Good morning,
A potpourri today…
THE GRAMMYS
Hard to care much less about these than I do. That said, I am taken with several factoids:
Jay-Z took time on stage to admonish the academy for not having awarded a “Best Album” award to his wife, Beyonce. Never mind that she has hauled in 32 Grammys to date. The not-so-veiled inferences were a bias against both women and Blacks. A strange observation this year, the awards this year predominantly were a celebration of women pursuing the craft or that Black artists increasingly grace the stage.
Taylor Swift took the stage and immediately switched from grateful awardee to shameless self-promoter, telling her fans about the upcoming surprise release of her upcoming album. How’s this for marketing: “I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years…”
Swift won her fourth Album of the Year, making her the “winningest” in that category. She has now eclipsed the three-time winners—Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, and Paul Simon. I’m just going to say it and demonstrate how out of it I apparently must be, but how in the world does this young woman, whose career arc in songwriting has moved from teen angst to 20 and 30-something ennui, singing of lost love, outshine the versatile Wonder, the greatest singer of his generation, and the multi-talented mixed-genre, risk-taking Paul Simon?
The CEO of the Academy mentioned the Hamas murders at the Tribe of Nova festival in Southern Israel. At least 360 people died. Someone remembers and provided a reminder of what will be a day that, to invoke FDR, will live in infamy.
GO NIKKI
While I can’t agree with much about her platform, I applaud Nikki Haley for helping to “tenderize” Donald Trump before the general election goes into full swing. The more he is distracted from attacking Biden and the more opportunities for Haley to taunt Trump (I wish she had started earlier), the more people can see the ranting, unbalanced lunatic who is about to be anointed by the Republican party for a third presidential run—a record exceeded only by FDR as a Democrat. Of course, FDR won the popular vote four times, while Trump, regardless of the electoral count this November, will likely be a three-time popular vote loser.
NUANCE
People don’t fit neatly into the convenient categories of “victim” and “victimizer.” It is possible that a people is neither or both.
As much as one can claim Israel is the “toxic fruit” of the colonizing west,” let’s just remember that 20% of Israel is Arabic and over 50% of the Jews do not come from Europe—but from the Middle East—from which they have been ethnically cleansed. Beliefs are complicated by facts.
SEXTING
Should the Internet be a place where sexually explicit images are shared broadly—with anyone who happens to be on line? More importantly, should they be available to teens?
Forget about being the recipient of such images. How about their being the actual images themselves? According to a study by the Journal of Adolescent Health, some 19.3% of all adolescents sent nude images of themselves, while 34.8% report receiving such images. Perhaps most disturbing is that 14.5% reported forwarded such images without permission.
With all the technology we have available to sort and identify photographs (your phone does a remarkable job at this), it shouldn’t be too difficult to sort out, say, penis shots. It also likely is possible to estimate the age of the person in an image. I have little doubt that, if the Internet companies and the moguls who control them wanted to address this problem, a solution would be on its way with the latest software update.
But so long as these publishers and republishers are protected by an outdated and absurd law that absolves them from liability, and Congress is in the thrall of lobbyists and money, there is little incentive to do anything about this scourge.
THE TAYLOR SWIFT CONTROVERSY
The Trump MAGA crazies never pass on an opportunity to imagine there’s a conspiracy. They apparently believe that the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce romance is a conspiracy. Yes, apparently they are worried that the entire romance was fabricated in order to make a big splash with an endorsement of President Biden—possibly this summer or possibly near the Super Bowl.
I don’t know why the right is so worried. So what if Biden has Taylor Swift? After all, Trump has Kid Rock and Kanye!
QUOTE OF THE MOMENT
From Bill Maher: “Most marginalized people live better lives because of western ideas—not despite them.”
Have a great day,
Glenn
I liked how African Giant (Burna Boy) was able to produce that amount of fantastic performance over a zero-award taken home.