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Say what you will about Kim Davis, the small-town Kentucky court clerk who was recently martyred into a prison cell for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. George Takei, social media's superstar, had some choice - and educational - words on the subject.
While he aptly points out that Davis's religious stance has no merit in civil servitude, he also addresses the media circus surrounding Davis and the conservative pundits who regard her as a modern-day Rosa Parks.
The absurdity of comparing a private citizen like Parks, standing her ground to move a nation forward, to an elected government figure abusing her place to turn back the clock, is barely worth mentioning. I don't want to give the Extreme Right any ideas, but I'm surprised few have mentioned the bevy of court clerks and government officials, including Pennsylvania's own Bruce D. Haines and Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who refused to uphold their own sworn duties on behalf of progress.
Perhaps the Right knows the difference, and knows that attempting to draw a parallel would only expose the fact that those like Kane and Haines were standing their ground to extend rights to more citizens, not to encroach upon those rights under the unconstitutional context of religion.
Whatever the case, Takei drew a profound parallel between Kim Davis and a character from the Civil Rights Movement, and it wasn't Rosa Parks, it was George C. Wallace. But Davis isn't Wallace. Wallace was a cunning politician, a monster, really. Our comic book villains wouldn't be nearly as enthralling if they weren't so smart, and Wallace was one of them. The Alabama governor who infamously blocked black children attempting to enroll in recently integrated schools was a savvy politician. Once endorsed by the NAACP, Wallace found more success in politics by dropping the N-bomb than embracing integration in the Deep South.
As evil as you might think Kim Davis to be, she's a small-town court clerk with a spotty history plagued by divorce and infidelity, and she found a new sense of being through religious devotion. She's also not accustomed to the spotlight and, after landing on the splash page of every major news outlet in the world, was spoon-fed a to-do list by a powerful group of mercenaries using her for their own political gains.
Kim Davis is no George Wallace. She's not devious enough, and probably not evil enough. She's flawed, she made an errant judgement, and when that judgement hit the press, the Extreme Right nailed her to the cross of their own self righteousness and paraded her through the streets like a puppet.
Look, I'm as gay as they come, in that I'm a dude who digs dudes. But I'm also a human being, and as much as I shouldn't say it, I feel bad for Kim Davis. Not because of the scrutiny she's receiving for defying a Supreme Court order, not even because she was sent to jail. But because she's being scapegoated by the Left as everything that is still wrong with this country, and crucified by the Right as a martyr.
The real muck, the real evil, the real bad-guys, are the politicians holding her hand. Those spinning her, brainwashing her and her fans into believing they're trailblazers that history will only remember as nothing but bigots.
There is a fallout zone surrounding great shifts in social order, and the collateral damage isn't solely heaped on the formerly oppressed. There are those who are detached, confused, and uninformed, those like Kim Davis who need time to adjust to the change. The real monsters are those who exploit that confusion to incite fear for their own personal gain. The Huckabees and the Cruzs, the hypocrites like Wallace who pander to the sheltered and promise that change and tolerance is something to be feared.
I'd like to share a beer with Kim Davis, and all the Conservatives who've been groomed to believe that same-sex marriage is un-American. It's unfortunate that in an age where "bully" is a Leftist buzzword, the Leftist press is so quick to corral small-town Americans into a corner and beat them to a preverbal pulp. If we could all just share a few drinks with each other, we'd all be better people.
I grew up in the South. I was born in Birmingham. I went to a small college that happened to be in the last county in the United States to cede integration, and the lingering effects of political exploitation are evident in Prince Edward County, VA to this day. But being a Southern born and raised gay guy, I've had the pleasure of meeting plenty of people like Kim Davis, people with principles - fractured as they might be - who've gone on to form new religious convictions that accompany those of us that they came to realize - through knowing us - are human: good, bad, and flawed like everyone else.
Kim Davis is probably a very nice lady who's never been friends with a gay guy or a lesbian, and because of the press that lauds her, scrutinizes her, and the the politicians that abuse her, she probably never will. If she did, she'd be a better person. To borrow a line from a famous movie, "Sometimes all it takes is a fairy."
The world of art is a curious landscape. Once fraught with talent and skill, the 20th Century lowered the bar and it continues to sink into the mud. Still, history is full of crap. We only remember the best. Time will determine if anyone will remember Millie Brown's milk-vomit paintings.
And there's really nothing inherently wrong with producing crap and passing it off as art. If you're inventive enough to find a market of socialites willing to part with $100,000 for a shellacked turd, by all means. Passing a blank canvas off as a million dollar message about loneliness or waste or whatever doesn't make you a villainous person, it just makes you a hack, and your clients morons. The threshold for mediocrity is beginning to fade and audiences are slowly recognizing a desire for something, anything, better.
The true demons in the art world are those who can't claim to be artists at all. Let me introduce you to Richard Prince, if the internet hasn't already. This charlatan has been "re-appropriating" the artwork of others since the 1970s. In other words, he takes a photograph of a photograph, tweaks it a bit, and then claims it his own.
When Shia LaBeouf released a graphic novel by David Clowes as his own "original" movie, he was briefly exiled to obscurity, only to resurface with an apology he lifted directly from Yahoo! Answers. But despite what was either a misguided publicity stunt of just sheer stupidity, The Beouf was faced with the costly consequences of plagiarism.
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| The Thief |
Yet somehow Richard Prince has evaded the consequences of both plagiarism and a complete lack of talent for four decades. His most recent collection is "New Portraits," a title that is both boringly ironic and painfully unoriginal, featuring "original" screenshots from the Instagram feeds of talented and mostly nameless photographers.
What's almost as disgusting as Prince's blatant disregard for originality and his penchant for copyright loopholes is the fact that New York's Gagosian Gallery ran the exhibit for a month. Not only that, one was purchased for $90,000! His work has even been featured at and praised by the goddamn Guggenheim?! Honestly, what the fuck is wrong with people?!
And that is all bad enough to make Richard Prince perhaps the single worst person to weasel his way into the art world. Talentlessness, thievery, manipulation, and greed: these are all despicable traits. But what truly makes Richard Prince barely human is his undeserved ego and precise understanding that he is stealing. His own attitude towards his work is borderline sociopathic: "Copyright has never interested me."
Well, copyright isn't designed to interest thieves who molest the talented work of others and then capitalize upon it, it's to protect the victims from people like Richard Prince.
Maybe it's the Polar Vortex, or maybe it's just Philadelphia. But move over, Mayfair Swiss Cheese Pervert, there's a new whack job in town: The Pennsauken Fried Chicken Jacker.
The 34 year old New Jersey resident was arrested this morning after crashing his Toyota into the Crown Fried Chicken at 5th and Lehigh, then getting out of his car, disrobing, and...pleasuring himself.
You can watch the video at PhillyMag.com, which is obviously NSFW. He was drunk, and arrested for an obvious DUI, but I have a hunch something else was in his system. Angel dust, bath salts? I guess Florida is on a winter hiatus and we've taken the reigns.
Thank you, Former Philadelphia Public School Superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, for reminding us all how many shady public figures there are in our region with absolutely zero regard for those they're hired to serve.
GREED
Arlene Ackerman eclipses Wall Street's abuse of the word. Getting rid of this money grubbing cow was a train wreck. She left her post with a $629M debt, and now she's making sure she maximizes the School District's strapped situation by sucking every cent possible out of it.
Let's break down the basics:
- We The People paid Ackerman $905,000 to go away.
- She had accumulated $86,700 in unused vacation time.
- Arlene Ackerman is now sitting on a check from the state for $991,700.
- That's not including her annual salary of $346,00.
Now, are you ready for this?
SHE HAS FILED FOR UNEMPLOYMENT.
Arlene Ackerman: the official who extorted almost a million dollars from taxpayers despite leaving her post more than half a billion dollars in debt.
Arlene Ackerman: the highest paid public official in the city of Philadelphia, despite hundreds of layoffs on her watch.
Arlene Acekerman: uncaring, unemployed in every sick sense of the word, and completely, un-apologetically, and 100% un-human.
I try to steer clear of conventional politics here at Philly Bricks, but when our civil servants control what happens to our bricks, it's hard not to go down that road. A new monthly post, Barely Human, will shine a spotlight on our most institutionally corrupt elected and appointed officials. I'm not just talking about your average pay to play politicians or career council members, but the real sleaze that have become so out of touch with the reality of their job, that they honestly believe their behavior is not only ethical, but the professional norm.
Sadly, Philadelphia employs enough cretins to warrant a daily rant, but that would just get depressing.
I'm going to start with a feisty piece of shit that has been in office since Philadelphia's heyday of self destruction. Marge Tartaglione is our 78 year old City Commissioner seeking a tenth re-election. When interviewed by Philadelphia Weekly regarding her absence, she repeatedly fired back, "No comment," "No comment," with a "none of your business" thrown in to make sure everyone realizes what belligerent trash she really is.
As if that's not obvious. She just cashed a $288,000 check from the controversial DROP program, a perk she received for her "retirement" which lasted for a day in 2008. Recovering from open heart surgery, the great-grandmother in charge of city elections makes John McCain look like a spring chicken.
Age isn't the only reason Tartaglione deserves to be flushed with the rest of the bureaucratic cronies using our tax dollars to wipe their ass, she doesn't breed well either. Her daughter, Renee, was forced to resign from her mother's staff by the Board of Ethics. Renee's husband, Carlos Matos, another Philadelphia gem, is a former ward leader now in prison for bribery.
Her record speaks classic Philadelphia corruption too. In 1994, after two decades of experience, a judge ruled that she didn't follow the proper absentee ballot protocol. The same shenanigans may have been responsible for David Oh's loss of the 2007 City Council election to career Councilman Jack Kelly.
Philly.com put together a timetable of Tartaglione's outbursts throughout her career. In 1980, five years after she began, she got into a fistfight with Councilwoman Joan Krajewski. In 1988 she knocked a cigar from ward leader Norman Loudenslager's mouth, accusing him of writing a nasty note about her. In 1999 she charged at Carol Ann Campell like a bull in Pamplona. The next day she hit aide Ken Boggi in the face after allegedly sending one of her goons after him. And just last December she threatened a Philadelphia Weekly reporter after being questioned about her daughter's resignation. She's obviously aging. Her staff got quiet during the last altercation when the Philadelphia Weekly's reporter responded to her threat, essentially telling her to bring it.
Marge Tartaglione is not only out of touch with her voters and what the city wants. She's unpredictable, unprofessional, and unstable, and it's apparent that she will make your career disappear if you don't dance with her. It's how business was done when she started, and in her mind, perhaps it is still 1975. She continues to employ her immoral, antiquated actions under the delusion that she is doing nothing unethical. And that, Marge Tartaglione, is what makes you Barely Human.
Marge Tartaglione can be contacted at the City Commissioner's Office:
City Hall, Room 130
215-686-3460
215-686-3461
