Jerry Ward's Blogspot

THE RULE OF LAW versus THE ROLE OF MADNESS One   conception of politics, according to Paul W. Kahn, involves "a commitment to both history and territory" (time and space), and "the rule of law is an organization of institutions, practices, persons, and objects with the ongoing historical and spatial project that is the state. The state occupies time and space not as an object in the natural world, but as an imaginative construction of temporal and spatial meanings.   The state's time is history; its space is territory.   These are the subjects of a legal aesthetic" [ The Cultural Study of Law ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 40].   It is unfortunate that few of us were ever taught that the United States of America as a state is actually a work of fiction upon which we are obligated, as citizens, to impose a patriotic sense of something possessing four dimensions, celebrated in flags,   song, pledge, and prayer.   It is unfortunate t...

July 31, 1943 How indifferent the day is, its great physicality ignoring natural divisions of nothing bearing deceit of numbers and names as rural vices make urban virtues escape your mouth to dance inside your ears. Integrity is all/so more important as wise knowing elects time's gravity, opts for finitude, steals eternity from a star. Jerry W. Ward, Jr. July 31, 2017

END OF JULY NOTES FOR VOTERS IN NEW ORLEANS As we account for ourselves to ourselves as voting citizens of New Orleans, we might keep in mind that the history of our location is a tale of two cities, one richly seasoned with poverty and the other flavored with degrees of wealth.   Who we vote for or against entails many considerations.   We have to think about power from angles of class, heritage, ecology, race, religion, gender, and some abstractions that defy precise language.   Or language fit to print.   As Mayor Landrieu recently reminded us, our city is the music capital of the USA.   Joy and pain are the parents of music.   But enough of fantasy and culinary dreams.   Take up the practical burden of making "good" decisions when we vote on October 14, 2017. Sponsored by EngageNOLA on July 27, 2017, "A Talk with the Mayor: A Civic Engagement Social" at Peoples' Health New Orleans Jazz Market was a necessary learning moment.   ...

Youth and Politics Hashim Walter is the youngest candidate in the mayor's race.   His running for office isn't a joke or a whim.   As a man who represents a future for politics in New Orleans, he is making   a serious gesture. It is reassuring that he has chosen to carry an enormous burden. Despite his youth, Walters can provide valuable insights about priorities and new directions in governing.   We must give him respect.   We must also hold him to the same standards of honesty we demand of more experienced candidates for presenting a vision, convincing us his sense of duty is genuine, and answering questions about policies. Before he discloses more about himself, I request that he answer one question we might not pose for other mayoral candidates.   How will he build a coalition of Native American, African American, Caucasian American, Latina/Latino American, and Asian American voters to support his candidacy ?    His answ...

SHORT STORY In the exhausted language of the academic world, President Donald J. Trump was PUT IN CONVERSATION WITH Janie Crawford, whose eyes knew how to watch God when she put truth in her mouth. On a national, ultra-conservative news program, Crawford said to Trump: "When you pull down yo' britches, you look like de change uh life." Hearing only what inflated his ego, Trump heard: "When you pull down your bitches, you look like you changing her life." Trump rotated his eyes 45 degrees, grinned, and said: "That's a great statement!" Jerry W. Ward, Jr.             July 26, 2017

Imagining Partial Reality James Boyd White ends Acts of Hope: Creating Authority in Literature, Law, and Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) with an eloquent remark about Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, and Nelson Mandela as writers: None of these writers thought he lived in a just or perfect world.   Everyone saw evil , in himself and in others;   everyone saw defects of mind and language, in himself and in others.   Yet each found a way of living in an unjust world by imagining an ideal into a partial reality. (307) Such neoliberal sentiment might encourage fresh thinking among voters in New Orleans, voters who will elect a mayor and seven city council members on October 14, 2017.   Each voter knows the city is neither just nor perfect.   Each witnesses major and minor evil on a daily basis.   Each is aware of defects of thought and language in the city's economic and political dialogue, in how priorities are triaged. ...

IMPERATIVES 2017 The mask wears a face --- deceptive, canonical, beatific, abysmal --- a satin doll face Frankenstein stitched and starched. Obviously, the mask needs no music ---suffered to be played, no 45 record of demise. Obviously, the face --- anthropocene, branded curated, daemonic --- maps territory so familiar it fails to ground governance. Jerry W. Ward, Jr.             July 20, 2017