Yesterday, I got a note from James – our lurker who has had so many problems in the last few years, most recently multiple surgeries (and asked for vibes for those.) After six years, he has finally received SSDI. IIRC he had to re-apply once or twice, but even if that only went back to the most recent re-application, that’s still a couple of years back pay. He can finally be confident of a roof over his head, not starving, and being together with his beloved Cinnamon, the last surviving dog in what was once a family of house dogs (for a while he had to board Cinnamon with a friend, not only because of his absence due to the surgeries, but for financial reasons.) So he has freedom at last. Also yesterday – I know Colorado has a well deserved reputation for crazy weather – but can you even imagine a day when the temperature follows the pattern of the red line in the graph at the right? Yes, that was yesterday. Really. Finally, today is the big vote in Ohio nn a proposed highly unconcstitutional amendment to the state constitution. Be sure to keep them in your prayers (or however you communicate with the universe.)
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Wonkette – Black DA Elected In Augusta Georgia So White County Creates Own Separate, Unequal Judicial Circuit
Quote – Reporter Justin Glawe details in The Guardian how the day after the election, before the results were even certified, Republican state legislator Barry Fleming sent a text to Doug Duncan, the county commission chair for Columbia, one of the three counties in the circuit and by far the whitest. The text asked, “Does the board of commissioners want to be there [sic] own judicial circuit.” (No one has time for spelling when they’re busy screwing democracy!) Duncan thought this was swell, so by December, he’d officially asked the area’s lawmakers to introduce legislation separating Columbia county from the judicial circuit that also included Richmond and Burke counties. Click through for story. After learning what’s been going on forever in Newbern, AL, this hit me with the realization that stuff like this has been going on, all over, since 1964 and we simply haven’t seen it, despite its being done in broad daylight. Apperently even woke Democrats aren’t woke enough.
Letters from an American – August 6, 2023
Quote – On August 6, 1880, Republican presidential candidate James A. Garfield gave one of his most famous speeches…. Garfield promised that “we will remember our allies who fought with us.” He explained: “Soon after the great struggle began, we looked behind the army of white rebels, and saw 4,000,000 of black people condemned to toil as slaves for our enemies; and we found that the hearts of these 4,000,000 were God-inspired with the spirit of liberty, and that they were all our friends.” As the crowd applauded, he continued: “We have seen white men betray the flag and fight to kill the Union; but in all that long, dreary war we never saw a traitor in a black skin.” Click through for the untold story. Sounds to me like Garfield signed his own death warrant that night. I know tht’s not what the history books say., but…. Also, we need to add another Republican to the list of good presidents.
Yesterday, the radio opera was “Li zite ‘ngalera” by Leonardo Vinci, neither of which/whom I had ever heard of (Of course I know who Leonardo da Vinci is, but this is an 18th century namealike.) It is a comedy; the title translates to “The Newlyweds;” the libretto is in the Neapolitan dialect (Neapolitan composers as a group are credited with re-shaping operas in the direction of the form we recognize from the 19th and early 20th centuries.) The plot is easily described: Carlo leaves his fiancee Belluccia for greener pastures; she follows him disguised as a man; she ends up cutting him out with his new flame and s couple of other girls and he ends up back with her. But “easily described” is not the same thing as simple. I can see, and you likely can too, all kinds of complications, not even including the one that Belluccia’s father is furious with Carlo, and she has to save his life from her Dad. It premiered in 1722. Handel had left Italy (where he studied Italian opera) in 1710 for the court of Prince George of Hanover (later George I of England), but since he wrote a good number of Italian and Italian-style operas in England and was very successful until “The Beggars’ Opera” hit one out of the park (causing Handel to switch to oratorios), it’s not impossible that he knew it. I didn’t hear any influence on Handel in the music, but I did hear the beginnings of the recitativo-aria pattern which was standard by the time of Mozart. (I also heard some “gender-bending” which was pretty standard in opera at the time. Carlo sung by a woman may have been an attempt to replace a castrato role, but that would not explain the presence of a female character sung by a tenor.) The production is from La Scala from this year.
Since Pat B is away for the weekend on a family outing, I am going to slip in a couple of TJIs which I would ordinarily have sent her.
TJI #1 – (A response to DeSaster’s word salad while being questioned about his travesties of education policy) DeSantis was trying to wrap himself in the Cloak of Invisibility but instead slipped on the Hoodie of Absurdity. – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
TJI #2 – Justice Alito secured his place in history as the Court’s cranky old man yelling at Americans to “get off my lawn!” – Robert Hubbell
Off to visit Virgil – will post when I return as always.
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AP News – Biden openly acknowledges 7th grandchild, the daughter of son Hunter and an Arkansas woman
Quote – “Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” Biden said in a statement. It was his first acknowledgement of the child. This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter,” he said. “Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.”… The president, who has made a commitment to family central to his public persona, has faced increasing criticism from political rivals and pundits for failing to acknowledge the granddaughter. According to a person familiar with the matter, he was taking the cue from his son while the legal proceedings played out. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters. Click through for story. I could have told you that Joe would do this just as soon as Hunter taking responsibility for his actions got to the point it has now reached. And not a moment sooner. (And I can also tell you with no additional evidence but with complete moral certainty that he is incredibly relieved that the time has come. Joe’s primary motivator is love – it’s that simple.)
Letters from an American – July 28, 2023
Quote – On Wednesday, soldiers of the presidential guard overthrew Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, and replaced him with a military general, Abdourahmane Tchiani…. Niger is a key player in the struggle to establish democracy in Africa, and Bazoum’s overthrow is part of that larger story. Niger is a landlocked country about twice the size of Texas in the center of the Sahel region in Africa, a dry grassland region that crosses the continent from the Atlantic to the Red Sea…. That region has also been plagued by violent Islamic groups, and strongmen promising to restore order have launched successful coups in the countries of Mali and Burkina Faso, which are Niger’s neighbors. (When Vice President Kamala Harris went to Ghana in March, her visit was partly to shore up democracy in that country, which is on the edge of the Sahel region and under pressure from militants in Sahel countries.) Click through for details. Reuters had this story and so did MSNBC, though not in the headlines. I didn’t see it anywhere else, though I didn’t look everywhere, and of course, Heather has all the history. I find this scary on a level with Trump**.
Trying to get a little ahead in anticipation of next month’s recap
Talking Feds – Alabama Republicans OPENLY DEFY Supreme Court [I would agree that “that’s the legal term.”]
The Lincoln Project – VP Harris’ Speech on Revisionist History in FL
Michigan AG Dana Nessel Charges 16 ‘False Electors’ with Election Law and Forgery Felonies
Brent Terhune – Jason Aldean Stands Up For Small Towns (In case you haven’t heard about this controversy, click here or here for starters)
Cat Who Has To Wear Sunglasses Loves Getting Attention – BAGEL
Beau – Let’s talk about a NJ commutation and Trump….
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
Ameican History has probably never been taught as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in our K-12 schools – it certainly has not been done in my lifetime, and I was in K-12 in a fairly rational time and in a fairly rational community (as college towns tend to be.) But no one alive today has ever seen such a travesty of American history as is being taught today in Florida. That is ironic, as you will see in this article; it was South Carolina and specifically Charleston which was in the “slaves” corner of the triangle trade. And some of the slaves received in Charleston escaped, or attempted to escape, to Florida, which then belonged to Spain. But now it is in Charleston where the Internatinal African-American Museum has been founded, one of its goals being to set the record straight.
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International African American Museum in Charleston, S.C., pays new respect to the enslaved Africans who landed on its docks
Almost half of the estimated 400,000 African people imported into what became the United States were brought to that Southern city, and a substantial number took their first steps on American soil at Gadsden’s Wharf on the Cooper River.
That location of once utter degradation is now the hallowed site of the International African American Museum. Pronounced “I Am” and opened in June 2023, the US$120 million project financed by state and local funds and private donations was 25 years in the making and is a memorial to not only those enslaved but also those whose lives as free Black Americans affected U.S. history and society through their fight for full citizenship rights.
As a historian and founding director of the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, I served as the museum’s interim executive director and know firsthand how difficult the road has been to build a museum focused on African American history.
The museum’s mission is to honor the untold stories of the African American journey and, by virtue of its location and landscape design, pay reverence to the ground on which it sits.
America’s widespread historical illiteracy
Many Americans don’t know much about the nation or its history.
And conservative political candidates are working to prevent current students from learning key information about the country’s founding and development by mischaracterizing the teaching of slavery and civil rights as critical race theory.
Though critical race theory is typically taught in graduate and law schools, at least 36 states had banned or tried to ban lessons on Black history from public K-12 classrooms.
In this highly politicized environment, efforts to restrict how race can be discussed in public schools have led to widespread calls from parents and politicians for the censorship of certain books on race.
A 2022 survey of teachers conducted by the Rand Corp. showed the restrictions “influenced their choice of curriculum materials or instructional practices,” as many “chose to or were directed to omit the use of certain materials” deemed “controversial or potentially offensive.”
But the museum is not just a memorial site of enslavement.
Exhibits show how the lives of Black people and their resistance to enslavement helped shape state, national and international affairs.
For example, South Carolina’s 1739 Stono Rebellion, in which fugitive slaves attempted to escape to Spanish Florida, precipitated conflict between Spain and Great Britain.
Many Americans know about white abolitionist John Brown’s 1859 attack against the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which led to the Civil War.
But few know that Shields Green, a South Carolina fugitive slave, assisted in the planning and execution of the fateful attack.
Many know the name Rosa Parks, but it was Charleston’s educator and activist Septima Clark who inspired Parks and led the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern educational and voting rights initiatives.
In fact, King once called Clark “the mother of the movement” and considered her to be a “community teacher, an intuitive fighter for human rights and leader of her unlettered and disillusioned people.”
A monument to freedom
The museum’s educational goals are ambitious.
It is an interdisciplinary history museum, where educators plan to work with teachers and administrators around the world to make sure students in American schools – and everyone who lives in the U.S. today and in the future – learns about South Carolina’s significant role in U.S. history.
In my view, that collaboration will likely be challenging, given the efforts to sanitize the nation’s racial history and teachers’ apprehensions about teaching supposedly controversial subjects.
“This is a site of trauma,” Tonya Matthews, CEO and president of the museum, told CBS News. “But look who’s standing here now. That’s what makes it a site of joy, and triumph.”
Indeed, the International African American museum is, by design, a monument to freedom – and an honest engagement with America’s troubled racial past.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, literally the only way we can get even the smallest glimpse of the future is by looking at the (unvarnished) past in order to understand how this happening led to that happening, and so on. Anyone unable to do that will live in delusion. Disney may have built a “Fantasyland,” but DeSantis is the one who is actually living (and forcing Florida’s children to live) in a Fantasyland which is certain to eventually come crashing down around them. Anything you can do to help prevent that happening to the children will be most appreciated. I wouldn’t worry or bother about DeSantis. He’s old enough to know better. He’s welcome to FAFO.
Yesterday, I seriously overslept – by choice – but it did cut into my working time. I’ve been having some issues with pain cutting into both my sleeo time but, even more to the point, into the amount of actual rest/recovery I get when I am asleep. I ran the TENS for extra time today, which has helped – I don’t suppose this will resolve the issue, so I’ll keep on it. On a brighter note, The New Yorker decided to run a group of 9 Name Drop quizzes together, all of them on literary figures (which helped up front), and I actually got all of them. Not spectadularly – five of the nine on the las clue and the rest somewhere between the socond and the fifth – but I’m still quite pleased about it. (I bombed the daily one, though.)
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Axios – Scoop: Hunter Biden’s lawyer roasts IRS whistleblowers in message to GOP chair
Quote – Why it matters: The White House has been struggling to answer questions about the IRS agent transcripts over the past week, but Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell is now taking the lead in fighting back against the Republican-led committee. The letter comes after Chair Jason Smith last week released transcripts of interviews with two IRS agents who claimed that the investigation into Hunter Biden was improperly handled along with a purported WhatsApp message that showed Hunter leveraging his father to close a business deal. Click through for article (and full 10-page letter). I’m glad they are pushing back – no that anything we say will get through to MAGAt cultists, but there are sane people out there who need to get exposed to facts.
Letters from an American – June 30, 2023
Quote – It turned out that limiting the Fourteenth Amendment to questions of race and letting states choose their voters cemented the power of a minority. The abandonment of federal protection for voting enabled white southerners to abandon democracy and set up a one-party state that kept Black and Brown Americans as well as white women subservient to white men. As in all one-party states, there was little oversight of corruption and no guarantee that laws would be enforced, leaving minorities and women at the mercy of a legal system that often looked the other way when white criminals committed rape and murder. Many Americans tut-tutted about lynching and the cordons around Black life, but industrialists insisted on keeping the federal government small because they wanted to make sure it could not regulate their businesses or tax them. They liked keeping power at the state level; state governments were far easier to dominate. Southerners understood that overlap: when a group of southern lawmakers in 1890 wrote a defense of the South’s refusal to let Black men vote, they “respectfully dedicated” the book to “the business men of the North.” Click through for full letter (as always, click “Continue reading”). It’s an historian’s view of the SCOTUS’s recent prejudicial decisions in the context of out history.
Yesterday, being Friday, was the day the Conversation published its weekly quiz (I got 6/8). One wrong answer had me literally laughing out loud, though. The question was “What do we call city regions, with few trees and lots of blacktop, that are prone to extreme heat disasters?” (The correct answer was “Urban heat islands.”) The wrong answer which cracked me up was “Fresno.”
Cartoon – 24 Roe 6-24 RTL
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Child Watch Column – Listening Again to Loving
Quote – Mr. Loving may not have known how the state would treat legal interracial marriages that had been performed elsewhere, but five weeks after their wedding they received a very literal rude awakening: acting on a “tip,” sheriff’s deputies surrounded their bed with flashlights at two in the morning demanding to know why they were there together. Their reply that they were husband and wife made no difference. The Lovings were arrested, and Mr. Loving was held in jail overnight while the pregnant Mrs. Loving was forced to stay for several days. Both were charged with violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act. Under a plea bargain, in order to avoid a year-long jail sentence they were forced to leave the state and were prohibited from returning together for 25 years. They settled in Washington, D.C., but missed the small town where they had spent their entire lives. These were the conditions that led the Lovings, inspired by the growing Civil Rights Movement, to reach out to Attorney General Robert Kennedy asking for change. Click through for history. The Supreme Court could take us back to those days, with no recourse but a Constitutional Amendment or reframing the Court itself.
Colorado Public Radio – Jeffco joins Pride month with special marriage certificates
Quote – Every June, many of Colorado’s biggest cities host huge Pride parades, parties and drag shows to celebrate the LGBTQ community. Now some county clerks are joining the party. The new Jefferson county clerk, Democrat Amanda Gonzalez, has created a distinctive rainbow seal for people who want the specialty marriage certificate. “Equality and inclusion is really important in my office,” she said. “And being potentially the first queer clerk here, it’s especially important to me to protect the right for everybody to marry who you love no matter who you are.” Click through for details. What a difference between this take and the previous one. (JeffCo is in the SW quadrant of the Denver Metro area.)
The Daily Beast – ‘Good for Nobody’: The Biden Cabinet Pick Who Can’t Even Get a Vote
Quote – “I can’t predict what other people will do,” [Sen. Tim] Kaine [(D-VA)] continued. “But I do know this: Keeping it just hanging out there is good for nobody—not for the country, not for her.” At least three senators have refused to publicly say how they’ll vote: Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV). With Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and dozens of GOP senators vocally opposing Su, GOP moderates like Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have stayed mum on their positions, making clear that Democratic votes will make or break the nomination. Click through for article. I note that the three holdouts are the usual suspects. Manchin is not going to survive reelection with Jim Justice voting against him. Sinema is being opposed by Ruben Gallego. If Tester loses, it will be to a Republican. Not that they are all up at once – I don’t thnk they are – but it does point up how badly we need real Democratic Senators in other states if we want to be able to keep our democracy.
reasons.) So he has freedom at last. Also yesterday – I know Colorado has a well deserved reputation for crazy weather – but can you even imagine a day when the temperature follows the pattern of the red line in the graph at the right? Yes, that was yesterday. Really. Finally, today is the big vote in Ohio nn a proposed highly unconcstitutional amendment to the state constitution. Be sure to keep them in your prayers (or however you communicate with the universe.)
