Lydster: messages from my daughter

homework

Lucy comic booksSometime between 2016 and 2020, my daughter gave me several strips of paper with messages on them. I rediscovered them when I was in the (lengthy) process of straightening my office.

They reminded me of a similar present I received from my friends for – I believe – my 16th birthday. I think they’re still in this house somewhere.

My daughter wrote:

We watch the news. I think the watching, but also conversing about both the stories and the coverage choices, helped inform her social conscience.

You help me leave for school. First, I made sure she was awake. I used to take her on the bus to preschool before I went to work. Later, I made sure she had food, money, and homework, especially in the lower grades.

When she first went to middle school, I helped her navigate how to take alternate buses so she could avoid the rowdies on the designated buses. But by eighth grade, she decided that the loud bus was more tolerable than spending the extra time to take two buses.

You help me with my homework. In particular, history and math. As I recall, math was complicated even in fourth grade because of the wording of some of the questions. While I remembered a lot of AP American history, there were details that I had never heard. I tried to help her with AP Statistics, but I couldn’t recall it well enough, so I got her a tutor.

Hey, Ricky!

You and I Love Lucy. In 2016, my wife, my daughter, and I went to the Lucy-Desi Museum in Jamestown, NY. She took a bunch of photos, a few of which showed up in my blog post. She got a Lucy cup. Subsequently, we bought the box set of I Love Lucy episodes, which she watched for several months.

You tolerate your life. I’m not positive what this meant. It’s true that I was unhappy and dissatisfied at work in the latter years but needed to get to retirement age so that I could quit. I didn’t often directly tell her, I don’t think, but indeed she overheard conversations I had with her mother.

I was delighted to come across these messages.

February rambling: Rock Hall 2023

Empower Ethiopia

Journalistic integrity requires a reckoning with how news media covers the criminal legal system

The People Onscreen Are Fake. The Disinformation Is Real.

Are AI Chatbots in Healthcare Ethical?

How did we get $32 trillion in debt?

Massive Inequality Is a “Concerted Elite Class Project

I was given a house – but it already belonged to a Detroit family

U.S. Employee Engagement Needs a Rebound in 2023

Here is the publisher’s link to the book titled Side by Side in Eternity: The Lives Behind Adjacent American Military Graves. The book is co-authored by J. Eric Smith, my old blogging buddy. It is currently available for pre-order from the publisher and also from all of the significant book-selling platforms.

From the Books: NO NAME IN THE STREET by James Baldwin

What I Think About LeBron Breaking My NBA Scoring Record by

Mike Roach, a SABR report of a baseball player who played in Binghamton more than a century ago.

Charles Kimbrough, Anchor Jim Dial on ‘Murphy Brown,’ Dies at 86#

Nathan Lane reminiscing about a few of the 25 starring roles he’s played on Broadway

From 2005:  Periodical comics face many issues

TB12

Now I Know: The Man Who Did Well By Himself and The Radio Station for People Who are Blind and The $35 Mailbox That Cost $33,000 and Ten Thousand Reasons to Read Before Hitting “I Accept”

On Monday, February 6, my wife and I, with a couple who got married six months after we did, were on a Trivia for a Cause team at Fort Orange Brewing in Albany. The cause was Empower Ethiopia. We started slow but ended up in third place, thanks to our teamwork. I was the one who knew there was only one member of the Gilligan’s Island cast, Tina Louise, who was still alive.
Most of the questions were reasonable. But one bugged me. It was about the six ORIGINAL Disney characters on the Hollywood Walk of Fame besides Mickey Mouse? We guessed Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck, which were right, and Goofy, Pluto, and someone else (Daisy Duck?), which were incorrect.
The other answers were  Tinkerbell, Snow White, and Winnie the Pooh.  Tinkerbell? She was in the J.M. Barrie books. Snow White was in the Grimm books, and Pooh was created by A.A. Milne. The good news is that NO team got more than three of the five.
The final question was about the first filmed sporting event in 1894, produced by Thomas Edison. What was the sport? Look here. BTW, NO team got it correct.
Rock Hall

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is again offering a Fans’ Ballot. You can select up to 5 Nominees daily and submit your vote until April 28th.

Yes, they should have nominated your favorite band, and it doesn’t matter. I still vote.

My ballot includes: 1. Warren Zevon- eligible since 1994, yet nominated for the first time in 2023. Other musicians are pulling for the late singer-songwriter, and so am I. He might get in as a songwriter.

2. The Spinners – I’ve had them in my head since I wrote about Thom Bell, and I’m writing about them again this month. Will the 4th time be the charm?

3. Joy Division/New Order -does this synth-pop group have a chance at its first nomination? I doubt it.

4. Willie Nelson. He’ll be 90 in April, he’s sung with half of everyone, and he just got a Grammy.

The fifth slot I’ve bounced among Rage Against The Machine, ” a legitimately game-changing rap-rock group with critical respect, popular endurance, and contemporary relevance,” on their fifth try; and Sheryl Crow, who I’d been playing a lot during her birth month.

Lately, I’ve been voting for Cyndi Lauper, not just for her 1980s output but for creating the music and lyrics for Kinky Boots, for which she won a Tony.

But I could have easily voted for A Tribe Called Quest, Kate Bush, or the late George Michael. I’m not a big White Stripes fan, but I like Jack White, from his soundtrack for Cold Mountain to his work with Loretta Lynn. Missy Elliot and Soundgarden are worthy. I’m just not that familiar with Iron Maiden.

Yet again, I hope they put, in the non-performer category, Estelle Axton, co-founder of STAX Records!

MUSIC

Playing For Change BHM playlist

Spark Catchers – Hannah Kendall

Redemption Song – Sheku Kanneh-Mason and siblings

Coverville 1431: The Barrett Strong Tribute

Night on Mount Triglav – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

K-Chuck Radio: What’s that in the air?

The news distresses me

turning America into an idiocracy

distressesThe news distresses me. It has been true for a long while, yet even in a barrage of bad news, these trends got under my skin.

ITEM: “A North Carolina Republican congressional candidate floated a proposal to create a community review process that would determine whether survivors of rape and incest can get abortions.

“Bo Hines, the GOP candidate for North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, wants to outlaw all abortions unless the mother’s life is at risk.

“‘He wants victims of rape and incest to be allowed to get an abortion on a case-by-case basis through a community-level review process outside the jurisdiction of the federal government,’ local news outlet WRAL reported.”

If you think a serious attempt at national legislation to ban abortion is impossible, that sounds like the conversation that Roe v. Wade would never be overturned before it was.

Anne Frank

ITEM: “Johnny Teague, who is running for Congress in a district that represents Houston, Texas, actually wrote a book in 2020 entitled ‘The Lost Diary of Anne Frank.’ In this book, which Teague claims is based on extensive and verifiable research, Anne Frank continues her diaries while under capture in Auschwitz, and her words now claim that she had accepted Jesus as her lord and savior – before eventually dying in the gas chambers.

“Let’s get one thing straight. This whole concept is pure, unadulterated horse…”

The number of antisemitic comments surged in 2021, and this is another banner year. It’s not just Kanye West or whatever he’s calling himself. Newsmax notes that ‘Antisemitism’ shot to the top of Google searches ahead of the midterms.

Alan Singer, a Long Island professor I’ve met, and a confirmed atheist, wrote I Am A Jew to take on the bigots.

ITEM: Herschel Walker and the Character Issue

“It’s this no-matter-what vote that’s really turning America into idiocracy. But it may be even worse than that. Whereas bad character and behavior used to be a political handicap, today it actually seems an asset.”

I watched Jordan Klepper Fingers the Midterms – America Unfollows Democracy last week. A scary half hour. Probably the weirdest bit was someone who insisted to Klepper that actor James Woods had replaced Joe Biden. What?

Crime

ITEM: Bail Reform: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (watch this!)

If you’ve seen Republican National Committee attack ads this political season, bail reform has been touted as the reason for increased criminality. This is despite the fact in almost all of the cases of violent crime cited, the alleged perpetrator was not out on bail.

The Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, falls squarely in that category. Frank Robinson noted why one ought not to vote for him. And my already-cast vote was definitely an anti-Zeldin ballot.

I’ve even seen it online, but also on the network news spewed by folks such as  Congressman Michael McCaul that Paul Pelosi’s assault is a sign that bail reform is terrible, even though the alleged assailant hadn’t even been arrested.

ITEM: This brings me to the item that triggered the post, the attack on Mr. Pelosi, which has garnered all sorts of BS conspiracy theories. One guy, djt, asserted that the window in the Pelosi home was broken from the inside, which he knows because… IDK.

A lot of the noise is on Twitter. I understand there has been a recent change in ownership. These are just some of the reasons why the news distresses me. Finally, a poem: A ‘plague on both houses’—still ends up a plague.

Sunday Stealing hodgepodge

2 Samuel

Sunday StealingThis Sunday Stealing hodgepodge was so detailed that I could have written whole posts about a few questions. And in fact, that’s why I’ve done it here a few times, link to items previously discussed.

1. Where do you get your news these days?

I’ve thought about this a lot. I get a lot of newsfeeds, “mainstream,” progressive, and what one might call rightwing. About the latest mass casualty event, I receive a dozen notices. Elon Musk dithering about whether to buy Twitter I read about ad nauseum.

Yet the first time I read that Bob Lanier, Hall of Fame basketball player and an apparently really good guy had died, it was in from Kelly’s blog. And the second was from a weekly newsletter that linked to this article. It’s more and more difficult to know everything.

2. Do you like crab meat? What makes you crabby?

It’s OK. People hijacking the Consitution and/or the Bible.

3. Does freedom mean more choices? Have you ever felt there were too many choices? Elaborate.

I think we have a gazillion choices of picking watching TV/movies, e.g. – so many platforms! Sometimes keeping track of the options is essentially impossible.

4. Barbara Millicent Roberts was introduced to the world on March 9, 1959…that’s Barbie to most of us. Did you have Barbies as a kid, or did you let your own children play with Barbies? What well-known Barbara (living or not) would you most like to meet?

I think my sisters may have had a Barbie. I can’t think of a famous living Barbara I’d like to meet, but maybe Barbra Streisand.

5. What are three things you value most in another person?

Integrity, intelligence, and compassion.

THEY are old…

6. How would you define “old.” At what age is a person old?

It’s always been true: 30 years older than I am.

7. A place you’ve been that’s “old.” Tell us something about your visit there.

My Grandma Williams’ house was old and is now non-existent. This is a picture of my parents in the backyard of 13 Maple Street, Binghamton, NY.

8. Something you miss about the “good old days.” When were they?

In the 1960s, there were a bunch of Supreme Court decisions that were making the United States a better place: Mapp v. Ohio, Baker v. Carr, Gideon v. Wainwright, New York Times v. Sullivan, Griswold v. Connecticut, Loving v. Virginia.

9. In what way are you a ‘chip off the old block’? Or if you’d rather, in what way is your child a ‘chip off the old block’?

My daughter understands my motivation in terms of time usage, way better than her mother does.

10. Old fashioned, Old Testament, old-timer, same old same old, old glory, good old boy, old wives tale…choose an ‘old’ phrase that relates to something in your life or the wider world currently and explain.

My Bible study has been slogging through the Old Testament histories, presently in 2 Samuel. While some of the theology is mystifying, it is an interesting reflection of human foibles.

A juicy mango

11. July 5th is National Hawaii Day…have you ever been to Hawaii? Any desire to visit or make a return trip? Pineapple, mango, or guava…what’s your pleasure?

Never been to Hawaii, though I’d like to. There’s a story about that. Pineapple, though I never had mango until the last decade or so.

12. Last time you were ‘thrown in at the deep end’? Explain.

The Gutenberg block editor on WordPress, which I wrote about here. Just this past week, I tried it again, but could not “get” it.

13. Sun, sea, sand, salt…your favorite when it comes to summer?

I’ve NEVER done sun for the sake of it – ixnay on the unbathingsay, and that was before I had the vitiligo.

14. Bury your head in the sand, the sands of time, draw a line in the sand, pound sand, shifting sands…pick one and tell us how the phrase currently relates to your life in some way.

Sands of time. I’m getting older, and achier.

15. On a scale of 1-10 (1 = make your own rules and 10=like a warden), how strict were your parents? If you’re a parent where on the scale do you land?

My dad was a 7.3, and my mom was about 2.3. I’m much closer to my mom’s score than my dad’s.

 

They drive the conversation

fundamentalist

Let me have a go at the question posed by the ever-interesting Kelly Sedinger. BTW, check out his daily poetry posts this month. 

Will the media in this country EVER stop letting the right-wing just define things any way they want and drive the conversation? (Thinking of terror alerts, “family values”, the “immigrant mobs”, CRT)

At a basic level, the media during my lifetime have been fairly conservative. Maybe that’s not the right word. Conventional is the better term. It supported American wars, for instance. I imagine World War II was an easy call. But the technology that brought Vietnam into American homes made the war less defensible. Still, it was a BFD when CBS News’ Walter Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America,” gave the continued presence by the US a thumbs down.

The Shock and Awe was the “brand” for the first Gulf War in the 1990s. Wasn’t stuff blowing up really cool, the audience was supposed to conclude. When the United States fought Saddam Hussein again in 2003, all of America and the world would be behind it, right? Well, yeah, except for the literally millions, including me, who took to the streets, on February 15 of that year to oppose it. Still, Freedom Fries won the narrative war, and the media, by and large, fell in line as cheerleaders until the war wasn’t going so well.

Values voters

I was particularly peeved with ABC News, which suggested back in the early 2000s that “Christian voters” were what some refer to as “fundamentalist.” “Fundamentalist,” I think is a lazy word here. A definition I found: “Fundamentalism is defined as strict adherence to some belief or ideology, especially in a religious context, or a form of Christianity where the Bible is taken literally and obeyed in full.” I believe I try, quite imperfectly, for the former – see Matthew 25: 34-40 And I know that the latter is impossible in this culture because if one started stoning people, they’d run into law enforcement.

Still, let’s go with the term fundamentalists, as I believe most understand it. They thought they elected one of their own George W. Bush. Seeing that political muscle, it must be what most of America wanted, the media in general concluded.

Orange

When djt was running for the White House in 2015, he would alternatingly spout some bigoted remarks with language suggesting that he understood the downtrodden, including the fundamentalists, whose values were supposedly being “buried” by the mainstream media.

Since Trump was perceived as “entertaining” – he HAD been a TV star, after all, and he was rich, right?! – the media covered his campaign with kid gloves. He had suggested he was going to run before dropping out in the past, so naturally, he’ll do it again. But what was past was NOT prologue, as he found his message resonating.

Meanwhile, every other week on ABC News’ This Week, one or another pundit would explain that djt had a “ceiling” of about 30% of the Republican voters, almost until March 15, 2016, when he essentially locked up the nomination. Still, he couldn’t really BEAT Hillary Clinton, who was the experienced candidate, so the press – and specifically NBC’s Matt Lauer – pressed on about her damn emails, while asking him either broad policy questions or puff personal biography.

He was elected. The mainstream media waffled trying to show “respect” to a president who clearly had contempt for them. And it wasn’t really until the last year, 2020, with his COVID “misstatements”, the Big Lie about the election, and January 6, 2021, that they really started to push back.

You asked

There are critics of the mainstream media. One was Eric Boehlert, who unfortunately died in a bicycling accident. Mark Evanier linked to Boehlert’s final piece, “Why is the press rooting against Biden?” which you should read.

This may explain why CBS hired djt sycophant Mick Mulvaney. The Democrats are going to lose the 2022 midterms, it is assumed, and the network needs Republican “access.”

The Problem, With Jon Stewart, addressed Where Does Mainstream Media Go Wrong? on the March 18, 2022, episode. Specifically, it’s in part about Critical Race Theory. The short version: a guy goes on Fox News to bemoan CRT. Sixteen days later, then-president djt echoes the message. Of course, when he says it, it’s echo-chambered all over the place.

All the news that fits

Sometimes journalism amplifies and sometimes reflects. An article in Nation Of Change tries to explain “Why conservative parts of the U.S. are so angry. Republican America is poorer, more violent, and less healthy than Democratic America. But Republicans’ blame is misplaced.”

“The right-wing canard that hardworking White people subsidize welfare-grubbing cities is backward. Democrat-voting counties, with 60% of America’s population, generate 67% of the nation’s personal income, 70% of the nation’s GDP, 71% of federal taxes, 73% of charitable contributions, and 75% of state and local taxes.” Tet the narrative remains.

Also, after a couple of years of COVID, with lots of uncertainty, increased violence, and the like, people are unsettled. They like the safe, the familiar, the “normal”. Certainly not the “immigrant mobs”, unless they look like them, or a potential SCOTUS justice who, it is alleged, wants to support criminals over “regular folks”.

Or probably Nixon

But it’s long been the narrative, going back at least to Reagan, about the welfare queen taking all of “OUR” money. “They” are not worthy. And members of the media are after all part of the community. As Kelly noted, America still has issues regarding race. When Black Lives Matter was “hot”, before Chauvin was convicted, some paid at least lip service to it. But as governors come out with their anti-CRT bills, the culture is perceived to have shifted.

For all the success of inclusion and fairness, there is a real pushback against it. A recent headline in one right-wing online publication was TSA to Get Gender Woke, a discussion about gender pronouns. Despite the notion that the media are “liberal” or, laughably, “leftist,” some journalistic platforms go the way the wind blows.

Modern journalism, more than ever, is tied to profit. Outlets often pinch the pennies when it comes to paying their staff, particularly editors, who are needed even MORE in the Internet age. When some push against the powerful, they risk losing access, which of course has long been true. The “noble tradition” of the fourth estate sometimes wins out. But it may be more subject to propaganda because it’s a lot cheaper to repost the press release or note what’s trending on Twitter rather than to push back against the tide.

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