Today, Virgil and I have been married for 39 years. No, I won’t see him until Sundey (but you can bet he’ll call,) Now, next year, being a leap year, the day will be on a Sunday. And it will be 40 years. I think that’s cool. (Incidentally, tomorrow’s radio opera will be Puccini’s “La Boheme.” If you were ever curious what inspired “Rent,” this is it. It’s easy to listen to, very melodic [Della Reese recordsed one of the arias with English words as “Don’t you know”] The four acts average maybe 20 minutes each of actual music, though of course with intermissions the broadcast will be longer, and besides the music there’s usually applause. If you don’t know of a local station, cpr.org/classical, kcme.org [both mountain], and wfmt.com [central] are always available.)
Also – Robert Reich is trying to give away the chair which was his official chair when he served in the Cabinet. It’s huge, and looks comfortable, if one is tall enough (I’m not tall, but I seem to have long femurs for my height – I would love it but have no room for it.) Any takers?
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Pro Publica – What You Need to Know About Stillbirths
Quote – Every year, more than 20,000 pregnancies in the U.S. end in a stillbirth, the death of an expected child at 20 weeks or more of pregnancy. Research shows as many as 1 in 4 stillbirths may be preventable. We interviewed dozens of parents of stillborn children who said their health care providers did not tell them about risk factors or explain what to watch for while pregnant. They said they felt blindsided by what followed. They did not have the information needed to make critical decisions about what happened with their baby’s body, about what additional testing could have been done to help determine what caused the stillbirth, or about how to navigate the process of requesting important stillbirth documents. Click through (they’ll offer you the newsletter but you can just click on “No, thanks, I’m all set”). Back in the day, there was an expression, “Just the same, only different.” That’s the case with miscarriages and stillbirths. And, with the increased push for men to control women’s bodies, it’s more an more important to understand both. I am way past menopause, but every woman of childbearing age – and all the men in throir lives – need to know this material. So I’m bookmarking it.
Southern Poverty Law Center – MALE SUPREMACY IS AT THE CORE OF THE HARD RIGHT’S AGENDA (caps are theirs)
Quote – The hard right, in other words, wants to revive an older social order, before the Civil Rights Movement, women’s and gay liberation movements, and other social and political transformations upset what was a thoroughly white-dominated, patriarchal society. Gender, then – how it is understood, practiced and described in our laws – is clearly of central concern to the hard right. Their goal is to uphold male supremacy, a movement that scholar of right-wing movements Chelsea Ebin describes as “a complex system that serves to assert, support, and promote the supposed superiority of men,” and subjugate women, trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people. Click through for details. I’ve been yelling this for years – glad to see someone else yelling too. If we don’t know our enemy, we will lose battles and eventually lose the war. Never forget Hillary. Never forget “Sure, I’d vote for a woman – just not this woman.” I never want to need to say “I told you so,” nor do I want it to need to be said “She told us so” after I’m gone.
Yesterday, There was a fair amount of news which was not all that encouraging. One exception was Tucker Carlson’s departure (and I put up a news alert on that as soon as I saw it). But another exception was in an EarthRights International email. There is a Big Oil accountability case going on in Colorado, and Exxon abd Suncor had petitioned SCOTUS to hear it. SCOTUS just told them to pound sand. That doesn’t mean the case is over, but it does mean that it will be proceeding in Colorado’s State Court system. And that is good news. i’m sorry I don’t have a short take which is as good, but it is what it is.
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Letters from an American – April 23, 2023
Quote – About 100 U.S. troops used three helicopters to evacuate about 70 U.S. personnel from the [U.S. Embassy in Khartoum], getting them out of Sudan to Ethiopia without major incident. Such a military evacuation is unusual, but the fight between two rival Sudanese leaders has closed the main international airport and given armed fighters control of the roads leading out of the country, making it impossible for U.S. personnel to leave by civilian routes. Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Saudi Arabia helped to get the Americans to safety. There were no major incidents associated with the evacuation. Other nations have also evacuated their embassies, and the United Nations staffers left by road on a 19-hour trip. Click through for details and more. Been there, done that, and yes, this is a major undertaking, not just for the evacuators and those being evacuated, but for support personnel in more stable areas who contribute in various ways to readying the team. I had no idea it was this bad.
NBC News – Capitol rioter shot at local deputies after FBI informed him of Jan. 6 charges
Quote – Nathan Donald Pelham, of Greenville [TX], who initially faced four misdemeanor charges tied to the insurrection, faces an additional felony charge of being a felon in possession of firearm after the incident April 12, a criminal complaint filed this week shows. An FBI special agent wrote in a filing that he had called Pelham on April 12 and asked him to surrender in a few days. That evening, according to the agent, local authorities went to Pelham’s home after his father requested a welfare check. When the deputies arrived, Pelham fired several shots toward them, prosecutors said. Click through for story. Pro tip: Shooting at law enforcement when you are already under indictment will never make things better for you.
Slate – Chief Justice John Roberts’ Mockery of Stalking Victims Points to a Deeper Problem
Quote – The reasonableness of that fear was vividly illustrated by the Supreme Court oral arguments in Counterman v. Colorado on Wednesday morning, as members of the highest court of the land joked about messages sent by a stalker to his victim, bemoaned the increasing “hypersensitivity” of society, and brushed aside consideration of the actual harm of stalking to focus on the potential harm of stalking laws. Click through, but have antacid at hand. This was an egregious stalking case whch happened in Colorado. It had gotten to the point where a message of “Hi. Have a nice day” would be perceived as a threat by any rational person.
Yesterday, when I turned on Colorado Public Radio on the computer, what was playing wa Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony #50, which has the subtitle “Mount St. Helens,” and yes, he wrote it literally during the 1980 eruption – he was living within view of it. CPR – both the news side and the music side – are going all out for Earth Day. Today’s newsletter from Mother Jones included a few pointed paragraphs on people who are progressive enough to vote for Biden but not progressive enough to support a housing project of the kind needed to make replacing fossil fuels actually work, because NIMBY (“Not in my backyard.”) I can’t give you a link, since those remarks are in the newsletter only, but I can link to the lead story by a different author with the same theme. It made me think that maybe part of the problem of getting a strong progressive political majority is a kind of Catch-22 – really good education and money tend to go together. But people without money need a really good education in order to see the quakity of and the need for progressive policies. And for those who have both the educatin and the money, the money tends to corrupt. Here’s one ver short quote from the newsletter – “Some on the left continue to be quite acrobatic in their defense of blocking housing, ignoring all evidence that this mostly benefits rich homeowners.”
In other news, Fox and Dominion settled for about $785 milliom. For anyone who (like me) is disappointed by this, I have ne word – Smartmatic.
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CPR News – Gov. Jared Polis signs bills protecting access to abortion and gender-affirming care in Colorado
Quote – Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday signed a set of health care bills enshrining access to abortion and gender-affirming procedures and medications, as the Democrat-led state tries to make itself a safe haven for its neighbors, whose Republican leaders are restricting care. The goal of the legislation is to ensure people in surrounding states and beyond can come to Colorado to have an abortion, begin puberty blockers or receive gender-affirming surgery without fear of prosecution. Bordering states of Wyoming and Oklahoma have passed abortion bans and Utah has severely restricted transgender care for minors. Click through for details. This is the right thing yo do, but it can’t be denied that it will also strengthen Colorado’s medical community, and also bring dollars to the state. It makes me proud of my state and my Governor. But…
CPR News – Colorado Catholic health clinic joins forces with D.C. law firm to challenge state’s new abortion-access law
Quote – In a lawsuit, Bella Health argues that the new law targets religious clinics’ duty to help pregnant women in need — which they say is a violation of their constitutional rights. They say those duties include helping women continue their pregnancies after they take mifepristone, a pharmaceutical drug used in medication abortion, and later change their mind. “We opened [the lawsuit] because of our belief that life is a precious gift from God, worthy of protection at all stages,” said Dede Chism, a nurse practitioner and co-founder and CEO at Bella Health and Wellness, in a release. “When a woman seeks our help to reverse the effects of the abortion pill, we have a religious obligation to offer every available option for her and her child.” Click tthrough for the other side of the story. I don’t normally use the same source twice, but in this case, the story is not complete without both. This part makes me ashamed of the misogyny and stupidity of – some of us – some people, and no state can claim not to have them.
Yesterday, I made a couple of cartoons. I don’t need all that many, but I did need two for the first week. I won’t need another before the 20th, so that gives me some slack. And did y’all see the breaking news comment in yesterday’s OT? Or did you get the news elsewhere? Are the able bodied among you dancing in the streets?
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The Conversation – This course uses science fiction to understand politics
Quote – What does the course explore? We explore issues of racism, gender, anarchy and the end of civilization. I chose books that encourage students to focus on the political aspects of each work. At the beginning of the course, I ask students how closely they connect science fiction and politics. At the end of the course, students have the opportunity to revisit and revise their response to that question. By that point, students have participated in discussions, written papers and completed short assignments that ask them to explore and articulate political themes in each book. Click through for details. If Beau sees this, he’ll be tickled. He’s a big fan of using science fiction to understand, not just politics, but much of the human codition.
The Atlantic (no paywall) – My 6-Year-Old Son Died. Then the Anti-vaxxers Found Out.
Quote – My grief is profound, ragged, desperate. I cannot imagine how anything could feel worse But vaccine opponents on the internet, who somehow assumed that a COVID shot was responsible for my son’s death, thought my family’s pain was funny. “Lol. Yay for the jab. Right? Right?” wrote one person on Twitter. “Your decision to vaccinate your son resulted in his death,” wrote another. “This is all on YOU.” “Murder in the first.” Click through for full story. This is no way to run a civilization. This kind of harassment needs to be made a felony in all states and all territories (and, as I think I may have said before, there will be plenty of room in prisons if we just release all those convicted of personal use drug possession and breathing while black.)
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.”
I remember “The Bookdocks” from print newspapers and always found it enlightening. Certainly it pulled no punches.I actually never knew that there was a TV series – not really surprising, as I never subscribed to cable or satellite. But based on what I saw in the papers, I’m not surprised that a very interesting course indeed can be developed from it. I can’t even count how many times I have thought and said and written that people do our best learning through storytelling – that it is far more influential than rstional argument, because it touches, not just the brain, but also the heart – and I could go on – But instead I’ll let Professor March do the sharing.
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Why I use ‘The Boondocks’ TV cartoon show to teach a course about race
A character from ‘The Boondocks’ is depicted in street art in Los Angeles during the time of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Chelsea Guglielmino via Getty Images
Unusual Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.
Title of course:
“Why Are We Still Talking About Race?”
What prompted the idea for the course?
I am a huge fan of the animated TV series “The Boondocks,” which aired from 2005 to 2014. The show chronicles, through biting sociological and political commentary, the adventures of two boys: Huey Freeman, the older brother and self-described revolutionary left-wing radical, and Riley Freeman, Huey’s younger brother, who embraces and represents the gangster lifestyle. The Freeman brothers grapple with having to move from Chicago to the suburbs to live with their grandfather, Robert Freeman, an easily angered and self-proclaimed civil rights icon. A series of events gave me the idea for the course.
The first was during a faculty meeting that felt as if it were going in slow motion because colleagues were going on and on about one item on a full agenda. I had to fight to keep my alter ego, 8-year-old Riley Freeman and his stereotypical “gangsta” lifestyle, from coming out and shouting “shut up” and “let’s move on.”
At that moment, I thought, maybe I should teach a class on “The Boondocks.”
The second event took place a few semesters later. While training police officers on implicit bias, I felt a burning desire to drop some Huey Freeman-type knowledge on the officers. Ten-year-old Huey is highly intelligent and knowledgeable beyond his years.
Finally, in the summer of 2021, while on a golf course collecting data for a research project on navigating racism, sexism and classism as a Black golfer, I met a Black golfer who was not familiar with “The Boondocks,” but whose family calls him Uncle Ruckus. Uncle Ruckus is another character from the show who is notable because of his disdain for Black people and enjoys dissociating himself from other Black Americans. At that moment, it became clear that I should teach a class using “The Boondocks.”
We watch episodes weekly. All of the episodes either directly or indirectly deal with various race-related topics. For instance, through an episode titled “The Story of Gangstalicious,” we debate societal views on Black male masculinity. Through an episode called “The Garden Party,” we discuss xenophobia and related implications post-9/11.
Trailer for “The Boondocks”
Why is this course relevant now?
This course explores if and how discussions on race and racism have changed since “The Boondocks” first aired in 2005. The premise and potential relevance of the course lies in the title: “Why Are We Still Talking About Race?” That question refers to 17 years after the first season of “The Boondocks” aired.
Students are also challenged to look at racism as a phenomenon that is structural and systemic and not just something that happens on an interpersonal level.
Students should be able to connect the episodes to broader and relevant sociological terms and concepts, such as power, privilege, status and how those terms and concepts are related to race and racism.
What’s a critical lesson from the course?
To be clear, the class is not just fandom for “The Boondocks.” Students are actually encouraged to critique “The Boondocks” and how some of the racial commentaries in the episodes are slippery and messy at times. For example, in the “Return of the King” episode, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot but did not die. He was in a coma for more than 30 years.
When King emerges from the coma, he is disappointed as well as upset at how Black people are acting and chastises them. However, the episode seems to admonish Black people and Black culture for their current status without a clear nod to anti-Blackness in social institutions. The lesson for students is to contemplate where they fit into the debate and how their views are shaped and informed by their standpoint and perspective.
What materials does the course feature?
Tuesdays – following the advice of my graduate students – we watch the episodes on our own time. This protects students to make sure no one is offended when their classmates are laughing at aspects of the episode that others might not find funny.
Thursdays we discuss and submit summaries of the episodes we watched on Tuesday. The discussions and summaries should include both a sociological term, concept, theory or idea and a related current event. This requires students to engage with sociological literature and other scholarly readings.
At the start of the course, students sign an agreement that prohibits hate speech, harassment, derogatory language and racial epithets or slurs. The agreement also includes a safe word for students to use if they feel uncomfortable at any point in the classroom.
What will the course prepare students to do?
The course gives students the vocabulary and the ability to discuss race and racism on both the individual and structural levels. The course also prepares students for conversations about race and racism both inside as well as outside of the classroom. For example, we discuss the unacceptable usage of the n-word, and all its derivatives, by non-Black speakers and the links to history and privilege, as dealt with in “The S-Word” episode.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, yeah, I should have featured this last month – but it was not yet available. And besides, the lines between all the various forms of racism, misogyny, LBGTQIAphobia, and all other forms of othering, are as fine as spider webs and as fragile. Humans are capable of breaking right through them – if only we want to. Help us want to!
Yesterday, the weather prediction was for snow today – and very cold – with a high below 32°F. Since I start shivering and my teeth chatter at 72°F, I’ll be staying in (not that I don’t anyway.) I also received confirmation to visit Virgil Sunday (and snow is NOT predicted for Sunday.) Also too, I learned that last Saturday was the 100th birthday og Charles M. Schulz. Here’s a link to a page of cartoons, which starts with political ones, but also includes more birthday tributes to the creator of “Peanuts” than you would probably think possible (and one or two are conspicuous, to me at least, by their absence.)
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Axios – World’s largest active volcano starts to erupt in Hawaii
Quote – Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano — located on the Big Island — began erupting late Sunday night, the U.S. Geological Survey said…. “Based on past events, the early stages of a Mauna Loa eruption can be very dynamic and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly,” USGS said…. Webcams for the volcano can be found at https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mauna-loa/webcams Click through for developing story. It appers when that say “largest,” they are talking about its perceived height, not the amount of damage it can do world wide. The latter would probably be Krakatoa. And the danger isn’t lava, but volcanic ash particles released into the air, whoch can block sunlight for years, sort of like a “nuclear winter.” Look up the year 536 CE (or “Worst year to be alive.”) Also, I don’t remember the year, but it wasn’t that long ago, when an eruption caused enough particles in the air over Europe that planes couldn’t fly for weeks. You may remember that too.
Wonkette – Buffalo Gunman Pleads Guilty To Hate Crimes, Will Spend Rest Of Life In Prison
Quote – This theory, whether it’s been called that or not, has been around for decades. Most people will date it back to the work of French crackpot Renaud Camus’s 2011 essay “Le Grand Remplacement,” in which he claimed that white citizens of European countries were being replaced by Black and Middle Eastern immigrants, or back to the “White Genocide” nonsense of 1990s white supremacists, but it’s always been there. A major feature of early 1900s antisemitism and racism in the United States was that Jewish people were supporting Black civil rights struggles because they wanted to replace WASPs with Black people and then take over the world. Click through for more information. Today’s FFT summarizes my thoughts on this pretty well (it ain’t just Mexicans).
Yesterday, this email notification was in my inbox:
So that is done. Although, as John Pavlovitz points out, on November 9, when we wake up, the world is still going to be there. And many things will still be the same. (And hope will still be there too.) Also, yesterday was World Opera Day, which I had not known existed. There’s always something to learn. As trivial as this is, I also learned (by looking them up) that the Met’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, is 5’5″ tall, one inch taller than James Madison, and six inches taller than Robert Reich. What’s that saying, good things come in small packages? (No offense intended to tall people.)
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PolitiZoom – Talent Agency Drops Kanye West For Anti-Semitism, But the Real Story Is Misogyny-to-Fascism Pipeline
Quote – But that’s not the real story. Before all of this blew up, Amanda Maricotte at Salon wrote a piece that got to the roots of what is troubling West and why he’s even worth taking a look at. He’s not just an isolated rich dummy, an over the hill artiste who hasn’t gone on tour since 2016. He’s part of something a lot bigger and a lot scarier, in addition to his particular brand of mental illness. Click through for article – which looks to an article by Amanda Marcotte for Salon here, which in turn looks back to two earlier articles here and here, and just like that, the light dawns. It isn’t coincidence that these things go together, or, at least, it isn’t any more. It’s the conscious, deliberate use of misogyny to turn people, particularly men, into extreme fascists. And I can’t get into words how dangerous this is.
The Daily Beast – Pelosi Has a New Plan That’s Going to Make Putin Really Pissed
Quote – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is slated to attend the Crimea Platform parliamentary summit in Croatia this week as part of a forum to discuss kicking Russia out of Crimea and returning the peninsula to Ukraine. Her visit is meant to show the United States’ “ironclad solidarity” with Ukraine, the Democrat said in a statement. But while it may seem like just the latest expression of support from the West, the trip could reverberate all the way to the Kremlin. Click through for details. I don’t think pissing Putin off is necessarily a bad thing. This is not actually an escalation in any way, but a reiteration of what our position has been since at least two years before Trump** moved in.
Glenn Kirschner – DOJ indicts Head Proud Boy Tarrio for seditious conspiracy. Now indict the Proud Boy’s leader -Trump (but see my comment on Rachel below)
Meidas Touch – Michael Cohen EXPOSES Donald Trump’s Strategy for the Jan 6 Hearings
CNN – Bernstein identifies the ‘real sleeper’ of the January 6th hearing
MSNBC Maddow – I’m posting this just for the first 5 minutes. It made me wonder – are the Seditious Conspiracy charges against the Proud Boys and others possibly trial runs (no pun intended) to make sure they get the evidence on the big boys right and get convictions? Tha might also explain a lot of the delay in DOJ going after the big fish.
Al Franken – Potential Jan 6th Hearing Bombshells (Not IMO his funniest, but still Al, and not terribly long)
Guy Tries To Befriend A Stray Cat For Over A Year
Beau – Let’s talk about masculinity and whether it’s toxic….
