NINE-SEVEN-NINE! / Knockout!

I was quite thrilled when ESPN decided to renew its 30 For 30 series.* The first installment offered a lot of illumination on some oftentimes told and other times not-as-often told stories from the world of sports folklore. The second film in the second series is a particularly salient one for me as a sports fan.

*Although I’m bit puzzled at how one keeps the name when the 30th anniversary of ESPN is long gone and we’re past 30 films…why not just call it “The ESPN Films Series?” Also the whole ”what if I told you” ad campaign strikes me as a bit inane as the question always seems to pose as a grand philosophical query yet usually precedes something of faux profoundness.

9.79* revisits the most famous 100 metre dash in history– possibly one of the five most famous events ever in Olympic history– that occurred at the 1988 Olympics.

Atlanta remains un-united

This is salient because it was the first Summer Olympics I ever watched. Thus I watched the Ben Johnson scandal through the eyes of a naïve Canadian fanboy, for lack of a better way of putting it. 24+ years later, the ever-developing nuances of the story fascinate me far more than the original 10 seconds of drama ever could have. One race encapuslated debates on race, social class, masculinity, our concepts of “fair play” and how to reconcile them with the ethic of “doing whatever it takes.” Some of these issues are explored and other not even touched on in the film, even though as a whole it just reminds me of all of it all over again.

One of my big takeaways was how the scandal introduced me to an ugly form of Canadian racism that I was even able to spot as that naïve 11 year old who stayed up past midnight to watch the race. The media seemed keen to celebrate Johnson’s “Canadian-ness” as a gold medal winner yet played up his Jamaican roots much more once he was caught (do a pre-88 and post-88 “Jamaican born Ben Johnson” LexisNexis search and see what I mean). The culture of racing is, of course, extremely important in Jamaica and the movie notes that Johnson wasn’t even the only island-born Canadian at the line that day and how Canada represented a journey to a better life to facilitate racing success, not ultimately hinder it.

The issue of ”othering” is fascinating as its rationalization process is so often incredibly contradictory. Barack Obama encounters this even to this day with some people stubbornly clinging to the theory that he was not born in America, even though if such allegations were true, it would shed far more light on something wrong with America’s inability to find it out if he got away with it for so long. Just the same, the documentary reveals how Johnson and a host of other black athletes were part of a doping system that was supervised and overseen by middle-class white coaches. The most notable being Charlie Francis, to whom the furor of disappointment never reached nearly the same level as it did Johnson.**

**And even despite publicly claiming that he didn’t believe one could win on an Olympic level without resorting to drugs, Francis still managed to carve an assocation with American sprinters such as former “30″ subject Marion Jones, who later also was found to have doped with the spotlight firmly tilted away from Francis or any of her other coaches.

It seems like Johnson being an exotic “other” was convenient when it shed negative light on Canada, just as Obama being a foreign “other” was/is convenient to those who disagreed with his politics. This is also particularly relevant at a time when Lance Armstrong has decided to recede from his fight against numerous doping allegations. Lance is not only not an “other,” he’s a sympathetic “non-other” as a cancer survivor. Hence it seems the vitirol one might expect towards him hasn’t surfaced.

9.79* does take a pass on other issues raised by the furor. Such as the ongoing debate on why Carl Lewis was never an incredibly popular man. The doc reminds us of Lewis rubbing his fellow competitors the wrong way and gives quite enough of him to indicate why that might be (anyone who claims to go to college to “get a degree in Carl Lewis” is probably possessed of an unhealthy amount of hubris***). As a young kid, I thought that hating Carl Lewis was something that a Canadian sports fan did since he was the archrival of our hero and Canada always naturally takes to any athletic rivalry with America (far more naturally than the States’ sports fans take to it, frankly). Of course, I didn’t have as much access to the media then to know that Lewis wasn’t exactly universally loved at home either.

Was it solely his expression of confidence (or arrogance) or was it something more? As early as the mid-80s, rumors of homosexuality followed Lewis around and it’s entirely possible that some of the dislike for Carl stemmed from the fact that he dared to be one of the greatest athletes of all time without looking or acting like a “real man” should. Some of Lewis’ responses– ”I’m no homosexual”– were as troublesome as the rumors. Not because Lewis failed to out himself or because he is indeed straight, but rather that he didn’t instead use the opportunity to open a dialogue as to why it would be so threatening if he was in the first place.

*** It’s worth noting that Calvin Smith, free of any shadowy drug history, seemed to fade in public consciousness despite presenting a far more humble image than Lewis. Yet if you watch the film, you’ll notice that he also comes across as somewhat effeminate, perhaps lending credence to the “gotta be macho” theory.

The most important reason to watch the film is to peek into the continued rationale and/or denial of athletes surrounding drug use as it raises the all-important question ”why do certain actions constitute cheating but others do not?” Six of the eight athletes in the race failed a drug point at least once in their careers, but some tests are deemed to be less significant than others. Johnson is positioned as a “truth will set you free” character free to rationalize his drug use rather than deny it because he’s already been caught (or possibly not: Johnson maintains that what he actually tested positive for was something he didn’t use, and the movie explores the espionage accusations behind that as well). The movie opens with the anonymous quote that echoes Johnson’s logic, “if you don’t take it, you won’t make it.”

It’s a riveting story and shows promise for the 30 series after a somewhat underwhelming re-debut (the very important but scattershot ”Broke”) and a potentially self-indulgent followup.

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It’s fascinating to compare a municipal debate to a national one and, for me at least, a Canadian one to an American one.

In my hometown, there’s a race for the mayor’s office. Several media outlets collaborated to host a debate between most of the candidates. Listening to the candidates answer debate questions, occasionally making small-town humour and taking a little extra time to properly phrase an answer to a question, makes me think “wow, these people would be eviscerated on a national stage.”

That’s not a dismissal of them. Quite the contrary. It’s a dismissal of decades of national debates being turned into a quest to find out when people stammer or when a “knockout moment” happens.

After a strong post-debate tilt in the polls for U.S. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, his VP candidate Paul Ryan is apparently ”prepping for a big knockout moment” tonight in his debate with Joe Biden. Whenever I read headlines like this, I’m inclined to cringe. Not because I’m anti-debate but rather because the purpose of debates continues to be twisted into a quest for a “knockout” or a “gaffe” rather than advancing any serious discussion on an issue.

There are two particularly discouraging things about this. The most discouraging is that scribes usually proclaim or discern “knockout moments” out of items not nearly possessed of the substance that they seem to be, especially in American politics. Usually, a “knockout moment,” for me, is where policy debate goes to die. For example, when Ronald Reagan dismissed Jimmy Carter’s medicare concerns with the pithy ”there you go again,” it received more focus than any substantive response to Carter’s response that Reagan offered. Logically speaking, “there you go again” made Carter look like a nag, but it didn’t really answer his question either. Just the same, when Lloyd Bentsen chastised Dan Quayle for being ”no Jack Kennedy,” it resonated as a great putdown, but generated more attention than any purported substance within the criticism.

The search for the ever-occurring gaffe can equally inane. Michael Dukasis’ expressed opposition to the death penalty was criticized for its lack of passion, as though the specifics of the opinion (that he felt such a penalty wouldn’t act as a deterrent) were irrelevant. Hence, it qualified as a “gaffe.” A more recent example is Rick Perry’s failure to remember the name of the Department of Energy in a Republican primary debate. It elicited great laughter, but it left any potential discussion about his plans to eliminate three departments completely in the dust.

The second reason why the “knockout quest” is so frustrating is that it’s debatable how far these moments really sway things in American elections. Take Romney’s current post-debate push: was there any one defining moment that sealed it? Likely not, it’s generally conceded Obama performed poorly in the debate overall rather than failing in any key moment. Looking at the some of the aforementioned examples, Reagan won the 1980 election by a landslide, Bush’s win over Dukasis was a fairly comfortable one; it’s hard to take away from either of those elections that one should look for such moments.

Atlanta remains un-united
Everyone remembers Bentsen’s putdown, but it ultimately didn’t help Dukasis

Yet that’s all we hear presidential candidates do: meet with their debate coaches (a good thing) and come armed to the tee with the right catchphrases to have their moment (not as good). If 1/4 of the enery was expended on how to produce a productive discussion on issues that there is expended on the knockout quest, Americans could be treated to something of major importance. It’s alarming how much less combative and more illuminating a third-party presidential debate is yet it attracts so little of the audience.

The “knockout” is perhaps a little more relevant in Canadian politics where the margin of victory actually counts for something, unlike a presidential debate. You can win by one electoral vote or by 200 electoral votes: at the end of the day, you’re still president. In a parliamentary system, the “knockout moment” could be the difference between a majority or minority government or opposition vs. backbench. ”You had an option” isn’t such an incredibly riveting moment because it won the Conservatives an election all by itself. It’s riveting because it turned a potential minority government or small majority into 211 seats. Everyone knew last year that Stephen Harper would still be Prime Minister after the election, but Jack Layton’s stern riposte of Michael Ignatieff and Ignatieff’s arrogance in the face of Layton’s criticisms is what likely helped tip it into majority terrority (as the NDP played spoiler to any fading Liberal hopes in Ontario) and place the opposition mantle firmly in the NDP’s hands for the first time.

However, regardless of whether the knockout works or not, I’d love to see a “postgame” report that focused on the feasibility of ideas presented, alternatives not considered and less focus on “how did Candidate X do?” I won’t hold my breath.

The loss of Phil Tarr / #MMC2012 / Of Teachers and Referees

Nothing else I write about this week has the gravity of the loss of a young artist’s life. The Cape Breton music scene was stunned this weekend when Philip Tarr passed away at his Sydney home at the age of 25:

Phil’s online obituary

The death is a tremendous loss to the community and its locally residing members could speak to it far more poignantly than I ever could, as they were present for his contributions and are thus most hurt by his absence. Tarr coordinated the Mess Folk outfit that put out a slew of MP3s and vinyl recordings in the past three years.

On a personal level, it was a reflection on my dissertation and personal transformation. My fieldwork was conducted in 2006 and Tarr and his brother James were but teenagers at the time, and not necessarily popular ones within the scene. They were agent provocateurs, if you would, rattling against the emo/screamcore trend of the day. Some of the posts on the CBLocals messageboard were under scrutiny for homophobia (the emo movement certainly bucked the masculine norms rock n’ roll sometimes presents) and disrupting the “signal-to-noise” ratio. Furthermore, the Tarrs were grindcore practitioners– or perhaps satirists of the amelodic genre– via James’ Canker project. They also formed a band titled The Abusive Stepdads.

Mess Folk steered more towards melody but it wasn’t necessarily greeted with open arms right away either. Philip famously called my hometown “a suitable hole to die in” in a Vice interview and MF’s content was occasionally inciteful on its face in the Stepdads vein (with song titles like I Beat My Woman Sometimes (And She Likes It)” and “Suicide Song”). The general arc of Mess Folk was exceptionally dark on its face but one reviewer noted, there was “a lot of snoot-cocking” in the band’s work. Tarr once told us through an online status that he feared ever living in the Brave New World; his music indeed reflected a lot of terrible misanthropic ugliness in the world.

Over time, however, Philip transformed into a scene notable. He likely won over several friends through work ethic alone (and his musical evolution to a 60s garage/punk throwback), but he also became a congenial peer and treasured friend to many. Only a few weeks before his death, he recorded an off-the-cuff track that is eerily autobiographical. It’s eerie to hear the line “I just want to be a musician” because it sounds like that was more of a struggle for someone who explored such dark subject matter while “just wanting to have some fun.”

It was a privilege for those who didn’t move away to get to know Philip on a level beyond his (alleged or not) “angry teenage troublemaker” days. If there were any demons haunting him in his life, I hope he had a chance to make peace on the way out.

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On a far less sobering note, here on the southern side of the border, reality hit me today that I needed to get my notes together for the GSU Modern Media Conference, which finally descends upon the school on Friday and Saturday. My students at The Signal dedicated an entire insert to the conference program in today’s issue. It’s an impressive lineup of presenters, to say the least.

My hats are off to the students doing all of the work to help put this together. A localized media conference is not an original idea of the current students; the Student Media department used to have “Media Day” back in the 1990s. It was an idea that was bandied about at meetings for years by several students and myself, but finally current Signal EIC Sabastian Wee said “hey, let’s do it!” And do it, we shall.

I’m flattered to be among those presenters…those notes I need because I will be conducting a panel on review writing. My students even did a spiffy write up on me in the insert…nice:

What a guy! :-p

If you’re a journalism/media student in Atlanta, we’ll see you this weekend, I’m sure that with the group of great professionals we have visiting, you won’t be disappointed!

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Fitting that it would be Wisconsin.

You might recall that Wisconsin is the state where the public employees protested a bill that would drastically affect teachers’ benefits (among other employees). Despite throngs of protestors descending upon the captial, public opinion polls indicated that there wasn’t a terrible wave of sympathy for the teachers. Several conservative critics framed them as nine-and-a-half monthers, cruising on blissful summer vacations and not working the full nine-to-five schedule. Others declared Walker’s eventual success pushing legislation through as a triumphant transfer of power from unions to elected officials.

Lo and behold, Wisconsin football fans- liberal, moderate, conservative and all points in between- were up in arms today as their pop culture darlings, the community-owned (imagine that) Green Bay Packers that were on the short end of an incredibly controversial ruling in Seattle last night on Monday Night Football. A controversial ruling that may never have happened if there wasn’t a lockout of the regular officials– normally the target of scorn, now suddenly the darlings of the sports fan set. It’s as if the karmic gods of organized labour decided to strike out at Governor Scott Walker’s biggest fan interests to spite him.

Suddenly Gov. Walker doesn’t seem to mind collective bargaining rights so much, something that one of his political opponents was all too keen to mention: “People end up thinking you can get good work for cheap, you can always find a cheaper way and it’s going to be just as good a result,” Larson said. “I would hope that Scott Walker is just as outraged about decreased quality of teachers that we’re going to get as he is with replacement refs in the NFL.” Of course, Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan decided to steer it in the other direction, correlating throwing the “failed” replacement officials out to throwing out incumbents.

That football could become a political…football in this way is a pretty fitting commentary on political discourse. More than one Grantland reader wrote in that Romney or Obama could seal the election by bringing the NFL’s officials back and there doesn’t seem to be a hint of irony in what they’re saying. Wisconsin teachers– you know, the people who have stand in front of dozens of heckling adolescents every day in the hopes of shaping their future– could apparently disappear tomorrow and not garner as much sympathy as a crew of people who measure ball distances at sporting events for a group of million-dollar athletes.

It’s unusual because sports fans, many fiscal conservatives among them, seem to be judging the current officiating fiasco by the standards of community interest rather than by the cold, hard bottom line that they judged the Wisconsin situation. While the NFL is a non-profit, its shutting out of the officials is at the behest of 97% privately owned teams that rake in hundreds of millions of dollars who provide a service that directly affects a fraction of the lives that teachers directly affect.

One would assume the community logic would apply to the public employees, not the wealthy businessmen. No one’s arguing that teachers and firefighters’ worth are measured by how many beer commercials a school can sell. The NFL , however, conducts business for the private owner’s profits and isn’t one logical tenet of late capitalist logic that you’re worth what the market says you’re worth? That being the case, the locked out referees aren’t worth that much: ratings are as high as ever.

The locked out officials can make somewhere between $25-70,000 but without benefits, something they want so they can drop their other jobs. This is for significantly less than nine and a half months of “official” work. Yet when teachers walked out to attend a protest, it wasn’t spun by fiscally conservative critics as the government’s fault that the quality of education might suffer, it was the teachers’ fault. They had to think about the economy, not the community. Whereas in 2012, it’s not the referee’s fault that their absence is hurting the quality of play, it’s the NFL’s…even though the NFL has no economic impetus whatsoever to change their stance. Apparently, the quality of NFL officiating is a community, not a capitalistic, concern.

And here we are, with Wisconsin at the center of the discontent. A strange, but not-so-strange, world indeed.

Violence in Politics / Suppression of Journalism / Fantasy in Sports

It’s the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks today and my students came up with an understated cover to mark the occasion:

On the 11th anniversary of an act that robbed thousands of their lives, I’m left looking back a violent act that took “only” one last week. While the States was focused on the Democratic Party’s conventions last week, back on the homeland front, all eyes were on Quebec’s provincial election. I figured this would lead to a reflection on the state of the sovereignty movement, but then tragedy reared its ugly head.

Richard Henry Bain is in custody after the murder of a stage technician during Premier-Designate Pauline Marois’ victory speech. It was an eerie callback to Quebec’s troubled political past (one blogger notes Bain’s odd aged resemblance to Denis Lortie).

Yet the profile of Bain remains surprisingly vague at this moment. His associates don’t drop any hints from his past behaviour that would indicate that he would have been politically motivated in any way. Still, all of the news reports are quoting Bain as shouting “Les anglais se réveillent! (The English are waking up!)” as he was dragged away. Sounds like you can’t get any more politically motivated than that. Which presents a frightening rhetorical conundrum in a situation that didn’t seem to be possessing one.

Despite the election of the separatist Bloc Quebecois to a mintority government, support for separatism nor any particular stances related to English-French tensions ranked particularly high on the voter priority scale. Instead, the BQ victory was largely attributed to a combination of fatigue (Jean Charest’s Liberals having been in office roughly a decade) combined with severe dissatisfaction with Charest’s handling of scandal and the economy. Related to my world, Charest’s hard-nosed approach in response to student protests of the Liberals’ plan to raise tuition won him few friends and the presence of red squares the night of the election indicates that this wasn’t forgotten at the ballot box.

Yet there we were the night after the election, circling around sovreignty issue again, but more specifically, the violence that a stark few seems compelled to commit in the name of it (regardless of the side the take). Cheryl R. Jorgensen-Earp wrote about the interesting challenge citizens face in terms of disassociating themselves from violence in the name of a movement for which they profess suppport (In the Wake of Violence: Image and Social Reform). She identifies three themes in such people’s responses:

1) Divesting one self of the “violent militants” that support a cause, often citing defeasiblity (one of Benoit’s oft-cited apologia strategies). Basically “This person ain’t one of us and there’s no way we could have controlled this person.”
2) Debates on the merits of violence to achieve a sociopolitical end.
3) A reaffirmation to one’s original beliefs and a strong statement that no violent act can erase that.

Following that second theme is what interests me. If debates on sovreignty or language issues suddenly open up again, it’s going to be hard to ignore a terrible violent act’s role in the middle of that. On the other hand, if the voters continue their focus on economy and government ethics, there will be something almost oddly refreshing about it, not because of my feelings for or against in those debates. But rather, if the voters stick to that for now, it will be their way of saying “we’re not letting deathly violence dictate or prioritize what policy we care about.” That’s how it should be.

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It’s somewhat enlightening and also sometimes frightening to compare situations stateside and overseas, especially so in the past few weeks. While there have been interesting developments here in Atlanta, a former colleague of mine underwent something far more exhausting miles and miles away.

I recently spoke in a municipal court here in Atlanta regarding a former Signal reporter, Judy Kim, who was arrested along with two other student reporters in November 2011 for “obstructing traffic.” Kim’s legal representative called myself, Kennesaw State advisor Ed Bonza, and Student Press Law Center Executive Director Frank Lomonte to the stand to vouch for the different legal rights accorded professional and student media…..which is to say “there are no legal rights accorded to ‘professional’ media that are not accorded to student media.” It remains to be seen whether the charges will be dropped or if the city will ignore the arguments Bonza & I put forth when the whole incident broke out in the first place. In the meantime, I’ve also been sledding uphill as an advisor to expand The Signal’s outreach in the downtown area. I’m happy to report that some progress is being made, but it won’t be overnight.

Well, distribution problems are petty by comparison, Kim and her peers’ arrests certainly were not and are not. Many miles away, Matt Duffy’s recent ordeal gives me pause for thought. Duffy is a fellow GSU doctorate and sat on the Committee on Student Communication with me years ago. He taught several students that came through the Student Media doors (and recommended some very good ones). He knows his stuff. And maybe that’s why he found himself in the center of the mess that he did.

Duffy’s research interests include journalism laws in the Middle East, which made his appointment as a Journalism professor at Zayed University a perfect fit. Then the very factors which are the focus of his research kicked in. Duffy and his wife were dismissed from the university, and Dubai, with no explanation other than the orders came from “outside the organization (university).”

He hasn’t been shy about outlining the many things he’s done that he feels likely contributed to his ousting. Unfortunately, this is a standard practice, especially in light of the Arab uprisings, in that part of the world.

I applaud Duffy’s various initiatives in Dubai, especially starting a SPJ chapter. Journalists cover events of interest, they don’t ignore them. This is the ipso facto of what it means to be a journalist. It seems ridiculous that something that should appear benign doesn’t in the eyes of a country’s law.

Yet that’s the same way I felt when my student was arrested for taking pictures at an event of public interest. Sometimes it takes a macro example of journalistic suppression to remind me of why the micro examples mean so much.

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On the (much) lighter side, is there anything more addictive to a sports fan than the experience of fantasy football? After winning my league in 2010, I sank like a stone in 2011 and picked up right where I left off losing my first game last night. I’ll probably be lucky to win 3-4 games but still I find it an incredibly fascinating and engaging form of fandom, even if my brother disagrees.

You see, my brother is one of those sports fans who sees fantasy sports as violating the sacrosanct relationship between fan and team. “Why would I join a league where I have to follow ten different teams for one score and where I might have to cheer against my favourite team because the other guys have one of my running backs?” If you’re a sports fan, you’ve probably heard this logic a thousand times. Or maybe you’ve heard this argument: “it forces you to cheer for a quarterback to keep throwing the ball even though his team has the lead and they should run it. All because you’re selfishly cheering for your fantasy team!”

The sports fans reasons to embrace or deride the fantasy experience says a lot about what the values we celebrate by being sports fans. Jesse James Draper argues for the community values enacted by fantasy sports. He argues that, for example, when a team like the Dallas Cowboys win a big home game, the real winner in terms of power and capital is Jerry Jones: he overcharges for admission, food, parking…well, everything. The win will fuel the fans to come back and give him more of that capital and none of those fans will ever share in that very real wealth.

However winning one’s fantasy league typically involves much smaller stakes (though some people are known to invest hundreds and a few even thousands into it). I’m not going to suddenly move into a different tax bracket and social class by winning my fantasy league. If anything, by participating in it, I’ve identified the social class with which I want to identify.

This pro-community interpretation is ironic as that’s the exact opposite to what my brother and his like argue. They would tell fantasy sports is all individual and against team. However, what sports teams accomplish, unless you’re related to someone on the field, is imaginary culture. I’m not a part of that team. I’m not really a “part” of my fantasy team either, but I at least played a role in the team’s selection. In that sense, there is both more of the self AND the community engaged in fantasy sports, even though there is certainly no doubt that the NFL and other organizations are monetizing it more to their benefit by the year.

Of course, this could all stem from me watching the Cincinnati Bengals for over 20 years. Let’s imagine that didn’t happen.

“World”-labelled music, “Punk”-labelled protest, “Student”-labelled journalism

I flipped the switch to CBC Radio on the way to work Wednesday and caught a spirited debate between British writer Ian Birrell and Toronto-based producer/director Derek Andrews on the subject of “world music.” Namely, the subject was “is this a useful term anymore?” and “might it be that this term is even just a tad bit offensive?” Birrell says “yes.” Andrews says “no,” although his argument seems pretty vague other than a rather half-hearted “how else are you going to describe (Artist A)?” near the end of the interview.

Birrell’s argument is a little bit of the old, a little bit of the new. For the old part of his argument: the “world music” term colonializes all that is not American (or alternately, Western) and essentially exocitizes all music is that isn’t the familiar “4/4 intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-lead-verse-chorus-outro” as some foreign “other.” It’s a fairly racialized concept: as white is the “default” setting, so too American and European music essentially become “default” when we place anything that Westerns remotely find “exotic” into a world bin.

In an oft-cited 2000 essay on the subject, ethnomusicologist Steven Feld captures much of this angst towards the “world music” label and even takes issue with the fact that I would categorize him as as “ethnomusicologist Steven Feld”:

“The relationship of the colonizing and the colonized thus remained generally intact in distinguishing music from world music. This musicology/ethnomusicology split reproduced the disciplinary divide so common in the academy, where unmarked “-ologies” announced studies of normative Western subjects, and “ethno-” fields were created to accommodate the West’s ethnic others. Even if little of this was terribly contentious in the academy of the 1960s and 1970s, it is nonetheless remarkable that the valorized labels ethnomusicology and world music survive with so little challenge at century’s end.”

Furthermore, he argues the term allows for global music to be neatly subsumed into the “market logic of expansion” and that “the dream desires of technological and artistic elites are jolted by market cycles of agitated wakefulness. Then, blanketed in promotion, they are once more cradled and lulled on a firm mattress of stark inequities and padded mergers, and nurtured at the corporate breast.”

The newer part of Birrell’s argument– and one that inadvertently compromises Feld’s argument– is that we “live in such a mashed up world” that what we understand as contemporary Western pop music is wearing the influences of what “world music” was coined to describe many eons ago (K’naan occupying much of this particular conversation), so what’s the use anymore? All this label is doing, he maintains, is steering people away from what could easily pass as a pop hit because it’s that “other,” it’s world music.

I’m a bit torn because my first instinct as a cultural critic is to completely support Birrell (and Feld) and say “hey, this ‘world music’ term isn’t just colonialist orientalism, it’s flat-out outdated.” However, I can’t help but feel that Andrews left out a pretty good counterargument, which is that there is some validity to seeking out a world music experience. Getting rid of “world music” might get rid of the “other,” but might it also be a “padded merger” of our listening experiences into something akin to “ah, it’s all just pop music?”

Ethnic Studies professor Roshanak Kheshti is critical of the “culture-vulture” fears surrounding “world music” labels describes “world music” as more of affective phenomenon than a tangible music genre. Is this the intended fantasy effect of a culture industry? Perhaps, Kheshti concedes. However, she also argues that to give up “world music” would be also to give up the aural imaginary pleasures the genre provides:

“There is a tension here that I am unable to negotiate between the pleasure offered by listening to the musical other, performing the musical other, and the discursive, imaginary, and political-economic formations that have structured me in relation to that object and the pleasure it affords…scholarship on world music, then, should aspire to not only critique the social structures that distinguish the bodies who produce affective labor from the bodies who consume it but also elucidate the psychic and affective processes that draw the bodies together in the first place.”

Kheshti’s idea of “touching sound” might be too estoeric to really sway Birrell but there is some validity to the idea of an aural imaginary. After all, music is so ridiculously subjective that you can’t deny the imaginary’s impact on how we receive it. Think of those terrible pop hits from your high school days that you “know you shouldn’t like” and that you’d probably hate if they came out ten years after you graduated…you like them in no small part because of the imaginary (but once real) world you’ve constructed around them. By removing “world music,” we may nobly avoid orientalizing the music of Asia, South America and so on and so forth, but we might also completely disassemble all of the different places in our mind that music can take us. After all, if the only imaginary we can construct around ANY music is a North American dance floor ready made for Feld’s “corporate beast,” are we any better off?

I do know that this interview has compelled this steak-and-potatoes college radio guy to seek out Tribe Called Red.

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Speaking of music, terms describing it and those terms’ implications…

I was intrigued by Melena Ryzik’s NY Times piece on the movement to support the Russian punk band Pussy Riot. Ryzik immediately touches a chord in rock fans by bringing up the whole “when did punk die?” trope which is pretty much a rite of passage for anyone professing to be a fan of loud music that starts with a ruffian screaming “1-2-3-4!” A prerequiste for many punk purists is that the music being played carry with it a certain sense of danger, a certain sense of unrefined amateurism, and a certain sense of agitation: we will disrupt so that something might change because of this music. And that last part in particular is what Ryzik argues has been missing from anything claiming or claimed to be punk…until now.

Ryzik is right about this much: Pussy Riot’s actions certainly were calibrated to be punk as defined by the aforementioned terms. There was an instant sense of danger as authorities descended upon them to prevent their actions. The music was loud and certainly required practically no training to perform. Most importantly, it was a blatant agitation intended to create change.

There’s no denying the disruption of this performance, which puzzles many that are critical of the outpouring of support. The most disruptive element of the performance is that it pretty blatantly violates the freedom of religious assembly frequently defended and cherished in the Western world. Its true disruption, however, is indicated by the punishment: if you broke into my church and disrupted service, I’d reserve the right to kick you out…you might get charged a fine for petty disruption. Not two years for hooliganism.

That last bit of sentencing detail is why columnists such as Rachel Marsden miss the mark on the whole Pussy Riot affair. Marsden writes “The longer game of subversion would have required them to spend years working to get into a key position within the power structure, then influencing and subverting the system to change what they don’t like. The effects of such an effort would have been more organic, credible and durable.”

Well, that wouldn’t be very punk, would it? Most subculural scholars agree with Dick Hebdige’s assessment that “Subcultures represent ‘noise’ (as opposed to sound): interference in the orderly sequence which leads from real events and phenomena to their representation in the media. We should therefore not underestimate the signifying power of the spectacular subculture not only as a metaphor for potential anarchy ‘out there’ but as an actual mechanism of semantic disorder: a kind of temporary blockage in the system of representation.” Pussy Riot was out to make noise and they made it; I’m not sure that anyone– critic or supporter– is “duped” by any of this.

Marsden further remarks that the band would have gotten further if “they intelligently addressed Mr. Putin’s policies without breaking any laws, or associated themselves with a larger group of activists known for flaunting it relentlessly and treating it as a joke.” This is familiar railing against the “carnival of protest”. I’m critical of when the carnival takes over for any valid political discussion but the fact that Pussy Riot’s actions have raised a spolight on the issue of censorship in Russia is, in and of itself, a sign that their critics are wrong. Surely there are some in Russia that are working within the power structure for the aforementioned gradual subversion, but expressions of “noise” often provide the spark that allow those on the inside to instigate change.

And it also continues the great punk tradition, which I would argue predates the term “punk” in the musical sense: demystifying the process and telling kids not to be intimidated by those that say you can’t. As the late Martin Rushent once said, “Go up there and make a hell of a noise. And make sure you play music your parents don’t like.”.

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It looked as though the Red & Black furor had reached a comfortable detente (and victory for the students). I was heartened to see the students stand by their adviser Ed Morales, someone who is well-respected and liked in the adviser community, and the general consensus those students had was “this wasn’t Ed’s idea and we know he supports our journalistic freedoms.” The Red and Dead website issued a “final statement” on Monday which seemed indicate that this was the end of it.

Yet it’s evident there are some bruised feelings– no longer from the students, but from some of those that sit/sat on the board. Board members are resigning and it’s not entirely clear why– unless it’s because they’re uncomfortable with the students having final say over the content. I’d like to think that’s not the reason. Ed Stampler’s resignation at least seemed thoughtful…almost an apology-resignation hybrid with a bit of recognition that stepping aside would be right for both him and them. However, Charles Russell’s resignation is a bit more cryptic, referring to something that the paper “is about to do” moreso than what it’s done.

It’s good news that the students’ grievances were addressed so quickly, especially when it’s considered a flagship for what student journalism should be. It’s bad news if any lingering ill-will should overshadows and/or extinguishes the ultimate lesson: Letting the students have their say is a good thing.

UPDATE: The Red & Black situation

UGA’s Barry Hollander is reporting that “Basically, at least on the surface, the students won. Editorial control (we think) belongs to the students. The board member who caused most of the problems, he’s gone. From the paper, from the board.”

The Red & Dead provided live tweets of the situation and the high/lowlight was a contentious encounter between R&B publisher Harry Montevideo and a reporter.

More details will be provided by Katherine Tippins’ report on behalf of the SP3 region of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Red and…Dead? – The *Best*/*Worst* Selection Ever – Inevitable Politicelebreality

Georgia is one of those weird (to me) places where school comes back in August and in Athens, it came back with a bang for student journalists.

In a missive directed towards its “Board of Directors,” Polina Marinova stepped down as the Editor-in-Chief of UGA’s student newspaper, The Red & Black, and led a walkout. The cause? Marinova asserts that the recent wave of hires of permanent staff is a thinly-veiled attempt at prior review and/or prior restraint. Most reaction from the student media world is restrained until all the facts of the story can be verified, although not everyone is waiting to throw their two cents in.

I consider the R&B‘s Ed Morales a valued peer and want to hear his response and that of his co-workers before reacting too rashly. ***UPDATE The SPLC just posted a story about the controversy in which Marinova states that Morales approached her directly about the alleged review/responsibility plan. Suwannee Patch is reporting that the Board will meet to discuss these resignations.*** That said, if the allegations that the Board intended to exercise prior review and to enforce a rather dodgy definition of “good” and “bad” news, then colour me profoundly disappointed.

I understand that there’s fewer things professionally that require more emotional restraint than advising student media. Professionals screw up a lot so what chance do students have to make it through with a perfect record? Your job is tell them what they could do better, point them to resources that can help, then cross your fingers every week that it will have an impact.* One thing your job isn’t is to step in and write the paper for them, but historically there’s a lot of pressure from adminisrations for advisors to do just that. I say it everywhere I speak: There’s yet to be a campus I’ve ever visited where anyone is ever fully happy with the student newspaper. They’re always convinced that all of the other student newspapers in the world are mildly competent and theirs is the only one in the world screwing it up.

* = crossing of the fingers is actually not part of the job description. Sometimes I wonder if it ought to be.

What’s particularly interesting about the R&B case is that whereas many student newspapers are departmentally-based and others are based out of student activities, the R&B is neither. If ever a student paper should be devoid of administrative pressures, the Red & Black should be. Furthermore, the paper is usually held up as a beacon of excellent student journalism. When they switched from a daily to a weekly-with-digital-daily last year, it was considered big news. And that’s only because the paper had earned the reputation for its changes to matter significantly for the rest of us.

This is the type of change, were it to be true, that would matter significantly in a very, very bad way. There are always administrations in North America are always looking for ways to monitor what the student watchdogs say about them, using the flimsy pretense of quality control as an excuse. What’s even more disturbing, however, is that even if quality control was the concern, the word “control” gives away every reason it’s wrong. Every student is entitled to the best student journalism they can receive: if the best student journalism isn’t good enough, so be it. There will be plenty of other avenues to get professional journalism, there are certainly much fewer ways to get student journalism.

I’m hoping the backlash will result in a change or clarification in policy that will allow UGA students to do what they’ve done for over 100 years: let the students bring the news to their peers.

Meanwhile, back in my world, my students are back to work, though secretly they never stopped. The Signal and GSTV will be co-sponsoring a two-day conference at Georgia State that I’m very excited about. Tim Harrower, Jovita Moore, Scott McFarlane, Doug Richards, several people from the CNN/HLN family, it will be an amazing learning experience for the students. And you won’t view journalism the same once you’ve experienced the wrath of Michael Koretzky.

I’m looking forward to a Signal on Tuesday, my GSTV students prowling the campus with their cameras looking for projects and stories and a new edition of New South in 4-5 weeks. And none of the aforementioned headaches going on up the road.

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Our good friends at In Media Res are discussing political polarization this week (including an an entry on the previously discussed Chick-Fil-A furor) and it’s probably no better time than right after Mr. Romney selects his Vice-Presidential candidate. The immediate effect of polarization on American politics is never more evident than in the blogosphere/Facebook wall/Twitter universe than when a VP candidate is selected. The rush to instantly proclaim the selection as shrewd or a flop is often political marketing disguised as observation. You will instantly be told within minutes, depending on the company you keep, that this is an absolute disaster of a selection or an incredibly shrewd selection. Of course, neither may be true, but users want to get the word out this is the impression going around so that you might believe it too.

It’s akin to when people try to imply some sort of zeitgeist by saying “this is the most important Presidential election in our era.” If I were to believe this every time I heard it, it would mean the American zeitgeist has been every four years because people are in a hurry to judge the importance of the present to the future in the present. The idea is that civic engagement will be boosted by an appointment with nostalgia for the present: We will remember this election, which I’m sure is what people told everyone who doesn’t remember the name of the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988.

Of course, there’s a kernel of truth in this: every election is important and it really seems trivial to compare the importance of one to the other. However, there’s less kernels of truth in much of the post-Ryan-selection “observations” if they are simply personal endorsements masked as observations of how he might impact the polls.

What is known is that Ryan was likely picked at least partially for his Tea Party credibility. Which is perhaps unusual on its face, given that it seems to have suffered a post-2010 slump in public approval. It looks like a pick very much in the Al Gore vein in both that Romney and Gore seemed to go for a candidate to temper whatever extreme one is seen to be possessing or lacking. Gore picked the right-leaning Democrat Joe Lieberman, allegedly to distance himself from Bill Clinton and make moderates comfortable voting for him. Romney, on the other hand, has been accused of being not conservative enough by many in the Republican camp. Ryan is seen as the yin to Romney’s more moderate yang, a yang that Republican candidates seem keen to avoid, exemplified by Newt Gingrich’s mea culpa.

Despite a slim plurality, Gore’s strategy didn’t pan out. The Romney-Ryan ticket feels potentially counterintuitive in these polarized times. The Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin tickets appeared to be “doubling down” tickets (Obama doubling down ideologically, McCain doubling down on “maverick-ism”). Romney’s challenge will be to craft a platform that straddles the line between moderate conservatism and staunch conservatism, but perhaps in these times, that will satisfy no one.

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Speaking of the In Media Res series, Sue Collins’ first entry in the polarization series analyzes the Republicans’ continued attempts to play off of assumed anti-Hollywood sentiment in voters. John McCain bet on such sentiment and four years later, the strategy remains resonant in many conservatives’ minds.

John Street has long advocated for the positives of the marriage between popular culture and politics, and moreover argues that the marriage is not as new as everyone portrays. Certainly the suspicions towards Hollywood from conservative critics goes back to the Hollywood Ten of the 1940s. Collins wisely points out that if Obama is a “celeb-president,” this should hardly be a surprise given how current American political campaigns favour the “pop TV format.” Neil Postman might have been surprised to see the Republican side of the aisle trying to point out any inherent downfall in this reality, especially given how they’ve capitalized on it in the past, but neverthless here we are.

On the surface, this appears to be merely be a criticism of what is alleged to be an artifice of the opposing candidate. In other words, it’s not “Obama is a celebrity therefore he is a bad politician” but rather “we believe he is a bad politician who has blinded you with celebrity.” Beneath the surface, it’s consistent with the conservative strategy of planting suspicion with “liberal media” amongst voters by creating a full-circle: celebrities are too liberal for you, they like Obama an awful lot, Obama is not like you.

Street defends pop culture as a way that young people are able to make sense of politics and of the authenticity of their everyday experiences. He disputes the idea that it’s merely a way for people to vote their way their celebrity idols tell them to, and much of the affection for the The Daily Show and Colbert Report is that it points out the comic absurdity of how politics works which hopefully will motivate viewers to be more thoughtful about their conduct within that arena.

So with that being said, I wonder if the “anti-Hollywood” strategy has any more ceiling for the Republicans. Certainly those who are offended by celebrity involvement with politics have already cast their lot away from Obama. Those who, as Street argues, “make sense” of politics through popular culture are probably unlikely to be moved by such arguments. Celebreality is now the political language they speak. Telling them their language is wrong, though perhaps an admirable attempt to make political discourse more erudite and less “fluffy,” is not likely to sway them come election day.

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Already going through that withdrawal period where you go home expecting something Olympics-related on my television but not finding it. After my retrospection and lamentation last week, Diana Matheson scored arguably Canada’s most dramatic football goal in 26 years. It was fitting that this was the most memorable moment for Canada this Olympics since the event was covered in bronze for the maple leaf.

Maybe I’m in “Olympic Hangover” mode. I’m living in a city 16 years removed from the Olympics so there’s a bit of a perpetual hangover from people living here longer than me. But it’s funny that CBC would report about that given that they’re already counting down to Sochi, where Canada’s broadcast rights will return to them. With a record gold medal haul in 2010, it’s safe to say that the winter version will yield more metallic variety for Canada the next time around.

Sports Hurts (Why?), Cars Sell…and So Does Chicken

Living in the U.S. during the Summer Olympics is pretty weird.** Canada is historically pretty terrible at the Summer Olympics, unless communist countries are boycotting en masse. But the U.S., of course, is not.

You can always count on them placing in the top three in the overall medal count. So the stories that NBC latches onto are usually centered on inevitable victory…or at the very least, an inevitably decent chance at victory. Michael Phelps: just how many medals will he win? Missy Franklin: a bunch of gold medals or just a bunch of medals? The Fab Five gymnasts: awesome or merely great?****

**Well, statistically speaking, no it isn’t, since I haven’t lived in Canada during the Summer Olympics since 1996…when they were ironically enough happening right here in Atlanta.

****A refreshing counter to this is 11 Points’ detailing 11 nations that have never won an Olympic medal and why you should root for them.

So Monday’s women’s football/soccer semifinal between the U.S. and Canada was particularly interesting to me. For American viewers, it was just another chapter in their diverse book of inevitable medal opportunities. For Canadian viewers, it was a titanic David-vs.-Goliath struggle with our neighbours to the south, who’ve won three gold and one silver in the four previous Olympics.

The United States won 4-3 in a game filled with tension, drama and post-game bitterness. What struck me the most about all of it was just how much it genuinely hurt when Canada lost. I mean, here I am, a 35 year old man who never played an organized game of soccer in his life (does tennis court soccer at Churchill elementary count?) watching a bunch of people he will never meet playing a game that Canada was absolutely certainly destined to lose going in…and I was just FLOORED.

It reminded me of Bill Simmons’ excellent reflection of the emotional rollercoaster that is being a sports fan, told both through his fanship and his daughter’s. Simmons argues that watching his daughter sob over her favourite hockey team’s loss leaves him wondering why he introduced her to sports fandom in the first place, only to identify the merit of fandom in the in-between moments (the “suture,” if you would) that he argues sports makes possible.

I think I see the merit in what he’s saying although when you’re a Canadian watching the game in an American office by yourself, that explanation loses its lustre. It still *hurt* somehow; even though I couldn’t name more than three players on the team and 99% of the nation didn’t watch a single game of Canadian soccer before yesterday. (I can at least own having followed the team since its third game). It wasn’t like this game was a tremendous social lubricant.

There have been confirmations of positive relations between a fan’s favourite team’s outcomes and their self-esteem or moods. But I can’t help but wonder if the appreciation of the beautiful loss is overlooked in such research. Dating back to Barthes, those that have studied professional wrestling have usually returned the argument that fans identify with both the good AND bad wrestling presents: there HAS to be the unfair outcomes to make it all work because that’s how we understand life to work. So while we profess to be upset when the bad guys win, we often really aren’t because if they didn’t win more often than the good guys…well, THAT (more so than any “fakery”) would just look like a sham.

Comedian Louis C.K. appeared on Simmons’ podcast a few weeks ago and spoke something that is heresey for most sports fans: that there are losses from his favourite athletes and sports teams that he *gasp* enjoyed, because they made for a better story than a win might have. I suppose having taught a film class or three and having studied narratology should leave me more imminently curious to interrogate this narrative. Whether or not a loss was more interesting because of what it symbolized, like Rocky going the distance and just being happy about it.

In that regard, I appreciated Canada’s loss for its poetry. But all told, if I was to tell the truth, my brain sees the tragic drama, my heart just wants the damn handling the ball call back so I can see what would have happened…

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I said last week that Atlanta was locked, theoretically speaking, to cars being its mode of mobility no matter what happened in the big TSPLOST vote. Not that there was much suspense as to what would happen in said vote.

Well, surprise, surprise #1: the TSPLOST didn’t make it last week. And surprise, surprise #2: all of the post-TSPLOST talk is about roads, roads, roads.

One question that should perhaps be asked aloud more often is why this tax was up for a referendum, but a proposed hotel/motel tax that would build a new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons isn’t (at least yet). This stadium would replace a stadium that isn’t legally old enough to drink, even if plenty of drinks are served there. At least, one part of the puzzle is there: the vast majority don’t think taxes need to go towards a new stadium.

But never mind the trains, bikes or buses, let’s not lose sight of how Georgia runs itself and how Atlanta looks as a result.

Atlanta remains un-united
Atlanta remains un-united
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One other story in the American south that fascinated me last week was the furor surrounding fast food chain Chick-Fil-A.

The short short version of the tale is this: Dan Cathy says gay marriage is “prideful” and bad. Internet revisits Chick-Fil-A’s donations to groups with various anti-gay initiatives. Potential boycotts are debated and bans in some cities are threatened. Christian right gets wind of this, organizes a counter-protest in the form of people forming lines around blocks to buy chicken sandwiches on August 1.

Now, there is the usual “culture wars” sniping I could get into dissecting. (Supporters that say it’s not about being anti-gay, it’s about freedom of speech because mayors threatened to ban businesses based on speech. Critics that say boycotts aren’t about what Cathy said, but the wilful organizations he’s funding to deny a human right.) However, there’s also that tired cliché that says more about the Western world than most clichés could: “you vote with your dollar.”

As the mode of mobility is the car in Atlanta, the primary mode of political expression continues to not be how one votes or what they do, but what they don’t buy or do buy (the latter of which Monroe Friedman describes as “buycotting”). It’s deemed effective because affecting finances is seen as incredibly uplifting or devastating. Slower political operatives such as the Occupy movement sputter perhaps in no small part they don’t speak the logic of capitialism. If no money was exchanged in the first meeting or no money was taken away from another business, how are we to tell whether this is working or not?

Either way, we’ve come to accept the rules of the game that these things matter much more than (or least as much as) actual legislation, to the point that deciding what we’re eating for dinner (much like whether or not we say “Merry Christmas” and how often) somehow equates to intense political activism.

Indeed, if Facebook and Twitter feeds are any indication, both buyers and non-buyers seem pretty convinced they’ve committed a real act of political intensity. This is pretty telling.

To bring it back around to being a sports fan, when the NHL moved from Atlanta last year, I was pretty mad at the company running Philips Arena about how it handled the whole thing. I decided I wasn’t going to pay to go to any event there. A friend of mine said this was pretty ridiculous since concerts would make Philips so much money, “it wouldn’t make a difference.” I was kind of flummoxed by the idea that he assumed that was the point, as though I was puffing my chest out about it. “I just don’t want to go, no more no less,” I replied. That I was having any “real” impact beyond that didn’t really occur to me.

While the “real” impact of the whole furor is seen to be whether or not Chick-Fil-A was helped or hurt by all this, the real question to be answered is “which way does this move, if at all, discussions on gay rights?” Might it have a psychological effect in November when people might actually vote with their…vote? Or will it instigate a further discussion on the concept of gay rights and whether rights are determined at the polls to begin with? Whatever the case, I have a feeling we’ll continue to prioritize our votes by dollar, rather than votes or civic activity otherwise.

TPLOST: Atlanta’s Traffic Drama Continues

I moved to Atlanta in August 2003 and like many wide-eyed small-town folk who first move to a big city, the first thing I did after grabbing my luggage was take the train. Perhaps even more telling, though, was that I took the train for about 50 minutes just to get to a friend who drove me to his apartment which the train couldn’t get to. My love-hate relationship with Atlanta public transit started right then and there: I, a non-motoring graduate student trying to live within his means. Atlanta, an area where the incorporated city’s population constitutes roughly 8% of its metro census population, but with a transit system with far less branches than that of Boston, New York, or Chicago.

Fast forward to tomorrow, the state of Georgia will cast its vote on the T-SPLOST initiative, a one-cent sales tax proposal for which the funds would be dedicated to a variety of transit initatives. Early numbers don’t bode well that the tax will be approved by metro Atlanta voters. And indeed, while the entire state will be affected by results regardless, for me, it’s really just another chapter in a troubled history of transit development in the city of Atlanta.

Fellow GSU doctoral alum Miriam Konrad navigated this turbulent history in her dissertation-turned-book Transporting Atlanta: The Mode of Mobility under Construction, which divides the historical discourse on Atlanta transit into three areas: growth, green and equity. I find it pretty telling that the green element is largely being downplayed in the public arena. It’s as though the TPLOST supporters merely accepted that this subject is wasted on detractors who presumably don’t care about the environment. But moreover, it’s perhaps taken for granted that potential supporters will simply accept that this would improve the environment on its face. Indeed, the city’s most visible advocates for public transit, CFPT, are all over the new map angle but their website is presently downplaying the “green” talk.

Most interesting of all, however, is how the other two arenas of discourse, growth and equity, seem to constantly run against each other during Atlanta’s entire history.

I view Atlanta as a microcosm for a schism in American circles between a socially conservative bent towards quiet rural life and the repeated result of the pursuit of neoliberal ends: the growth of the city. After all, isn’t it somewhat inevitable that corporate growth leads eventually to, well, a city? And in order for cities to run reasonably well, you can’t have EVERYONE on the road or else it takes forever to get to work.

This is also why not all of the opposition to T-SPLOST is conservative: the Sierra Club, for example, doesn’t share CFPT’s outlook and opposes this initative on the grounds that it’s weighted towards more roads instead of more buses and rails. The liberal critique of the current Atlanta commuter culture is that most people want a quicker ride to work, but not enough people are taking into consideration that less people ought to be driving to work to begin with.

An entirely separate issue surrounding T-SPLOST is the Atlanta’s racially charged history. It’s no secret that northern metro areas of Atlanta continually resist the expansion of MARTA, and this issue is continually charged by racial politics. Supporters of light rail transit allege that resistance to rail initatives are merely extensions of “white flight” designed to turn the city “too busy to hate” into the city “too busy moving to hate.” That would take an entirely different analysis in and of itself.

But what seems fait accompli is the mode of mobility, as discussed by Konrad. If you take Sierra’s opinion, it really doesn’t matter in the long-term whether or not T-SPLOST succeeds, that mode was, is and is destined to be the car (or at the very least, the road). I guess Atlanta’s future graduate students will still have that long tour of bloated traffic to look forward to.