history Archives - Page 10 of 10 - Ramblin' with Roger

Obama v. Romney

Sometimes I want to just take on the system, sometimes I want to write in quiet contemplation; much of the time, I worry about the fate of the planet.

Answering more Ask Roger Anything questions:

Tom the Mayor, who I know personally, pondered:
Here is a hard one Roger! Who do you think will win the presidential election?

I went to 270towin.com. The map there suggests that Obama has 217 likely electoral votes, and Romney with 191 electoral votes, with 130 electoral votes listed as a tossup. Three states in that latter category are hugely important – Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), and Ohio (18). I suspect that whoever wins at least 2 out of 3 will probably win the White House.

Some statistical piece – I can’t find it presently – states that the Republicans were far better controlling the argument in the media than the Democrats regarding the presentation of the healthcare law dubbed Obamacare. The GOP was able to stay on message, using the same keywords, while the Dems were more diffuse. This tends to be true on other issues as well.

I mention this because, even when the Democrats have good issues, they don’t seem to be able to capitalize on them. Obama’s support of gay marriage can’t really help him much; those supporters weren’t going to Romney. Obama’s announcement that he wouldn’t go after illegal immigrants who were brought to the US by their parents might have been popular with some Hispanics, but Republicans managed to turn it into a Constitutional overreach by the President.

FOX News blamed Obama for rising gas prices, and incorrectly predicted worse. Now that they are actually falling, FN notes that they are signs of a “looming global economic crisis.” Ya can’t win. And people with selective memory recall that Obama’s to blame for all of it.

Now, I think that Romney has been amazingly non-specific about what he would DO as President on many issues, save for building that pipeline. But if the economy is still weak – and the Dow Jones lost 250 points the day you posted the question…

If the election were held today, I think Romney wins. Of course, the election is NOT today, so things could change. I’m not optimistic about Obama’s chances at this moment.

Tom also asked:
Did you get the new Paul McCartney Album? What do you think of it?

I assume you are referring to Kisses on the Bottom, rather than the reissue of Ram. In general, the less I knew the song, the more I liked it. I don’t need another version of It’s Only a Paper Moon or I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, and I don’t think Sir Paul added much to those. But I liked tunes such as My Very Good Friend the Milkman, Get Yourself Another Fool, and The Inch Worm, plus a couple of original songs. I think my decision to buy a Macca album depends on the reviews.

BTW, there are nice Coverville podcasts for Paul McCartney and for Brian Wilson/the Beach Boys that you might want to check out; for the latter, I made a couple of requests that were played.
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Chris from Off the Shore of Orion wonders:

Is there a limit on the number?

Yes, no more than 37 at a time. So you’re safe – so far…

What historical figure do you most identify with?

Oh, it varies, depending on the issue, and my mood: Nat Turner, Henry David Thoreau, Rachel Carson. Sometimes I want to just take on the system, sometimes I want to write in quiet contemplation; much of the time, I worry about the fate of the planet.

Something at work reminded me of this: when I was 9 or 10 and wanted to wrap presents, I would get the Sunday funnies from the newspaper and use those. I would be severely mocked, even/especially by my own family. These days, what I did is considered environmentally cool, but then as doofy, a word one of my sisters used A LOT in describing me.

Who do you think was the most evil person who ever lived?

Oh, there are so many. The obvious ones such as Genghis Khan or Hitler.
So, I’ll pick US President Andrew Jackson, whose support of slavery, and especially his Indian removal policy should get him removed from the US $20 bill.

What’s the most heartbreaking novel you’ve ever read?

A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. That said, I don’t read a lot of fiction these days. I was very affected by Maus by Art Spiegelman. I had actually met him a couple of times before that book was released. He was publishing this eclectic, oversized magazine called RAW; boy, I wish I had kept those.

O is for Old, Out-of-date, Obsolete?

It’s interesting how data goes from current, to out-of-date, to history.

“Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.” – Daniel J. Boorstin, Librarian of Congress (1973-85) on the computerization of libraries, 1983.

One of the things I learned in my first year in library school was that information disappears over time for a number of reasons, but that three are foremost: war, when the other side wins; commerce, when there is not enough of a perceived market for the cost; and technology when the newer methodology renders a previous iteration obsolete.

I remember seeing pictures of these massive computers back in the 1960s, storing all sorts of seemingly important information. Unless ALL of it got transferred to a later technology, and then the one after that, one must assume that some of that data is lost and irretrievable. How many of you had files on 5 1/4″ floppy discs, or even 3 1/2″ discs, but your current computer has no place for them?

Take music. Some of the symphonies originally recorded on those shellac 78 RPM records made it into 33 RPM LPs, but surely not all. And the music on 33s and 45s might have made it onto 8-tracks and cassettes, but did all of it make it to CDs? Certainly not, let alone other digital forms. Or take movies on Betamax/VCR tape, only some of which made it to DVD/BluRay.

So it is heartening to see that some old forms of technology are still hanging on. The LP, while still a small segment of the music business, continues to grow, as the sales of other physical forms of music continue to decline. There was a piece on CBS News Sunday Morning about the resurgence of – are you ready for this? – the typewriter.

Data goes from being current, to woefully out-of-date, to important history. A map of Europe showing the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and two Germanys might have been tossed at the end of the 20th century, but now has contextual value. Check out these old maps online.

Old cars, if they avoid the junk heap, might become antiques; old books, perhaps collector’s items.

I started thinking about this because of an article a young woman wrote, in part speculating whether the book will become obsolete in favor of Kindles, Nooks, and the like. I sure hope not.
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LISTEN to Neil Young – Old Man (from the Harvest album )

ABC Wednesday – Round 10

J for Jewish History Museum

I saw a segment on CBS Sunday Morning earlier this year about the National Museum of American Jewish History, which opened in November 2010. I was unfamiliar with the facility, but I assumed it was somewhere in New York; I assumed incorrectly.

It is in fact located in Philadelphia, not far from Independence Hall. This was deliberate, a reflection of, initially, a “tiny minority [who] sought, defended, and tested freedom—in political affairs, in relations with Christian neighbors, and in their own understanding of what it meant to be Jewish.” Then “the migration of millions of immigrants who came to the United States beginning in the late 19th century and who profoundly reshaped the American Jewish community and the nation as a whole.”
“On the Museum’s first floor, the Only in America® Gallery/Hall of Fame illustrates the choices, challenges, and opportunities eighteen Jewish Americans encountered on their path to remarkable achievement.”

The first eighteen individuals to be featured in the Only in America® Gallery/Hall of Fame are:
Irving Berlin
Leonard Bernstein
Louis Brandeis
Albert Einstein
Mordecai Kaplan
Sandy Koufax
Esteé Lauder
Emma Lazarus
Isaac Leeser
Golda Meir
Jonas Salk
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Rose Schneiderman
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Steven Spielberg
Barbra Streisand
Henrietta Szold
Isaac Mayer Wise

How many of the 18 can you identify? I knew 12.

And for no particular reason, here are:
America from West Side Story
There’s No Business Like Show Business, sung by Ethel Merman
A pivotal scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor

ABC Wednesday – Round 9

Freedom Riders: An Appreciation

President John Kennedy, and his brother Robert, the Attorney General, needed to be prodded into action, just as President Barack Obama needs political pressure applied to continue on the right path.

While praising New York state lawmakers as they debated legalizing gay marriage, President Barack Obama stopped short of embracing it. Instead, he asked gay and lesbian donors for patience. “I believe that gay couples deserve the same legal rights as every other couple in this country,” the president said at a Manhattan fundraiser [last Thursday], his first geared specifically to the gay community.

Last week, my Internet buddy Arthur posited the question: Has President Obama done enough for gay rights? He included a news video. “Let me be clear: President Obama is dead wrong on marriage equality: Civil unions are not a substitute for real marriage. It’s time for the president to stop “evolving” and get there and support full equality for GLBT people.

“However, Dan Choi is also wrong, possibly because he doesn’t know history. As Brian Ellner of the Human Rights Campaign says, this president has done more than any other president for GLBT equality than any other president in history.”

And this reminded me of a program I watched on PBS last month called Freedom Riders.

FREEDOM RIDERS is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. Harrowing is right; it took me at least four sittings to get through the whole thing, not because it was boring, but because it was so intense. Just watch the two-minute Freedom Riders trailer.

From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.

From award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson (Wounded Knee, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till) FREEDOM RIDERS features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters: the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the Rides firsthand. The two-hour documentary is based on Raymond Arsenault’s book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice…

Despite two earlier Supreme Court decisions that mandated the desegregation of interstate travel facilities, black Americans in 1961 continued to endure hostility and racism while traveling through the South. The newly inaugurated Kennedy administration, embroiled in the Cold War and worried about the nuclear threat, did little to address domestic civil rights.

“It became clear that the civil rights leaders had to do something desperate, something dramatic to get Kennedy’s attention. That was the idea behind the Freedom Rides—to dare the federal government to do what it was supposed to do, and see if their constitutional rights would be protected by the Kennedy administration,” explains Arsenault.

Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the self-proclaimed “Freedom Riders” came from all strata of American society—black and white, young and old, male and female, Northern and Southern. They embarked on the Rides knowing the danger but firmly committed to the ideals of non-violent protest, aware that their actions could provoke a savage response but willing to put their lives on the line for the cause of justice.

President John Kennedy, and his brother Robert, the Attorney General, needed to be prodded into action, just as President Barack Obama needs political pressure applied to continue on the right path.

Watch the Freedom Riders film, and/or read the transcript, and/or buy the video from PBS.

Ordinary People Making Great Changes: An Interview With “Freedom Riders” Director Stanley Nelson.

Black History Month

As an introit, they did a staggeringly magnificent staggering arrangement of Don McLean’s Babylon.

Back in December (or maybe mid-November), I had called a meeting for people at my church interested in working on Black History Month to come to a meeting; no one came. So decided just to do it (largely) myself.

One of the pastors had recommended this series A History of Racism in the United States from an entity called the Thoughtful Christian way back in May of last year, and it looked OK to jumpstart a discussion.

The Adult Education Committee, which I’m on, decided to try an experiment with two different offerings in January. On January 30, it would be my BHM part 1 v. the last piece of a study of the gospel of Mark. People wanted to do both, but ultimately, Mark won out and I had three or four people. My ego wasn’t affected, of course. Of course, it wasn’t. My ego wasn’t affected. Yeah, right. Still, it was an interesting discussion.

It was fortunate that February 6 would be a joint FOCUS service, albeit at our church, so there would be no adult ed programming. So, since I knew I’d be going down to Charlotte, I asked someone, Annette from the choir by name, to get some folks to bring in some artifacts for a display, and she/they did.

February 13, I was scheduled to lead class #2 about racism. I had come back from Charlotte only a couple of days before and the wife, the daughter, and I were still all EXHAUSTED. Somehow, did adult ed while Lydia did Sunday school, then we all went out to eat.

I had secured the speaker for February 20, who sent me an URGENT message that I needed to meet with him the Thursday before that Sunday at 6 pm. So I did, and he decided he wanted me to “interview” him for the Adult Ed class he was leading.

The drag was that, since I was with him on Thursday evening, I couldn’t be at choir that night. Thursday evening has a particular ritual that I’ve been enjoying of late. I take the bus from work to downtown, buy and eat a gyro, go to the library and look at the books for sale, then go on one of the computers and work on my blog for an hour, the only practically guaranteed blogging window I have each week. Then I go to choir. Interrupting the ritual, while ultimately useful, and arguably necessary – face-to-face DOES work better than e-mail – it really, as they used to say “harshed my mellow.”

The morning of the 20th, the speaker, Donald Hyman, was great in the sermon at the 8:30 service, the 9:30 bit on Fredrick Douglass, and again at the 10:45 service’s sermon, which was somewhat different.

There is this presentation of something called the kente cloth each year, and there had been folks lobbying me that a certain older member of the congregation gets one as well. I don’t generally pick the person, but I might have forwarded these e-mails to the folks who do, had I not been…distracted by the month’s events. The cloths were presented to Donald and to the choir director, Michael Lister.

Now, because I missed both Thursday night rehearsal AND Sunday morning rehearsal, I couldn’t sing in the choir; just didn’t know the music. It’s always strange for me to be in the congregation when the choir is singing. As an introit, they did a staggeringly magnificent arrangement of Don McLean’s Babylon, which I had talked about with Michael before I went to Charlotte. It’s based on Psalm 137, one of Donald’s suggested texts; the music was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard in my life. Later, the choir did a version of Wade in the Water, with a guest soloist from the College of Saint Rose; Donald said the group compared favorably with the Fisk Jubilee Singers; I had the strong sense that most of the congregation didn’t know who the Fisk Jubilee Singers are. The offertory was some song I did not know. But it had lyrics about “my mother going home to glory” and I sobbed.

February 25, I had ordered a cake, and folks, including my wife, cooked. Again I led Adult Education. I also sang, and I was fine until the recessional, which was Lift Every Voice and Sing. It must be that I associate it with my home church, or maybe it’s the part about ancestors, and I have no direct living forebearers. In any case, my voice cracked. Afterward, I just wept uncontrollably.

Since Lent is so late this year, on March 6, I led the fourth segment of the workshop.

This particular BHM was PARTICULARLY draining. And I’m not going even get into the conversations about race and racism, except to say this: I’m now convinced more than ever that the discussion about race in America is NOT finished.