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Adrienne Rich politics art and design art history and literature lit poetry culture and society thought and opinion media and communication letters

I believe in art’s social presence—as breaker of official silences, as voice for those whose voices are disregarded, and as a human birthright. … I don’t think we can separate art from overall human dignity and hope.

Poet Adrienne Rich, born on May 16, 1948, adds to history’s finest definitions of art in the historic letter that made her the only person in history to decline the prestigious National Medal of Arts.

art and design politics Adrienne Rich thought and opinion poetry culture and society lit history and literature history

There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know that art—in my own case the art of poetry—means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage. The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a devastating rate. A President cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.

Happy birthday, Adrienne Rich! The 1997 letter with which the beloved poet became the only person to turn down the prestigious National Medal of Arts.

marriage equality LGBT culture and society history and literature history politics data visualization human rights

Heartening stat of the day: Gallup finds that support for marriage equality has doubled since 1996, with approval now surpassing disapproval. Also see this animated GIF map of the geography of marriage equality since 1970 and the seminal 1993 essay instrumental in shifting the paradigm.

And don’t miss the most beautiful meditation on the issue yet – from a politician, no less.

cats history and literature women culture and society art and design vintage history art propaganda politics

Cats may be famous literary pets, but who knew the propaganda art of the anti-suffragist movement had an entire cat-centric sub-genre? As felines represented the domestic sphere and thus the feminine, they were used to portray suffragists as incompetent and unintelligent.

The irony, of course, is that everyone knows how a cat boosts your creativity. For non-believers, there’s always The Cat-Hater’s Handbook, which now carries whole new undertones of misogyny.

LGBT culture and society maps data visualization marriage equality media and communication politics

Mapping LGBT rights by country. Also see this map of LGBT rights in the American workplace and the Guardian’s stellar visualization of LGBT rights by state.

Pair with The Politics of Homosexuality, the seminal 1993 article that turned the tide.

marriage equality culture and society thought and opinion politics LGBT Tim Faust

Exactly twenty years after Andrew Sullivan’s seminal essay “The Politics of Homosexuality,” Minnesota state representative Tim Faust (D) delivers an absolutely extraordinary, stirring speech on marriage equality, leading the Minnesota House to pass the same-sex marriage bill with a vote of 79:59.

Well, I have to start by admitting that not too long ago, I probably would have voted ‘no’ on this bill, but in the past there have been a couple things that changed my mind on this… . The question that keeps going through my mind over and over again is, “Do we, as a society, have the right to impose our religious beliefs on somebody else?” A right that I have taken for granted, and most of the people in this room have taken for granted, since the day we realized what the opposite sex is. That is a right I have taken for granted for a long time, and yet some people, because of others’ religious beliefs, do not have that right.

[…]

Last summer, I got married. And, before that, I had dated a woman for four years. And she was a wonderful woman, and I realized, after four years, that I could’ve married her and I would’ve been happily married to her for the rest of my life. But I also realized I could be happy without her. And I decided, after four years, that I wasn’t going to marry somebody I could live with — if I got married again, it was going to be to somebody I could not live without. And so we broke up.

And in a few months, I met my wife. And it didn’t take me very long to realize this was somebody I could not live without. And how lucky I am, how lucky we are. And yet, in this state, there are people that feel that way about each other, that cannot live without that other person, that feel the same way they do about each other that I feel about my wife — and yet, because of religious beliefs of other people, they do not have the right that I have taken for granted since the day I realized what the opposite sex was.

↬ The Dish

marriage equality Andrew Sullivan culture and society thought and opinion politics history and literature lit

[Anti-discrimination laws] want to substitute for the traumatic and difficult act of coming out the more formal and procedural act of legislation. But law cannot do the work of life. Even culture cannot do the work of life. Only life can do the work of life.

Andrew Sullivan, writing about the politics of homosexuality on May 10, 1993.

LGBT Andrew Sullivan politics culture and society history and literature history media and communication marriage equality

Silence, if it does not equal death, equals the living equivalent.

On May 10, 1993, Andrew Sullivan published his seminal essay “The Politics of Homosexuality,” which changed the course of gay rights and presaged many of the modern debates on marriage equality.

LGBT maps marriage equality GIF culture and society history and literature politics

Mapping the sudden move towards marriage equality between 1970 and 2012, in an animated GIF. Compare and contrast with a map of European laws about LGBT marriage, then wash down with a heart-warmer.

women history and literature culture and society politics letters history media and communication

One day last week I pulled up to a four-way stop in my taxi. At one of the other stop signs sat a police officer in a chase cruiser, and at the third, a telephone installer in a Bell Canada van. What made the occasion memorable was the fact that all three of us were women. We celebrated with much joyful laughter and raised thumbs.

Jill Wood
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
November 1980 issue

Letters to Ms. – remarkable selections from the “social media” of the 1970s and 1980s, the vehicle through which the women to whom we owe so much stood together and raised their voices.

women culture and society history and literature history politics media and communication letters advertising

Why do advertisers persist in selling the image of the beautiful, shapely woman executive who keeps the same perfectly made-up face and styled hair, even after a hard day of earning a six-figure salary, dining in expensive restaurants, having a brisk game of tennis at the club, and a late night of discotheque hopping? It’s no surprise that real women are tempted to wonder what they’re doing wrong.

How little has changed since this 1980 reader letter to pioneering feminist magazine Ms.

Kurt Vonnegut history and literature lit letters politics culture and society JFK history

On occasion, I write pretty well.

In which young Kurt Vonnegut, still relatively obscure, volunteers his services to JFK’s presidential campaign. Pair with Vonnegut on the shapes of stories, his daily routine, and his 8 keys to the power of the written word.
(↬ Open Culture)

On occasion, I write pretty well.

In which young Kurt Vonnegut, still relatively obscure, volunteers his services to JFK’s presidential campaign. Pair with Vonnegut on the shapes of stories, his daily routine, and his 8 keys to the power of the written word.

(↬ Open Culture)

culture and society politics policy activism thought and opinion comics animation media and communication

23 celebrated cartoonists, including Art Spiegelman and Roz Chast, unite to demand action against gun violence.

A a time when 33 people are murdered with guns every day in America and homicide rates in the United States exceed those of other high-income nations by 690%, it’s tragic how little progress we’ve made since 1944.

Also see Stephen King on gun control and violence.

Sign the petition to end gun violence here and consider sparing your daily coffee in donating to the cause.

(↬ Open Culture)

culture and society sex politics thought and opinion

If you really want to know a people, start by looking into their bedrooms.

Shereen El Feki, author of the provocative and intelligent Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World, on how politics of sex give a lens on society.

(↬ The Dish)

history and literature lit culture and society A. A. Milne history politics

AA Milne famously denounced war in his pacifist essay “Peace with Honour,” but classified documents found in an old trunk reveal the author of Winnie the Pooh was recruited by a secret propaganda unit during the first world war.

Jeremy Arter was sorting through old paperwork in his aunt’s home when he stumbled across rare, classified documents from MI7b, a military propaganda outfit that worked with writers to present a positive version of the war to those at home.

Winnie the Pooh author AA Milne was a WWI propagandist. But perhaps that’s not so surprising given many famous children’s authors infused their books with political propaganda, and Dr. Seuss even made explicit propaganda cartoons for the government.