House Hearing on Home-grown Terrorism (read Muslim per Rep. Peter King – R-NY) happening now on Capital Hill. No comment until I see how this is going to shake down. The whole idea, attitudes, make up, and motives of the people asking the questions are questionable. But some interesting information may come from it. Teaching moment? Will there be mention of the arrest of a man linked with a white supremacist group who planted a bomb on the route of the MLK, Jr. parade in Spokane, WA? We’ll see.
My good friend, Talat Hamdani (Sal Hamdani’s mother) is sitting behind Keith Ellison (his right). This woman has dedicated her life to taking a stand that Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country.
I encourage Rep King and others to conduct their research and carry out whatever hearings deemed in the interest of our country and our safety. There ARE detached and unrepresentative elements among us Muslims that need to be weeded out – the world over.
But it is a disgrace in American history, just like the persecutions of countless other seemingly threatening “others” (minorities) in our past, to have King look into this as though a potential epidemic needs to be stemmed and a stigma need be applied to the word “Muslim”.
Facing backwards I see the past
Our nation gained, our nation lost
Our sovereignty gone
Our lands gone
All traded for the promise of progress
What would they say….
What can we say?
Facing future I see hope
Hope that we will survive
Hope that we will prosper
Hope that once again we will reap the blessings of this magical land
For without hope I cannot live
Remember the past but do not dwell there
Face the future where all our hopes stand
—Israel Kamakawiwo ‘Ole
Hawaiian musician (1959 – 1997)
I’m one of those who believe that you can go home again just not quite the same way you left. It was the late playwright Wendy Wasserstein who gave some sound advice: Never throw away your first draft. It’s where your heart felt ideas are expressed.
Somehow the first draft of priorities, “jobs” was replaced with the second draft, “budget cuts.” The President’s weekly attempts to bring the two together with the symbolic gesture of meeting with Jeb Bush at a school in Florida as a visual reminder of the balancing act involved:
Getting our fiscal house in order can’t just be something we use as cover to do away with things we dislike politically. And it can’t just be about how much we cut. It’s got to be about how we cut and how we invest. We’ve got to be smart about it. Because if we cut back on the kids I’ve met here and their education, for example, we’d be risking the future of an entire generation of Americans. And there’s nothing responsible about that.
The debate on the nation’s budget as something to cut vs something to structure has been confusing at best and ruthless at worst. Deficits are real but so is the current reality that jobs are not plentiful, employment does not guarantee 10 or 20 year careers, and benefits will demand more from a paycheck than they provide.
So here we have farmers bringing their tractors to the Wisconsin state house Saturday, March 12 in support of the state workers who have been protesting for several weeks according to this Facebook announcement. Here’s an excerpt of what the post says.
Rural communities will be disproportionately hurt by the cuts to education and badgercare, and farmers in Wisconsin stand with state workers, and all working and middle class families in the state.
I can’t help but connect the late Israel Kamakawiwo ‘Ole’s quote with the 2008 campaign message of Barack Obama, also a native of Hawaii. After serving 3 years in the White House can this President go home again with the message of hope?
Rio, Mobile Alabama, New Orleans, Trinidad Tobago, Venice, Quebec City, Sydney, Belgium, Germany….Last party day before Lent. Here’s a clip from my friend Philip Day’s documentary “Inside Rio Carnival.”
ACTORS,DIRECTORS, PRODUCERS
The Department of Radio, TV & Film at Howard University presents CASTING AND AUDITIONING FOR YOU: THE DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, & ACTOR
Presented by noted acting coach and teacher VERA J. KATZ
(Former students include Taraji P Henson, Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad, & Isaiah Washington)
THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2011, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
School of Communications, Screening Room West
525 Bryant St., NW, Washington, DC
COST: $25.00 GENERAL ADMISSION for all attendees
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: 3/09/11
REGISTER IN RTVF OFFICE C 230
Workshop participants will:
• Study acting and directing theory/techniques
• Perform in small groups and execute scene work
• Receive constructive feedback
• Have a great time!
For more info, call (202) 806-4507 or (202) 806-7927; Fax (202) 806-4844 or e-mail ssmunir@howard.edu
Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC through May 30, 2011
Venice is on my destination list. Being there for carnival would be even sweeter. For now, there’s this exhibit of Venetian painters. The gallery also has a rare 19th century gondola on display.
Description: Venice inspired a school of competitive view painters whose achievements are among the most brilliant in 18th-century art. The exhibition celebrates the rich variety of these Venetian views, known as vedute, through some 20 masterworks by Canaletto and more than 30 by his rivals, including Michele Marieschi, Francesco Guardi, and Bernardo Bellotto. Responding to an art market fueled largely by the Grand Tour, these gifted painters depicted the famous monuments and vistas of Venice in different moods and seasons.
Center Stage in Baltimore presents reading of stage adaptation “Jazz” based on the novel by Toni Morrison”
Thursday, March 17, 8pm through Sunday, March 20, 2011, 8pm
Center Stage, 700 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD
Marion McClinton has taken what I thought was a confusing novel/narrative and crafted a play as part of Center Stage’s new Play Lab. Sometimes a dramatist can identify a sustaining thread in a story. McClinton is associate artist, and veteran actor and director at Center Stage. Actors Tracie Thoms and Clayton LeBeouf will read. Center Stage has just hired a new Artistic Director, British playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah. Read more on that in the Baltimore Sun.
For information about the “Jazz” readings, call 410-332-0033. Tickets available from Center Stage at this link.
Edward Albee Festival – Arena Stage
30 plays by Edward Albee some on stage, some staged readings. Here are a few highlights:
Mon., Mar. 7, 7:30 p.m. and Tue., Mar. 8, 7:30 p.m. Lolita (1981) Adapted from the novel by Vladimir Nabokov
Producer: Round House Theatre
Director: Blake Robison
Two acts; 120 min
Sometime professor Humbert Humbert falls in love with Lolita, the prepubescent daughter of his landlady. After marrying her mother to get close to her, “HH” pursues a passionate but conflicted relationship with the girl. Albee’s adaptation includes a narrator who speaks to HH and to the audience in the voice of an author — perhaps Nabokov, perhaps Albee himself.
Tue., Mar. 8, 6 p.m. and Wed., Mar. 9, 6 p.m. Finding the Sun (1982)
Producer: Univ. of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies
Director: Erin Bone Steele
One-act; 45 min
Short scenes of eight people at the beach and their triangles of relationship: Abigail is married to Benjamin, who’s involved with Daniel, who’s married to Cordelia, who’s …
Fri., Mar. 11, 6:30 p.m. Box (1968) and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1968)
Director: Aaron Posner
Double bill; 45 min
Two explorations of musical patterns in drama: in Box, a woman’s voice speaks in short, timed bursts about a range of ideas: building design, languages, arts and crafts, corruption, spilled milk, seagulls and the sounds of the sea. In Quotations, Chairman Mao speaks of the rise of Communism and the defeat of American capitalism; a Long-Winded Lady addresses a government minister about an incident in which she fell off the side of an ocean liner; an Old Woman recites a poem.
Fri., Mar. 11, 7:30 p.m. The Death of Bessie Smith (1959)
Director: Irene Lewis
One-act; 45 min
A fictionalized series of scenes showing different perspectives on the events surrounding the death of jazz legend Bessie Smith. Based on what were eventually discovered to be apocryphal rumors about Bessie Smith’s death.