Open Thread February 5, 2023

 Posted by at 7:11 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 052023
 

The Met Opera is taking (most of) the month of February off as regards live performances. But tht does not affect the radio broadcasts, which are featuring archival material. Yesterday, we heard an opera recorded exactly fifty years and one day prior – a matinee of Verdi’s “MacBeth.” One thing that made this broadcast special is that both MacBeth and Lady MacBeth are still alive – he is 99 and she is 85 – and new interviews with both were included as intermission features (Banquo is also alive – at 80, the baby of the cast – but that’s a smaller part, and he does not live in America.) The opera follows Skakespeare closely, unless you want to quibble about 3 witches becoming a whole stage-full, including the ballet corps (Paris would not perform any opera without a ballet.) Not to belittle the stars, who are in fact legends and have proven their quality many times over, but Verdi’s music is so powerful that no one needs to be an actor to pull it off. The music does the acting and rivets the audience. Performing in the original play is much more tricky.

Also yesterday, I received a petition from Lakota Law to increase indigenous representation particularly when indigenous experience is part of the story. Seems like a no brainer to me – but we are still fighting for it. This link should work to get you there.

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Short Takes –

Independent (UK) – Man missing both legs dies after cops shot him at least eight times
Quote – In a confrontation captured on video by a bystander and posted to social media, Mr Lowe, who uses a wheelchair, is seen holding a knife and scrambling away from multiple police officers who appear to be pointing weapons at him. Shortly thereafter, police shot Mr Lowe multiple times and killed him.
Click through. I can hear all the white Republicans “But ha had a knife! And he stabbed someone!” None of that entitles police to replace judge, jury, and executioner. For God’s sake. were these supposed tough guys seriously afraid of a double amputee, trying to move on mere stumps? But to white Republicans, people of color are not actually human.

The Nib (Whit Taylor) – Black Mothers Face Far Worse Health Outcomes. How Do We Fix It?
Quote – The day after delivering her baby by emergency C-section, [Serena] Williams became short of breath and suspected she may have a blood clot, given her history of them. Walking out of her room, she notified the nurse of her condition but was told that the pain medication may have been making her confused…. The CT scan revealed that Williams was right; she had life threatening blood clots in her lungs. And coughing from the pulmonary embolism led to abdominal hemorrhaging at the site of her c-section incision….
Click through for full comic. I have often said that the the role of the comedian, since time immemorial, is and has been to speak truth to power (and I’ll keep saying it as long as I have breath.) Case in point here. This Black History Month (as always) cartoonists are saying in cartoons what no one else, apparently, has the spine to put into words. I’ll be using cartoons through the month when that happens.

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 2/4/2023

 Posted by at 12:09 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Feb 042023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s desperate and dangerous posts, and DOJ’s deafening silence

Black History (James Baldwin schools Paul Weiss on Dick Cavett’s show)

MeidasTouch – Federal Judge makes most SCATHING & HILARIOUS Order Against Oath Keepers Ever- (long, yes, but not terribly repetetive, and very funny)

The Lincoln Project – Default

Rescue Chicken Shares A Bedroom With Her Human Sister (hanky alert)

Beau – Let’s talk about M&Ms….

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Open Thread February 4, 2023

 Posted by at 7:14 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 042023
 

Yesterday, I managed to take some trash to the polycart before sunset. If I can break down enough boxes to recycle, and get them out in tume. then maybe next Wednesday I can get them to the curb, which would be nice.  If not, oh well.

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Short Takes –

The Conversation – A Black history primer on African Americans’ fight for equality – 5 essential reads
Quote – 3. An image of a lynching found in a family photo album
Click through for more on this, and for the other four, all with links to more detail.

Mother Jones – Why Starbucks Is Inviting Social Workers Into Its Stores
Quote – On a chilly recent morning, customers inside a Starbucks in New York City’s midtown were doing what you’d expect: buying coffee, warming up, chatting. But one person was moving through the store with a different purpose: she first approached a woman standing near the door, and then another man seated with a cup of coffee, saying hello, asking how they were and offering them gloves, hats and handwarmers.
CLick through for story. Starbucks is not exactly the first corporation I would think of when it comes to empathy, or to positive innovation. But sometimes corporations, like people, will surprise me.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread February 3, 2023

 Posted by at 7:14 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 032023
 

Yesterday, only a day or two after I pointed out that McCarthy had seated Ilhan Omar on the Foreign Affairs Committee, she was kicked off of it. The snake didn’t have the guts to do it himself. He took a vote of the full House. Grrrrr. Also, I want to highlight an article by Robert Reich on the debt ceilling – factual and easy to understand, like everything he writes.

Also, this video was in Wednesday’s video thread, and Lona recommended reporting it here because, essentially, it should be seen by everyone in the country.  She also recommended Freya including it in her action emails, which is up to Freya of course, but I’d concur.

PoliticsGirl – Why Less Tax is Actually More Tax

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Short Takes –

Letters from an American – February 1, 2023
Quote – On February 1, 1862, in the early days of the Civil War, the Atlantic Monthly published Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” summing up the cause of freedom for which the United States troops would soon be fighting…. [T]he hopes of that moment had crumbled within a decade. Almost a century later, on February 1, 1960, David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell A. Blair Jr., and Joseph McNeil set out to bring them back to life when they sat down on stools at the F.W. Woolworth Company department store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina…. Exactly 63 years later, on February 1, 2023, Tyre Nichols’s family said laid their 29-year-old son to rest in Memphis, Tennessee.
Click through for more detailed history. Mr. and Mrs. Nichols have accepted President Biden’s invitation to attend his State of the Union address. But – will we ever learn?

Washington Post (no paywall) – A Black professor defies DeSantis law restricting lessons on race
Quote – The painful chapter in Florida’s history known as the Newberry Six lynchings is one the university professor has taken pains to help document over decades of research. It’s also one that he fears will be removed from Florida history lessons under a new education law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as part of a broader push to root out ideas he deems “woke.”
Click through for story. In DeSantis’s Florida – Desantistan – it’ is not unthinkable that Professor Dun may need to be concerned that he may be lynched. That despite the fact that so many of us, even before 1861 and up to the present – have fought so hard to prevent that.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread February 2, 2023

 Posted by at 6:51 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 022023
 

Yesterday, the weather site I use was predicting highs in the 40’s and 50’s for the next ten days, and no snow. That will certainly make life more comfortable for me. While I am of course concerned about the snowpack, snow here does not translate into snow in the snowpack. Menot getting any doesn’t mean the snowpack is a lost cause (of course it also doesn’t mean it isn’t.)  Denver (measured at DIA) did get the heaviest snowfall this year (so far) than they have seen in over ten years.

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Short Takes –

The Good in Us by Mary L. Trump – A Failing of Basic Humanity
Quote – The great Sherrilyn Ifill [responded] “I suggest that what Friedersdorf sees as failure, is instead his own inability to recognize the power and resilience of white supremacy, and its hold on the institution of American law enforcement. Those of us in this work have long explained the systematic and cultural hard-wiring of racism in policing, while so many leaders in the white community have insisted that it is only “bad apples.” We explained that so deeply-imbedded is the culture of white supremacy in policing that even Black police officers can participate in brutality against Black victims, because they too are responding to the messages of white supremacy in their profession that promotes and rewards officers who know whose lives matter and whose don’t.”
Click through for full opinion. It’s long – but Mary gets it (as does Sherilynn – IIRC a niece of the late Gwen.)

Daily Beast – Racist RSVP Cannot Ruin 9-Year-Old’s Birthday
Quote – Dr. Ijeoma Nnodim Opara[, MD, FAAP, FAIM] sent [her daughter] to school with party invitations [for the girl’s 9th birthday] in bright yellow-and-white envelopes for her close friends. But the daughter still had one of the invitations when she returned home. Her explanation pained Opara as both a Black mother and a physician researcher who studies systemic racism in health care. “She said this person will not be able to come because their grandfather does not like Black people,” Opara told The Daily Beast….
[B]efore Opara spoke, her daughter responded exactly how the mother would have hoped. “She said ‘I know it’s racist, and I told [the classmate] so,’” Opara recalled.
Click through for bittersweet story. So many responded wanting to send her a card that D. Opara is opening a PO Box just for tehm. But it should not have been necessary.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread February 1, 2023

 Posted by at 6:48 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 012023
 

Yesterday, I received a breaking news alert from Axios – ” George Santos tells colleagues he’s stepping down from House committees.” That will be nice if it happens. But he’s such a liar, how can one tell? I also spent way too much time untangling – but that, alas, is what it takes, and it has to be done if I’m going to use the yarn. Today is the first day of Black History Month (except in FLorida.) I”ll be doing what I can – which means not every short take is going to be current.

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Short Takes –

Mother Jones – How a Sunken Slave Ship Set Off “a Search for Ourselves”
Quote – [M]aritime archaeology has tended to focus its masked eye on the wrecks of rich and famous ships rather than those that traded in flesh and blood. Redressing that archaeological, academic and sociocultural imbalance was the driving force behind the Slave Wrecks Project, a partnership established in 2008 between the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and other institutions and organizations in Africa and the US. “People talk about the slave trade; they talk about the millions of people who were transported, but it’s hard to really imagine that, so we wanted to reduce it to human scale by really focusing on a single ship, on the people on the ship, and the story around the ship,” says [Lonnie] Bunch [NMAAHC Director]. “Yes, we tell you about the thousands of ships that brought the enslaved, but we also say: ‘Here’s a way to humanize it.’”
Click through for story. Not everyone wants to know about their ancestral history, and that is true of people from all backgrounds (and compinations of backgrounds. But those who do want to know should have equal access to that information. Henry Louis Gates Jr. has done wonderful work in that field, but anyone who has watched his show knows that the history of slavery in the U.S. presents a huge stumbling block, much as fires destroying records do, with the revealing difference that this suppression was deliberate. Anything which can help cut through that curtain is welcome.

Daily Beast – Florida Explains Why It Blocked Black History Class—and It’s a Doozy
Quote – The Florida Department of Education says it banned AP African American History because it teaches students about activism, intersectionality and encourages “ending the war on Black trans, queer, gender non-conforming, and intersex people,” according to a document the department sent to The Daily Beast…. DeSantis’ administration further made their anti-LGBTQ stance known in their explanation for prohibiting the class, simply listing “Black Queer Studies” as a violation of state law. The document further admonishes the teaching of intersectionality, claiming it is “foundational to” Critical Race Theory, without explaining how.
Click through for details. I’m not sure “doozy” is the right word – “doozies” are supposed to be positive (it’s derived from “Duesenberg.”) This is so negative, and so far right – I’d call it a “Q-zy,” as in QAnon.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread September 30, 2022

 Posted by at 6:50 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 302022
 

Yesterday, The Colorado Public Radio newsletter shared a link to a National Public Radio article about a crystal flute which had been custom made for James Madison – and Lizzo (“[t]he superstar singer, rapper and classically trained flutist and, incidentally, a person who I gather has very few, if any, f***s to give) playing it on a visit to the Library of Congress (and, under heavy security, at a concert.) I had no idea that such a thing existed. It doesn’t sound exactly like (Franklin’s) glass harmonica – but it does sound more like that than any of the normal flutes do which are substituted for it these days. To quote Lizzo – “History is freaking cool, you guys!” Also yesterday, the news broke (it actually happened Wednesday) that Marjorie Taylor Greene’s husband has filed for divorce. Does anyone remember which of them owns the company that supports them? I’m afraid I don’t.

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Short Takes –

The 19th – As the EPA introduces environmental justice office, the ‘mother of the movement’ remembers the Black women who led the battle
Quote – When Dollie Burwell, now 74, reflects back on the Warren County protests, she thinks about the Black women who led and supported the protesters…. “That’s what I’ve been reflecting on,” Burwell said. “Those Black women who fed us, who got up early in the morning and came out at the Coley Spring Baptist Church and cooked food to bring to the marches.” It’s what kept Burwell, a mother of two, and other residents marching. Burwell was arrested five times during that period for her activism. Even her 8-year-old daughter was arrested once while participating in the marches. While the community lost the fight against the landfill … the battle helped birth a nationwide movement. Awareness spread around the country that toxic landfills were being placed in predominantly Black and poor communities.
Click through for story. By now I’m sure y’all know that I am a name ggek. Well, back when George Washington died, he freed his slaves, but Martha held some in her own right, some of whom were given ot bequestherd to her daughter. That daughter married a man named “Carter Burwell” (same name, but not the same person obviously, as the award-winning composer of music for movies.) Decades later, when all the slaves were freed during and after the Civil War, many, maybe most, slaves, who had never had surnames, took the surnames of their former masters (which seems a bit too “Handmaid’s Tale” to me, but it certainly would have been easy and have some advantages.) I am not prepared to say that Dollie Burwell (or her husband, if it’s his name) is descended from people who worked at Mount Vernon, but it’s certainly a possibility.

HuffPo – How Progressives Can Win The Long-Term Fights They’re Losing
Quote – As Belkin tells the story, a chronic problem for Democrats and their allies has been their focus on winning debates through better rhetoric. They assume public opinion is relatively static, and think the key to victory in any given argument is picking the right words or trying to shift the focus of conversation, so that the debate can take place on more favorable political grounds…. “As long as we emphasize frame over facts,” Belkin said in a recent interview with HuffPost, “we’re going to be playing small ball.”
Click through for full article. This was a bit hard for me, because the GOP has been all frame and no facts for at least 40 years and they have been killing us. But when he brought up “storytelling” – which to me is a frame – I paid more attention. Most people learn everything they know from one kind of story or another. What is QAnon but a collection of stories? But it doesn’t have to be used only for evil. It’s a technique which can be powerfully used for good.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread February 28, 2022

 Posted by at 7:12 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 282022
 

Yesterday, I started the day with a whole lot more sleep than I did Saturday. So I had a little more time for personal stuff. Incidentally, I have posted before about Theater of War Productions and their work in healing PTSD of all kinds. They just announced that in March, Margaret Atwood (The Handlaidn’s Tale) will be taking part in one of their Zoom projects in March. Ms. Atwood generally prefers her work to speak for her and does not make public appearances very often, so if you ever wanted to see her and hear her voice, this is a rare chance. They plan to repeat the project multiple times, but of course they can’t guarantee the same cast. The production itself is readings from “Antigone,” selected by nurses, for nurses, and with a “chorus” of front line nurses, and the date is March 17th, the time is (EDT) 5-7 pm,and it is free. Also, CC is an option for alll of their productions (and I use it a lot.) Clicking on this link will not register you; it will simply take you to a page of more information. But you can click through from it to register. I always put these on my calendar – they do send you reminders but they do not overdo it and sometimes time slips away from me.

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Short Takes –

Letters from an American – February 26, 2022
Quote – The colors of the Ukrainian flag are lighting up buildings across North America and Europe and musical performances are beginning with the Ukrainian anthem. Protesters are marching and holding vigils for Ukraine. The answer of the soldier on Ukraine’s Snake Island to the Russian warship when it demanded that he and his 12 compatriots lay down their weapons became instantly iconic. He answered: “Russian warship: Go f**k yourself.” That defiance against what seemed initially to be an overwhelming military assault has given Ukraine a psychological edge over the Russians, some of whom seem bewildered at what they are doing in Ukraine. It has also offered hope that the rising authoritarianism in the world is not destined to destroy democracy, that authoritarians are not as strong as they have projected.
Click through for full letter. The last thing I want to do is to imply that all is sunshine and roses. But I have to admit that this letter, when I read it early yesterday, gave me more hope than I have had since 2016. Not just because of the Ukrainians, who are inspiring, but because of the responses of the entire world. Even some of our sick, sick Republicans are shutting up a little.

Reuters – At the Ukrainian border, a mother brings a stranger’s children to safety (hanky alert)
Quote – The children’s Ukrainian mother was on her way from Italy to meet them and take them to safety, the father said. He gave [Nataliya] Ableyeva the mother’s mobile number, and said goodbye to his children, wrapped up against the cold in thick jackets and hats. Ableyeva had left her own two grown-up children behind in Ukraine. One a policeman, the other a nurse, neither could leave Ukraine under the mobilisation decree. She took the two small children by the hand and together they crossed the border.
Click through for story and background The reporter tweeted the link with the caption: ” I have never cried while reporting. Until today.”

Black History – Wikipedia – Matthew A. Henson
Quote – Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an American explorer who accompanied Robert Peary on seven voyages to the Arctic over a period of nearly 23 years. They spent a total of 18 years on expeditions together…. Their first Arctic expedition together was in 1891–92. Henson served as a navigator and craftsman, and was known as Peary’s “first man”. Like Peary, he studied Inuit survival techniques.
Click through for biohraphy. Most people our age, when Arctic exploration comes up, can at least recognize the name Robert Peary. Matthew Henson’s name should be equally familiar.

Food For Thought:
(More recent news suggests that some, maybe even all, may still be alive. MAY be. We can hope.)

 

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