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Culture Wars: Fox News Blogger Places Upstate NY School District … – WAMC

One the area's largest school districts in Clifton Park has been making national headlines in the culture wars.

In late May, a Shenendehowa student's art project themed "The Expressive Faces of the President," depicting President Donald Trump, was taken down after profanities appeared on the piece and a Fox News blogger received photographs of the exhibit. The student-artist who created the piece had left markers along with a sign inviting others to add to it, the intent being that the graffiti would augment the artwork. When principal Don Flynt showed up for a scheduled student art show he saw the graffiti and ordered the exhibit taken down, telling Spectrum News: "I was immediately offended by it and took it down, confiscated it."

But some photographs and comments found their way online. Shenendehowa public information officer Kelly DeFeciani says social media kept the story alive, and come Monday Shen was on Fox News. "National media, I think they have people out there looking for things like that, because it is a shocking picture. But what the story doesn't tell is that it was put up there as a piece of art, just the pictures, kids wrote graffiti on it, the principal saw it and took it down immediately that part of the story doesn't get told on social media."

Fox News blogger Todd Starnes, whose Facebook page claimed he was "online" and "typically replies within minutes" to messages, did not answer one from WAMC. Flynt hadn't had much luck reaching Starnes either: "I am concerned that Fox News did not speak to me, even though I reached out to the person who wrote the article."

Some Shen parents reacted angrily to the national story. "We're getting all kinds of hate mail and just nasty things said from all over the country, and they're commenting on profanity that students did with profanity we need everybody to be good role models for our students."

Also in May, two rooms at Shen were appropriated so Muslim students could pray during Ramadan to fulfill religious obligations during school hours. DeFeciani says don't call them "prayer rooms." "The reason why it's two is that we have two school buildings. We have a 9th grade building and a 10-12 building. So it's just a place that kids can go for privacy if they have religious obligations that they need to do during the school day. The fact that it's being called a prayer room is just not accurate. There's nothing in there that's religious, it's not using a classroom space, none of that. It's simply just a place for privacy, and the reason that it came about for Ramadan is because they need to pray every day at a certain time, they have to be on their knees in a certain direction. I mean there's a whole religious obligation, it's not just prayer. They can't do it in the classroom. You know they talk about the separation of church and state, but we've always had to accommodate students' right to prayer, we have kids that pray at our flagpole every morning in a prayer group."

Shenendehowa, in southern Saratoga County, is attended by nearly 10,000 students. Being that large, observers say, will result in headlines from time to time.

In December 2014, the Shenendehowa school board approved a measure 4-2 to allow students on a case-by-case basis to use the bathroom and locker room facilities that reflect the gender they identify with.

In October 2015, a student there started a petition after he claimed school officials told him he could not go to prom in drag.

And in November 2016, alleged racially inflammatory language prompted officials to send a letter to parents asking their help in creating a safe and inclusive environment for all students.

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Culture Wars: Fox News Blogger Places Upstate NY School District ... - WAMC

June 10th, 2017

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Welcome To The Culture Wars, Minor League Baseball – Dealbreaker

The Ogden Raptors have put forth a serious test of the idea that there is no such thing as bad publicity with the fiasco this week that was the announcement and near-immediate withdrawal of Hourglass Appreciation Night.

The minor league promotion in Utah was not going to be a tribute to vintage timepieces, but rather to shapely ladies, in the best way possible to salute women in 2017, by thoroughly objectifying them.

The Raptors promised real thoroughbreds in the form of 18 hourglass-shaped color commentators in the broadcast booth, a different stunner each half-inning. The plan included live-streaming video of the gorgeous women whose curves rival those of any stud pitching prospect! Fans also would get to pose for pictures with the lovely ladies.

Now, the good part. On Tuesday, the Raptors said that none of this was real. The Ogden Raptors regret that an unauthorized press release was disseminated over the weekend announcing a promotion that was not approved or scheduled by club ownership or management. This promotion will not take place and steps have been put in place to ensure this will not happen again.

Everyone loves a good mystery, so who might have been responsible for this egregious error? Well, the Raptors website lists 10 positions in the front office, including the assistant groundskeeper, and one of which is Team 86 as director of security. There arent a lot of suspects here, and while the promotion might not have been approved or scheduled by club ownership or management, that sounds a lot like a technicality.

Remember, this is a team that takes groundskeeping seriously enough that 20% of its front office listings are groundskeeping-related. So, now know that it was just last year that Ogden was pretty much forced by the Pioneer League to stop having the infield raked by Drag Queens men in dresses dragging the dirt, get it?

How forced? Salt Lake Citys KUTV reported that Raptors managements response to the man who complained about the Drag Queens read: I had just written a long diatribe in response to your complaint but I deleted it all. Do not respond to this email as we will no longer talk about the matter.

The Raptors also made clear in their press release canceling Hourglass Night that the team would not be taking calls or answering questions on the matter.

So, you may be wondering, how is this series of events anything but terrible for the Ogden Raptors?

Well, Ogden is in Weber County, Utah, a place that went for Donald Trump by 20 points last November, and a theme that you might find among the MAGA hat crowd is that they do not particularly enjoy it when told that the way they enjoy themselves is wrong, be it living out college party fantasies of driving poor people to the morgue, putting up monuments to the Confederacy or treating women as nothing more than sexual playthings at a baseball game.

Here are some comments posted to the teams announcement on Facebook that there would be no Hourglass Night

Mike Simmons: We love our Ogden raptors. The owner puts on such a great event each and every game. Its sad that people are easily offended and cry babys out there. Cant wait for my raptor baseball.

Scott Coleman: Who cares. We are not offended

Jared T. Legge: The only thing you have to apologize for is for all the snowflakes ruining a good promotion.

The comments werent exclusively like this, but you get the idea there are lots of people out there who see the disgrace in this story being the fact that the Raptors were forced by snowflakes to cancel a good promotion, rather than it being, well, the incredibly obvious disgrace of considering this a good promotion in the first place. Had this not been such a busy week, you couldve easily seen Fox News getting in on this with a shout about political correctness and all the rest.

In the universe where the Raptors are the aggrieved party in this story, which somehow also is the universe we live in, people hearing about the Raptors for the first time might be inclined to show their support. They might want to buy something. Say, a cap.

Well, good news, the Ogden Raptors have those folks covered.

Because of course they do.

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Welcome To The Culture Wars, Minor League Baseball - Dealbreaker

June 10th, 2017

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Grayson Perry: Populism, Brexit and the UK’s culture wars – CNN.com – CNN

It may have taken him 20 years to break into the public consciousness (his household name status confirmed by attending his 2003 Turner Prize win in a crinoline party frock), but ever since he's been the closest thing Britain has to a truly public artist in the mold of Dali or Warhol.

"Oh god yeah, I'm definitely a populist artist", he proudly declared. "I make art for as wide an audience as possible. I'm interested in increasing the amount of people that come through the doors here."

"The title of the show came about because it made me laugh really," he says. "The art world struggles with popularity and populism, which has been brewing over the last few years as a current political force."

What do these terms mean to him? Surely he -- a fine artist in a dress -- has little in common with the likes of Farage and Trump?

"Populism is the version of popular that other people don't like," he says. "It's used as an insult. It's like, 'When loads of people like me, it's popular. But when loads of people like you, it's populism.'"

Time will tell how just how popular the show turns out to be, but it's already generating considerable interest. Sitting next to Serpentine director and cultural sultan Hans Ulrich Obrist in front of a throng of press, Perry seems very much the celebrity.

Yet his work itself is deeply rooted in the everyday, depicting themes and subjects that wouldn't usually make it into a major art show in a big city, such as the Brexit voters whose photos form the basis of the show's centerpiece: two ceramic vases named "Matching Pair."

"I call this part of the exhibition the mantelshelf of Britain," Perry says, surveying his creations. "One vase reflects the likes, the emotions, the interests of the Leave voter, and the other the Remain voters. I asked them over social media to send me their photographs of things they liked about Britain and portraits, their favorite brands, figures from history and our popular imagination who stand for what they believe in."

However for Perry, it's the connections between the two vases, rather than the differences, that ring true.

"Interestingly, they've come out quite similar because they both chose blue as the dominant color, as well as many similar images as well ... I haven't labeled them, but you can work out which one's which on closer examination. I think that reflects the layered identity we have as British people," he says. "Brexit isn't necessarily in the foreground. We've got many more identity issues when it comes to Brexit."

When it comes to the bitter rifts of generation, location, race and gender that Brexit did it's best to deepen, Perry is optimistic that they can be patched up -- in the long-term at least.

"I think in the heat around the referendum we saw this sort of new version of culture wars that happened in Britain. But I think it is not necessarily the headline of our identity -- and it will subside. It is just around the Brexit debate and the fallout from that and then into the election," he says.

"Brexit is still a hugely important issue, but I think as long as we address the underlying ... grievances that motivated people around the debate, then hopefully the poison will be lanced."

The show opens on the eve of the general election, a schedule clash that seems to suit his mirror-holding sense of chaos. How does he feel, hosting a major exhibition about British culture, on the eve of the most polarized election since the '80s?

"I love opening my show on the eve of a general election. It's perfect timing," he cackles, before getting serious again. "Some of the issues involved in the election are in my show, and it creates a febrile atmosphere where people are interested in the state of the nation, and that's something I've been interested in for a very long time."

"Also there is that difficult lull between going to vote and the results coming in, a perfect time to come to the opening," he adds, surely only half-joking.

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Grayson Perry: Populism, Brexit and the UK's culture wars - CNN.com - CNN

June 7th, 2017

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Harvey Rifkin: Irrational culture wars – Vallejo Times Herald

President Trumps pullout from the Paris Climate Agreement is really an irrational middle finger to the progressive movement. The elites of the conservative PR movement have master fully equated masculinity with intolerance, abusive use of fossil fuels, military imperialism, and reduction of civil rights with masculinity. Founders of the Mens Movement would be turning in their graves observing how corruption of messages by conservatives is being used to the benefit of some immoral capitalists.

Glorifying violence, driving fuel inefficient vehicles, profit at any price, decimating the First and Fourteenth Amendments have become the cornerstone of the conservative Trumpian agenda. This draconian agenda is catapulted with arrogant hubris, insensitivity, and a total lack of regard for anything other than making money, no matter what the destructive consequences. The above negative attributes have all the characteristics of past repressive fascist regimes.

America has now become The land of the Free if you are wealthy, white, and male. These conservatives would like to set womens rights back to the early 1900s. After all, women vote for progressive candidates in far greater numbers, so why not dilute their right to vote also in addition to people of color?

These hypocritical conservatives are always touting the importance of the Constitution, but thats only when it serves their greedy white patriarchal needs. Conservatives want to destroy anything that puts women, working class people, LGBTQ, the poor, people of color, and the environment on a level opportunity and playing field with their selfish apathetic greedy friends.

Conservatives are using religion, ethnicity, so called job formation, environmental anti-truthers, homophobia, fear of the loss of white male power, and demonizing of Sissy Tree Huggers as way to coalesce the ignorant white male base of voters to their greedy anything for profit agenda.

Cutting through the folly of tribalism and unconditional conservative loyalty is no easy task. After all many human beings are reactive emotional irrational creatures. I have faith in our upcoming better educated more tolerant millennials. The good news is that each year there are fewer conservative white males.

Harvey Rifkin/Vallejo

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Harvey Rifkin: Irrational culture wars - Vallejo Times Herald

June 7th, 2017

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State of the nation: Grayson Perry on Brexit, Britishness and culture wars – CNN

(CNN)There are many different types of artist, but if you were going to distill them all into just two groups you could say that there is the interior artist -- the one guided by nothing but their own dreams and visions -- and the exterior artist, who looks at the culture around them and finds inspiration within it. Television presenter, transvestite, tapestry-weaver and ceramicist Grayson Perry is very much one of the latter.

It may have taken him 20 years to break into the public consciousness (his household name status confirmed by attending his 2003 Turner Prize win in a crinoline party frock), but ever since he's been the closest thing Britain has to a truly public artist in the mold of Dali or Warhol.

"Oh god yeah, I'm definitely a populist artist", he proudly declared. "I make art for as wide an audience as possible. I'm interested in increasing the amount of people that come through the doors here."

"The title of the show came about because it made me laugh really," he says. "The art world struggles with popularity and populism, which has been brewing over the last few years as a current political force."