Category: Uncategorized

Get Up, Stand Up

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” – Robert Frost.

There was an education rally in downtown Albany on June 8. My wife, who’s not prone to activities such as mass demonstrations, attended; so did her mother, and her brother and sister-in-law, which she didn’t know about until she ran into her brother quite by accident. New York in particular was one of two states that has opted to mandate these idiotic standardized tests for its students even sooner than the rest of the country. This despite the fact that the teachers, by and large, hadn’t been trained in it. I’ve said this before: the tests were a waste my daughter’s education time. (Here’s a defense of education spending.)

I get notices for rallies of one type or another, many of which I agree with philosophically, but if I attended them all, that would be all I do full time. Maybe if I ever work downtown again, or retire (as if)…

When I was younger, I went to countless events for civil rights and against the Vietnam war. No single event may have made a difference, but one felt that the collective effect of these actions might have had an impact.

The demonstrations against the Iraq war, in which I participate, obviously had no effect in preventing it. The Occupy movement, which I didn’t much involve myself with, may have had a longer-term impact than its critics have suggested; among other things, it’s gotten the term “the 1%” in the conversation. Whether that will lead to economic reform, though, is still an open question.

Maybe what we need right now is some mass demonstration against the massive government overreach that are these two sweeping U.S. surveillance programs of our phones and e-mail, in the US and abroad, just to make sure President Obama is quite clear that we don’t his benign analysis of our government’s intrusion. Theoretically, something could change; socialist Bernie Sanders and the Tea Party’s Rand Paul seem to be on the same side of the issue. (This is at least the second time this year I’ve agreed with Paul; the last time was on drones.) I certainly support the ACLU lawsuit against the Obama Administration Over NSA ‘Dragnet’ Surveillance.

Do you know who is gutsy? Rev. Stephen Heiss, a United Methodist minister in Binghamton, NY, my hometown, wrote a letter to his bishop admitting to actions that may cost him his job: “In the last few years I have officiated at several weddings for brothers and sisters who are lesbian or gay. One of those weddings—the highlight of my ministry—was for my own daughter and the woman who is now her wife. They are so happy!”

But these are BIG concerns. When I first started writing this, it was inspired by a much smaller issue in the grand scheme of things, an unreasonable, bullying landlord who [UPDATE – initially seemed to have relented, but the fight goes on.]

Whether the issue is international in scale or merely a neighborhood concern, this quote does seem appropriate: “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” – Robert Frost. Now that’s WAY easier said than done, but it is something to aim for.

LISTEN to Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley, as relevant now as it was 40 years ago.

Telephilia/telephobia QUESTION

Periodically, I’d pick up the book, leaf through it and note that I hadn’t had spoken to X for awhile and I’d call him or her up.

There was this article in Salon a while back, Nobody ever calls me anymore, with the subtitle “I feel like the last person who still likes talking on the phone. Why did we give it up, and should we reconsider?” And it’s not that Sarah Hepola’s friends are merely using instant messaging, e-mail, texting, and the like. “A lot of people I spoke with despise the phone and have for a long time. Why would they use it if they didn’t have to?… A voice call… demands too much attention… ‘Maybe it’s that there are too many distractions (TV, folding laundry) and I am guilty of giving in to them OR it’s that I can hear the other person doing the same thing. There just never seems to be a good time to sit down and speak into the void.'”

Don’t get me wrong; I use e-mail a lot, especially when it involves a lot of detail. But for a real conversation, I still like the phone. I call one sister and ask if she’s heard from the other sister. Generally, they’ve been texting back and forth. I have not warmed to texting, maybe because most of the people who I know who text seem to miss the point, that someone will back to them as necessary, when there’s a chance; some folks retext or even call to ask, “Did you get my text?” Then again, I don’t use my cellphone except when it would not bother other people; I’ll pull it out while waiting for the bus, but not on the bus, unless it’s really short, such as “I’ll be late for work.”

I was reminded that, back in the 1980s, I had something called an address book, where I kept people’s addresses and phone numbers. Periodically, I’d pick up the book, leaf through it, and note that I hadn’t had spoken to X for a while and I’d call him or her up. I had this girlfriend who saw me doing this and chastised me for it; “You should call people you want to call without this crutch.” I totally disagreed. It was like randomly wandering through a library, picking out a familiar book, and reading a chapter.

Even at work today, I am more likely to pick up the phone than any of the librarians, all of whom are at least a decade younger than I am. For one thing, I’ve collected a lot of contacts over the years. Also, there’s so much that’s NOT in the databases or the webpage, nuances that can only be discerned by talking to the right person. But more than that, I LIKE talking to (most) people, which our youngest librarian, about half my age, disdains.

What is your relationship with the telephone?
***
Dustbury quotes someone whose experience is very similar to mine.
How Your Cell Phone Hurts Your Relationships– “The mere presence of a phone affects how you relate to others”

 

V is for Vanessa L. Williams

The discussion from some nattering nabobs of negativism, though, was that she won only because she was a light-skinned, green-eyed black woman.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then “our ideal,” as Bert Parks used to sing at the Miss America pageant, the event about which he crooned, was, let’s say, limited in hue. In fact, until the early 1970s, “non-white women were barred from competing, a restriction that was codified in the pageant’s ‘Rule number seven’, which stated that ‘contestants must be of good health and of the white race.'”

Some of the more prominent winners were Bess Myerson (NY-1945, the only Jewish winner), Lee Meriwether (CA-1955), Mary Ann Mobley (MS-1959), and Phyllis George (TX-1971).

The result of this overt racism was the institution of the Miss Black America pageant in 1968.

Then in 1984, the first black Miss America, Vanessa Williams of New York was crowned. The discussion from some nattering nabobs of negativism, though, was that she won only because she was a light-skinned, green-eyed black woman, that she was not “black enough.” Then the terrible news that she was compelled to resign because of some pictures she had taken a few years earlier had found their way into Penthouse magazine. The mortification among many black people I spoke with at the time was quite great. Interestingly, the last seven weeks of that term were completed by Suzette Charles of New Jersey, yet another black woman.

One might have thought that the scandal would have snuffed out the career of Vanessa Lynn Williams before it started; it did not. She has reached stardom as both as a singer (her debut album in 1988 was The Right Stuff) and actress (Into the Woods, on Broadway; Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives, on TV), thus earning her “multiple Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award nominations. She is arguably the most successful Miss America winner in the field of entertainment.”

My favorite song of hers – yes, it’s out of season – is What Child Is This [LISTEN].

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

Movie Review: 42

What Jackie Robinson went through was precisely why he’s honored every April 15, with every Major League player wearing #42.

Haven’t written a movie review lately because I haven’t been to the cinema since the Oscar-nominated short films four months ago. The last full-length film I saw, with the Daughter, was Wreck-It Ralph in February; the last non-animated full-length film I saw, with the Wife, was Silver Linings Playbook back in January.

One of the movies I most wanted to see was 42, based on the life of baseball legend Jackie Robinson. I remember watching the TV show The View back in April from a hospital bed and being annoyed that my doctor came in, to discharge me, no less. It was just at the point I wanted to listen to the interview of Chadwick Bosemen who played Jackie in the movie; at least I got to see Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers who brought him from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues in 1945 to the Dodgers’ farm team in Montreal in 1946 to the big leagues on April 15, 1947i.

Finally, got a free Sunday afternoon, so I look at the Thursday preview section in the local newspaper and discover the movie has just left the Spectrum, my favorite venue. But it’s playing at the nearby Madison Theatre, so off the Wife and I go, leaving the Daughter with a child watcher.

This has never happened before – we are the ONLY people in the theater. The movie was supposed to start at 4:05; finally, the previews began at 4:10. (My goodness, we’re SO not seeing GrownUps 2.) This allowed more talking than we would normally do, mostly on her part. (Yes, Eddie Stanky was that guy’s name.)

Much of what you might have read about the film is true:
The baseball scenes seem very authentic. There is a specific incident involving Robinson and his teammate Pee Wee Reese (Lucas Black) in Cincinnati in particular that resonated; my daughter had given me a book a couple of years ago about that very story.
Boseman was very good as Jackie, sometimes conveying emotion just with a look in his eyes.
Nicole Beharie had the sufficient moxie to please the real Rachel Robinson, who is still alive.
The story, in a lot of ways is more about how others reacted to Jackie: Rickey; the black newspaper reporter Wendell Smith (Andre Holland) hired by Rickey to be his “Boswell;” the racist players and managers and crowds. In part, that’s a function of Ford being a bigger star than Boseman. It’s also true that because Jackie had to control his temper in that first year in the big leagues, one didn’t get to hear too much of Jackie’s real thoughts during the first year in the formerly white major leagues.
* Yes, if there were Lifetime movie stations for sports, this might fit in; I don’t mean that pejoratively.

On the other hand, I did note some who said that it was too much about Robinson’s ordeal and not enough about the man; I reject that criticism in that what he went through was precisely why he’s honored every April 15, with every Major League player wearing #42. I also don’t accept the notion that it should have been about a period wider than 1945 to 1947. A film about his later political involvement is a different movie.

Finally, I was only mildly distracted by the number of TV actors I recognized: Chris Meloni from one of those Law & Order shows as manager Leo Durocher; T.R. Knight and James Pickens Jr. from Grey’s Anatomy as a Dodgers executive and a Florida man showing Jackie some hospitality, respectively; and John C. McGinley from Scrubs as Red Barber. Didn’t recognize, though, Max Gail from Barney Miller.

All in all, I recommend the film 42. A solid triple – I mean, three out of four stars. More than that, I might show this to the Daughter when it shows up on DVD, which I imagine will be soon.

Not wanting to know the criminals’ names?

There’s a contingent out there who seem to relish the blow-by-blow of crimes, many of which I don’t know how they became national news.

I’ve noticed, particularly on Facebook, that after some particularly grievous, horrific crime – the Boston Marathon bombing, the Sandy Hook, CT elementary school shootings, the Aurora, CO movie theater shootings – there is this contingent of folks who argue that we ought not to mention the names of the accused, but should instead focus solely on the victims. It’s as though by not saying the names of the perpetrators or alleged ones, it would deny them the fame they presumably wanted; this phenomenon exists even when the presumed criminal is already dead, such as in the Sandy Hook situation. And this call for a wall of silence, on Facebook especially, seems particularly insistent.

In my lifetime, I don’t remember people saying we oughtn’t to mention the name of Lee Harvey Oswald (presumed killer of JFK) or Albert DeSalvo (the Boston Strangler). The first time I ever recall hearing this involved the killing of John Lennon, where certain fans, even writing about his death, to this day, won’t mention Mark David Chapman, as though, by not mentioning him, it would undo the events of December 8, 1980.

On the other hand, there’s another contingent out there who seem to relish the blow-by-blow of crimes, many of which I don’t know how they became national news. I read that Jodi Arias was convicted of murder last month and that it was heavily covered by CNN, especially by that legal vulture Nancy Grace – her I do not like – yet I have no idea why this particular case is so significant (and don’t care to find out).

In this group seems to be the folks who debated where Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s remains should be buried; he was the elder brother accused in the Boston Marathon bombing. Frankly, I thought this was rather bizarre. There have been worse criminals who nevertheless have been interred.

It seems that if we don’t know the motivation and methodology of some of these major crimes, we can’t have that supposed “national debate” on gun control, mental health, and violence generally. But some of the blow-by-blows seem merely of prurient interest, and unbecoming. One wants a balance; of course, where that balance lies varies greatly among the citizenry.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial