Roger O Green

Ringo Starr and “peace and love”

Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence,

The birthday of Ringo Starr is July 7. And for his birthday, Ringo wants us all to flash the peace sign and say the words “peace and love” at noon in whatever time zone you’re in.

In 2005, on that date, there were the horrific London bombings.

In 2016, on that date, there was the horrific shooting of police in Dallas, TX apparently by a lone gunman, an Army veteran.

OBVIOUSLY, this “peace and love” stuff is not working. It’s NOT working. Does this mean we stop trying? Hell, no.

Scott Pelley of CBS News noted, in his live interview with the Texas Attorney General, the irony of the specific mass attack, since the Dallas Police Department has been a model for confronting police brutality. He misspoke in a cringeworthy moment, but yes, we DO get it. Dallas officer-involved shootings HAVE rapidly declined in recent years. DPD should get props for trying to do the right thing. Why were THEY targeted?

Just like Philando Castile was trying to do the right thing when he was shot by a police officer at a traffic stop, so this “right way to deal with cops at traffic stops” would not have helped. Why was HE targeted?

It’s our difficult duty to shut out the noise, that “race-baiting” Elizabeth Warren is to blame for the death of Dallas cops, or a former Congressman (!) calling for revenge against President Obama and Black Lives Matter. Escalation of rhetoric is NOT the remedy.

I’ve been reading a book – more about that when I’ve finished it – that suggests that certain segments of society see information very differently. This explanation of Black Lives Matter may be useful to some; I do hope so. And if not, well, I’m trying.

Regardless, we may be ultimately stuck with Ringo Starr and “peace and love.” We drag out hoary Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes, appreciative that his words have outlived him. And, given, the means of his death, hope that he is, or will be, correct.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction … The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

Music Throwback Saturday: What’s Your Name

What’s Your Name “is considered one of the signature classics of the doo-wop vocal style.”

Looking up something about Donovan in my Top Pop Singles book, I came across the listing for Don & Juan, a rhythm and blues duo from Brooklyn, NYC.

I well remember the great hit What’s Your Name, which reached #7 on the Billboard pop charts in 1962. The pair also had a minor hit, Magic Wand (#91 in 1962.)

In the minibio, it reads: “Ronald ‘Don’ Trone and Claude ‘Juan’ Johnson of The Genies. Don died in May 1982 (age 45). Juan died on 10/31/2002 (age 67).”

Two things jump out at me: 1) they were really young when they passed away. 2) Who were The Genies? Unsurprisingly, an R&B vocal group from Brooklyn, with Roy Hammond as lead vocalist. The quintet’s sole hit was Who’s that Knocking, #71 in 1959, which I didn’t recognize by title, but knew instantly when I heard it.

Interesting that neither Don and Juan nor the Genies ever charted in the R&B/soul charts. What’s Your Name “is considered one of the signature classics of the doo-wop vocal style.”

LISTEN TO:

Who’s that Knocking – The Genies HERE or HERE or HERE.

What’s Your Name – Don & Juan HERE or HERE or HERE.

Magic Wand – Don & Juan HERE or HERE or HERE.

Google it!

The problem for me is that Googling it may lead to a discredited, or at least controversial, source.

So an old, terrestrial friend of mine asked on Facebook:

Am I wrong when I ask someone to explain their post when it is confusing to me?
I don’t understand when people tell me to ‘Google it’.
In my strange little world, if I make a post that doesn’t make sense without additional information, I feel it is my responsibility to provide a link.
Am I wrong?

Well, I think this is obviously a correct interpretation; you are NOT wrong.

But apparently, there’s this OTHER meaning of the phrase, one I’m not quite picking up on. “It just means ‘I don’t know either’ or ‘I don’t have time to explain all of this,” I’m told. Rather like in this article.

I think “Google it” is a bit lazy UNLESS they are the argumentative sort who deny facts. “New York is larger than California” – no, it’s not. THAT they can Google.

Then Chris asked for Ask Roger Anything:

Sometimes you’re in a group of people debating a pretty simple fact (e.g. are nectarines just fuzzless peaches or are they totally different?) and no one whips out the $500 hunk of technology in their pocket and Googles it. Why not? It’s a basic fact thing.

It’s funny because people around me are ALWAYS pulling out their devices. I do it myself when a bit of information that I know suddenly escapes me.

The problem for me is that Googling it may lead to a discredited, or at least controversial, source. I could Google “climate change hoax”. That wouldn’t prove that climate change is a hoax. But I could imagine someone say it is, as “proof” of their theory.

I Googled the original name of AIDS, and I found at the Encyclopedia Dramatica that “Gay-Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome is the original term for the now politically-correct expression AIDS.” Politically correct?

Just this month, Google has announced that it will offer better medical advice when you search your symptoms, which suggests that the previous results were not as robust as they might have been.

Another person I know personally wanted to access a useful website to find good quotations. Someone jumped in to say to use Google; that was obviously an inadequate response. What he wanted was a link such as BrainyQuotes.com.

I guess, as a librarian, I find the belief that Google is the end-all disconcerting. And telling someone to use it is essentially blowing someone off. A better answer might be, “I don’t know.”

Shooting Parrots makes this point: “Whatever it is you need to know is just a click away on your computer… and yet does the fact that it is there, 24/7, mean that we value it less? Do we no longer need to bother with the tedious business of learning things, because there is an app out there that does all the learning for you?”

What bugs me even more, though, are the people who, when someone takes a position different from theirs, snarl, “Do your homework!” I saw this a LOT in debates between Bernie Sanders supporters and the backers of Hillary Clinton, especially leading up to the April 19, 2016 primary in New York.

And speaking of the Democratic candidate, there is no evidence that Google is manipulating searches to help Hillary Clinton.

The Body Cams’ Lament by Howard Cruse

“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.”

Alton Sterling and the Ritual Performance of Black Death

Deafening Silence: White Silence and Alton Sterling

After Alton Sterling’s Death, Larry Wilmore Asks: Where Are The #AllLivesMatter Protests?

“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.

Justified

Police Shootings Won’t Stop Unless We Also Stop Shaking Down Black People

The year-old cartoon still applicable

[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.”

Why white police officers who aren’t consciously racist are quick to pull the trigger on black men.

More related links.

Elie Wiesel, Jesse Williams, JEOPARDY!

“…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.

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