The Bin Brith hall was leveled in 1998.[3] Given there is not a single labor site protected or marked off by the Commission on Historical Architecture and Preservation, it is not surprising that the Jewish labor’s involvement in Zionism is forgotten. There is a partial exemption to this - The Carroll Mansion where Samuel Neistadt is discussed on their house tour.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Baltimore was known as “Branch Office City” because its companies were bought out by larger national conglomerates or never developed. This tendency continues with the records of pertaining to the Baltimore Zionist movements. The bulk of the primary source collections are outside of Baltimore city. The archives of Hadassah and the Workmen’s Circle are located in New York City, but the bulk of collections relating to the Exodus specifically and Zionism generally are located in Israel. The only public collections of Zionist materials of any substantial value in Baltimore are held by the Jewish Museum of Maryland. In addition to the records described above, the Jewish Museum of Maryland has many of the working records of the Baltimore Zionist District, the Federation of American Zionists, early Zionist activities and the records of Baltimore chapters and branches of national and international movements such as Hadassah and Workmen’s Circle. The vertical files of the Enoch Pratt Free Library have many newspaper articles that serve as a nice complement to the JMM’s collection but it is hardly stand alone resource. Finally, the Carroll Mansion has newspaper articles on Samuel Neistadt on his Socialist Party and political activities not held by the Jewish Museum of Maryland, but most of its collections on Neistadt were copies provided to them by the Jewish Museum Within the mayoral files of the Baltimore’s City Archives are the proclamations in support of Israel or that encouraged Zionist activity, correspondence between mayors and Zionist institutions, and the written records that gave rise to mayoral actions in favor of Israel. These were not consulted because the subject matter they focused on simply fell outside of the scope of this tour.
Possible Expansion
Baltimore’s Jewish communities has a continuing commitment to Israel which will probably last as long as Israel exists and is faced with hostile neighbors believed to be an extensities threat. Some points for potential research are foundations. The Robert & Jane Meyerhoff Foundation and its namesakes have been major funders of projects in Israel. I did not have time to investigate this claim, but I have previously heard remarked that the Meyerhoff name is found on as many buildings in Israel as it is in Baltimore. The Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation has a giving focus on Israel and Jewish causes more generally.
Opposition to Zionism could also be an interesting point. Rabbi David Einhorn of Har Sinai is one of Baltimore’s most famous rabbis and was against the ideas Zionism promoted including a return to Israel. Among his writings was a prayer book titled Olat Tamid that was stripped of any reference to returning to Israel. There are also some news articles written about opposition to Zionism by some Baltimore Jews in the vertical file holdings of the Jewish Museum of Maryland.
The support of gentiles was also needed to secure the Zionist dream and Baltimore’s Zionists secured a great deal of it from Baltimore’s political elite. On the left side of the letter to Samuel Neistadt regarding his 1972 service award were a list of honorary chairman which including governors, mayors, congressmen, and other senior political figures. It would be most interesting and useful to others seeking political support to search the archives and memories of those involved and discover how this was accomplished.
[1] Carleton Jones, Streetwise Baltimore: The Stories Behind Baltimore Street Names, (Santa Monica CA: Bonus Books, 1991), 130
[2] Rhonda Y. Williams, The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women’s Struggles Against Urban Inequality, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
[3] Dean Krimmel, Jewish East Baltimore: A Walking Tour, (Baltimore: Jewish Museum of Maryland, 2000) 6
A little background is in order. The essay focuses on five locations in East Baltimore that had or have strong ties to Zionist history in Baltimore. It also has some pointers where if I (or someone else) could continue further research into Baltimore Zionist past. Enjoy.
Despite its size and importance, Baltimore’s Jewish community has never received the scholarly attention that matched either its size and importance to Jewish history or the Zionism movement. While Baltimore Jewish community has received some recognition for its contributions to the Zionist endeavor recognized, for the most part the story have Baltimore Zionism and involvement with the state of Israel has been have been marginalized and are rarely included in histories of these topics. The purpose of this essay is to guide to interested parties to the best works on the topics discussed during the walking tour.
Baltimore’s Jewish history is served well by three books. The first work is The Jews of Baltimore: A Historical Summary of their Progress and Status as Citizens of Baltimore From Early Days to the Year 1910 written by Isidore Blum and published in 1910. In 1973, Isaac Fein completed The Making of an American Jewish Community, which was updated history of the Jewish community in Baltimore and covered events that occurred in between the publication of that book and Blum’s. Additionally Fein book dealt more with the social aspects of the Baltimore Jewish community and the broader contexts that shaped and created it. Philip Kahn’s Uncommon Threads is the most recent book length history of Baltimore’s Jewish community. Published in 1989, it is a history of Baltimore’s Jewish community until the late 1980s. Each of the books should be read because their different points of focus, source selection, and the amount of time covered within them results in different information and views being imparted to the reader.
As one of the most important and famous Zionists from Baltimore, Henrietta Szold, has been the subject of much scholarly attention. The best short biographies of Szold are the Jewish Virtual Library’s
The most famous Baltimore contribution to the Zionist cause, The Exodus has been studied extensively. With a new edition having been recently released, Ruth Gruber’s Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation is an good account, but its primarily value is its photographs which help readers visualize the events that occurred on and around the Exodus saga. David C. Holly, Exodus 1947 is a ship-centric- history of the Exodus itself and gives an excellent accounting of the Exodus when it was the President Warfield. For the best overall history of the Exodus, Aviva Halamish’s, The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine cannot be overlooked. Halamish not only gives the story of the ship and its passengers but also explains the broader international context and challenges many of the popular misconceptions about the Exodus.
Because of their largely supplemental role in the labor movement, Workmen’s Circle, the Jewish Labor Committee, and other Jewish labor organizations have received short shrift from labor historians. Workmen’s Circle was never as large as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters, or the other brand name unions and it never engaged in major strikes. It primarily existed for workers’ education, mutual support, and to foster a secular, Jewish identity among its members. The Jewish Labor Committee was founded by Jewish members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the International Labor Garment Workers Union, and other trade unions. Prominent in the anti-fascist struggle, the Jewish Labor Committee, like Workmen’s Circle led few prominent labor actions or initiatives particularly after the Second World War.
Jewish labor organizations have not been totally forgotten. In 1936, Workmen Circle published The Workmen's circle; its history, ideals, organization and institutions by Maximilian Hurwitz. Judah Shapiro’s The Friendly Society is a sympathetic book that provides information the Workmen’s Circle organization’s view toward Zionism and its engagement with Israel. Chapter 5 of Mary McCune’s “The Whole Wide World, Without Limits: International Relief, Gender Politics, and American Jewish Women provides a good accounting of women’s involvement in the Workmen’s Circle. The Jewish Museum of Maryland has a substantial vertical file on Baltimore branches of the Workmen Circle including an overview of that organization’s history in Baltimore until the 1960s. A leading member’s wrote a history of the Workmen Circle lyceum on East Baltimore Street where much of the Baltimore’s Workmen Circle’s Zionist activity occurred.
For all the praise he received while alive, posthumously Samuel Neistadt slipped into the historic ether. The only published work with a significant amount of information about Neistadt is Walter Levine’s Fifty Year History of Alpha Omega Fraternity published in 1957 for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Alpha Omega dental fraternity which he founded. The Jewish Museum of Maryland possesses significant vertical and archival collections on Samuel Neistadt,
enough to complete an informative biography.
Outside of a series of interviews compiled into an oral history in Abel Wolman, His Life and Philosophy: An Oral History by Walter Hollander Jr. M.D, Abel Wolman has not received sustained scholarly notice from historians despite his a substantial body of published research in hydrology and substantial media attention. When a historian writes his biography, the Jewish Museum of Maryland’s vertical file has a large body of media coverage. His work for Baltimore City is documented in Baltimore City Archive and Johns Hopkins University has the bulk of his documents relating to his time as a faculty member there.
The buildings, structures, and locations of Baltimore’s Zionist movement and more broadly the Baltimore Jewish community languish in obscurity and are not commemorated. The Exodus memorial is the formal monument or marker dedicated to an event, person, or action taken by Zionists or the Zionist movement in Baltimore and the only other formal honoring or remembrance is Szold Drive which was named for Henrietta Szold.[1] The primary reason behind this destruction of Jewish culture was the construction of Flag House Courts and Lafayette Courts in 1956 and 1955 respectively. The construction of these housing projects gutted “Jew Town,” the Jewish neighborhood that once thrived in Jonestown.[2] Some of what survived this destruction was later destroyed. The Russian Night School building was demolished at an unknown date. The Bin Brith hall was leveled in 1998.[3] Given there is not a single labor site protected or marked off by the Commission on Historical Architecture and Preservation, it is not surprising that the Jewish labor’s involvement in Zionism is forgotten. There is a partial exemption to this - The Carroll Mansion where Samuel Neistadt is discussed on their house tour.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Baltimore was known as “Branch Office City” because its companies were bought out by larger national conglomerates or never developed. This tendency continues with the records of pertaining to the Baltimore Zionist movements. The bulk of the primary source collections are outside of Baltimore city. The archives of Hadassah and the Workmen’s Circle are located in New York City, but the bulk of collections relating to the Exodus specifically and Zionism generally are located in Israel. The only public collections of Zionist materials of any substantial value in Baltimore are held by the Jewish Museum of Maryland. In addition to the records described above, the Jewish Museum of Maryland has many of the working records of the Baltimore Zionist District, the Federation of American Zionists, early Zionist activities and the records of Baltimore chapters and branches of national and international movements such as Hadassah and Workmen’s Circle. The vertical files of the Enoch Pratt Free Library have many newspaper articles that serve as a nice complement to the JMM’s collection but it is hardly stand alone resource. Finally, the Carroll Mansion has newspaper articles on Samuel Neistadt on his Socialist Party and political activities not held by the Jewish Museum of Maryland, but most of its collections on Neistadt were copies provided to them by the Jewish Museum Within the mayoral files of the Baltimore’s City Archives are the proclamations in support of Israel or that encouraged Zionist activity, correspondence between mayors and Zionist institutions, and the written records that gave rise to mayoral actions in favor of Israel. These were not consulted because the subject matter they focused on simply fell outside of the scope of this tour.
Possible Expansion
Baltimore’s Jewish communities has a continuing commitment to Israel which will probably last as long as Israel exists and is faced with hostile neighbors believed to be an extensities threat. Some points for potential research are foundations. The Robert & Jane Meyerhoff Foundation and its namesakes have been major funders of projects in Israel. I did not have time to investigate this claim, but I have previously heard remarked that the Meyerhoff name is found on as many buildings in Israel as it is in Baltimore. The Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation has a giving focus on Israel and Jewish causes more generally.
Opposition to Zionism could also be an interesting point. Rabbi David Einhorn of Har Sinai is one of Baltimore’s most famous rabbis and was against the ideas Zionism promoted including a return to Israel. Among his writings was a prayer book titled Olat Tamid that was stripped of any reference to returning to Israel. There are also some news articles written about opposition to Zionism by some Baltimore Jews in the vertical file holdings of the Jewish Museum of Maryland.
The support of gentiles was also needed to secure the Zionist dream and Baltimore’s Zionists secured a great deal of it from Baltimore’s political elite. On the left side of the letter to Samuel Neistadt regarding his 1972 service award were a list of honorary chairman which including governors, mayors, congressmen, and other senior political figures. It would be most interesting and useful to others seeking political support to search the archives and memories of those involved and discover how this was accomplished.
[1] Carleton Jones, Streetwise Baltimore: The Stories Behind Baltimore Street Names, (Santa Monica CA: Bonus Books, 1991), 130
[2] Rhonda Y. Williams, The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women’s Struggles Against Urban Inequality, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
[3] Dean Krimmel, Jewish East Baltimore: A Walking Tour, (Baltimore: Jewish Museum of Maryland, 2000) 6
Thursday, January 8, 2009
What is The Carbon Footprint of a Condom?
Recently, the Vatican released a paper that blames female oral contraception aka “The Pill” for polluting the environment and reducing male fertility.
Casting aside the validity of these claims (not the point of this post), the question become- Is the alleged environmental harm caused by these drugs worse than the environmental harm that would have resulted if those people whom contraception prevented from being born had been born?" As the people over at VHEMT point out:
The primary point of this post is to point out that many of the environmental problems facing us today feature no bad guys, but are of the competing bad ideas of variety. Assuming the Vatican’s claim about the Pill is true, is it something that people will have to accept given the far worse alternative of increased human population and the population that will produce.
Casting aside the validity of these claims (not the point of this post), the question become- Is the alleged environmental harm caused by these drugs worse than the environmental harm that would have resulted if those people whom contraception prevented from being born had been born?" As the people over at VHEMT point out:
“Each new human we don't create is the equivalent of around 72 years of 100% recycling. We save over 50 years of car driving, avoid tons of pollution, and prevent the potential for an additional procreation 20 years later.”
The primary point of this post is to point out that many of the environmental problems facing us today feature no bad guys, but are of the competing bad ideas of variety. Assuming the Vatican’s claim about the Pill is true, is it something that people will have to accept given the far worse alternative of increased human population and the population that will produce.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
End Art Museum Welfare: Sell Off the Collections
In the art museum world, the greatest sin a museum can commit is to auction off part of its collection. Anything is better than selling off a piece of the collection: borrowing, panhandling (excuse me, fundraising), firing of staff, failing to perform basic, but non-art related maintenance, or jacking up admission rates. The only partially accept exemption to this is to deaccession a piece and then sell/transfer it to another institution.
The big fear is that once the precedent of auctioning off pieces from anything other than a collapsed or closed institution is established- governments, private donors, and those non-involved in the museum world will come to see this as the answer to any and all monetary problems. It is a legitimate fear. Museums like the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art have massive collections and upwards of half of these collections are not shown to the public for a lack of space. Some artwork goes years and even generations without public display. A museum can subsist on the bounty of a good sale for years. Over time, if not controlled, selling off art is very much a eating of the calf with the cow’s stomach phenomena as the museum will lose prestige, than donors, which will in turn led to government cuts and further pressure to sell more art. Lather, Rinse, Repeat, but with art not shampoo. Theoretically, it could lead to a closure.
Unfortunately, today’s economic crisis is great. Museum endowments have been taken out back and executed by the stock market declines. Private donors are unable to pick up the slack. The budgets of the state and city have fallen short. When this occurs, cultural expenses are often the first cut. It has already begun to occur. Many smaller institutions are facing cutbacks from the state and city. Grants are not been given out. Already granted grants are being reduced. Many institutions are going to start firing and cutting back hours of their staff.
A simple solution to all this is to cut all state and city aid to the big art museums and divert it to smaller institutions that often engage in far more useful things like education in real history. To pay for this, the BMA and Walters Art Museum will simply have to select one of their less use pieces and sell it to private collectors or raise their rates.
The big fear is that once the precedent of auctioning off pieces from anything other than a collapsed or closed institution is established- governments, private donors, and those non-involved in the museum world will come to see this as the answer to any and all monetary problems. It is a legitimate fear. Museums like the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art have massive collections and upwards of half of these collections are not shown to the public for a lack of space. Some artwork goes years and even generations without public display. A museum can subsist on the bounty of a good sale for years. Over time, if not controlled, selling off art is very much a eating of the calf with the cow’s stomach phenomena as the museum will lose prestige, than donors, which will in turn led to government cuts and further pressure to sell more art. Lather, Rinse, Repeat, but with art not shampoo. Theoretically, it could lead to a closure.
Unfortunately, today’s economic crisis is great. Museum endowments have been taken out back and executed by the stock market declines. Private donors are unable to pick up the slack. The budgets of the state and city have fallen short. When this occurs, cultural expenses are often the first cut. It has already begun to occur. Many smaller institutions are facing cutbacks from the state and city. Grants are not been given out. Already granted grants are being reduced. Many institutions are going to start firing and cutting back hours of their staff.
A simple solution to all this is to cut all state and city aid to the big art museums and divert it to smaller institutions that often engage in far more useful things like education in real history. To pay for this, the BMA and Walters Art Museum will simply have to select one of their less use pieces and sell it to private collectors or raise their rates.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Men: The Experts at Childbirth
I found this post over at the Homebirth Debate amusing. It seems that all the child birthing practices popular with womyn, feminists, hippies, anti-corporate types, and the rest who oppose modern obstetrics have all been invented by men. The list on the site is as follows:
Grantly Dick Read
Michel Odent
Fernand Lamaze
Frederick LeBoyer
Robert Bradley
The author fails to mention, but the primary and most famous proponent of midwifery in America is another man- Marsden Wagner. Hell, obstetrics is largely male to this day.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that women have not invented a useful child birthing procedure in centuries. Certainly nothing that has had the impact of Lamaze or Dick-Read's work.
In short, if men gave birth, we'd do it right.
Grantly Dick Read
Michel Odent
Fernand Lamaze
Frederick LeBoyer
Robert Bradley
The author fails to mention, but the primary and most famous proponent of midwifery in America is another man- Marsden Wagner. Hell, obstetrics is largely male to this day.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that women have not invented a useful child birthing procedure in centuries. Certainly nothing that has had the impact of Lamaze or Dick-Read's work.
In short, if men gave birth, we'd do it right.
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