“You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir.”
I am terrified, to be honest with you… Sad, and angry.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed unless you are a black man sitting in a car with a busted taillight.”
“You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir.” Those words were spoken over the dead body of Philando Castile by his girlfriend. He was a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor at a Montessori school in St. Paul, Minnesota. In a video circulating widely after being posted to Facebook, the girlfriend documents Castile’s last moments after being shot by a police officer during a traffic stop.
[From Bernie Sanders]: The violence that killed Alton Sterling and Philando Castile has become an all too common occurrence for people of color and IT. MUST. STOP. Today African-Americans are almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police. We need real criminal justice reform so that people can walk down the street without worrying about whether they’ll get harassed or shot. As South Carolina Rep. Wendell Gilliard proclaimed: “Enough is enough of our police officers targeting people of color.”
“…trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.”
Saturday, I was watching the previous Monday’s game show JEOPARDY! while checking my email on my tablet – and they say I can’t multitask! – when I read that Elie Wiesel had died. I believed his powerful witness to our inhumanity to each other was a necessary reminder of our need for addressing persecution, wherever it may take place.
I mentioned aloud the news of his passing, and someone asked who he was. I was about to try to assemble my thoughts when this JEOPARDY! showed up on the TV screen: “‘Night’ is this author’s autobiographical work about a 12-year-old enduring Nazi camps.” I paused the DVR recording to say, “THAT’S who Elia Wiesel was.”
One of my favorite quotes of his was this: “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Also this: “When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”
It was a bit startling how that TV clue about Elie Wiesel popped up nearly simultaneously with that news item.
As you may know, Jesse Williams, who has been on the long-running ABC-TV nighttime medical soap opera Grey’s Anatomy since 2009, gave an impassioned speech at the BET awards last month. Williams has been involved in Black Lives Matter, as well as other activism, a fact I wasn’t aware of until recently and was receiving BET’s Humanitarian Award.
The latter part of the address:
“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil – black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.”
Lots of comments on social media, pro, and con. From the latter, someone started an online petition “to fire Jesse Williams from Grey’s Anatomy for racist rant,” which early on, had about 10,000 signatures, In response, another person devised a counter-petition, “Don’t let the racists win! ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, don’t fire Jesse Williams,” which had over 20,000 signatures, including mine. In fact, there were at least 10 other petitions in support of Jesse, with anywhere from a dozen to about 1,000 signatures.
Interestingly (to me), there was a question, with a photo, on the TV game show JEOPARDY! on May 5, 2016: “Seen here, former Philly high school teacher Jesse Williams as Dr. Jackson Avery on this TV drama.” NO one got the question correct, or even rang in. I suspect that would be different now.
I suspect that, if I ever meet George W. Bush, I will find him personally engaging.
Address to the Nation on Immigration. Oval.
Last year, a publisher was deaccesioning some books in anticipation of a move. I got for free about twenty books, among them, the 2004 anthology George W. Bush: Evaluating the President at Midterm. The first chapter, by Bill Kirtley, was called The Arbiter of Fate and had a brief but useful bio.
The death of his little sister Robin in 1953 colored his worldview, especially when he learned his parents had hidden her advancing leukemia from him. “His cousin Elsie Walker observed: ‘You…see your parents suffering so deeply and try to be cheerful and funny, and you end up becoming a bit of a clown.'”
She explained that “there was a lot of pressure to develop himself. He was a bit of a disappointment and hid it “by adopting a nonchalant attitude.” But it also meant some anger issues, “when he drank or suspected people of treating his family unfairly.”
The first time I paid any attention to George W. Bush was when he was running for governor of Texas against Ann Richards in 1994. The Democratic firebrand had spoken at the 1988 Democratic convention about W’s dad as having been “born with a silver foot in his mouth.” Of course, GHWB won the Presidency.
She referred to W as Shrub, and other diminutives, but that failed to work as well. As governor, she had vetoed a bill allowing Texans to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons, which he promised to sign, and eventually did. There was a rumor that she was a lesbian, which The Atlantic magazine and others connected to Bush advisor Karl Rove, though Rove denied being involved.
He ran for President in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative.” In Texas, he had cut taxes, supported the education of the dangers of alcohol and drug use and abuse – in part because of his own experience – and helped to reduce domestic violence. He had a mixed environmental record.
But George W. Bush won the nomination. I need not rehash Bush V. Gore, where the Supreme Court determined that Bush beat Vice-President Al Gore in Florida and thereby won the election, though he had lost the popular vote.
Oddly, when the US had an incident with China in April 2001, I said to myself, “I wonder what [Bill] Clinton’s going to do about… wait a minute, he’s not president anymore!” Seriously, the post-election fight had gone on so long that I forgot, briefly, the outcome.
Of course, there was 9/11. I always thought those calls for him to return immediately from Florida to DC were, given the lack of information in those early hours, terribly irresponsible. I was pleased that he blunted anti-Muslim sentiment, something missing in subsequent Republican leaders.
I understood, at least, the beginning of the Afghan war. But, it was weird that it quickly fell off the radar, as the drumbeat for a SECOND front, this time against Iraq, was being sounded. Iraq NEVER made any sense to me, and I protested the build-up for the six months before the invasion, and the subsequent, and incorrect, “Mission Accomplished.” Moreover, the fact that we were fighting these wars without paying for them was the height of fiscal irresponsibility.
When he ran for reelection in 2004, there was a debate question about religion. W talked about his “born-again” religious conversion. John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, indicated his Catholic “feed the hungry, clothe the naked” doctrine. I thought Kerry did fine, but the pundits found his theology not compelling.
Domestically, there was Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, which was a disaster made worse by government non-response. And the economic collapse on Wall Street defined his last year in office. His administration also had its own email scandal.
Ultimately, it was eight years of living dangerously. I don’t think George W. Bush was like Harry Truman, vilified at the time, but treated more kindly by history. I agree with his father, 41, that 43 was ill-served by W.’s Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The Zombies was a British Invasion group. From 1962 to 1967, the group consisted of:
Colin Blunstone – lead vocals
Rod Argent – organ, vocals
Paul Atkinson – guitar, vocals
Chris White – bass, vocals
Hugh Grundy – drums
The group won a music competition sponsored by a London newspaper and were signed a recording contract with Decca in 1964.
“Rod Argent built the lyrics of ‘She’s Not There’ from a John Lee Hooker song, whose title ‘No One Told Me’ became the opening phrase of the Zombies song. The jazzy rock tune, which phased in and out of minor key, was a huge hit. It sold over one million copies.
The next US single was “Tell Her No”, the Beatlesque tune which repeats the word “no” 63 times. But the band only had mixed success in the next couple of years and broke up in December 1967.
Yet one track from the well-regarded, but marginally selling, album Odessey and Oracle, “Time of the Season”, “written by Argent, was released as a single and eventually became a nationwide hit.”
“After the Zombies disbanded, Rod Argent formed the band called Argent in 1969, with White as a non-performing songwriter.” Russ Ballard was the lead vocalist. Has anyone moved further alphabetically in a band than Rod Argent?
The real Zombies reformed with the same lineup in 1997 but broke up quickly. Argent & Blunstone fronted a band starting in 2000, which morphed into The Zombies by 2004. Rod Argent’s cousin Jim Rodford played in these lineups as well as with Argent.
LINKS
She’s Not There – The Zombies (1964 – #12 UK, #2 US Billboard, #2 in Canada) HERE or HERE or HERE.
Tell Her No – The Zombies (1965 – #6 US) HERE or HERE or HERE
Time of the Season – The Zombies (1969- #1 Canada, #3 for two weeks US Billboard) HERE or HERE or HERE
Hold Your Head Up – Argent (1972 – #5 UK, #5 US Billboard) HERE (single) or HERE (long version) or HERE (long version)
The Continental Congress issued a proclamation for a national day ‘for solemn Thanksgiving and praise.’
In anticipation of doing some traveling, the Wife and I stopped at the Saratoga National Historical Park back in May, which is not actually in Saratoga but in relatively nearby Stillwater, to pick up one particular America the Beautiful Pass.
I bought a Senior Pass. For $10, U.S. citizens or permanent residents age 62 or over can get access to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites. One can order it online or through the mail, but then it cost ten for the Pass plus ten for processing the application.
The Park Ranger who issued my card asked where we were from. I admitted, sheepishly, “from Albany, and I had never been” there before. She said, “That’s all right. I’ve come across people from Saratoga who hadn’t visited previously.”
The Senior Pass “may provide a 50 percent discount on some amenity fees charged for facilities and services such as camping, swimming, boat launch, and specialized interpretive services.” Unfortunately, my bride was too young to take advantage, but since she was accompanying me, her entrance to Saratoga National Historical Park was free.
In Revolutionary War parlance, Saratoga refers to two battles in the autumn of 1777. “After capturing Fort Ticonderoga with almost laughable ease, the British army, led by overconfident General John Burgoyne, crawled south at a tortoise pace, giving the rattled Americans time to regroup under Horatio Gates. To support him, General George Washington sent Benedict Arnold, his best infantry commander; Colonel Daniel Morgan and his crack regiment of Virginia riflemen; and two brigades of Continentals from the Hudson Highlands.” On October 17, 1777, Burgoyne surrendered to the American forces under General Gates. “To celebrate the American victory at Saratoga, the Continental Congress issued a proclamation for a national day ‘for solemn Thanksgiving and praise,’ the first official holiday observance with that name.”
Incidentally: 1) the monument pictured was built about a century after the battle 2) the national parks quarter featuring Saratoga, the last of five quarters issued in 2015, I haven’t gotten yet! And I’ve been looking.
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