Ad Reinhardt, “Red and Blue Composition” (1941)
Ad Reinhardt, “Red and Blue Composition” (1941)
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Ante Up
I like to play poker. And not because I got drawn into the highly edited drama of Texas Hold `Em at the World Series of Poker on ESPN, or because I saw some big breasted pin-up playing in a celebrity heads-up tournament.
I like playing poker because I’ve always liked playing poker. I began as a small boy, playing War, Old Maid, and Steal the Old Man’s Bundle with my immigrant grandmother; I got initiated into the harder stuff when my father dealt me a game of 52 Pick-Up; and I learned the holy trinity of poker from him shortly thereafter.
Crisis Pregnancy Centers: A Testimonial
The following is a testimonial from a former student of mine. While she has chosen to remain anonymous because of the very personal nature of the piece, I can assure you that she is real, as are the events she describes. Comments or questions to can be left for her at the site or sent to her through me via email: thepublicprofessor@gmail.com.
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Abortion Foes Choose Propaganda
Domestically, the 1976 Hyde Amendment bars Medicaid from funding abortions for its indigent patients. The details of that bill have fluctuated over the years, but its current form makes exceptions for rape, incest, or if the pregnancy endangers a woman’s life. During the 1980s, subsequent bills banned federal funding of abortions for women receiving healthcare from a variety of federal institutions including the Indian Health Service, federal penitentiaries, the military, the Peace Corps, disabled women on Medicare, and all federal employees.
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Why I’m a Rangers and Knicks Fan
distant second, and basketball and hockey were largely irrelevant. They seemed like sports for doing, not watching. I had a one of those rubberized Spalding basketballs with a David Thompson signature; just a plain leather colored one, alas, not the red, white, and blue ABA model. I also had a street hockey stick (Bobby Clark) with a bright orange plastic-blade. I didn’t know Thompson was a former number one overall pick of both the ABA and NBA. Didn’t even know who Clark was. Eventually someone mentioned something about the Flyers. All I knew is that it was fun now and again to shoot some hoops and whack shit with a stick. Now that I’m older, football has leapfrogged baseball, garnering the lion’s share of my attention, but that’s mostly because I like to gamble (shhhhh!). Basketball and hockey are still way behind, duking it out for a distant third, that is, when I’m not watching a boxing match. But when it comes time to pay attention to hockey and basketball, I do throw my support behind the Rangers and Knicks, even if it’s lackadaisical, so lets clear the air on why.
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Identity Politics in the 21st Century
In Tuesday’s post I offered a very brief historical overview of identity politics in America, from the Revolution up to the 1990s. I made the case that they are nothing new, and I gently admonished the worry warts who had fretted that so-called hyphenated Americas were tearing apart America’s social fabric. Today, with tongue partly in cheek, I offer a personal interpretation of American identity politics here in
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American Identity Politics: Pluribus v. Unum
decried. “The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.” The issue girding identity politics in Roosevelt’s time was foreign immigration. Immigrants had been washing over America’s shores by the millions for 35 years when TR gave his speech at a Knights of Columbus meeting in New York City, to an audience comprised mostly of Irish immigrants no less. But identity politics in American history go back much further than that. Historians, though they don’t necessarily use the term in this context, are keenly aware that Andrew Jackson’s rise to the presidency came as he rode a wave of unprecedented identity politics. Although their candidate was a wealthy land speculator who owned a cotton plantation nearly two square miles in size and over 150 slaves, Jackson’s campaign presented him as an every man. They starkly contrasted him against and even mocked the well-heeled, blue blood elitism of his main rival, John Quincy Adams.
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