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February 8, 2010 at 4:31 am · Filed under Uncategorized

In an effort to save the imperiled health-care bill, Democrats cut a tentative deal with organized labor that would exempt unionized employees from an excise tax on high-cost healthcare plans. Of the many unsavory bargains and rotten deals that have characterized the rush to get this thing passed (the “Louisiana Purchase,” the “Cornhusker Kickback,” etc.), the “Labor Loophole” surely takes the prize.
Cinema possesses a rich history of collaboration between artists of sound, narrative, and image. However, traditional tendencies to perceive music as a strictly supportive background or accompaniment have been subjected to in-depth critique only recently. Abigail Childs interactions with musicians in Is This What You Were Born For? (1981-89) and Bill Morrisons partnership with composer Michael Gordon in Decasia (2001) exemplify (but by no means exhaust the possibilities of) the broader range of collaborative textures that cinema has always suggested. Not coincidentally, these works represent the influence on cinema of two popular music practices: the ubiquitous re-mixing that has emerged from hip-hop culture and the group composition typical of many rock bands. Abigail Child (also a poet, critic, and scholar) has had an influential career as an experimental filmmaker since the mid-1970s when she turned from professional documentary work to the creation of independent films focusing on gender, sexuality, class, and the critical possibilities of montage. Recycling found footage from a wide variety of sources, such as porn, industrial films, and home movies, and progressing cinematic techniques often associated primarily with the historical avant-garde of the early twentieth century, Child has created an oeuvre of incredible beauty and continuing social relevance. Her films are shown at major art museums and in experimental cinema venues and can be obtained through a variety of distribution channels. Is This What You Were Born For?, the series of short films Child created in the 1980s, underscores her exploration of interdisciplinary collaboration and these endeavors have had on her work. Michael Gordons award-winning career as a composer has resulted in a variety of notable intermedia collaborations, including for example operas with diegetic film components progressing beyond the more familiar application of projection as scenery and non-narrative music performances incorporating video. Gordon is a founding member of the highly regarded new music organization Bang on a Can, a group dedicated to facilitating the composition and performance of new music, often with an interdisciplinary dimension and independently of conservative academic contexts. Decasia, Gordons internationally celebrated collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison, is a symphony for full orchestra paired with a montage of archival nitrate footage in various states of intriguing and evocative decomposition. The final version of the film, edited to fit the live recording of the symphony performance, was featured in the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Decasia synaesthetically elucidates subtleties inherent to myriad generative tensions: progress/tradition, memory/time, darkness/illumination, and mini-malism/totalism.
IF Rep. Luis Gutierrez gets his way, Americans will soon be engaged in another bare-knuckled brawl over the future of U.S. immigration policy. On December 15, the Illinois Democrat unveiled a “comprehensive” reform bill that would create a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are residing in the United States illegally. Dozens of House members have signed on as cosponsors. Should President Obama and Democratic leaders launch an aggressive push for the legislation, we can expect a replay of the high-octane immigration battles that erupted in 2006 and 2007. Indeed, the bickering this time around could be even more raucous because of the weak economy. (Last time, the national unemployment rate was below 5 percent.) A few days before Gutierrez introduced his bill, Pew Hispanic Center released an extensive study of young Hispanics–those aged 16 to 25–and their uneven assimilation into mainstream American society. Roughly two-thirds were born in the U.S., and about the same proportion have Mexican ancestry. An estimated 22 percent are illegal immigrants. The Pew study found that Hispanic youths appreciate the value of a college degree, believe that hard work pays off, and aspire to have successful careers; but it also highlighted social and educational trends that are hindering Hispanics upward mobility–an issue that should be central to any debate over immigration reform. Pew reckons that in 2008, more than half of young Hispanics had family incomes under 200 percent of the federal poverty level, compared with 38 percent of all youths and 29 percent of non-Hispanic white youths. While foreignborn Hispanics had significantly higher poverty rates than their native-born counterparts, 21 percent of young Hispanics from the third generation and later belonged to poor families, compared with 13 percent of young non-Hispanic whites. These income gaps are fueled by parental and educational disparities. In 2007, the birth rate among Hispanic women aged 15 to 19 was 82 per 1,000, which was nearly twice the birth rate among all women in that demographic. Hispanics lag well behind the general population when it comes to finishing high school: The dropout rate among Hispanics aged 16 to 24 is 17.2 percent, compared with 9.3 percent among non-Hispanic blacks and 5.7 percent among non-Hispanic whites. That is a result of the staggeringly high dropout rate (32.9 percent) among first-generation Hispanic immigrants. Close to a third of Hispanics aged 16 to 25 can identify a past or present gang member among their family and friends. Once again, there is a divide between the foreign-born and native-born–but its not the divide you might expect. Native-born Hispanic youths (especially those of Mexican descent) are actually much more likely to know a gang member than are young Hispanic immigrants. Theyre also more likely to get in fights, carry weapons, and be questioned by the police.

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