MAKING TAX HIKES SOUND GOOD

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

In two separate news stories this week, I've quoted officials urging tax hikes, but they say it in a nice-sounding way...

First of all, the Tucson City Council is using the term "revenue enhancement" to help offset the municipal budget crisis. What that term really means is raising taxes and fees to offset the cost of services. Those services are funded in part by sales tax revenue from the state. As we all know, those figures are down, because the economy is bad and people aren't spending money.

University of Arizona President Robert Shelton, according to wire service reports, also used the new buzzwords as a way to help universities dig out of the financial mess. Arizona State University already has announced worker furloughs and Shelton is urging another solution, cloaked nicely in the term of "revenue enhancement." I'm not really sure what that means, except there has been talk of higher tuition increases and allowing more out-of-state students in to help pay the bills, since they pay LOTS more than the locals.

I don't think anybody has all the answers these days, but if it looks like a duck.....

THE LUMPENPROLETARIAT BEGS THE QUESTION

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Misused terms seem to come in little epidemics. This week, in the course of filling in again as editor of the Tucson Weekly, I’ve seen three writers get “begs the question” wrong, and online I’ve seen two highly questionable uses of “lumpen.” (At least I was recently pleasantly surprised to hear someone say “immensity” instead of misappropriating, as is common, “enormity.”)

“Beg the question,” according to a site devoted exclusively to setting the matter straight,

is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place. A simple example would be "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." The adjective "ugly" does not explain why the subject is "unattractive"—they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.

What people who misuse “begs the question” really mean is “raises the question.”

“Lumpen” tends to be misused by fairly erudite writers who ought to know better than to employ odd terms without looking them up. They seem to associate the word, perhaps, with “lumpy,” at least in a metaphorical way, but it’s a short form of “lumpenproletariat,” which one dictionary defines first as “Of or relating to dispossessed, often displaced people who have been cut off from the socioeconomic class with which they would ordinarily be identified.” By extension, and especially as critic Robert Hughes loves to use it, “lumpen” means “vulgar,” “common,” “plebeian.”

Class dismissed.

CELLO IMPRESSIONIST

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

A video spoof by cellist Stjepan Hauser of the performance styles of many a cellist more famous than he is making the rounds of the Internet, and deservedly so—it’s hilarious. Embedding is forbidden, so you’ll have to go to YouTube and see it there.

FINGER-SYNCHING CONFIRMED

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

This is old news now, but my “live” supposition that the Inaugural music was canned was independently confirmed.

I HAVE RETURNED

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

Staying home sick in bed gets boring fast, so I’m actually glad to be back at work. There’s some catch-up blogging to be done, though, starting with links to my contributions to last week’s Tucson Weekly. First, a review of Arizona Theatre Company’s latest production:

Part of Lorraine Hansberry's _A Raisin in the Sun_ hinges on whether a black family in 1950s Chicago will be able to move up into a white neighborhood. Can such a play matter to us in 2009? Consider: My westside Tucson neighborhood neatly reflects the ethnic demographics of the city overall, mostly Anglo and Hispanic, but with proportionate representations of black and Asian families, too; it's happily and naturally integrated. Another point: This week, an African-American family took residence at America's most exclusive address, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. So times have changed, redlining _A Raisin in the Sun_ out of the repertory, right? Not so fast. Setting aside the question of integration and race relations, the play is also about something more fundamental: How does a family set priorities for its own advancement? And can people's dreams and passions blind them to certain realities?

The complete review is here, from which you can move along to my less enthusiastic evaluation of a restaurant:

Once it opened way out on 22nd Street in 1998, Amereno's Little Italy developed a following as loyal as Giuseppe Garibaldi's—and now the restaurant is facing trials not unlike those of the Italian revolutionary leader. Garibaldi's career was a sequence of hard-won victories and strategic retreats, and periods of exile and political disappointment. Today, Garibaldi's name is synonymous with nationalism and unity, and his successes (he was eventually elected to the parliament of a unified Italy) overshadow his tribulations. So it goes with Amereno's. The restaurant temporarily closed a couple of years ago, and founder Victor Amereno moved away. But last autumn, fighting unfavorable economic odds, the restaurant opened in a new, more central location under the management of Jaqueline Piikkila, retaining executive chef Peter Wilkins and an emphasis on traditional Italian fare. Amereno's is making a noble culinary effort--yet the results are uneven. Let me make it clear that nothing my friends and I sampled there is really poor, and several items are quite good. What the menu lacks from dish to dish is a consistent high standard.

The full review, which isn’t really terribly negative, is here.

VIDEOS FOR THE WEB

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

NPR had an interesting report Tuesday discussing the changing face of music videos, now geared for YouTube and small screens.

Apparently, the consensus is that people who watch music videos aren't really going to their TVs anymore to watch them, but see them on iPods and computer screens.

I remember being glued in front of MTV back in the 1980s waiting for my favorite videos to come on, because that was pretty much the only place to watch them. I can't even tell you what MTV runs these days (not music videos), or even what channel it is.

I still do watch videos every now and then and when I want to see one, I head to YouTube. Not only is it convenient, but it's also OnDemand whenever you want it.

Yes, the world is changing and it's fun to be part of it.