The Blast (Archive)

Friday
February 24th
Blast #152

In Case You Missed This

I ran across the following item on Facebook and tracked it down to a February 19th posting on Politico (by Terre), with attribution to Susan Keller. Feels like perfect material for a Friday BLAST.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but it looks like Trump is actually making America great again. Just look at the progress made since the election:

1. Unprecedented levels of ongoing civic engagement.

2. Millions of Americans now know who their state and federal representatives are without having to google.

3. Millions of Americans are exercising more. They're holding signs and marching every week.

4. Alec Baldwin is great again. Everyone's forgotten he's kind of a jerk.

5. The Postal Service is enjoying the influx cash due to stamps purchased by millions of people for letter and postcard campaigns.

6. Likewise, the pharmaceutical industry is enjoying record growth in sales of anti-depressants.

7. Millions of Americans now know how to call their elected officials and know exactly what to say to be effective.

8. Footage of town hall meetings is now entertaining.

9. Tens of millions of people are now correctly spelling words like emoluments, narcissist, fascist, misogynist, holocaust and cognitive dissonance.

10. Everyone knows more about the rise of Hitler than they did last year.

11. Everyone knows more about legislation, branches of power and how checks and balances work.

12. Marginalized groups are experiencing a surge in white allies.

13. White people in record numbers have just learned that racism is not dead. (See #6)

14. White people in record numbers also finally understand that Obamacare IS the Affordable Care Act.

15. Stephen Colbert's "Late Night" finally gained the elusive #1 spot in late night talk shows, and Seth Meyers is finding his footing as today's Jon Stewart.

16. "Mike Pence" has donated millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood since Nov. 9th.

17. Melissa FREAKING McCarthy.

18. Travel ban protesters put $24 million into ACLU coffers in just 48 hours, enabling them to hire 200 more attorneys. Lawyers are now heroes.

19. As people seek veracity in their news sources, respected news outlets are happily reporting a substantial increase in subscriptions, a boon to a struggling industry vital to our democracy.

20. Live streaming court cases and congressional sessions are now as popular as the Kardashians.

21. Massive cleanup of Facebook friend lists.

22. People are reading classic literature again. Sales of George Orwell's "1984" increased by 10,000% after the inauguration. (Yes, that is true. 10,000%. 9th grade Lit teachers all over the country are now rock stars.)

23. More than ever before, Americans are aware that education is important. Like, super important.

24. Now, more than anytime in history, everyone believes that anyone can be President. Seriously, anyone.

Susan Keller -- posted by
by Terre in Politico
Sunday Feb 19, 2017

Thursday
February 23rd
Blast #151

 Quick Takes

1. Spring Training and Baseball

Spring training baseball games begin today and, far more than Punxsutawney Phil, that is the sure sign that Spring is here for me. I have attempted to wax poetic about baseball in earlier BLASTs (#’s 4, 12, 26, 38, 64, 83, & 91) so I will not belabor those points here. Let me only say that the Ritual of Spring Training --- the first look at new, young players, watching pitchers get their arms ready, checking to make sure veterans are rounding into shape --- like springtime itself, brings a wonderful renewal in spirit. Before the games begin in earnest in April, this could be our year! There is an optimism that accompanies pitchers and catchers reporting (as they did last week) and watching news reports from the Sunshine State and Arizona (the aptly named Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues) that is connected to over a century (spring training in Florida began in 1913 --- before that it was in Hot Springs, Arkansas!) of baseball and American history. Some of that is dicey, of course, (integration in 1947 led to problems in Florida spring training sites right through the 1960s) but it’s part of our history and another reason baseball is so much a reflection of that history. So, Spring Training is here and it gives us something to be optimistic about in these less-than-optimistic times.

2. The Oscars

   Sunday night we get to the end of “Award Season” with the Oscar presentations, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. I have already railed against La La Land being the front-runner for “Best Picture” so I won’t belabor that issue. Given all the lead-in award festivals (Golden Globes, BET, Writers Guild, S.A.G., Independent Films, MTV, Peoples Choice, et al) all kind of prognostication ensues. It seems La La, Casey Affleck, Viola Davis, and Moonlight (screenplay) are the odds-on favorites, but we’ll see. How important are the Oscars? Well, let me put it this way: who won last year? If you’re not sure or you don’t know, that’s probably an indication that your mind is focused on far more important things --- and good for you!

3. March Madness

      As a retired (highly unsuccessful) high school basketball coach I have to admit that this is one of my most favorite times of year. I was an NBA basketball fan in the late 60s/early 70s when the Knicks were playing great team ball and winning championships. As I coached high school, though, I became more and more a fan of the college game --- probably because the coaches are the stars at the college level. The NBA (even more so today) is player dominated and the skills are ridiculous --- these are some of the most incredible athletes anywhere. College basketball involves far less skilled players and requires much more strategy and game-time decisions by coaches, making it a more interesting spectacle. As we head into the lead-in tournaments (ACC, Big East, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, et al) and the always controversial Selection Sunday (March 12th) every game becomes significant --- will your favorite schools make it to “the Big Dance” or be relegated to the NIT (formerly a prestigious tourney but now an “also-ran,” but still good caliber, basketball, tournament)? Whatever the case, if you are a diehard college hoops fan, this is your time of year and I’m gearing up for weeks of watching great college hoops (much to the chagrin of the Lovely Carol Marie – a woman of endless patience when it comes to my sports vices). So, join your office bracket pool and make your picks! March Madness, here we come.

Wednesday
February 22nd
Blast #150
(George Washington's Birthday)

“I Cannot Tell the Truth”

It’s February 22nd and, when I was a boy, we used to get this day off for “Washington’s birthday.” Washington was actually born on February 11, 1731 (in Virginia --- a native-born American!) but when the British Empire updated to the Gregorian calendar in 1752 his birthday was “corrected” to February 22, 1732 (I won’t bore you with the mathematical details). The most famous George Washington myth, of course, is that he chopped down a cherry tree and, when his father demanded to know who did it, young George purportedly replied, “I cannot tell a lie . . . “ We’ve certainly come a long way in the 228 years of the United States Presidency. We have gone from the hero of the American Revolution, who essentially invented the Office of President, to an ignorant and self-aggrandizing serial liar. Let’s not forget how important Washington was to the office before we examine how far we have fallen.

There was no blueprint for the Presidency when Washington took office in 1789. He had the Article Two guidelines in the Constitution, but those are quite (intentionally) vague. From that he fashioned a model of the Executive that has stood the test of time. He invented the notion of a Cabinet, with specific “Secretaries” to run departments. Following Hamilton’s lead, he established a National Bank and strengthened the power of the central government (see: The Whiskey Rebellion). Washington determined he would be called “Mr. President” (though he would not shake hands with anyone --- maybe our first germophobe Chief Executive?) and established the two-term tradition (he could have easily been elected to third and fourth terms, if he chose to run). He set the policy of neutrality in foreign affairs that maintained the infant U.S.’s sovereignty, as well as establishing an alliance with Great Britain (through Jay’s Treaty) --- a partnership that has been maintained (with some “bumps,” like the War of 1812) over generations. Washington’s Farewell Address is still noted in history books and is yet another precedent established between 1789 and 1797. Quite an imposing figure, really, who left the office with clear parameters and institutions to be followed.

And what do we have today? In 2017 we have a man who is incapable of telling the truth sitting in the Oval Office. Chris Cilizza, in yesterday’s Washington Post used the Post’s fact-checking department to see how Donald J. Trump has done in his first 33 days in office and here is what he found:

“NO DAYS without any recorded false or misleading claims.” I’m sure George Washington would be pleased to know that our 45th President cannot go ONE DAY without saying something that is, at best, misleading. 17 days (more than half!) have seen Trump make 4 or more false or misleading claims. If we look back to the campaign trail, of course, we should not be surprised. When the Washington Post was assigning its Pinocchio’s for falsehoods, here is how Trump stacked up against Hillary Clinton.

As noted by Cilizza in the Post: “During the course of the campaign, nearly two-thirds of his claims that The Post's fact-checking team looked into were rated Four Pinocchios — meaning that they were found to be totally and completely false. By comparison, 14 percent of Clinton's fact-checked statements received four Pinocchios.”   So, we should really not be surprised the we now have a Prevaricator-in-Chief in the city named for the man who couldn’t tell a lie.

            One of Trump’s statements during the campaign has now moved into the Four Pinocchio category and reflects how hard Trump has been working for the American people since taking office. According to yesterday’s Politico, “Trump said last August that if he became president, he wouldn’t have time for golf. ‘I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to go play golf,’ he said at an event in Virginia.” So, in his first 33 days he has played golf no less than Six times! In fact, Business Insider has broken down exactly how much our new President is “working for” us and it looks like this:

If we look closely at those numbers, Trump has spent 424 out of 744 hours asleep or “non-working” with an additional 25 hours on the golf course! --- from the man who told the voters he wouldn’t “have time to play golf.” (Not to mention 18 HOURS Tweeting!)

The enormity of Trump’s lying would be fatal for any other politician (or businessperson?) --- yet he gets away with it. And part of that is because the Bannon strategy is an age-old authoritarian blueprint: de-legitimatize the mainstream media (the creators of “fake news”) and erode their First Amendment power to deliver the truth to the American people, leaving a vacuum for Trump to fill with his lies. In this age of too much content, where a report in today’s New York Times shows that people simply avoid reading stories that will challenge their beliefs (people on all sides of the spectrum), we are already hard pressed to hold this narcissist accountable. Without reliable sources being believed as credible and having veracity with the public, we open the gates for Bannon and Stephen Miller (aptly named “Baby Goebbels” by Malcolm Nance on Bill Maher’s Real Time last Friday) to tell us this President should go “unquestioned.” As Trump proclaimed at the RNC, after listing America’s problems, “I alone can fix them.” It is hard to imagine George Washington making such a statement when he could have. The only man to win a unanimous Electoral College victory (twice!), he could have shaped the office of the Presidency very differently, if he lacked integrity and vision --- but he didn’t and he probably couldn’t tell a lie, either. That’s how far we’ve fallen.

Happy Birthday, George!

Tuesday
February 21st
Blast #149

 News, “Fake” News
&
“The Enemy of the People”

The bedrock of any democracy is a free, uncompromised, and unimpeded press. In the United States, from its inception, the First Amendment was established to guarantee the right of citizens to acquire information untainted by those in political power, i.e., the government. The First Amendment was also intended to protect the rights of individuals and reporters to say what they will in an unobstructed, unrestricted manner. The assumption always has been, of course, that putting all the ideas into the "marketplace," an educated citizenry could then sort out what was what, pick and choose facts from opinion, and keep or discard what seemed relevant/irrelevant or important/unimportant. But we have entered a new era of “journalism” and reporting --- one in which “fake” news spreads like wildfire and we have a Chief Executive who does not read (I am beginning to wonder how well he can --- if he can at all). Both of these items create serious problems in a democracy. When the President of the United States declares the free press “the enemy of the people” while blatantly lying to those people, we have a serious problem.

A 2016 Pew Research Survey indicated the following

We can see from this information that getting one’s information from a screen (tv or online) is the most common way news is now transmitted and, most significantly, we can see 18 to 49 year olds are much more active online consumers than the 50-65+ group. (That certainly fits with our (nearly) 71 year old President getting almost all of his information from cable (particularly Fox) news.)

Another significant aspect of the Pew study had to do with “bias.” Even though 75 % of people surveyed think the news serves an important “Watchdog” role, an almost equal number believe it is biased.

I would not dispute that the media has a bias. Most informed readers are clear about what the particular bias of a publication is. Here in New York, we know the Times and the NY Daily News have a liberal bent while the Murdoch NY Post and Wall Street Journal are conservative. The problem we have should have deep concern about, though, has several facets to it that are disturbing.

#1. There is an underlying distrust of those who deliver “Mainstream” news.
Breitbart News refers to this as “MSM” – the MainStream Media --
and stirs the pot among its readers to never trust the “MSM.”
   Alex Jones, on InfoWars goes even further --- while producing
outrageous "fake" news (Sandy Hook was a fake, the gov't. was
   behind 9/11, etc.) Frighteningly, he is a source of information for the
   President, who has called this conspiracy nut, "amazing."

#2. “Fake” news. We now have a President (whose chief strategist ran
Breitbart) who has not only declared Mainstream Media as “fake” but keeps
pounding on that message, while fueling the problem (#3).

#3. Our President is a source of “fake” news: terror attacks in Sweden?
Terror in Atlanta?   The “massacre” at Bowling Green? Those are
just the latest LIES in what has been a clear pattern by the Uninformed
in Chief since long before he ever ran for office.

We need to understand the gravity of a situation where the Leader of a nation makes a full frontal assault on the free press. When Trump supporters shout “Lugenpresse” (Nazi Germany’s “lying press” cry) at rallies, when Trump puts the press in an isolated “holding area” --- using them as a prop at his rallies, a group he can easily single out and deride --- it is easy to see the direction this is headed. His admiration for Vladimir Putin, who has eliminated (literally) opposition, seems to reflect Trump’s vision of leadership. “Regarding the press: in 2013 Russia ranked 148th out of 179 countries in the Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders. In a 2015 Freedom House report Russia got a score of 83 (100 being the worst), mostly because of new laws introduced in 2014 that further extended the state control over mass-media.” (Wikipedia- emphasis mine) Limiting the power of the press and de-legitimatizing it are the age-old tools of tyrants and authoritarian rulers.

In a country where our devotion to a free press allows a Breitbart and an InfoWars.com to flourish, we more and more need an informed and literate public --- and a Leader who READS! We know, pretty clearly, that the latter is not the case, and that will probably not change so we, the people, must become the guardians and champions of the free press and encourage citizens to seek the truth, to demand evidence, and to hold those in power accountable . Without that, our Republic will be in grave danger

Weekend Blast
February 18th/19th/20th
(Happy President's Day)
Blast #148

Cinema 101
(A quick course on White Privilege)

In 1996 I bought a small paperback book entitled Race Traitor, edited by Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey, who had been publishing a magazine by that name since 1992. The book was a compilation of the best essays from the magazine, whose stated purpose was to “abolish the white race.” Now, before you flip out and think this is some kind of alternative universe KKK, let me put that idea in context. Ignatiev, a lecturer at Harvard at the time who now teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art, and Garvey, who taught at the City University of New York, saw the struggle for Black equality needing to ascend to the level of John Brown’s abolitionist fervor. In their words: “ When we say we want to abolish the white race, we do not mean we want to exterminate people with fair skin. We mean that we want to do away with the social meaning of skin color, thereby abolishing the white race as a social category. Consider this parallel: To be against royalty does not mean wanting to kill the king. It means wanting to do away with crowns, thrones, titles, and the privileges attached to them. In our view, whiteness has a lot in common with royalty: they are both social formations that carry unearned advantages.” (Race Traitor Oct 5, 2002 – emphasis mine). I know there are people who dispute the notion of “white privilege” but if you look at the history of Western Europe and the United States it is hard to deny that the rules of those societies are designed to favor white men --- period. If you consider Ignatiev's and Garvey's analogy --- whiteness is like royalty --- you may be able to accept the notion that, like a king or queen, if you are white, you have certain privileges and advantages at birth that you have not earned! It is what I have always referred to as “genetic good fortune.” In my own case, what’s better than being born a blue-eyed white guy named “Johnson” in the United States in 1949? (The correct answer is: NOTHING!) To try to put this in better perspective, I’ll offer a simple course in (current) Cinema 101 that makes a compelling case for a better understanding of white privilege and African-American history in the United States.

There are six Oscar-nominated films this year, each providing insight to the “Black Experience” in America, thereby providing equal insight to white privilege. (Of course if you believe in Eugenics --- that breeding humans as you might canines, to sort out the “best,” because some races are naturally superior to others --- you will never buy into “white privilege.” However, if you see that “whiteness” is a social category created by those in power who created the rules society operates by, you naturally reject Eugenics --- which, by the way, is also thoroughly disproven by DNA). Three feature films (Fences, Hidden Figures, and Moonlight) and three documentaries (13th, I Am Not Your Negro, and O.J.: Made in America) all provide vivid views into the experiences of African-Americans in U.S. history on concrete and visceral levels. From my perspective they all should be advertised as “Educational” material for white audiences. (I would also add Nate Parker's Birth of A Nation as another film to watch, along with the 2014 Oscar winning 12 Years A Slave). Films about race are not new, of course, but they have seldom appeared in quantity the way we have them this year. That they coincide with the “Make America Great Again” movement and its white supremacist undertones may not be a coincidence.

What makes this year’s crop of films significant, I believe, is that they do not deal with the overt racism we are used to seeing in movies like Mississippi Burning (1988) or A Time to Kill (1996) or Free State of Jones (2016) --- and are not movies that feature white men as the focus & heroes. Birth of a Nation and 12 Years A Slave both portray the slave experience, of course, (as did the TV remake of Roots and the Underground Railroad show) and, because cinema in the 21st century can be more graphic, we get a far more realistic view than ever of the vicious cruelty Black people endured for their first 246 years in captivity in North America. Beatings, lynchings, and rapes were commonplace, not isolated instances, and to not think that the mentality that allowed for that kind of behavior --- that whites could do what they wanted to Blacks because the “master” was "naturally" superior --- is a mindset that has not been abolished from our world (read some of Dylan Roof’s prison journaling). But Fences, Hidden Figures, and Moonlight reveal how cruel and biased our modern system of Jim Crow has been.

Chronologically, Fences relates the tragedy of Troy Maxson, a former star baseball player who works as a garbage collector in mid-1950s Pittsburgh (see Blast #124 for a review). While no white people appear in the movie, their presence is felt through Troy, who didn’t get a fair shot at playing in the Major Leagues because of segregation and then denies his son a football scholarship, believing he will face the same discrimination, or worse. The insidious jackboot of prejudice is seen and felt throughout the play/screenplay, while always showing us (particularly through Viola Davis’s Rose) the humanity and resilience of people who know the playing field is not equal. In the same way, Hidden Figures (Blast #145) puts 1950s/1960s Jim Crowism in high relief, as we watch perfectly bright and capable Black women receive less than fair treatment simply because of their race (and gender). As I noted in my review, Taraji P. Henson’s running a half-mile to use a “colored” bathroom emphasizes the cruel (bordering on inhumane) treatment of Blacks, which occurred within the lifetime of many current viewers! Moonlight presents a more personal look at the difficulty of growing up in a world where being a second-class citizen quite naturally leads to criminal behavior. Without elaborating (and I highly recommend you see this movie!), the humanity and dignity of Mahershala Ali’s drug-dealing Juan character, along with the tragedy and desperation of Naomie Harris (as Paula, the drug addicted mother) provide yet another educational insight (possibly) for a white audience. That the main character (Little/Chiron/Black) somehow survives (although on the wrong side of the law, and has done time) with some ray of hope --- an astonishing feat.

The Oscar nominated documentaries are all must-see material. I have already written about 13th and I Am Not Your Negro (Blasts #123 & #146, respectively) and cannot recommend them highly enough. Read those Blasts and I think you will clearly see how those films make up the core of Cinema 101. O.J.: Made in America is a fascinating documentary because filmmaker Ezra Edleman moves far beyond just examining the murder/trial of the former Heisman Trophy winner and really investigates why Black people were elated by O.J.’s acquittal and why that dumbfounded white people. Again, it’s where the veil of white privilege provides the cluelessness we white folks have to the Black experience.

            Black people were not cheering that O.J. got away with murder. They were cheering that the L.A. police department, the L.A. prosecutor’s office, and the politics of the City of L.A. were finally beaten. In a NY Times review, the critic A.O. Scott wrote: “The jury’s verdict, which struck many white observers at the time as inexplicable, is situated against a background of longstanding resentment and mistrust that the prosecution misjudged and the defense successfully exploited.” In the long shadow of the Rodney King videotape, the O.J. verdict seemed to vindicate the notion that the L.A. police were guilty and not all those Black people who had been mistreated over the years. Putting all this in perspective, along with Simpson’s denial of his Blackness (“I’m not Black, I’m O.J.” is his quote). provides another window of insight into the complex and complicated world of U.S. race relations.

            In all, these movies provide a way for white people to begin to not just see but also feel, on some level, what the Black experience has been. My point is not that one should become more sympathetic or even empathetic (though that would not be a bad thing) --- one should become more deeply and critically thoughtful about the world we live in here in these United States. The playing field is not even and never has been. If you can do nothing more than own up to your privilege and begin trying to live an "abolitionist’s" life, that would be significant. If you’re still not convinced about the notion of white privilege, I’ll share with you an example sent by my old friend, the now-retired Federal Magistrate Judge (from Louisville, KY), Jim Moyer.

The analogy I use for white privilege is this. Suppose two kids are interested in tennis. The white kid is from an upper middle class family and his mother played on her high school tennis team. They belong to a club that has tennis courts and a pro. The white kid has tennis lessons, goes to tennis camp, and participates in high school tennis and on a Division III college team.

The African-American kid is from a middle class family. No one in his family has played tennis and the family belongs to no club. He learns on a public court, with no lessons. His high school doesn't have tennis courts, but he keeps playing with a group informally organized by a neighborhood sports activist for minority kids. He goes to a local public university and doesn't play college tennis.

Talent always prevails, according to American mythology. But the chance of the black kid becoming a college scholarship athlete for tennis, or a tennis pro, or even a lifelong player, are much lower than the chances of the white kid.

To me, this is one example of white privilege. No one hated the black kid or tried to keep him from playing tennis, but the white kid had access to many more opportunities. The USTA is probably dying to have more minority athletes, but the structure of the system is stacked to favor the white kids.

            This is an important conversation to engage in these days, with a President who, when questioned, doesn’t even know what the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) is and believes the reporter, being black, must be “friends” with them. That kind of isolated, ignorant thinking (that also wants to "Make America White Again") does not see the strength and power an inclusive nation wields.

Friday
February 17th
Blast #147

Believing Don’t Make It So

Watching the Presidential press conference meltdown yesterday I couldn’t help but think of students I had, particularly when I taught in the Westchester suburbs, who were not particularly bright but who had been told, from Day One, by their parents, that they were “special.” So they couldn’t believe it when they got “C’s” on their work, and the parents would come in and harangue, attacking the teachers and the principal --- and the child would be told that “’those people’ don’t know what they’re talking about, you are very special and your work is excellent!” I witnessed such students get into fairly decent universities because parents donated buildings or made huge contributions to the endowment and I never really gave them a second thought once they had graduated. But now I’m confronted with one of them, standing at a press conference as President of the United States and his grasp of reality is similar to those students and their families --- it is delusional.

When asked about proof of Trump’s claimed voter fraud, Sean Spicer repeatedly said “The President does believe that,” and “the president has believed that for a while.” What we are seeing is a naked Emperor who “believes” wild conspiracy theories and thinks “believing it” makes it so! When confronted with the fact that his 306 Electoral votes were not the “largest margin since Reagan” Trump simply says, “That’s the information that I was given.” Really? As usual, we don’t know who gave him this information (No One!) and it will not stop him from repeating this ridiculous lie again and again. This is serious, people!

I would never compare Trump to Hitler (he is not as cunningly diabolical, as we are seeing). At best, he is like Marshall Petain in Vichy France --- and it is easy to visualize someone like Putin pulling the strings on this puppet. I would make a Third Reich comparison, though, to Steve Bannon (Goering) and Stephen Miller (Goebbels). Bannon, of course, is the real puppeteer in this new administration and his paranoid, aggressive nationalism (with a good dose of white, Christian supremacist fervor) are, at the very least, trying to shape the direction of this administration. Miller, of course, is the blindly loyal extremist who is capable of a statement like this:
our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.

Hmmm…..not questioning the President’s actions because his power is substantial? I’m clicking my jackboots and raising that arm to “Heil!” when I hear a statement like that. All kidding aside, several of the news outlets (fake ones like MSNBC & CNN, of course) noted that there doesn’t seem to be anyone in the White House who will tell Trump that he can’t continue to lie in public or that he should know what the CBC is and not assume the Black reporter who asked a question about his meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus is “friends” with them and should be the one to “set up a meeting.” What? (By the way: the Congressional Black Caucus sent Trump a letter on January 19th requesting a meeting as soon as he could arrange it after taking office) This is serious . . . and scary.

Yesterday’s presser was clearly red meat for Trump’s base but are we really going to hold the country hostage because about 37% of the people believe this guy is the “real deal?” Are the Republicans so bereft of conscience and so greedy for power that they will endanger the country and our future? Have we reached that point, as all Empires do, where the string that unravels the entire skein has been pulled?
People are protesting and Senators and Congresspeople, especially, are going home this week and will face huge crowds --- many bi-partisan --- demanding positive action as well as resistance to the demagoguery and posturing of this Incompetent. During the campaign the Democrats, and even some Republicans (though we can’t seem to find them now), kept saying that Trump was “unfit” to hold the office and now we are seeing that, on almost a daily basis. The press conference was a culmination of a month of chaos and mismanagement. Yet Trump, in his usual deluded manner, stood there reading a laundry list of “accomplishments” and claiming he had the largest Electoral win in recent memory. He claimed drugs are cheaper than candy bars and reiterated what disasters and dangerous places our cities are while warning us that a nuclear holocaust “would be like no other.” No other what?

This man is incoherent and obsessed with ratings, polls, and numbers about himself! We have gotten just what we saw in the campaign. There has been no “pivot.” There has been no ascension to becoming “presidential.” For all those moderates and women and independents who couldn’t bear the idea of Hillary Clinton in the White House, take a good look at who we have as a result.

In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election in the Supreme Court. Think about what a difference that has made in our lives: two senseless and needless wars that are still going on, as well as an environment desperately in need of thoughtful human stewardship. In 2016 Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the election to a narcissistic man-child and now, only one month into his tenure, we are getting a glimpse of the unreal leadership of a Reality Show star. Trump believes certain things, whether they are true or not. Neither Bannon nor Miller, nor Preibus, nor Pence will disabuse him of these notions. The Republican Congress will not investigate the ties to Russia, or demand full disclosure of his taxes, or require nominees for the Cabinet to have even the most basic qualifications. It is hard to imagine where or how this will all end up but if yesterday’s press conference is any indication, we better strap in tight, resist with all our might, and fight the good fight!

Thursday
February 16th
Blast #146

I Am Not Your Negro
(A Review)

Went to see Raoul Peck’s documentary about James Baldwin (I Am Not Your Negro) last night --- it is a powerful statement about race relations and United States history. This is not a documentary about Baldwin’s life. Rather, it grew out of a piece of unfinished writing (started in 1979 --- Baldwin died of stomach cancer in 1987) entitled Remember This House; Baldwin’s personal recollections of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., all of whom were his friends. Using that manuscript and other writing by Baldwin, Peck knits together a powerful political and cultural statement, clearly illustrating what life is like for a “Negro” in America. With clips from old Dick Cavett shows, as well as film of Baldwin debating William F. Buckley, Jr. at Cambridge University in 1965 (I highly recommend seeing the entire debate – you can “YouTube” it --www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFeoS41xe7w) interspersed with newsreel footage from the 60’s and today along with still photos, the film is compelling --- and made me wonder why we haven’t heard people quoting Baldwin more often.

A leader in the Civil Rights movement, Baldwin did not see it as a “revolution” (he later called it “another slave rebellion”) and seems frustrated (although he’s described as “bitter,” which he challenges) by the fact that people do not see what is at the heart and soul of the problem, which is morality. Baldwin consistently makes a persuasive case that Western/European/U.S. civilization has no moral authority because its success (primarily material success, btw) is the result of subjugating people --- particularly people of color. Baldwin describes separate American realities --- the world of Gary Cooper and Doris Day in juxtaposition with Ray Charles. There are two levels of experience in America, he asserts, one enjoyed by white people and another endured by Blacks. He says that “the story of the Negro is the story of America --- and it is not a pretty story.” In looking at the American landscape in 1979 Baldwin concluded “The American way of life does not make people happier or better” and, indeed, that may well be true today. Certainly this past election revealed the deep well of unhappiness in the country and the results of the election seem to point to our not being “better.”

Baldwin’s insights, read in measured tones by Samuel L. Jackson, are as rich as they are disturbing. In briefly discussing Medgar, Malcolm, and Martin, he makes it clear that their assassinations are nothing new (Peck’s visuals, still photos of lynchings, makes this all the more powerful) and that only Blacks (“Negroes,” in ‘60s parlance) were feared and criminalized when/if they took up arms. He points out that it’s quite fine for a white man to exclaim, “Give me Liberty or give me Death!” but any Black man saying the same thing is seen as a threat to our democracy. Time and again (the examples are too numerous to quote here) Baldwin cuts to the core of the problem --- and America’s soul is laid bare by his words. Peck finishes the documentary with Baldwin admonishing white America: "What white people have to do, is try to find out in their hearts why it was necessary for them to have a nigger in the first place. Because I am not a nigger. I'm a man. If I'm not the nigger here, and if you invented him, you the white people invented him, then you have to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that. Whether or not it is able to ask that question." (http://www.npr.org/2017/02/03/513311359/i-am-not-your-negro-gives-james-baldwins-words-new-relevance) That statement is as powerful --- and true --- in 2017 as it was when Baldwin made it in 1963.

I Am Not Your Negro is a must-see film, for white and black people. It is shocking, really, that Baldwin’s powerful, articulate voice has not been heard more often in our current dialogue about race --- except that it may still be too radical, or too uncomfortable (particularly for white people). When he says to white people, “I know more about you than you know about me” there is an eerie truth that stings the white ear to hear it. In the debate with Buckley he very astutely turns the dehumanization of slavery around on whites by asking what has happened to the soul of a man (in this case, Sheriff Clark in Alabama) that would allow him to push a cattle prod into a woman’s breast? And Baldwin says it with compassion, wondering what kind of system can breed such inhumanity. He sees, and wants us to see, that this system has been in place for 400 years and it divides us intentionally, and for the profit of a few. He points out that Malcolm and Martin were moving closer to each other by 1965, philosophically & tactically, as they began to change their focus from race as the primary issue and began focusing on class. In many ways, James Baldwin was a voice in the wilderness, crying out. This wonderful documentary gives that voice a stage and one can only hope that people will listen and hear it --- and think about the brilliance of the man and his words. They are quite relevant because, as he said, “the story of the Negro is the story of America" --- making it a story we must all incorporate into the narrative of today.

Wednesday
February 15th
Blast #145

Go Figure

I finally got around to seeing Hidden Figures, the movie about African-American female mathematicians who worked for NASA during the early years of the Space Race. As one old enough to remember the launch of Sputnik (1957) and Yuri Gargarin’s first orbit of the earth (1961), the film brings back the sense of fear and urgency that pervaded the era (one of the reasons the Cuban Missile Crisis was so frightening!). What it also reveals is another chapter of U.S. History we were unaware of at the time (the Space Program was lily-white to us) while providing a visceral sense of the cruelty of segregation. Director Theodore Melfi (who co-wrote the script with Allison Schroeder) does a fine job of briskly presenting the stories of three Black women who helped propel our country into space.

            Taraji P. Henson, as Katharine G. Johnson, is the math genius who directly worked on the Shepard sub-orbital flight, the John Glenn orbital mission, and, later, the moon landing. Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) became the first African American supervisor in NASA's Computer Division, while Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) became the first Black, female engineer at NASA. The movie is accurate enough, historically, for Katherine Johnson to have said, “It was well done,” and Margot Lee Shetterly, who wrote the book the film is based on, to endorse it wholeheartedly. Even better, Bill Barry, NASA’s chief historian, has said, “the movie is true to the stories of the main characters," he said. "On the whole I was very happy with the outcome." (Space.com) This is not to say the film is a documentary by any means. Kevin Costner’s Director character is a conflation of three people, according to Melfi, and the time frame of events is compressed to work within a two-hour movie. It all works to create an excellent cinematic experience.

            Henson’s Katharine Johnson carries the main storyline, as she is involved in the biggest project (the Glenn launch). Her struggles with racism and sexism abound and her half-mile runs to use a “colored only” ladies room in the West (“colored”) Computing Building graphically symbolizes the discrimination of the Jim Crow South. Spencer’s character, who teaches herself Fortran when NASA buys an IBM room-size mainframe, butts heads with her superior, a thoroughly unlikable Kirsten Dunst. Jackson (Monae) faces her own challenges, needing extension courses at the “whites-only” high school (the state of Virginia resisted Federal orders through the early 1970s – if you saw “Remember the Titans,” you might remember it was set in 1971 Virginia!) to become a full-fledged NASA engineer. In a very well written scene, she argues for her right to attend class in court --- and wins.

            In all, the movie runs the viewer through a gamut of emotional peaks and valleys while telling an inspirational story. But there’s a significant contemporary message in this film and the timing is definitely right. In one of the final scenes, Dunst’s “Mrs. Mitchell,” Dorothy Vaughn’s nemesis throughout the film, says, “Despite what you think, I have nothing against you,” and Spencer/Vaughn replies, quite sincerely, “I know you probably believe that.” To me, that exchange perfectly characterizes America’s 21st century race relations. That a significant percentage of the white population believes they have “nothing against” Black people, the fact is that institutional and economic racism is still pervasive in our society and, indeed, colors how white people perceive (and act toward) African-Americans.   Watching the blatant Jim Crowism of 1961 Hampton, Virginia, should not be seen as a distant past that we overcame long ago . The film intersperses references (in dialogue & visually) to the Civil Rights movement of the time, showing police dogs facing off against demonstrators, newsreel footage of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and a mention of the North Carolina lunch counter sit-ins. It’s hard not to think about Ferguson and Black Lives Matter as you see these clips and hear those references.

      What I found most compelling, from the very first scene, when the women’s car is broken down and a police cruiser pulls up (to interrogate, not necessarily help), is how the expectation of mistreatment is front and center for the Black characters. Between themselves they discuss what and when they might use appropriate resistance. The advent of phone cameras has made mistreatment of Blacks by law enforcement (and elsewhere) more visible than ever, but many white people are still skeptical “that it’s all that bad.” Failing to look at the history of ingrained racism in this country (North, South, East, and West) is what keeps our wheels spinning on this issue. To not see the opposition’s treatment of Obama throughout his tenure --- from the denial of his Supreme Court nominee, to a House member shouting “You Lie!” during a speech to a joint session of Congress, to our current President’s hectoring demands for producing a birth certificate --- as race based is naïve, at best, or simple denial. Where have any of those actions --- or anything like them --- happened to a white President? No individual taunts from the House floor during a Presidential address have ever been recorded (though there have been some “communal” disapproval --- head-shaking and tsk-tsking--- and outright “boo’s” for W.). The fact that we are being reminded to “respect the office, not the man,” now seems hypocritical after Obama’s treatment which, I believe, can be ascribed to his being the first African American President.

            The other prong of discrimination that is blatantly on display in Hidden Figures is sexism --- again, particularly relevant in light of our recent election. When Taraji Henson first walks into the Space Task Force workroom --- filled with white men in white shirts and black ties --- the silence is deafening; everything stops to stare at this interloper. When they set up a separate coffee pot, labeled “colored,” the sexism and racism blatantly intersect. That the black women are referred to as “girls” throughout (just as men were denigrated by the sobriquet “boy”) reminds us of the racism and sexism of the time. But, in our 77 cents to the dollar female/male wage disparity world, how much have times really changed? Dunst’s Mrs. Mitchell character oozes disdain and white privilege in the most polite fashion (we are reminded of The Help) --- blacks, and particularly black women --- are, simply put, “lower.”

            Now I know there are folks who will claim I sound like a typical “bleeding heart liberal” but I think it’s too easy to shrug off racism, sexism, and white privilege as the majority has done for almost four centuries. If people look objectively at the history of this nation, at the systems of privilege and deprivation (even if you only look at the “haves/have-nots” aspect of that, black & white notwithstanding) it is hard to deny that we live in a world that has been intentionally designed to work best for people like myself --- white males. Hidden Figures looks that system squarely in the eye and presents a story that is not only inspirational but should also be aspirational.

A note on racism & sexism: If you have not read Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack,” please do (especially before writing a comment). After researching sexism vs. women, McIntosh, a professor at Wellesley (ah, yes, those “elite” schools), applied her work to racism. You can find it by simply cutting and pasting the URL below into Google:

https://www.deanza.edu/faculty/lewisjulie/White%20Priviledge%20Unpacking%20the%20Invisible%20Knapsack.pdf

Tuesday
Feburary 14th
Blast #144

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day

February 14th --- Valentine’s Day, a celebration of love and a bonanza for the Hallmark Company (it is second only to Xmas for the number of cards sent). But where did this whole notion come from --- and who was Saint Valentine anyway? The historical record is muddy, at best, about Valentine and there are several saints who actually claim the name. The one that seems most associated with the holiday was actually purged from the registry of Saints in 1969 and relegated to martyr status. There are two interesting stories concerning that “Saint” Valentine. The general belief is that he was a Catholic priest during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius Gothicus (Claudius II), a particularly vicious leader. By some accounts Valentine was marrying Catholic couples, a crime in the Empire at that time (you didn't have to serve in the Imperial army if you were married, so Claudius was upset with this "marrying priest,"), and was not only arrested but sentenced to death by way of clubbing and stoning. Apparently Valentine was a fairly “bad hombre” and survived the clubbing and stoning --- so he was beheaded. Pretty romantic stuff, eh? The other part of that story, though, is that while imprisoned he actually cured the jailer’s daughter of blindness (and maybe fell in love with her), sending a note to her before his execution signed, “Your Valentine.” None of this is verifiable, of course, as it seemed to have happened during the third century (his execution is listed as a variety of possible dates --- 269, 273, 278 … take your pick). Apparently, the popularity of Valentine, and his association with the notion of “love,” was first promoted in the mid 1400s in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fools and given further currency by the Nuremburg Chronicle (1493), a German book (widely published thanks to Gutenberg) which was an illustrated “world history” with a paraphrasing of “biblical” stories. Whatever the case, by the 1700s it seems Valentine’s Day was already seeing cards and notes exchanged on February 14th.

There’s more to the story, though. If you are aware of Roman Imperial history, you know that when the shift to the Holy Roman Empire occurred and Catholicism (now Roman Catholicism) became the religion of the realm, they needed to adapt their old polytheism to fit the new monotheistic system. Not wanting to lose their holidays (the Romans did love to party, after all), the people who brought us aqueducts, Senators, coliseums, calendars, etc. also adapted their numerous gods and holidays to fit into a new Catholic calendar (with a patron saint for every day). Hence, the Winter Solstice becomes Christmas, Spring fertility Bacchanals become Easter, and the Ides of February, formerly the feast of Lupercalia (another fertility god), becomes St. Valentine’s Day. Any Catholic also knows that Saints were patrons for those of us here on earth so St. Jude, of course, becomes the Patron Saint of Lost Causes or the Impossible and St. Francis becomes the Patron Saint of Animals, Birds, and, now, Ecology. Saint Valentine’s patronage includes the following: Patron Saint of Affianced Couples, Patron Saint against fainting, Patron Saint of Beekeepers, Parton Saint of Happy Marriages, Patron Saint of Love, and Patron Saint of Epilepsy! So, you’re really in great Valentine’s Day shape if you are a non-fainting, affianced (or happily married) beekeeping epileptic, I guess.

So, as you enjoy this “holiday” with your special someone, just think of that wonderful, martyred priest who (literally) lost his head so that Russell Stover and Hallmark would have at least one day a year in the black!

Happy (Saint) Valentine’s Day!

Monday
February 13th
Blast #143

The Best Four Minutes
at the Grammys

The Grammy Awards began when I was 9 years old and I have to admit that I have paid little or no attention to them over the years --- mostly just reading the result’s in the next day’s newspaper (remember those?) and not thinking much about them, other than that they were not especially “valid”, the same way the Oscars could be skewed. Yet, for some perverse reason (maybe it’s this whole “Age of Trump” thing) the Lovely Carol Marie and I watched the entire Grammy broadcast last night, from start to finish, foregoing John Oliver’s season opening “This Week Tonight” on HBO at 11:00 p.m. (isn’t that what “On Demand” is for?). Was it three and a half (plus) hours that I will never get back? Not entirely (maybe 3). I’m sure there are people who would disagree --- and just as many who could care less. This is not a review of the program but more an impressionistic report of what struck me about it --- which, I’m sure, speaks to my own eccentricities and predilections more than anything else.

Held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles (which has a capacity for 19,000 for concerts and certainly had a huge crowd for these Grammys) the show was hosted by James Corden (of “Carpool Karaoke” fame), who made one of the great slapstick entrances of all time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twFtUtNrhlU). Not being familiar with the Grammys at all, it was interesting to see how the show worked, as well as what the categories were. There are a host of awards (jazz, “historical,” composing, etc.) that are, at best, mentioned in passing on the televised program --- otherwise it would be a show lasting several days, given the breadth of music consumed by the public these days. I found it interesting there was a category entitled “Best Urban Contemporary Album.” Is this simply euphemistic for “Black” or “African-American?” Does that mean “Country & Western” is “rural?” We now have best “Rap” album, of course, but I’m not clear why that is separate from “Urban Contemporary.” Given that race is such a hot-button issue since the Election campaign, these categories fascinate me.

            There was quite a bit of political commentary, as one might expect, starting early on with Jennifer Lopez quoting Toni Morrison: "As Toni Morrison once said, 'This is precisely the time when artists go to work, there is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, and no room for fear. We do language. That is how civilizations heal.'" (http://www.wmagazine.com/) and more statements were made as the night went on. Busta Rhymes, appearing with A Tribe Called Quest, started “We the People” with a warning to “President Agent Orange” before Anderson.Paak & the Tribe kicked down a stone wall at the back of the stage. This had followed a more tame Katy Perry (wearing a “Persist” armband & a pantsuit) finished her number with a graphic of the Constitution’s Preamble emerging behind her and Slim Marley. Beyonce had made a reference, earlier in the show, about the importance of her children, and children of every race, seeing representations of themselves everywhere, including the White House, and that we should “learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes” --- a message for this President, for sure.   The Grammys, from what I’ve read, have a long history of being edgier and more political than the Oscars, so not much of this was all that surprising, I suppose. But it was good to see this exercise of free speech amid the high couture (some of which struck us as barely disguised lingerie) and pretentious glitz, amid Chance the Evangelist winning 3 awards (do those who lose curse God?) and lots of body ink. It was also good to see William Bell, the writer of the blues classic, “Born Under a Bad Sign,” get his moment --- and a Grammy for best “Americana” album ---with Gary Clark, Jr. (a great young blues guitarist and singer). But my lasting impression of last night’s Grammy Awards program was four minutes of commercials.

            One was just a pure fun ad for Apple Music streaming James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke.” What made the commercial’s one minute of entertainment so much fun was the “interesting” pairing of carpool singers. Starting with Shaquille O’Neal (driving) and John Cena, who create a beat, we then run through Ariana Grande with Chris Noth (hitting one note on a French horn), Metallica offering a shout, Michael Strahan & Jeff Gordon providing an “Uh-oh,” ad then Corden, with Will Smith, versing, “Oh, hell, no.” We then get cuts of Chelsea Handler and Blake Shelton, Alicia Keys and John Legend, and then rapid fire “candid” videos in a Laundromat, at a wedding, on an outdoor basketball court, in a bakery, a helicopter, and racing pedal rickshaws, all to the invented rhythm and sounds. Pure fun and very enjoyable, a great, entertaining distraction.

            Adidas and Nike, however, each made one-minute, thirty second “movies,” with definite statements. The Adidas spot, entitled “Original is Never Finished” is a series of quick cuts (mostly in color) of provocative and sometimes disturbing scenes, all with a variety of interpretations of the Frank Sinatra classic, “My Way,” being sung (and spoken)in the background. Using Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Snoop Dog, and a send up of Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” the commercial is an exhilarating statement about music, art, film, and sports clearly appealing to freedom and originality (http://tvadvertsongs.com/adidas-originals-original-is-never-finished/) A definite highlight of the Grammys for me.

Even more striking, and far more political, was Nike’s “Equality Everywhere” black and white spot, featuring LeBron James, Serena Williams, and Kevin Durant. As a bluesy piano plays in the background, there is a narration (with intermittent aerial shots of a basketball court, tennis courts, and a soccer pitch) about one’s ability, nothing else, determining your value “between the lines.” As the piano builds, we are told, “Equality should have no boundaries.” As we watch Kevin Durant and other athletes spray painting lines for playing courts, an organ swells behind the piano and we begin to hear Alicia Keys singing, “It’s been a long time, coming….”   We are told “the ball should bounce the same for everyone” as we see women in hijabs running, Alicia standing by her piano, and a gathering on courthouse steps with “Equal Justice Under Law” emblazoned on the building’s pediment. “Work should outshine color,” is the narration just before we are presented with that steely LeBron visage simply stating, “We Can Be Equal Everywhere” and the music crests with a graphic saying, “Equality Has No Boundaries.”   The spot closes with a little girl atop a parent’s shoulders lifting up her fist (and the Nike swoosh appearing briefly).

   Yes, brashly commercial, obviously, but also quite effective and clearly a statement for these times. And maybe that’s good. Maybe the fact that the commercials (I didn’t even touch on Lil Yachty & Carly Rae Jepsen for Target or Sam Smiths’s “Stay with Me” Starbucks piece) were most memorable, given their statements is a good thing. If advertisers are becoming activist resisters we may truly be seeing the beginning of a genuine movement against President Agent Orange.

Sunday
February 12th
Blast #142
(Happy B'day, A. Lincoln, 1809)

Local Lobbying Tips

Sometimes, when you're just surfing around your "Inbox" or "Promotions" you run into something quite useful. I periodically get email from li.st weekly, an interesting & somewhat entertaining app you can get (free) where you can read (or contribute) lists of ideas --- some funny, some parctical. It was there I found the following, submitted by Mary Kathryn Paynter, who seems to be a Texas teenager. It is good advice about acting locally and some of it can be applied to lobbying in D.C., too. Here's what she posted on li.st.

Last week, my mom took me to the Texas Capitol to show me how to lobby for myself. My mom was a lobbyist in Texas for many years, with friends on both sides of the aisle. Here's what I learned:

How to Lobby Your State Government as a Citizen

1.      • You don't have to be important to show up
I was so nervous feeling like I didn't have a good reason to be there, a good reason for anyone to listen to me. But my mom explained, legislators pretty much ONLY listen to the people who show up in person. Which is pretty concerning if you're on the left. The right is SUPER organized and not lazy and can often afford big time lobbyists and they show up A LOT.

2.     • Look up your representatives before going and write down their office numbers.
Look up the heads of committees that will hear about legislation you're interested in, and write down their office numbers, too.
Check out a map of your capitol and plan your route. The Texas capitol is huge and it was a trek but it was worth going in person to representatives' offices and being heard.

3.     • If you want to Lobby on a specific issue, email ahead of time.
This gets you a sit-down with a staffer or, if they're a newly elected official, sometimes your representative. They have to hear you out on the issues. Be respectful and stay calm but you can make an impassioned case. Even better if you can make a financial case, or tell an anecdote about how you personally will be affected.

4. Make small talk with everyone and bring business cards.
The best connections I got were people we met in the halls. Don't take any of the back stairwells, take the main elevators and main stairs. This is how you interact with the big wigs. And I forgot business cards so I had to scramble every time I wanted to leave my info with someone. Even still, I met a group who needed someone like me to testify at a hearing. I met a lobbyist who got us an important meeting. Work.

5. Find out who the lobbyists are on issues you care about, look up their picture, and look for them in the hallways.
See above point. It's okay to be creepy, these people are being paid to change your government.

6. Hit up the cafeteria.
This was BY FAR the best place to network. Get a table in the middle, as close to a main walkway or cash register as you can. Everyone goes to the cafeteria at some point in the day.

7. Go early in the session and try to meet all the brand-new representatives and Senators.
Before committees are assigned, legislators have less on their plate and can make more time to hear from constituents. Go, let them know who you are, what's important to you, and that you're willing to show up.

8 . Sign up for email lists.
If you've read the Indivisible guide, you know that the way the Tea Party took over the Republican Party is by showing up at in-district town halls, openings, photo ops, and events and calling out representatives on their actions, embarrassing them in front of the press and taking over that photo op. Reps don't usually publicly announce these kinds of things but they will put them in their email newsletter. So go to the offices of EVERYONE, especially the opposition, and ask to be on the list.

9. Show up to hearings.
This is HUGE and another great reason to get on the email lists. You don't have to testify at a hearing (although the hearing cannot legally end until everyone testifies, so you have a right to), but you can attend, sign in, and (very important!!!) write whether you are for or against the legislation. This can keep bad legislation from ever getting out of the committee if you get enough people on your side to go with you!

10. Tell your story and be open to sharing it.
It feels a little sales-y, but if you are being personally affected by proposed legislation, find a way to get your story down to an elevator pitch. Then share it, *followed with exactly what you are asking legislators to do* with everyone you meet. You're fishing for someone that can help you or put you in touch with the right people.

Lastly, RUN FOR OFFICE!
State house and senate seats are a much easier reach than bigger elections! You can do it! Your voice is important and we need you!

In short, federal news and Trump is distracting, but all of this craziness STARTS at the state level. The first step to a better government is taking back state governments and teaching the electorate how to be more directly involved with what they do.

Saturday
February 11th
Blast #141

The Seinfeld Presidency

As we approach the end of the first month of the Trump Administration I am struck, more and more, at how chaotic things seem to be at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But I believe I have some insight into the situation, thanks to the popular 1990s sitcom, Seinfeld. Truth be told, I did not watch the show when it was on the air from 1989 to 1998, even though friends I respect told me it was quite funny. I just wasn’t watching much television in those days. Now that I’m enjoying my retirement, however, I’ve had time to catch up on the syndicated reruns (it’s hard to imagine how much money the people from that show are still making --- though we know it was Steve Bannon’s original Golden Goose --- a deal he stumbled into when he was running “Bannon & Co.” an investment banking firm in 1990). The show is pretty funny but the characters (Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, & George) are really not very likable people. According to Wikipedia,

A major difference between Seinfeld and sitcoms that preceded it is that the principal characters never learn from their mistakes. In effect, they are indifferent and even callous towards the outside world and sometimes one another.
Entertainment Weekly’s TV critic Ken Tucker has described them as "a group dynamic rooted in jealousy, rage, insecurity, despair, hopelessness, and a touching lack of faith in one's fellow human beings.”

And that’s where the parallel to the current denizens of our Executive Branch begins. Certainly those descriptors seem quite apt for Trump and Bannon.

After watching the botched rollout of the “travel ban” and then the challenges to the Court ruling made by the Chief Executive, I could only think of Cosmo Kramer and George Costanza and their attempts at working at jobs they had no experience or qualifications for. For example, in episode #137, The Bizarro Jerry:

Kramer accidentally gets a job at a company called Brandt/Leland when he aids an employee in the hall (fixing a broken copying machine) and starts going to meetings. He soon finds out he fits right in and starts working there for no pay, stating his reason as doing it "just for me." When Jerry asks Kramer what he does, Kramer responds, "TCB - you know, taking care of business!" A montage of his office work includes scenes of Kramer eating crackers at lunch and shining his shoes at the water cooler. By the end of the episode, Kramer gets fired by Leland (despite the fact that Kramer doesn't really work at Leland) because of his shoddy work ("It's almost as if you have no business training at all"). {Wikipedia summary}

That last line, “It’s almost as if you have no . . . training at all , “ seems to fit much of what’s going on right now in Washington. There are numerous people who seem to have accidentally stumbled upon a “broken system” (their Boss’s description) and are now “taking care of business.” The problem is, they have no clear idea of how the business is supposed to be taken care of. The President’s staggering ignorance of the Constitutional principle of separation of powers is a prime example of this, but Kellyanne Conway’s (unethical/illegal?) endorsement of Ivanka’s products, Sean Spicer’s citing “Atlanta” terrorism (three times), and Rick Perry’s thinking he was an ambassador for the oil and gas companies as Secretary of Energy, all reflect the Seinfeld quality of the new administration. (Of course, Seinfeld did have better ratings than The Apprentice, so maybe that’s why the White House is proceeding in this fashion)

In much the same manner, episode #72, The Barber, might well be a parable for predicting the upcoming reign of the Department of Education’s Betsy DeVos. In the episode we see the following:

The episode begins with George at a job interview. His future employer, Mr. Tuttle, is cut off mid-sentence by an important telephone call, and sends George away without knowing whether he has been hired or not. Mr. Tuttle told George that one of the things that makes George such an attractive hire is that he can "understand everything immediately", so this leaves a puzzling situation. In Jerry's words: "If you call and ask if you have the job, you might lose the job." But if George doesn't call, he might have been hired and he will never know. George decides that the best course of action is to not call at all and to just "show up", pretending that he has been hired and start "work", all while Mr. Tuttle is out of town. The thought behind this was that if George has the job, then everything will be fine; and if George was not hired, then by the time Tuttle returns, he will be "ensconced" in the company and hopefully not be fired.
George, who has absolutely no idea of what his duties are at his new place of work, is handed the "Penske File" and ordered to work on it. George manages to do nothing for a week. When Mr. Penske comes to inquire about the progress of his file, he begins to make George an offer for a job at his company, but is again interrupted mid-sentence, leaving George to once again draw his own conclusions. When Mr. Tuttle arrives from a week's vacation, he reprimands but does not fire George. Instead, George quits, thinking Mr. Penske has a space for him, much to the disbelief of Mr. Tuttle. When he visits Mr. Penske, it turns out that the entire board of the company has been indicted and the company can't hire anyone. (Wikipedia summary)

In typical Seinfeld fashion, George blusters his way into something until it is obvious he is in way over his head. While time will be the judge, we already know that Secretary DeVos has no background, no experience, and no working knowledge of public schools, assessment practices, or policy issues aside from the vouchers/school choice/for-profit charters she has burdened Michigan with as a result of her lobbying and billionaire leverage.

So, clever media manipulator that the Donald is, I believe he’s designing his administration to follow the Seinfeld template. Let’s face it, if we look at the Nielsen’s for The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice, the shows only made it as Top-Ten rated programs ONCE and spent ELEVEN seasons at #37 or lower! Seinfeld’s last five years were all #1,2, or 3 finishes. The Donald knows a winning formula when he sees one, so keep your eyes out for more Seinfeldian moves from the White House!

Friday
February 10th
Blast #140

A Series of Unfortunate Historical Events
by
Brick Plumlee, esq.

I am writing this because, as I scroll through my Facebook page lately (where I have 17 “friends”), I’ve noticed a number of people gleefully enjoying making fun of “liberals,” particularly since the election of Orange Crush, the infamous crotch-groping Richie Rich. This is confusing, of course, because, if you check my Wikipedia page (under Briquette I. Plumlee) you will see that, even though I have a law degree (from the prestigious MD Kirk School of Law in Los Angeles – the best correspondence school in the legal profession!), I have built my reputation as a post-postmodern Historian, matched only by the equally (in)famous, Art Van DeLay. Specializing In United States history since the 2000 Election (when post-postmodernism was truly ushered in), Van DeLay and I have had a running debate as to the notion of whether classic “liberalism” has been dead or simply in an historic coma since the unprecedented election of 2000, where 5 people decided who the President would be, dispensing with the notion that the country is, in fact, a democracy at all. When Senator Al (Gutless) Gore prematurely threw in the towel (rather than “bog down” the country in a legitimate recount and “dragging” the electoral process on for a few more weeks) we watched the stiff and chilling body of liberalism being kicked into an open grave. Since that time, we have basically seen one shovelful after another thrown on top of the corpse of liberalism until we could hardly hear those choked gasps for breath beneath the topsoil.

Van DeLay contends, of course, that the election of Obama resurrected the corpse in some kind of Christ-like imagery but I believe if you study the “Obama years” you can see clearly that “Liberalism” simply pushed its fist up through the earth --- like a cheap horror film zombie --- only to be covered again and never exhumed. Yes, the Affordable Care Act was passed, but with no single payer option and a chaotic rollout as well as continual verbal abuse from Republican and Tea Party snipers. Where else, I ask Van DeLay, did Obama succeed in “pushing through his ‘liberal’ agenda?” Which brings me back to the low information Facebook fiends gloating over “liberal” impotence: what have you been looking at for the past 17 years? Like our new Prevaricator-in-Chief, you clearly are grossly ignorant and have no clear conception of what the labels “liberal” and “conservative” truly mean --- like 75% of the American public (and that is, of course, a conservative estimate).

The point here is simple, really: why are people crowing that the “liberals” are whining because they have “finally” lost? If you have a pulse and a capacity to read at about the level of an 8th grader, you should be able to see that, since 2000, the country has been anything but “liberal”! Starting with the 5-4 conservative Supreme Court election gift to a “Legacy” who proclaimed he was proud to be a “C” student (“but, shucks, my Daddy was President”) U.S. politics have been dominated by the right, despite some periods where the Democrats actually had control of the house (2007-2011) and/or the Senate (2009-2015). It has been clear that the Republicans have had enough leverage to deny a perfectly qualified jurist his rightful Supreme Court seat and to reduce a President to using Executive Orders to try to enact a so-called “liberal” agenda (which did not really work). The big complaint has been about Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) that many people actually see in a favorable light, and very few left-wingers would call “liberal” by any stretch. Even if we went back to the 1990s, you would have to characterize the Democrats (Clinton/Gore led from ’93-01) as “moderate” at best. So, again, remind me what the crowing over “liberal” corpses is all about?

Now, if we want to focus on another Unfortunate Historical Event, we could set our sights on the Tea Party. Driven by an anarchistic desire to tear down the Federal government, these Breitbart fed mouth-breathers would like to go back to the “good old days” when the most powerful government citizens would have to deal with would be at the State level – in other words, a Jefferson Beauregard Sessions nocturnal emission. It doesn’t take much historical knowledge to recall that when the nation was dominated by Dixiecrats (the ancestral Tea Party) and “States-Rights” fanatics we were treated to Civil Rights protesters being fire-hosed or having police dogs set loose on them. The “good old days” kept women in the kitchen and gays in the closet. As it is, these “right to work” states ban labor unions, oppose minimum wage, pension plans, and workers’ rights. Yet, a shocking percentage of Americans support these politicians ---who work against their own best interests! We have seen the genius of Ted Cruz leading the fight to “shut down” the Federal government --- and the disastrous results that followed.

More than one-third of the populous thinks that “Obamacare” and the Affordable Care Act are different forms of Health Insurance! 53% of White women voted for a thrice married, admitted p*&^y-grabbing misogynist --- who has appointed one woman (a huge donor!) and one Black person (an idiot savant) to his Cabinet to sit with a gaggle of old, white millionaires and former Goldman Sachs employees. Getting back to the original premise, however, aren’t we watching the culmination of a decade and a half of further rightward swing? For those who are crowing about “liberals” losing, please learn how to read history (or read, period). There hasn’t been a genuinely “liberal” President since Lyndon Johnson (and that Vietnam thing obscured his domestic legacy). Since Nixon’s election in 1968 the United States has steadily moved to the right (with Clinton/Gore contributing to that movement by changing the Democratic “brand” to “centrist”). The great concern for all of us should not be watching the final headstone being placed on the “Liberal” grave. We need to rouse the populous to be prepared to take action as we watch --- and wonder --- how far right an ahistoric, ignorant, and megalomaniacal Commander-in-Chief (who admires authoritarian heads-of-state) may try to take us. Tune in tomorrow!

Thursday
February 9th
Blast #139

   The Mistress of Doublespeak
How America is being Con-waylaid

Of course, while expressing my concern over the creeping Trump/Bannon authoritarian bandwagon, I forgot to mention the Lady Macbeth in the room, Kellyanne Conway. The Mistress of Doublespeak, who introduced us to the notion of “alternative facts,” seems to love the camera as much as her boss and is able to speak almost as fast as John Moschitta in the old Federal Express commercials (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeK5ZjtpO-M). Conway, of course, has been the primary spokesperson for Trump in defending --- or even propagating --- lies from first, the candidate, and now, the President. So, when Trump lies about the nation’s murder rate, Conway defends it. On Tuesday night, Michelle Wolf was introduced as the Daily Show’s “resident Liar” by Trevor Noah and did 5 plus minutes of satire that perfectly summarized how Conway has raised lying to an art form. (URL for the video is below)

Wolf likened Conway to a porn star who “only has four or five moves, but I still love watching her give it to people.” She then introduced three levels of lying that Conway has consistently used. The first is Shifting Blame. In a beautiful employed clip from a CNN interview on September 16, 2016, Conway was asked if Trump would supply any evidence of being audited by the IRS. Within seconds, Conway has shifted the story to be about Hillary Clinton “lying” about having pneumonia, totally diverting the interview. Hilariously, Michelle Wolf comments, “She could be Bill Cosby’s lawyer. The trial would take 15 minutes and the jury would come out angry at Mariah Carey’s sound guy!” What Wolf didn’t not point out is that Conway speaks so quickly, the interviewer does not have a chance to interject and get things back on track. Brilliant doublespeak.

Wolf’s second category is called Fake Truth, Real Problems. In this instance, she says Conway will make up a lie and then use real facts about an unrelated issue to derail the interview or questioning. The example Wolf presents is a January 29th Fox News clip, where Chris Wallace asks Kellyanne about the cancelled meeting with Mexico’s President. After claiming that Trump actually called for cancelling the meeting in a Tweet (a lie), Wallace says “That’s a great thing?” The fast-talking Kellyanne shifts gears and peppers Wallace with statements about the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, the disrespect of our border sovereignty, and parents grieving opiate use by their children – that’s what’s “not great, Chris!” Wow….verbal legerdemain of the highest order! Wolf notes that politicians have always lied to us but Kellyanne has changed the game, “like when black guys starting playing basketball, or when steroids starting playing baseball.”

            Finally, Wolf presented what she calls The Beautiful Lie ---this is Conway’s “fib d’resistance.” Interviewed by Chris Matthews on MSNBC (February 2nd) Conway uncorked her Bowling Green Massacre fiction --- in which she claimed Obama had instituted a “6 month” Muslim ban after two Iraqis had come here, were radicalized, and were the “masterminds” behind the Bowling Green Massacre . . . and “it didn’t get covered.” Of course, it didn’t get covered because it didn’t happen! Interestingly, what did go uncovered (until the MSNBC gaffe blew up) was that Conway had already told this lie on January 29th in a Cosmopolitan magazine interview, so it’s hard to believe she “misspoke” and meant “Bowling Green terrorists” with Matthews, as she later claimed. No, like her boss, Kellyanne believes her own bullshit to such an extent that there is no line between fact (or “alternative facts”) and fiction/lying.

            In her final riff, Michelle Wolf pulls off a brilliant response to Noah saying, “I can’t believe you think we should be celebrating Kellyanne Conway.” Starting with “Oh, you don’t think we should celebrate Kellyanne Conway but you want to celebrate a Patriots win at the Super Bowl. . . “ and then twisting and turning through "children starving and being shot in Chicago," with the media not reporting it, Wolf confuses Noah completely and then exclaims, “You just got Conwayed.” This might be a term we adopt as we watch the verbal gymnastics of the surrogate Liar-in-Chief as she supports her Twitter happy prevaricating boss. Although I think the compound Con-waylaid is also a sweet descriptor.

The video can be viewed at: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/96eydx/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-kellyanne-conway-s-artful-deceptions

Wednesday
February 8th
Blast #138

   You Have Everything to Fear!
Trump’s Toe-in-the-Water Authoritarian Moves

In establishing the reign of King Donald the First, the Bannon Administration is using some age-old tactics to undermine those who are legitimately empowered to challenge the power of the Executive branch of government: the judiciary and the press.   By pounding the public, on a daily basis, about the “fake news” being distributed by, in fact, legitimate news agencies --- agencies which historically have used their First Amendment right to “speak truth to power” --- the Bannon Administration is hoping to increase its support among the (large?} information-challenged. Breitbart/Fox News members of the Republic so that the outrageous lies made by the administration cannot be dispelled through the press. In the same fashion, referring to a duly-empowered member of the judiciary as a “so-called judge,” the effort to de-legitimize an unfavorable ruling also plants the seeds of doubt and encourages the idea that “the establishment” and “the system” needs to be torn down. These are the stepping stones to authoritarian rule.

In the past week U.S. District Court Judge James Robart suspended the clearly discriminatory travel ban, established by Executive Order, which led to Trump’s tweeting that Robart was a “so-called judge.” At the same time, in Joe McCarthy like fashion, the administration produced a “list” of 78 un-reported or under-reported terrorist attacks (in which they spelled “attackers” wrong 18 times!) to distract us from things like Betsy DeVos’s confirmation and other nefarious attempts at using Executive Orders to negate democracy. It is important for people to keep perspective, remain activist, support the press and the judiciary, and recognize the enemy we are engaged with here --- a group dedicated authoritarian leadership a la Putin.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov
(Thanks to Tucker Fitzgerald via Yvette Nachmias-Baeu for this quote)

            I visited my brother yesterday and he related a story that basically went as follows. John was at the Laundromat with his son, Nic, who has a developmental disability. Everyone in the Laundromat knows and loves Nic (he is an extremely kind and sweet person). A man, the son of my brother’s late neighbor, was extolling how Trump and the Republicans would get rid of all that government interference and waste in our lives. My brother pointed out that Nic received Medicaid support (and I believe the man may have also had someone who was receiving such aid) and the man made a comment to the effect that Nic was one of those “good people” who deserved it, not like all those fraudulent Medicaid recipients. My brother, always a rational person, pointed out that less that 1% of Medicare/Medicaid was found to be fraudulent but was challenged by the man, who said something to the effect of, “Oh, is that what the government says?” John pointed out that these were studies done by independent --- probably university --- researchers. The man, at that point, threw up his arms and essentially, said, “Well, there you go --- those people,” as if this were more “fake news.” My brother ended the “debate” at that point, saying they’d simply have to “agree to disagree” but I wish he had pushed it one step further and asked the man: “Where’s your evidence? Where are the facts you are using to prove there were millions of fraudulent voters?” Of course, it probably would not have made a difference because, as the Asimov quote notes, “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge.”

            That’s the dilemma right now, for those of us living in the Coastal Bubbles of America. We believe that thoughtful, rational arguments should win the day! However, we are living in denial. For the historical moment, the ignorant and anti-intellectualism of someone like Donald Trump has prevailed. What we have ignored, over the years, was the growth of this movement --- long before the Tea Party raised its malformed head. The core of what we now see as a political “movement” began back in the 1990’s at Ruby Ridge and Waco and Oklahoma City, but leftist intellectuals refused to believe that white supremacist misogynism could gain enough momentum to become a political force. Yet the Second Amendment people like the Weavers at Ruby Ridge and Timothy McVeigh In OKC, along with religious extremists like David Koresh in Waco, targeted the U.S. Government as Public Enemy #1 and a political movement has now emerged which truly represents those interests. This administration is about as extreme right as we can imagine and the Republican Party, so happy to have finally gotten that African-American out of the White House, will play along until something truly egregious happens (and it will).

            It is interesting to note that the list of “78 un- or under reported” terror attacks do not include Dylan Roof’s Charleston massacre, Robert Dear’s Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood attack, or Eric Frein’s Pennsylvania State Trooper barracks shooting. Maybe the James Holmes Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting was too long ago (2012) to include in their list, too. Or maybe the fact that all those assassins were white excluded them from the McCarthy-like list the administration published.    This goes hand-in-hand with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s identification of 202 militia groups that are now present in the U.S. --- predominantly rural and white. These groups, as defined in Wikipedia:

have a variety of ideologies and objectives including anti-tax, ANTI-IMMIGRATION, survivalist, sovereign citizen, libertarian, land rights and southern restoration tendencies, they generally share a common belief in the imminent or actual rise of a tyrannical government in the United States that, they believe, must be confronted through armed force

While not the majority of Trump voters, these people are ideologically aligned with those in Washington today --- whether we like it or not. If we look at the Trump Cabinet appointees (particularly DeVos, Pruitt, and Pudzer) we see people who hate the Department they are now leading! This is the Tea Party on steroids. While we must resist these “worst angels of our Nature,” we must also recognize this is not entirely a new phenomena in U.S. History.

            In a September/October, 2014, Nicolas Lemann, in the Columbia Journalism Review, wrote a piece called TheTea Party is Timeless and reviewed Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 Pulitzer Prize winning gem, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. For those who have not read it, I will only say it can be a slog at times but it is a classic in American history/political science reading. Of course, it was written in 1963, before Civil Rights, anti-War, feminist, or gay rights movements had really picked up any steam. Nonetheless, according to Lemann, the book holds up and he points out:

Of the many forces arrayed against intellectualism, Hofstadter returns most often to evangelical religion—an almost constantly strong influence through all of American history--and business, especially the cheerleading tendency in business that produces the enthusiastic type Hofstadter calls the “hundred percenter.” Education, the main institutional countervailing force to anti-intellectualism, has been continually invaded by anti-intellectual ideas, especially the idea that practical training should take precedence over book-learning, and the idea that schools should attend more closely to the emotional well-being of their students than to their instruction. (emphasis, mine)

As we survey the current scene, Trump and the Congress (House & Senate), are clearly dominated by evangelicals and business people, the core of the anti-intellectual tide that has swept these people into office. Combine that with the Tea Party inspired anti-government rage that has built up since the early 1990s and you produce the constellation of malevolence that we now see churning out Executive Orders, claiming that legitimate reporting is “fake news,” and attempting to twist the branches of government into a one-headed Gorgon. 53.9% of the popular vote was NOT for Trump in the November election --- and we must not let this administration, or the American people, forget that.

Post script: I highly recommend reading “Intolerant Liberals” at https://medium.com/@tuckerfitzgerald/intolerant-liberals-4ecd712ac939#.vyl4fsg8r
thanks again to Yvette for putting that on my radar.

Sunday
February 5th
Blast #137

Special Dispensation Sunday

Growing up as a good Catholic boy I learned that there were certain times the Church would offer "special dispensation" to a parishoner. According to Wikipedia, this dispensation is described as follows:

In the jurisprudence of canon law of the Catholic Church, a dispensation is the exemption from the immediate obligation of law in certain cases.[1] Its object is to modify the hardship often arising from the rigorous application of general laws to particular cases, and its essence is to preserve the law by suspending its operation in such cases.[2]

Given that it is Super Bowl Sunday and the Lovely Carol Marie and I are preparing to host our annual Super Sunday Spectacular I am granting myself a Special Dispensation from writing a Blast today.

However, I will offer one suggestion if you are watching The Game --- and that regards which team to root for. The pictures of the Patriots quarterback, owner, and coach below speak volumes.

Happy Super Sunday!

Friday
February 3rd
Blast #136

TV or Not TV?
Never a Question for Trump

Well, the President's kickoff Black History Month "listening session" proved pretty revealing, didn't it? Trump's clear ignorance about Frederick Douglass once again reinforced how clueless this President is. In case you missed it: “He mentioned Douglass as ‘an example of somebody who has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.’”(Lisa Gutierrez, Kansas City Star) As Paste.com commented: “Everything about the quote, including the tenses, makes it sound like Trump sees Douglass as a tireless activist whose good work is being noticed more and more as his life goes on. The description makes him sound like a man who is just now emerging from obscurity, and is still fighting the good fight, and definitely didn’t die in 1895.” A New York City recluse who only works with white people, he once said of his Atlantic City accountants: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” (The Daily Beast, June 30, 2105) So, racist and anti-Semitic all in one juicy sentence.

It's not surprising that Trump hasn't been driven far enough North in Manhattan to have ever noticed Frederick Douglass Boulevard -- which is 8th Avenue (to 59th Street), then Central Park West (59th to 110th Street), and then Frederick Douglass Blvd (110th to 155th Streets)! We know, of course, that Trump does not travel into the war-torn "ghetto" sections of New York for fear of walking down the street and getting shot. But this whole ignorance-on-display-show we saw Wednesday speaks to the larger issue of Trump's attention span, his lack of curiosity, his total reading abstinence, and his conception of what the role of POTUS is. And there is one simple symptom that explains those maladies: television!

I mentioned in yesterday's Blast that Trump did not share the values of those Baby Boomers who grew up in the 1960s and were part of the so-called "counterculture" (yours truly included). What Trump does share with a striking number of those Boomers, however, is a very serious television addiction. In an August Washington Post interview, Trump interrupted the conversation FIVE times to note what was on television. (http://www.mediaite.com/print/trump-pauses-washington-post-interview-five-times-to-watch-tv/) Just as Bill Clinton couldn't stop himself from ogling women in a reception line (I have a personal, reliable, unnamed journalistic source for this info!), Trump cannot stop himself from watching TV. We know that he most loves Fox News but it seems he'll watch almost anything that's on --- and apparently his aides are a bit concerned about it. (mediaite.com, August 16, 2016) What I would posit is that Trump's entire conception of "how to be President" is based on some amalgamation of television fantasy that he has constructed in his addled little mind and exhibits itself in actions like hanging up on the Prime Minister of Australia or inviting the Japanese President to play a round of golf (like he's still just running Country Clubs) or casually telling the British PM to "drop by" if she's in the neighborhood. His putting Iran “on notice” and the threat to invade Mexico are also like the rough-tough cowboy heroes of his youth. His callous and callow characteristics are irrefutable and I think we have TV to thank for that, to some degree.

My guess is that Trump's conception of being President is some combination of Harrison Ford in Air Force One (yes, the "action hero" President!) and the stars of 1950s/60s westerns (Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Cheyenne, Maverick, Wanted:Dead or Alive, and, most especially, The Lone Ranger). For many of us, it's more like an episode of The Twilight Zone. If we look at the way Trump likes to present himself to the public, it totally fits this simplistic TV formula idea of what a "hero" is, without any of the compassion or sense of humor many of those characters exhibited. There's a lot of big talk about "cleaning up the mess" (draining the swamp?) that "others" (Black Presidents, in particular --- but also the "elite establishments") have left him. He's the new Sheriff in Town, here to protect the downtrodden and underserved --- as long as they're white and cheer him to the heavens!

While Trump's supporters are unwavering, it is going to become more and more obvious, as this Administration grinds along, that this man's shallow conception of what goes on in world politics, his limited perspective of politics based on the TV in his office in Trump Tower, as well as that incredibly short attention span, will create grave problems for our nation. While Trump may believe it's all about "deals" and that you can solve problems in an hour (as Law and Order does), the reality of working with others, and not simply "firing" people or hanging up the phone, should soon present a reality this man is totally unqualified to deal with. And then what?

We can only speculate as to who will actually be making decisions in this Administration. The Cabinet appointees, of course, come laden with personal agendas they hope to inflict on their Departments and the country (DeVos's privatization of public education, Pruitt's handing over the E.P.A. to lobbyists, Sessions running roughshod over years of legal progress for minorities, women, and the LGBTQ community). We already know that Steve Bannon, a character straight from an M. Night Shymalan script, is the President's foremost advisor. And we have this President whose TV addiction has created a 70 year old toddler with the worst case of arrested development since that series was cancelled. Like so many who watch too much TV and who were left with the Electronic babysitter as a child, Trump shows no capacity for deferred gratification, no patience for not getting his way, no sensitivity to others, and no curiosity about anything that doesn't directly involve him as the centerpiece.

None of this is news, of course. What I think the hand-wringing Left must understand is that strategies must evolve to figure out how to appeal to at least some percentage of Trump supporters --- or at least those Trump voters who "held their nose" on November 8th. Trump is a master of television manipulation because that is ALL he really knows about --- it's why "The Apprentice" was such a natural fit for him. This is not a man who has ever worked a day in his life based on someone else's schedule --- and he does not understand that the President's job #1 is working on a schedule for the American people! His distorted, TV conception of the world is based on a cathode ray youth and flat screen present --- and that's what we're up against until 2020, dear friends, so let's figure out some way to turn this show off.

Thursday
February 2nd
(Happy Groundhog Day)
Blast #135

Those Were the Days

Jerry Seinfeld’s latest foray into TV comedy, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, is an amusing show --- definitely worth a look if you haven’t seen it. The format is simple: Seinfeld finds a classic car that he believes fits the personality of the “comedian” he will conduct his 15 to 20 minute “interview” with, he picks up the show’s guest, they drive around a while and then stop somewhere for a cup of coffee. Set in L.A. and New York City, the show is now in its 9th “season” (“Seasons” run about 10 episodes, have two short Acura commercials per, and can be binge watched on Crackle ---though it’s moving to Netflix next year). In the past, Jerry has interviewed old Seinfeld show colleagues like Michael Richards and Larry David, as well as a number of Saturday Night Live personalities (Lorne Michaels, Seth Myers, Kristen Wiig), and some great stand-up comedians like Chris Rock, Colin Quinn, and Lewis Black. He has also interviewed some “non-comedians” who simply have great sense of humor --- like the actor Christoph Waltz & President Obama.

In a Season 9 episode we watched last night, Jerry picked up Cedric the Entertainer in a Caribbean blue Bentley at a posh NYC hotel. The episode was, indeed, entertaining (as one might expect, given the guest) but a particular moment in the show incited this Blast. Cedric is wearing a “The Greatest --- Muhammad Ali” tee shirt (the show was filmed the week after Ali died) and Jerry comments on how, when he was 15 or so (he was born in 1954), “our heroes seemed so much larger than life --- Ali, the Beatles, MLK.” Because he was so young, Jerry explains, he thought “that’s just the way it will always be,” that our society’s heroes would always be these “larger than life” exceptional people --- and that’s what struck me as both a true and revelatory observation! Indeed, if you were a teen-ager in the mid-1960s, entering your twenties by the early 1970s, you grew up in an exceptional time with the kinds of heroes, celebrities, and stars that were “one of a kind” and “larger than life.” I know, I know, --- every generation feels that way about the time they grew up in but I want to make a case here for why the Baby Boomer years were, in fact, exceptional and, as a result, skewed how many of us see the world today.

One of the points Seinfeld makes is that Ali was a beacon for many because he did things you would never see done today. Number one, he changed his name right after winning the Heavyweight Championship (“You can’t change your brand” Jerry exclaims)and, number two, he gave up the prime years of his career over a principle! Neither of those are things we have seen in the years since (and if we did, they were often pale imitators of The Greatest). Along those lines, we haven’t experienced a leader like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose oratory skills, incisive intellect, and quiet, powerful leadership were palpable --- even through a television set. And that’s the piece of the equation that pulls it all together. Television!

When Boomers wax nostalgic about the Sixties, particularly now that most of us are in our 60’s (when did that happen?), I’m sure it sounds “corny” or “stupid” (or whatever adjective younger people now use to deride us). Just as I was, like, “enough already!” with Tom Brokaw and his “Greatest Generation,” I’m sure younger folks will be glad to see us go, along with all our stories about the Sixties and how great things were. But they weren’t always great --- but they were often history making/changing, and that’s the point. Again, it was the fact that it was televised (with apologies to Gil Scott-Heron) that had a great deal to do with it. Unlike our parents’ generation (those “greatest”), who grew up hearing about world (radio), we grew up watching it all. We might not have seen the first Clay-Liston fight, but we saw the highlights the next day and we saw and heard the brash young champion proclaiming he was the “prettiest” and the “greatest.” We saw and heard “I have a dream.” We saw the moonwalk. I saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television! The civil rights battles, the Vietnam War, the Beatles were all piped into our living rooms on a daily basis.

For many (most?) of us, TV was a natural part of growing up and, just as natural, as the 60s progressed, there was a sense that we lived in a world of exceptional people. I wrote about having a snow day from school on January 20, 1961, and watching (live!) JFK’s now famous Inaugural Address. As Seinfeld noted on his show, in so many words, we came to think of these kinds of things as commonplace, as the way the world worked. It’s only now, as you look back over a half-century, that you begin to recognize just how unique the times were and how that kind of confluence of exceptional people --- across the arts, and sports, and the world stage --- is not an “every generation” occurrence.
Having taught U.S. History quite a bit during my 42 years as an educator, it’s easy for me to glibly summarize the evolution of the country in “eras” or “periods,” with certain, obvious highlights. If we were to sum up the 20th century (now that it’s over) there are the cataclysmic events (World Wars, Depression), the political events (TR’s “Square Deal” progressivism & FDR’s New Deal, the Civil Rights movement) and the social/cultural earthquakes (the 20s and the 60s). Living through any of those periods made an impact on the citizens of its time. My grandfather fought in WWI and sent a son off to WWII. My parents survived the Depression and WWII to ride the rising tide of post-war America into the suburbs of their dreams. My generation watched the world that we then became a part of --- sometimes watching ourselves march, demonstrate, perform, etc.

That the heroic figures and icons of the Sixties were in our living rooms cannot be understated. Nowadays, YouTube makes everyone a star. You can write a blog like this, put it out there, and claim that you’ve “published.” The “new” now is a video game or app that is more sophisticated than its last iteration, but really isn’t that "new." Steve Jobs and Bill Gates? Genius icons, in my book, but Mark Zuckerberg? Hardly. A Muhammad Ali is a tough act to follow, as are the Beatles, and MLK/JFK/RFK, John Glenn/Neil Armstrong, Walter Cronkite (“the most trusted man In America”) and even people like the late Mary Tyler Moore. It was an exciting and revolutionary time, in many ways, and it does make me sound like the old man that I’ve become: “Back in our time . . . “ It made me reflect on the opening song (beautifully parodied on Family Guy) to another revolutionary work from that time, All in the Family.

Boy, the way Glen Miller played,
Songs that made the Hit Parade,
Guys like us we had it made,
Those were the days.

Girls were girls and men were men,
And you knew who you were then,
Mister, we could use a man
like Herbert Hoover again.

Didn’t need no Welfare State,
Everybody pulled his weight,
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. (a LaSalle was a brand of automobile)
Those were the days.

At the time (1971) that song typified the relationship between me and my dad --- and my generation and his, as I saw it. Writing this, I realize that waxing nostalgic about the Sixties may sound a lot like Archie and Edith sitting on the piano stool, lamenting how much better the world was in their youth. But this is not a lament. I’d like to think it’s more an observation about history and how it shapes who we are (beyond the usual damage family and friends incur). As I watch our new President, who essentially missed the Sixties when he was in Military School and Business School while staying true to his 1950s Playboy Advisor ethos, I wonder how things, right now, might be different if he had any sense of history and had actually lived through the Sixties the way many of us did.

Wednesday, February 1st
(Black History Month begins!)
Blast #134

Looking Back,
Looking Ahead

For those who may have been living under a rock for the past 18 months or so, you may have missed the radical turns United States politics have taken. While the election of Donald J. Trump has been “disruptive,” to say the least, there are deeper changes afoot that require investigation, scrutiny, and analysis. If you survey the political landscape carefully what you will see are two political parties that are in disarray and, possibly, in the last throes of their current incarnations. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have fractured into significant disparate groups --- neither of which appears ready to compromise and meld together cohesively as we move forward.

Presently, if we examine the Republican Party we see three subsets that identify quite differently, beyond falling under a broad “conservative” banner. There are the Old Guard Republicans of John McCain and Lindsay Graham, the free traders, limited Federal government advocates who are big military $pender$. Then we see the Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin Tea Party segment who essentially want to dismantle the Federal government and privatize everything, letting business have a free hand to continue making astronomical profits (the Koch wing). Finally, we have this new, alt-right Trumpist strain of “Republicans” whose core is uneducated white working class voters along with disenfranchised Tea Baggers and radical “anti-Eastern elite/establishment” types who would like to wind the historical clock back to the 1950s, when the Don Drapers of the world were clearly "in charge."

The Democrats, for their part, seem to have split into two segments and, while trying to claim being “liberal” or “progressive,” seem a philosophically confused party at present. There are remnants of the old “New Deal” Democrats who believe the Federal government should take care of everyone, that deficit spending is not a sin, and the “working class” (especially minorities) must be protected from Big Business. That faction has been superseded by the Clinton Democrats who moved the party closer to the political “center,” thereby making it look like “Republican Lite.”    Reliant on a large urban minority turnout at the polls, the Clinton Democrats are free-traders (like Republicans), and originally had Southern and Western (“Blue Dog”) support but, by 1994, the “New Wave Democrats” power center shifted to Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley (the left-wing “donor” class), dispensing with the white working class. Should the Democrats produce an “autopsy” of the 2016 election, as the Republicans did after 2012 (which Trump ignored and managed to win without!) two of the burning issues will have to be: (1) how can Democrats regain the white working class voters that used to be a lock for the party? (2) Why did 53% of white women vote for a misogynist over a woman candidate? The Democratic Party does not need a “makeover,” it needs major reconstructive surgery. There may well be a need to consider the emergence of a new party, featuring a progressive coalition that incorporates minorities, women, LBGTQ, Millennials, and old-school liberals along with some segment of the white working class. Not an easy chore.

Historically, America has seen political parties come and go. While there has been a core to political philosophy which is based on “strict” and “loose” Constitutional interpretation (going back to Hamilton and Jefferson), there have been party “permutations” along the way, with some actually making it to the White House (which might be our object lesson about Trump)!   By the time George Washington warned against political factions emerging in U.S. politics in his Farewell Address (1797) it was already too late. Hamilton’s Federalists, who believed in a strong central government (with a National Bank), implied powers of the Constitution (that is, a flexible /“loose” interpretation of the text), and a friendly relationship with Great Britain were opposed by Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans --- who were strict interpreters of the Constitution (strict/literal, word-for-word reading of the text), who believed in States rights over Federal power (the state government is “closer to the people”), and were inclined to favor France as an international partner. There was an element of urban (Hamilton) vs. agrarian (Jefferson) division at the heart of the first parties. After the election of 1800 and Jefferson’s victory, America became a one-party system for a quarter century, with the “Virginia Dynasty” (Jefferson, Monroe, Madison – 1801-1825) monopolizing America’s politics.

The 1824 election saw the emergence of the American/Democratic-Nationalist Party, led by Henry Clay. Essentially created to oppose Andrew Jackson, the rough hewn war hero who championed the “common man” against the “Eastern elites,” the American/Dem-Nationalist Party promoted the “American System” economic plan (high tariffs and internal manufacturing and trade to spur the U.S. economy, along with federal infrastructure projects). Winning the 1824 election under a cloud (“the corrupt bargain” – see Blast #127, The Lens of History) the Democratic-Nationalist Party died by Jackson’s second term (1833-1837) and was replaced by the Whig Party. The Whigs took their name from a British/Scottish opposition party (the Whiggamores) and based their party on the old Federalist principles with an anti-Masonic plank and some claim to protecting minorities vs. the “tyranny” of the majority (a plea to northeastern, urban citizens). The Whigs actually produced three Presidents: William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and Millard Fillmore --- none of whom distinguished himself in office. Harrison, of course, died after one month in office (he gave the longest inaugural address -- 8,445 words --ever on March 4, 1841 in cold, possibly rainy weather, without wearing an overcoat and died from an illness on April 4th). He was succeeded by John Tyler, a Virginia Democrat in Whig’s clothing, who was expelled from the Whig Party (and also failed to gain the Democratic nomination in 1844, having alienated both major parties). In 1848 the Mexican War hero, General Zachary Taylor (“Old Rough and Ready”), a Louisiana slave owner, was elected, serving inauspiciously before dying in office (apparently a Whig characteristic) in 1850, being succeeded by Millard Fillmore of New York. Fillmore lost the 1852 election and the Whigs faded into oblivion by 1854 when Lincoln’s Republican Party emerged.

It was also in the late 1840s and 1850s that the American (“Know-Nothing”) Party emerged. If you’ve seen Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York you know about the “Know-Nothings.” Bill “the Butcher” Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) represents the hyper-patriotic, white Protestant, male political party that opposed German and Irish-Catholic immigration to America. It started as a secret society (with members, when asked if they belonged to the “American” party, would say they “know nothing”) and ended with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860.

Other parties appeared and faded quickly in U. S. history, particularly leftist “progressive”/ “populist” (farmer/worker coalitions) parties, with only Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party winning any electoral votes (88 – more than the Taft led Republicans 8 --- to Wilson’s 435 for the Democrats). Right wing --- particularly one-issue (“segregationist”) parties --- also garnered some attention in the 20th century.   In 1948 Strom Thurmond’s States Rights Democrats won 39 electoral votes (1,169,000 popular) and in 1968 George Wallace’s American Independent party won 46 electoral (and 9.9 million popular) votes. After that, however, Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” turned what used to be “Solid South” Dixiecrats into a bloc of Red state Republicans (LBJ’s Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts did, in fact, lose the South for the Democrats after 1965). We have seen little in the way of third-parties (Ross Perot won 19.1 million popular votes but 0 electoral votes in 1992) since Wallace but we have seen the parties mutate over that time, as described in the early part of this Blast.

Is it time for a new permutation --- particularly of the Democratic Party? At the State level, the Republicans now have 33 governors and 32 legislatures. The U.S. Senate is 52-48 Republican controlled and the House of Representatives is 240-193 Republican. Progressives don’t like to hear (or believe) that the United States is a majority-conservative nation and that the Republican talking points/whipping boys (“identity politics”/”political correctness”) resonate with a large swath of the country. A Reuters poll on Monday showed Trump’s Muslim ban receiving support, 49% to 41%, from adults polled (interestingly, though, a plurality – 46% to 42% -- believed Syrians fleeing ISIS should be allowed in). The point here is that Democrats can’t ignore that there is a segment of the electorate/populous who simply are not buying into the way “liberal” or “progressive” ideas are being pitched. That’s a harsh reality --- but a reality, nonetheless.
It is time for left-leaning people to begin working on ways to expand their reach into communities that they have ignored (or abandoned, in some cases). If you believe that those who support a Muslim ban are doing so out of fear or ignorance, what needs to be done to overcome that fear or ignorance? The issue of economics has not even addressed here (because, ultimately, it is the economy, stupid!) but that’s a topic for another time and day. For now, if you a liberal or progressive, if your values are left-of-center, you need to begin to think about what a party that represents your views and values might look like, as well as how it needs to market itself to win over the majority of citizens by the 2018 midterm elections.

Tuesday, January 31st
Blast #133

   Trump’s Gepetto

While the staggering ignorance of Donald Trump has now been on display for almost two weeks, it has quickly become clear who is really in control in the White House these days. If you watched Trump (painfully)slowly read the title of his Muslim ban Executive Order Friday (twice) –“Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States” – it looked as though he hadn’t even seen the words before! And that could well be the case. As with much of what we have seen signed by our naked emperor it has become more and more obvious that Steve Bannon is cleverly pulling the strings.

With Trump’s executive order mandating Bannon’s inclusion at National Security Council Meetings, essentially demoting the Director of the NSC and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two experienced military and security leaders, it is clear that the fox is now in the henhouse and our need for activist vigilance must be accelerated and intense. Anyone who does not believe Steve Bannon is a dangerous character has clearly not been following the news.

            "Darkness is good: Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing." That November 19th quote on CNN was calculating and fits a pattern we have to become not just aware of but alert to. Bannon, beyond being Trump’s Svengali/Gepetto/Rasputin, is also a master at bait-and-switch legerdemain with the media. By pre-empting the Cheney (or worse) comparisons and flippantly appearing to be a power monger, Bannon distracts the audience while he drafts more Executive Orders for Pinocchio to sign.

            Let’s not get this wrong. Bannon makes claims to “everyman” status --- but that's hardly the case. He told Bloomberg News (as reported in Cosmopolitan)  “I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats. I wasn’t political until I got into the service and saw how badly Jimmy Carter f---ed things up. I became a huge Reagan admirer. Still am. But what turned me against the whole establishment was coming back from running companies in Asia in 2008 and seeing that Bush had f---ed up as badly as Carter. The whole country was a disaster.” His reaction, and solution, was to develop virulent, anti-establishment, and extreme views, as expressed in Breitbart News. To deny that Breibart is not xenophobic, white supremacist, and misogynistic is to put one’s head in the sand (as Trump has clearly done). Here is a small sample of Breitbart headlines issued under Bannon’s watch.

Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew

There’s no Hiring bias Against Women in Tech, they just suck at interviews

Planned Parenthood’s Body Count under Cecile Richards is Half a Holocaust

Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy

Roger Stone: Huma Abedin “Most likely a Saudi Spy” with “Deep inarguable
Connections” to “Global Terrorist Entity”

The Solution to Online Harassment is Simple: Women should Log Off

Trump 100% Vindicated: CBS reports “Swarm” on Rooftops Celebrating 9/11

That all these ridiculous headlines had news (?) stories that supposedly supported their outrageous claims speaks to the danger of fake news and how easily the populous can be fooled. That Trump has been trying to normalize the Bannon narrative and make the “mainstream media” the purveyors “fake” news is one of the great dangers this new administration is promoting, right from its start. And make no mistake, Bannon is behind it all. Remember, this is a man who promoted proudly raising the Confederate battle flag only two weeks after the Charleston, S.C. shootings by Dylan Roof.

            The weekend “Muslim” ban, giving preferential treatment to Christian immigrants, plays right into the hands of ISIL/ISIS and other terrorist organizations, of course, confirming their claims that the United States does, in fact, hate Islam and is “the Great Satan.” The Mexican Wall and leaving TPP is already sending ripples around the world about the stability and reliability of the U.S. as an economic partner, just as the go-ahead on pipeline construction is a signal that climate science and environmentalism will be dismantled over the next four years. The gag order issued to Federal agencies begins to step into the realm of authoritarianism that would appear to be Bannon’s goal --- and, again, Trump is a perfect, unwitting puppet in all this. Surrounded by sycophants, manipulated by his Richelieu, King Donald plods ahead in his fact-averse world listening only for applause and publicly castigating any opposition.

            So, how might we dispense of Bannon and Trump? While many may already be speculating about the possibility of impeachment (Article II, Section 4) that requires not only some kind of “high crime or misdemeanor” but also public outcry that truly scares elected officials about their job security. There is a chance, however, if Bannon/Trump continue the way they are going, that members of the Executive branch (like the demoted NSC officials), as well as members of the House and Senate, could invoke the lesser known mechanism found in Amendment XXV, Section 4.

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

I know Mike Pence might be loathe to act in such an instance but if enough members of the Republican Party begin to read the writing on the wall (2018 disaster at the polls) one never knows. As we see more and more of Trump’s attempts at implementing Bannon’s agenda, it will be incumbent upon responsible citizens to not only express outrage and opposition to our elected officials, but to offer “suggestions” (Article 2, Section 4; Amendment 25, Section 4) for the removal of a man who is clearly committing “high crimes and misdemeanors” and/or is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” (due to mental instability and Steve Bannon!).   Pressure needs to be brought to Republicans who must choose their country over their party. (Democrats are a whole other story that I’ll write about in the coming days --- oy, what a mess that one is) Email addresses and Congressional phone numbers are easy to get (www.house.gov/representatives/) and it is time to make Republicans and Democrats alike responsible to the people --- because Steve Bannon sure doesn’t care about anything but his agenda.

Tuesday, January 31st
Blast #132

There will be a "real" Blast later today. The delay is related to the development of a BLAST Directory (a labor intensive, time consuming thankless task). If you look at the titles in the Website Header(above) you will notice "Home," "The Blast," and, now, "Blast Directory." While Weebly does not allow simple highlight and click functions that would let you instantly get to a specific Blast, you can now at least identify the number (and date) of a specific Blast and then simply scroll down the Blast page to find a previous column. Thanks for your patience, a new Blast is on the way.

The Management

Sunday, January 29th
Blast #131

    Two Oxymorons:
1) For-profit Schools
2) Betsy DeVos: Secretary of Education

Since most adults in our society went to school at some time, they seem to believe they have expansive knowledge of what teaching and learning entails. As a professional educator for 40-plus years, I would beg to differ. Saying that you know how school works because you went to school is like saying you understand surgery because you’ve been operated on or you know what it takes to be a lawyer because you watch Law and Order. Nonetheless, the myth persists that “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”   Certainly there are teachers out there who are not great, but that is true in any profession. Few of your “great” doctors, lawyers, or, dare I say it, businesspeople, would be where they are today if not for teachers. I have made this argument before (scroll down for Blasts #52, 88, 94) but it bears repeating because the first step in appointing Betsy DeVos as our next Secretary of Education is happening on Tuesday, January 31st. Action needs to be taken.

It is not shocking, of course, that a wildly unqualified President would nominate people equally unqualified to fill his Cabinet. Ben Carson’s name springs to mind, of course, but maybe worse than that is the notion that Betsy DeVos should be our next Secretary of Education. Even with Senate Republican chairman Lamar Alexander (a former Secretary of Education himself) limiting the questioning to only 5 minutes per Committee member DeVos showed herself to be a font of ignorance with no knowledge of even basic concepts of education. During her hearing she appeared totally ignorant about the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) and clearly didn’t understand the difference between measuring growth and proficiency in student progress. Of course her defense of allowing guns in schools provided her classic defense that in Wyoming there are grizzly bear threats. The tragic aspect to that response was that she was asked the question by Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook massacre of schoolchildren occurred.

            As a classic Christian conservative (who never attended public schools and never sent her own children to public schools), Ms. DeVos believes in “limit(ing) the role of government in America's schools and trust(ing) that the free market — and parent choice — will lead to innovation and improvement.” (NPR) So much so, in fact, that she has poured millions of dollars into lobbying the state of Michigan to adopt charter school legislation that requires little or no oversight or accountability for those schools. DeVos strongly supports the notion of “for profit” public schools. According to the Washington Post:

DeVos is a former Republican Party chairwoman in Michigan and chair of the pro-school-choice advocacy group American Federation for Children, and she has been a shining light to members of the movement to privatize public education by working to create programs and pass laws that require the use of public funds to pay for private school tuition in the form of vouchers and similar programs. She has also been a force behind the spread of charter schools in Michigan, most of which have recorded student test scores in reading and math below the state average. (Valerie Straus, December 8, 2016)

For those not familiar with “for-profit” schools I will ask you to try to remember Chris Whittle --- a wealthy media entrepreneur --- who started the for-profit “Edison Schools” in 1992. Like Ms. DeVos, Mr. Whittle had no background in education but hired former Yale President Benno Schmidt, former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett sycophant Chester Finn, and Tom Ingram (Lamar Alexander’s campaign manager and chief of staff when Alexander was Governor and Senator of Tennessee) to oversee this endeavor, promising to improve school districts and make a profit for shareholders in “EdisonLearning.” Districts like Philadelphia and Milwaukee climbed on board. Here is the Wikipedia summary of the Edison performance.

Edison's stock was publicly traded on the NASDAQ for four years. The company reported only one profitable quarter while it was publicly traded.[9] After reaching a high of close to USD$40 per share in early 2001, shares fell to 14 cents. Also in 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged that Edison failed to disclose that as much as 41 percent of its revenue that year consisted of money that it never saw: $154 million. By 2002, Edison was courting Roger Milliken for a possible bailout. The company was eventually taken private in 2003, in a buyout facilitated by Liberty Partners on behalf of the Florida Retirement System, which handles pension investments for the state's public school teachers; The deal valued the company at $180 million[10] or $1.76 per share.[11]
                  After losing many contracts,[12] Edison diversified away from the management of public schools and into marketing conventional supplemental services such as testing, summer school and tutoring. Most of its new business involves providing such services rather than trying to manage schools.[13]
In 2008, the School District of Philadelphia, Edison's largest single client with 20 schools (Edison was originally planned to take over the entire district), later announced plans to dismiss the company as a manager, noting that it and other private firms would be eligible to reapply.[14] By June 18 that year, Philadelphia's School Reform Commission voted to seize six schools from outside contractors— four of them run by Edison— citing lack of improvement.[15]

            In much the same manner, DeVos’s attempt at creating a school voucher and privatized school system in Michigan has proven equally unsuccessful. As Stephen Henderson noted in the Detroit Free Press on December 3, 2016:

DeVos isn’t an educator, or an education leader. She’s not an expert in pedagogy or curriculum or school governance. In fact, she has no relevant credentials or experience for a job setting standards and guiding dollars for the nation’s public schools.
She is, in essence, a lobbyist — someone who has used her extraordinary wealth to influence the conversation about education reform, and to bend that conversation to her ideological convictions despite the dearth of evidence supporting them.

The DeVoses have helped private interests commandeer public money that was intended to fulfill the state’s mandate to provide compulsory education. The family started the Great Lakes Education Project, whose political action committee does the most prolific and aggressive lobbying for charter schools.

Betsy DeVos and other family members have given more than $2 million to the PAC since 2001. GLEP has spent that money essentially buying policy outcomes that have helped Michigan’s charter industry grow while shielding it from accountability.
This summer, the DeVos family contributed $1.45 million over two months— an astounding average of $25,000 a day — to Michigan GOP lawmakers and the state party after the Republican-led Legislature derailed a bipartisan provision that would have provided more charter school oversight in Detroit.

Largely as a result of the DeVos’ lobbying, Michigan tolerates more low-performing charter schools than just about any other state. And it lacks any effective mechanism for shutting down, or even improving, failing charters.
We’re a laughingstock in national education circles, and a pariah among reputable charter school operators, who have not opened schools in Detroit because of the wild West nature of the educational landscape here.
And in Michigan, you can operate a charter for profit, so even schools that fail academically are worth keeping open because they can make money. Michigan leads the nation in the number of schools operated for profit, while other states have moved to curb the expansion of for-profit charters, or banned them outright.

            Betsy DeVos and her husband (appropriately named Dick), came by their millions honestly --- they inherited it (his father originated the greatest pyramid scheme of all time: AmWay) and they have used their money to bludgeon Michigan to align with their beliefs. She now sits awaiting confirmation for a position that oversees education policy for the nation --- without a clue as to the knowledge that position genuinely requires. As Henderson further noted in his Free Press article:

             DeVos and her family have stood in the way of improving what we have. They’ve stood for the charter industry and its middling results, over our kids.
I’m certain she’ll try to make the nation’s charter landscape look more like the chaos we face here in Detroit, and less like it does in states like Tennessee or Massachusetts or Maryland — all much better performers who have tighter reins on charter creation and proliferation.
Her lobbying hasn’t been good for Detroit, or Michigan.
It won’t be good for the nation.

As a co-founder of an excellent charter school in Massachusetts (www.theparkerschool.org), a lifelong public school teacher, and a school reform advocate, I know the issues we are confronting in education and I know that Betsy DeVos hasn’t got a clue! It is important to contact members of the Senate --- Republicans in particular --- to not allow this person to become our next Secretary of Education.

Ultimately our public schools reflect not only who we are as a people but also how we think and feel about our children. Betsy DeVos is an ideologue who cares only about her narrow and short-sighted agenda. She should not become our next Secretary of Education Period.

Friday, January 27th
Blast #130

This, That, & the Other

It’s the end of the first week of “45’s” administration (On last night’s Daily Show Laurence Fishburne said he won’t use the new president’s name and I think that’s a fun idea) and we’ve lost Mary Richards while La La Land got a ridiculous 14 Oscar nominations so this Blast is going to take some time to address each item.

THIS: Our 6th Sense President

Well, ol’ #45 still can’t get over losing the popular vote and, like the kid in the movie, he “sees dead people.” In an interview with ABC anchor David Muir, he said, "You have people that are registered, who are dead, who are illegals who are in two states,”. . . "You have people registered in two states. They're registered in a New York and a New Jersey. They vote twice. There are millions of votes, in my opinion. Now, I'm gonna do an investigation." {There was no question from Muir, or mention by 45, that it seems both Steve Bannon {chief advisor to the President} and Steve Mnuchin {nominee for Secretary of the Treasury} are registered to vote in two states.} In the same way, 45 insisted on showing Muir a photograph of the Inauguration, claiming the media underreported the size of the crowd. Later in the interview, discussing his speech at the CIA in front of the wall for fallen heroes, 45 made this assertion:

I then spoke to the crowd. I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time.

As in his campaign “they said” continues to pepper the new President’s speech. And, as in the campaign, there is a total lack of specificity (was there a standing O for Manning after the Super Bowl? During a parade in Denver? Of course, there is no record anywhere of a Manning standing ovation!) The Prevaricator in Chief did not hear any of Muir’s follow up questions, trying to inject reality and facts. Nope, reason is not part of this commander-in-chief’s world.

When Ronald Reagan was in office many of us believed those around him were manipulating him. Being a competent actor, Reagan was being given his lines and would trot them out there --- occasionally getting caught off guard by things like the Iran-Contra Scandal and so on. This president, of course, is not reading any lines because he doesn’t read! His information comes from television and from only one source: Fox News. After Bill O’Reilly featured a story (with statistics about shootings) on Chicago, those exact figures showed up on guess-whose Twitter feed (verbatim) with the warning “I will send in the Feds.” And here’s my favorite characteristic of 45’s: after years as a “realty” television star, he believes the world operates like a TV show! So, “sending in the Feds,” is a cliché we have heard in dozens of movies and television programs --- which, of course, is designed to put the fear of god into criminals (read: Black people) and the like. In this case, as with so much that spews out of this man’s mouth, it is meaningless! Is he going to send in Federal Troops? Hundreds of armed FBI agents? Which “Feds,” exactly, is he referring to? Of course only he knows and what does it matter? A new show will be on in 30 minutes or so and Mr. Short Attention Span Theater will be tweeting something else --- and seeing more "dead people."

THAT: MTM

Despite living in New York City for many years, I had few “celebrity” encounters. Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates passed me on West 67th one evening, John Oliver walked past when I was at the bus stop in front of Lincoln Center one morning, and I actually broke New York protocol to talk to W. Kamau Bell on Broadway and 82nd Street a couple of years ago. Back in the late 1980’s, when I was living on West 75th and Riverside Drive I was heading over to West 70th to visit my old friend Jay Fasold and, at the junction of 70th, where Amsterdam and Broadway converge, I saw a Golden Retriever sitting with his owner, who had her back to me. Having just lost my Golden, Beau, several years before, I strolled over and kneeled down and starting petting the dog, asking “Do you mind if I pet your dog?” (something I tend to do a lot, actually) As I asked, I looked up to see the dog’s owner was Mary Tyler Moore! Mary looked down and said, “No,” and we had a lovely conversation about Golden Retrievers and what great dogs they are, how their personalities are so sweet, etc. I had choked back an instinct to say, “Oh, hi, Mary” when I first looked up --- because that’s what you would say, right? But, sticking to the New York protocol that says, “Don’t make a big deal about meeting a celebrity on the street” I tried to keep it casual, just making some "dog talk," and move on. Which I did. She was gracious and lovely in that brief conversation and I appreciated sharing a conversation with someone who was also a dog lover.

And that was the first thing I thought of when I heard that Mary Tyler Moore had passed away at age 80. My memories of “Mary” go back to the Dick Van Dyke show, of course, and Laura Petrie in the house in New Rochelle. From 1961 to 1966 the show was a staple in the Johnson household and the characters were part of our lives. When Mary moved on to Minneapolis I was in college but later (probably from ’73 to ’77) she was part of our pre-cable viewing habit, along with All in the Family and M*A*S*H*. The Mary Richards character was revolutionary and reflected the power television, as a medium can have on the culture --- for good or ill (our present reality show).

R.I.P. MTM

& The OTHER: 14 Nominations?
Really?

The New York Post’s Kyle Smith has beaten me to the punch here with his column: Academy Embarrasses Itself with 14 ‘La La Land’ Nominations”. As I noted in an earlier Blast, this movie is mediocre, at best, and how it could attain two more nominations than West Side Story reflects just how far things have sunk on both coasts (D.C. & Hollywood). Of course, we know Hollywood loves itself as a subject in films, so it’s understandable La La would get some attention --- but 14 nominations? Please. I love Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling but this is NOT the best work from either --- not even close. I’ll use Mr. Smith’s words in the Post here because they perfectly capture my thoughts:

Plagued by mediocre songs, a kewpie-doll lead performance by Emma Stone, a flat one by Ryan Gosling and the nonstop sensation that every idea the film has was better executed in the movies it’s imitating, “La La Land” isn’t nearly the best picture of this year, much less one of the all-time greats.

That two songs are in contention for “best song” is ridiculous. I defy anyone who saw the movie (only once, as repeated viewing of anything allows for recall) to hum a few bars of these “best” songs. You can’t. Think West Side Story. Think Sound of Music. Bet you can hum those tunes --- and you could as you left the theater.

Yes, the #OscarsSoWhite are less so this year, for sure, with significant nominations going to non-white performers, but I’m going to bet dollars to doughnuts that La La Land comes away with a boatload of Oscars and that’s what we’ll be reading about on Monday morning, February 28th. Is L.A. a sanctuary city? Maybe --- but not Hollywood.

Wednesday, January 25th
Blast #129

  Time to Act

It’s January 25th and I’m already tired of going on Facebook, which I only do briefly to announce my posting of the Blast. The level of whining and handwringing is insufferable! Yes, we lost the election and, yes, he’s actually doing all those things he said he would. I’m baffled by everyone’s shock. It’s like going to an NFL game and being horrified by the concussions or attending Madison Square Garden and expecting to see the Knicks play good basketball (it’s not going to happen!). There’s no doubt that Trump’s a horrible person --- we knew that. And now we’re seeing that he is, in fact, going to try to do everything he said he would --- did we not know that? Despite the millions who marched on Saturday, it will take more than marches to even remotely rein this (potential) tyrant in. (Just as an aside --- it’s great that we had millions of people, mostly women, marching on Saturday but how do we explain that 53% of white women voted for Trump? The seeds of sexism run deep and, just as there are anti-Semitic Jews and Black-hating African-Americans, we need to understand more fully why so many females would not vote for “that woman”) So, what can we do?

One excellent suggestion that has appeared all over Facebook and bears posting here ---let's follow Senator Elizabeth Warren’s recommendation that we harass the agencies in charge of investigating/auditing Trump’s finances --- and his conflicts of interest and/or violations of law. Here’s what I’ve cut and pasted from Facebook.

Support Senator Warren's request to audit President Trump's finances for conflicts of interest. The woman who answered the phone at the Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office said the most effective way to be sure our support counts is to email two administrators, Katherine Siggerud and Timothy Minnelli.

Their email addresses are:

siggerudk@gao.gov
minellit@gao.gov

There is a third email address through which they're tracking people who are urging support for the audit.

congrel@gao.gov

Or, you can send ONE email addressed to:

siggerudk@gao.gov, minnellit@gao.gov, congrel@gao.gov

Subject line: Re: Audit for President Trump's financial concerns

Dear Ms. Siggerud and Mr. Minnelli,

I’m writing in support of Senator Elizabeth Warren's request for an audit of President Trump's finances to detect conflicts of interest that would prevent him from carrying out the responsibilities of the office without corrupt influence.

Sincerely,

(Your name & info here)

I would recommend that you simply have this set up to send every day for the next four years, if necessary.

            Next, we need to remember that the Senate, right now, is 52 Republicans to 48 Democrats. That means we only need THREE (3) Republicans to move across the aisle on any given issue. If all of Saturday’s marchers, and all of us who simply sat back and watched, begin to make our voices heard, maybe we can swing Senate votes to obstruct and frustrate Trump the way Obama was denied so much of his agenda. Here are the logical Senators to contact, with their websites (the websites contain simple instructions with how you can email the Senator --- generally with this disclosure: Please be aware that as a matter of professional courtesy, many Senators will acknowledge, but not respond to, a message from another Senator's constituent.)

Here are the Republican Senators to target.

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) www.paul.senate.gov/connect/email-rand

Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-senator-graham

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-form

Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) www.collins.senate.gov/contact

Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) www.sasse.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/email-ben

Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) www.flake.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-jeff

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AL) www.murkowski.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact

Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact

            Now, these are still Republicans and someone like “Little Marco” did endorse Trump in the general election --- but he has been popping off about some of the Cabinet nominees and might be persuaded to actually follow his conscience (particularly since he might still want a shot at a 2020 nomination after Trump’s impeachment or resignation and Pence’s bumbling around). Sasse, Flake, and McCain have made no bones about not liking Trump and Graham, Paul, and Collins have all made noises about being uncomfortable, at the very least, with the new President’s ideas. For what it’s worth, of this group, only Susan Collins attended the Republican Convention that nominated Trump. Appealing to country over party, in a rational, sincere way might actually have an impact.

            My recommendation is this: during that time you’re sitting at the computer writing your daily outrage about Trump on Facebook, use that time to send a DAILY email to the GAO and the Senate, expressing your desire to see them take action against the disastrous policies Trump is trying to enact, as well as auditing/investigating his finances. That’s at least one thing we can all do as a follow up to Saturday’s marches. It’s a first step --- but that’s where any journey begins, right?

Tuesday, January 24th
Blast #128

A Little of This
(A review)

Michael Keaton is one of my favorite actors and I’ve said I’d watch him read the phone book because I know he’d somehow make it entertaining. He didn’t let me down watching The Founder, the “based on a true story” rendition of Ray Kroc’s development of the McDonald’s fast food empire. Keaton is so charming, in fact, you almost overlook that Kroc is frighteningly unscrupulous in stealing McDonald’s out from under the brothers who designed the fast food industry’s prototype. My first reaction, at the film’s conclusion, is that this is a pretty perfect movie to usher in the new Trump administration.

When we meet Ray Kroc in 1954 he is selling Prince 5-spindle milkshake machines to drive-in/car-hop diner owners across Illinois --- without great success. When he receives an order for six machines, for one location, he makes a call assuming it’s a mistake --- who would ever order six 5-spindle milkshake machines? Getting Dick McDonald on the phone he is told there is, indeed, a mistake --- the McDonald brothers need eight of Ray’s machines! And that’s where this biopic kicks into gear. Driving old Route 66 (remember, it’s 1954, before the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system was created) Ray goes all the way out to San Bernardino, California, where “Mac” and Dick McDonald are running a wildly successful hamburger stand that is not a drive-in. This is a “walk-up” self-service hamburger stand and when Ray gets in line the woman in front of him says, “This won’t take long.” Keaton, who can express so much with just a look, indicates his doubt, with a bit of cynicism thrown in. Before you know it, though, he’s up to the window and placing his order. Within 30 seconds, the confused Ray receives his burger, fries, and coke. After introducing himself to Mac, Ray gets a tour of the Ford assembly line approach to producing a quality product and, at dinner that evening, hears the origin story --- with a wonderful scene of the brothers designing their efficiency kitchen in chalk-outlines on a tennis court. The next day Ray tells the brothers they have to franchise this. They demur, citing their attempt at it, the failure of their initial franchises at keeping up their standards and the resulting health problems Mac suffered from the ordeal. Ray leaves but is obsessive in thinking he’s found his Golden Goose.

Upon returning to Illinois he tells his put upon wife (wonderfully played by Laura Dern) about what he’s discovered and heads back out to California, determined to sell the McDonald Brothers on the idea of franchising their product, with Ray overseeing the quality control. Through a contract that strictly hamstrings Ray’s control, McDonald’s begins franchising in the Midwest. We learn Ray has gone to bankers with other “entrepreneurial” schemes (that have not gone well) and he has to mortgage his own home to get his franchise business up and running. Within several years Ray has numerous franchises around the Midwest up and running --- and has continuing battles with the McDonald brothers over changes he believes would make the business more profitable. Over time, we watch Ray devise a way to steal the business (through real estate ownership) from the brothers (he pays them $2.7 million for their name, essentially, and then never lives up to his “handshake deal” to pay them royalties which would have netted the brothers $100 million over time). He also steals a wife (Joan) away from one of his franchise owners. In the end, Ray becomes wealthy beyond his dreams and even twists the knife in the brothers’ backs by opening “his” McDonald’s across the road from theirs in San Bernardino, driving them out of business.

The Founder is a good movie, driven by Keaton’s bravura performance with excellent support from Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch as Dick and Mac McDonald, respectively. Laura Dern is perfect as Ray’s first wife, Ethel, and Linda Cardellini is luminous as Joan (somehow Kroc’s second wife, Jane Green, is left out of the picture, literally). B.J. Novak is very good as Ray’s financial mastermind, Harry Sonneborn. Like many “based on a true story” scripts, Robert Siegel provides a well-paced tale that clearly “embellishes” or invents facts. John Lee Hancock’s direction is adequate, with a few too many aerial shots (are we “God” watching Ray?) and hokey collages of flags & steeples. Carter Burwell’s music, particularly the piano pieces, is a bit intrusive and probably unnecessary. In all, however, it is an interesting film and well worth seeing.

As it relates to the new administration: Ray Kroc is a businessman and cannot fathom how the McDonald brothers do not want to make more money. As he explains in one of his many heated discussions with Dick McDonald, it’s about “winning.” In a graphic moment, Ray tells Dick that if his competition were drowning, he’d “put a hose down his throat.” Behind those cheeseburgers and Big Macs was a man who had a vision and was determined to see it through, even if it meant screwing the men who invented the vehicle for his success. The unkindest cut of all, of course, is that Ray designates himself “Founder” and even appropriates the creation of the “golden arches” as his idea (it was Dick McDonald’s). Such is life in the world of business, the world our President grew up in. I couldn’t help but hear the quote, “You’re going to get tired of all the winning” as Ray Kroc voiced his frustration with Dick McDonald over exactly that, “winning.” The question always is, of course, “winning” at what cost? Ultimately, I think that’s the question viewers are left with after seeing The Founder.

Note: Middle photo above is at the McDonald's in Islip, Long Island, on Montauk Highway, circa 1966 (thanks to Doug Tagner!)

 A Little of That
(spoof)

Now that we have moved into an era of “hyperbolic truth” (see The Art of the Deal) and “alternative facts,” I would like to submit several items to my newly revised resume, which has corrected the old, “un”-alternative facts and relied on plain old regular “truth,” as opposed to our new “hyperbolic” and “alternative" standards.

Height: 6’2”

Weight: 175 lbs.

Graduation Honors: Summa Cum Laude, with Distinction, from Yale College

College Athletics: Varsity letters in Football, basketball, and lacrosse

Publications: New York Times #1 bestselling books – The Performance Assessment Handbook (Volumes One & Two) and The Student-Centered Classroom Handbook

Awards: Teacher of the Year, AFT 1973-2014 and NEA, 1973-2014

Philanthropic Work: Salvation Army Man of the Year, 2014, 2015, 2016

Board Positions: Yale Corporation, Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union

Advisory/Consulting: Association for Supervison and Curriculum Development (ASCD) , U.S. Department of Education, New York State Department of Education, Connecticut Department of Education, Pennsylvania Department of Education

Monday, January 23rd
Blast #128B

As History Turns

While this weekend’s news was filled with stories about the Inauguration and the Women’s Marches/Protests around the world, our weekend focused more on the birthday of the Lovely Carol Marie (Saturday). Sunday we went out to brunch with her daughter (Jessica) and son (Mark), their spouses (Craig & Cristina, respectively) and the four grandchildren (Jessica’s boys --- Cody, 10, Casey, 7, Luke, 5 and Mark’s daughter, Grace, 1). What this led me to think about was the confluence of Trump’s inauguration and the lives of those children. They are too young to really appreciate the details of the politics at hand (though the boys, echoing their parent’s concerns, are very anti-Trump) and that got me to thinking what this birthday brunch might be like a decade from now, when the grandchildren will be 20, 17, 15, and 11 --- as well as what might be in store for them from that point (2027) on. Reflecting on American history that occurred during my life (between ages 10 to 20 and then beyond) seemed a way to square the impending Trump presidency with some kind of “sanity” and potential calm.

For me, the journey of the United States between 1959 and 1969 was, overall, somewhat scary, but not without some great highlights. I’ve already written about the 1960 election and my family’s love for JFK but my first recollection of the Kennedy presidency was the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. I was in 8th grade and clearly remember all the grown-ups being afraid a nuclear war was imminent! My parents, my teachers, everyone on television --- it was THE only story being discussed. There was, as we know, a collective sigh of relief when the Russian ships turned around but, for a few days, everyone was on edge, to say the least. 1963 was memorable for Dr. King’s famous speech and JFK’s assassination, of course. But December, 1963 also ushered in “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and that year, 1963-64, has as many memories of playing football, baseball, and basketball for Bay Shore High School as it does worldwide political events and the emergence of Cassius Clay/Mohammad Ali on the national stage (and we were all talking about the brash young champion!). There was also the World’s Fair in Flushing, which I attended regularly in the summer of 1964 ( a Long Island Railroad train from Babylon went directly to the Fair –-- and the new Shea Stadium), particularly to see Michelangelo’s Pieta, having read Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy.

1965 was memorable for the Selma March, cities on fire that summer (the Watts riots in LA were the big news), and the Northeast blackout in November (I was in the Bay Shore High locker room after football practice when everything went black!). 1966, from my perspective, was the beginning of a national anti-war movement (it was getting news coverage almost nightly) but I was preoccupied with popular culture (the Beatles & mini-skirts) and sensationalist stories about Richard Speck and Charles Whitman (mass murderers). As I look back on it now, most of my world was focused on (high school) sports (quarterbacking our undefeated football team), music (I was in a band, The Durations), and getting ready for college (first in the family!).

1967 was a breakout year starting with the first Super Bowl in January and continuing through Aretha Franklin’s release of “Respect” (a theme song for the Bay Shore High School track team) and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (in June). The anti-war movement was heating up, particularly sparked by Ali’s refusal to be inducted, and we saw Thurgood Marshall appointed to the Supreme Court. There was a 6-day War in the Middle East but the biggest news for me, of course, was getting accepted at Yale and starting school in New Haven that September. Football, new friends, new music (Hendrix, the Doors, Cream) and what seemed a whole new world was emerging for me!

1968 and 1969 were crazy, fun, turbulent times. What do I remember? Playing football and lacrosse for Yale, hearing lots of great music live (Jefferson Airplane at Woolsey Hall, Poco in the Commons), an acceleration of both the civil rights and anti-war movements. The Black Panthers became a presence in New Haven. The announcement by LBJ that he wouldn’t run for re-election and the assassinations of MLK, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy (and standing in line 8 hours to pass his casket at St. Patrick’s cathedral). Then there was the election of Richard Nixon (and the candidacy of George Wallace --- who received 46 electoral and almost 10 million popular votes). That capped off 1968, of course --- and I’m sure I believed bad things were on the way, as I do now with Trump in office.

1969 saw the Woodstock Festival (which I attended, skipping out on my Fire Island waiter job), a walk on the moon, the Joe Namath led NY Jets winning Super Bowl III, and my greater and greater involvement in campus and national politics (trips to DC to protest, etc.). The My Lai massacre and Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick incident were big stories but not as big as the Manson Family headlines. 1969 made it appear that the U.S. was, indeed, coming apart at the seams --- and certainly things did not calm down for several more years.

As I look back on time since then, 1969 to the present, there certainly was a rollercoaster ride through the history so maybe I shouldn’t fear so much for the grandchildren. When I reflect on it all, I tend to remember the highlights far more than the low. Yes, there were the assassinations, the Nixon & Reagan & W. presidencies, the slow progress of equality for minorities, gays, and women, but one tends to remember the personal first as we review our life and, in that realm, I have been quite fortunate. A good family, great friends along the way, a profession I loved, entertaining times with sports and music (as a spectator and participant) and now a happily-ever-after retirement --- all in all, I can only hope that the grandchildren get as good a ride. And maybe that will help me keep perspective as we buckle up for the next four years in what could be a demolition derby or simply a high-speed dash down through Independence Pass. We’ll see.

Saturday, January 21st
Blast #127
Today is the Lovely Carol Marie's Birthday

The Lens of History

There has been a lot of talk lately about how Donald Trump’s “populist” style resembles Andrew Jackson’s back in the 1820s and 1830s. The Donald has mentioned it himself, along with Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich. Articles have been written about it in the Washington Post and The Atlantic. There are certainly elements of Trump’s persona and proposals that echo Jackson but for every echo there’s a discordant note, too, so the parallel is attractive on the surface but fails the depth test. Whatever the case, I think that if people are going to compare Trump to Jackson they might also consider comparing the outgoing President to Jackson’s predecessor. Both Barack Obama and John Quincy Adams were Presidents who came to office with a distinct vision for the country and both were thwarted by a hostile legislative branch, making their time in the White House difficult, to say the least.

Adams, of course, took office under the cloud of the 1824 “corrupt bargain” election that saw Jackson win a plurality of the popular and electoral votes --- but not a majority of electors, throwing the election to the House of Representatives. Once in the House, the Speaker, Henry Clay, a deft politician and a political rival of Andrew Jackson, swung the winning votes to Adams and was rewarded with the Secretary of State position in the Adams administration. While there is no evidence that a deal was struck, Clay’s maneuvering certainly did not pass the smell test and Adams paid the price. (The Secretary of State position, in the early 19th century was the stepping stone to the White House: Washington’s Secretary, Jefferson, Jefferson’s Secretary, Madison, Madison’s Secretary, Monroe, and Monroe’s Secretary, Adams, all succeeded to the Presidency --- making Clay believe, no doubt, that he was on his way. The 1828 election ended the Secretary stepping-stone and Clay’s chances.)

John Quincy Adams had an ambitious agenda for the country called the “American System.” He wanted to institute high import tariffs to pay for infrastructure development (national roads and canals) as well as creating a national bank (to develop a uniform national currency), a national university (to develop the arts and sciences), and a national observatory. Beyond that, Adams was a staunch abolitionist and defended the rights of Native Americans to their tribal lands. Adams had been sworn in not on a Bible but on a book of constitutional law. A hardheaded idealist, he faced immediate opposition to his agenda and, after gaining some headway on some national roads and railways, the Congress turned overwhelmingly Democratic (Jacksonian) in the midterm elections and dismissed Adams’s plans, leaving his presidency with little or no legacy. Adams, of course, after leaving the White House, went on to serve as a U.S. Representative from 1830-1848 (the year he died), fighting slavery and other injustice (and being lionized in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad).

Aside from Barack Obama’s background as a constitutional law professor creating an interesting connection to Adams’s swearing in ceremony, the notion of an idealistic president facing off with a recalcitrant Congress is all too familiar to most who have followed the news the past 6 years. After the 2010 election and the Tea Party’s hostile takeover of a wing of the Republican Party, President Obama faced a tsunami of resistance from the Republicans controlling the House and Senate. Enacting his agenda through Executive Orders, we are already seeing Trump unraveling Obama’s work and, quite possibly, throwing the nation into chaos in the process (what is the plan for replacing the Affordable Card Act?). There is no doubt that this Congress and President will do everything in their power to eliminate any trace of an Obama legacy.

In those ways, the parallels between Adams and Obama are similar and, possibly, more apt than Trump/Jackson. Although, we should note that Jackson’s Indian removal policies bear a striking similarity to Trump’s Muslim ban and Mexican wall proposals and Jackson’s elevation of the “spoils system” (granting political positions to your $upporter$) to an art, along with his reliance on a “Kitchen Cabinet” (unelected advisors who had the President’s ear --- like Bannon & Kushner) while declaring his undying dedication to the “common man,”
are all very Trumpian. Nonetheless, the slave-owning, genocidal Jackson is often listed among our “great” presidents by historians while JQ Adams falls somewhere in the lower third of the ratings, primarily because he couldn’t get his proposals enacted. While it is hard to imagine Trump will somehow oversee a presidency that will be considered “great” in the future, you never know (there are some who classify Reagan that way and I would certainly beg to differ!). It is equally hard to predict where Obama will fall on the “presidential ranking” list in the future: the first Black president, eliminating Bin Laden, getting us off the economic mat the banking/mortgage disaster had laid us out on, resuscitating the U.S. auto industry, completing the Iranian nuclear treaty, making progress against climate change while introducing new energy sources to the national economy, and instituting a national health care system is a pretty solid list of accomplishments. Not ending our Middle East entanglements, failing to close Guantanamo, and not developing a working relationship with the Congress (though that may be seen as a two-way street, given Mitch McConnell’s 2008 vow to make Obama a “one-term president”) could all be seen as negatives, I suppose. But historians will be the judges. This Blast is speculative and looking for historical frames we can hang today’s picture in. We are in a landscape that looks unfamiliar and feels alien. Moving forward unsteadily, I look to see if, in fact, the past is prologue. Stay tuned. Film at 11.

Friday, January 20th
Blast #126

   My Kubler-Ross Inauguration

I have not written about politics much since November 9th and I have mentioned a few times that we stopped watching MSNBC and CNN at that time as well. As we now face the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, I have to be honest and admit that I am in the throes of the first item in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief, denial. If you are unfamiliar with Ross’s On Death and Dying, she describes five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Given the events of November 8th, I realize, and have to own up to, being in Stage One (denial), even as I write.

Denial: The first reaction is denial. In this stage individuals believe the diagnosis is somehow mistaken, and cling to a false, preferable reality.

While Kubler-Ross frames her scale around the way we humans deal with the death of a loved one, I believe it clearly applies to me since November 8th. Even now, hours before the oath of office is issued and the peaceful transfer of power is made, I am clinging to a “false, preferable reality” believing “the diagnosis is somehow mistaken.” How could my fellow citizens elect this man? A charlatan, a man of boundless ignorance and ego, a vindictive and shallow huckster?   No, I’m still denying that it happened and that the American people are going to allow a man whose approval rating is 40% will take over the leadership of this great nation today.

            Of course denial can only last for so long, so I have to believe that, some time soon, my grief will morph into Stage Two, anger.

Anger - When the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue, they become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals. Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; "Who is to blame?"; "Why would this happen?".

It’s pretty clear that some of the anger phase has already crept into my psyche: “Who is to blame? Why would this happen?” are certainly two phrases that continue to plague my thinking. I’m pretty sure as we watch some of the grossly incompetent Cabinet secretaries (DeVos, Carson, & Perry spring to mind) begin their work anger will mount, along with screaming to the heavens: Why would this happen? Yet, the Republic is strong and anger, as we know, gets us nowhere, so I’m guessing that by the end of the summer I’ll move on to the next stage, bargaining.

Bargaining – The third stage involves the hope that the individual can avoid a cause of grief. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek compromise. For instance: "I'd give anything to have him back." Or: "If only he'd come back to life, I'd promise to be a better person!"

By the time leaves are changing color I’m guessing that I’ll be hoping that there will have been enough screw-ups, ethics investigations, anger over repealing Obamacare without replacing it, along with no bricks being laid for “the Wall,” that there might be a ray of hope for some compromise. Maybe enough Republican Senators will “cross the aisle” to shift policies back toward moderate and sane positions. It’s also possible that the public, in general, will begin to see Trump and the congressional Tea Party monkeys for the ignorant con men they are --- but we’ll see. Because I’m a cynic by nature, I’m pretty sure that by next Christmas I will have moved on to Stage Four, depression.

Depression– "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die soon, so what's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?"
During the fourth stage, the individual despairs at the recognition of their mortality. In this state, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time mournful and sullen.

Since I find the holidays pretty depressing to begin with, I’m guessing that by December, 2017, I’m going to be down a pretty deep well, realizing that we still have three years to go and, worse case scenario, the U.S. is being manipulated by Putin, we are engaged in scary saber-rattling with the Chinese in the South China Sea, the economy has plunged to record lows, and the Supreme Court is trying to turn the clock back to 1953. Despairing at that reality, I will don my “Bah Humbug” black Santa hat and vow to wear it until there is, to my mind, a reason not to. I am not sure if I will ever even come close to Stage Five of Ross’s scale in the next four years: acceptance.

Acceptance - In this last stage, individuals embrace mortality or inevitable future, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event. People dying may precede the survivors in this state, which typically comes with a calm, retrospective view for the individual, and a stable condition of emotions. – "It's going to be okay." "I can't fight it; I may as well prepare for it."

It’s hard to imagine acquiring a “calm, retrospective view . . . and a stable condition of emotions” while Trump is in office. I hope, of course, that I will be proven wrong but his actions since the election --- the continuation of the petty, vindictive tweets, the appointment of people to Cabinet positions who are clearly unqualified (please don’t try to tell me that Betsy DeVos knows anything about Education! The woman who noted “some schools — like those in Wyoming — need weapons ‘to protect from potential grizzlies [bears].’” Really? Rick Perry, as Energy Secretary, “was under the impression that he would be taking on an ambassador role for the US oil and gas industries, according to The Times.” Ben Carson? No comment. ) and the mounting evidence that there are --- and will continue to be --- innumerable conflicts of interest (starting on Inauguration Day with the Federal lease on the Trump International Hotel/D.C., the former Post Office building). Trump’s disregard for the truth, his willingness to thumb his nose at his own supporters (how does appointing FIVE Goldman Sachs alums square with “draining the swamp?”), and his petty attacks on anyone who criticizes him are not attributes that work well in politics or diplomacy. But maybe we are watching the dawn of a new age, when Reality Television and fake news are the order of the day, when globalism proved to be a meteor, not a comet, and has crashed and burned, when “the better angels of our nature” have flown off to simply observe without intervening on our behalf.

            The world will definitely change starting at 12 noon today and we will watch as the Age of Trump, for as long or as short as it lasts, has its impact on the United States and around the globe. I will keep tabs of where I am in my Stages of Grief and attempt to continue as best as I can, given the circumstances. As one who taught U.S. history for many years, I know we have survived many crises and that, in fact, most Presidents are not very notable. But it is an office that can have a huge impact on the country and the world, particularly in the 21st century --- so, grief notwithstanding, I will hope for the best while I fear the worst --- the King is dead! Long live the King!

Thursday, January 19th
Blast #125

Ask Not?

            January 20, 1961, was a Friday and I remember it clearly because the Bay Shore Schools were closed due to a ferocious nor’easter that had left well over a half-foot of snow across Long Island. What the snow day meant for me, a 6th grader at the Bay Shore Junior High School, was that I would be able to stay home and watch the inauguration of John F. Kennedy on our black and white television. In retrospect, it was a day that changed my life. I was not quite 12 years old and had, for the first time, taken an interest in a presidential election campaign. We had watched the televised debate between the Senator from Massachusetts and the Vice President. I had actually gone to Nixon campaign headquarters in Bay Shore and gotten some campaign buttons (several of which I still have, along with at least one Kennedy button) and initially thought the VP’s experience would make him a better choice. As we neared Election Day, however, Kennedy’s oratory and telegenic charm had moved me to support the challenger. My parents talked little about the election and didn’t vote (“My life’s the same no matter who’s in office,” was my father’s quote until the day he died) so they had no particular influence on me.

            I clearly remember January 20, 1961, watching the clouds of breath emanating from the new President (it was 22 degrees in D.C. that day) as he gave his inspiring speech. I also recall someone using a hat in an attempt to block the unrelenting January sun from the text of “The Gift Outright,” as Robert Frost tried to read the poem he had written for this inauguration. Then we heard: “Ask not what your country can do for you --- ask what you can do for your country.” Spoken toward the conclusion of his riveting and brilliant speech, the phrase was electrifying to me --- making a deep impression on my prepubescent mind. After all, it fit with the philosophical foundation instilled by that same Catholic Church that JFK belonged to --- being your brother’s keeper, caring for the sick and the poor, the self-sacrifice exhibited in the crucifixion. While religion was not primary in my life, the values I had learned were and Kennedy’s inaugural challenge struck an extremely responsive chord in my young soul and mind.

            While my parents were working class people, their values were relatively liberal and they quickly became huge JFK fans. The only time in my entire childhood we would not have dinner at precisely 6:00 p.m. was when Kennedy held a press conference. These were family viewing events that we loved --- his intelligence, his wit, his charisma --- we were hooked. And I decided, long before the assassination, that I would become someone who would do something “for my country.” Years later, as I matriculated, there were thoughts of going to law school but, faced with the reality of courses in “Trusts and Estates” and “Torts,” I just couldn’t picture myself grinding it out. The most logical place for me would be the environment I was most comfortable in, where I wouldn’t have to make (m)any political compromises and where I could feel I was “giving back” and contributing to my society: teaching. So, the die was cast. JFK’s inaugural that cold January “Snow Day” had directed the course of my ship.

            As we look at another Friday, January 20th inaugural, I was trying to remember if any other inaugurations I have lived through stuck in my mind or had any impact on my thinking. Reflecting on it, I could only dredge up memories from three other January 20th’s. I remember Reagan saying “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” and thinking, “Boy, we’re in for some bad times now.” I know Reagan is a revered figure for many in this country but he certainly did not influence me in any positive way and I will argue (with facts!) that he is hugely overrated. My second inaugural memory is of Bill Clinton, in 1993, having Maya Angelou read a poem. Always trying to be the “new JFK,” Slick Willy was also giving a nod to being “the first Black President” (if you’re not familiar with that notion, do the research; it’s pretty interesting). As with Frost’s “The Gift Outright,” “The Pulse of Morning” is not necessarily the poet’s best work (and at least Frost’s poem was brief). Again, the only other inaugural moment I recall is with another poet, Richard Blanco, reading at Obama’s 2013 ceremony and, while his “One Today,” like the third little bear, seemed “just right,” it was not remarkably memorable.

My point here is that presidential inaugurations are not particularly memorable --- aside from Kennedy’s, only FDR’s “fear itself” and Lincoln’s second inaugural’s “with malice toward none” are the speeches most noted in U.S. history. So, I’m not expecting we’ll get a particularly memorable quote from our new President tomorrow. The weather forecast is favorable (thanks, quite possibly, to global warming) and there will be the pomp, circumstance, and celebration (along with protests) that these events always feature.

            I no longer look forward to “Snow Days,” which always give teachers the same thrill they do students. As the eminent Mr. Steve Jones told me when I asked him how retirement was: “Every day’s a Saturday.” And so, too, will be inaugural Friday. It is another day off for the retirees. We may or may not watch it (probably not) but will surely be informed of what is said. As someone who has immersed himself in the history and culture of this nation (I was an Intensive Major in American Studies) I am always interested in “next chapters.” I’ll admit to a lot of apprehension for this next chapter but, like it or not, it’s here and it begins tomorrow. God bless America.

Wednesday, January 18th
Blast #124

Over the Fence(s)

We went to see Fences yesterday with our dear friends the Shortliffes (Jean & Delbert) and today the voting for who will be in the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2017 will be revealed. Given the way my wormy mind works and through some intellectual legerdemain, I’m going to try to connect the two topics in this Blast. You can be the judge as to how well it works (or doesn’t).

Fences, written by August Wilson and first produced in 1987, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award that year. Wilson, who died in 2005, is the only credited screenwriter for the 2016 movie, having completed the film version of his play before his death --- insisting a black director make the movie. Denzel Washington and the rest of the cast (with the exception of Jovan Adepo as Cory) appeared in the Broadway production staged in 2010 and it was after that Mr. Washington determined he would bring Wilson’s work to the screen. Released on December 16, 2016, it has received critical approval, with Viola Davis winning the Golden Globe for her performance as Rose, the embattled wife of Troy Maxson (Denzel). Maxson is the driving force of the play, set in mid-1950s Pittsburgh (Fences was the sixth of Wilson’s 10-play “Pittsburgh Cycle”) and he is a bowed and embittered anti-hero. As the story proceeds we learn that Troy was a star baseball player in the Negro Leagues (“Seven home runs off Satchel Paige”) who believes he was denied a shot at the Major Leagues because of his race, not his fading abilities. He clashes with his younger son, Cory, over the possibility of the boy receiving a football scholarship, believing his son will be used and abused by white people (and possibly fearing he will outshine him on the athletic field). He has an older son, Lyons (Russell Hornsby), from a different mother (not Rose), who is an aspiring musician and who Troy sees as “irresponsible,” the cardinal sin. The movie follows the play’s basic bones, with Troy raging at the Grim Reaper, commiserating with his best friend, Jim Bono (played beautifully by Stephen McKinley Henderson), denouncing white discrimination (but becoming the first Black driver of sanitation trucks after filing a grievance), and then betraying his devoted Rose, having a child with another woman. Ultimately, the family frays, with Rose agreeing to raise the new baby (the mistress dies in childbirth) but dismissing Troy from her life, Cory enlists in Marine Corps, and Troy is left to finish building the allegorical fence --- to keep the Grim Reaper out and Rose’s family in, as we are told at different points. A sub-plot involves Troy’s brother, Gabe (a fabulous Mykelti Williamson!), who was disabled in WWII and whose government pay-out Troy took to buy the house where the story transpires. Troy, due to illiteracy, signs Gabe into a VA hospital unwittingly, yet another log on the fire burning down Troy’s life.

Fences, as a movie, is well done and worth seeing. Some of Mr. Washington’s direction is heavy-handed but the performances, up and down the line, are excellent. I was impressed with how Denzel was willing to physically transform his usually trim and muscular frame into the sagging flab of a fading athlete in his mid-50’s (Washington is 62). Viola Davis is beyond good in her portrayal of Rose, the aggrieved wife --- the passion of her performance is definitely award-worthy. All of the supporting cast are excellent, too, and while the movie moves beyond the confines of a “stage play,” physically, it still feels like one. Another excellent feature of the film is the sparse and effective use of music in the background, leaving the storytelling to the actors without cues to the audience from some orchestra. The story itself is compelling, certainly capturing aspects of Black culture and history that illustrate the toll an oppressive dominating culture can have on those below. Even with that, however, when Delbert asked me whether I found Troy a “sympathetic” character (as we sat at the Post Road Diner after viewing the film) I said, “No, not at all. He is a pretty unlikable and unattractive person.” I think it speaks to the power of Wilson’s writing --- that he can put a man in whom it is difficult to find any redeeming features at the center of this drama --- and you still become deeply invested in the story. And that’s where I’ll make a leap to the Hall of Fame voting that will be revealed today.

For me, Barry Bonds is a real world version of Troy Maxson. He was a man who had been a great player (won two MVP awards while a Pirate --- in Pittsburgh, ironically) but felt a need to cheat to inflate his image and statistics. Just as Troy moves through Fences with a huge chip on his shoulder (the burden of being Black in America), Bonds, too, seemed to feel he had to do whatever he could to show us he was better than the best. The parallel I see between the two characters --- one fictitious, the other wanting to be larger-than-life --- is the hubris and the ultimate self-centered view of the world. (I think all this applies to Roger Clemens as well but how can I pass up using Bonds as the Troy parallel, right?) Troy wins his battle to become a driver, not a trash can hauler (Bonds’s first MVP award?) but that doesn’t make him less bitter or angry. During his career, Bonds had a tumultuous relationship with the press and was described as “a difficult person, surly, standoffish and ungrateful” (Wikipedia), certainly words that could also describe Troy Maxson. Returning to the notion of hubris, the tragedy of Troy Maxson has to do with a man who was unable to live out his dreams (unfairly, as he saw it, due to his race --- not an unjustified belief) and became embittered, visiting his frustration on his family, in particular. With Barry Bonds, the denial of the Hall of Fame (which I agree with whole-heartedly) is the result of his refusal to admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs to boost his numbers (something he didn’t need to do, being a two time MVP before the steroids). Beyond not admitting to taking the PED’s, though, is the attitude Bonds conveys to the public and press as an unrepentant and ego-driven individual. That he may remain in baseball purgatory, never achieving Hall of Fame status is a tragedy, too, and parallels, in its own way, Troy Maxson’s.

Tuesday, January 17th
Blast #123

It’s About Race,
Stupid!

In the afterglow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, with the impending inauguration of a president who, from a historical point of view, exhibits most closely the characteristics of Andrew Johnson (look it up!), it seems appropriate to focus a Blast on Race. As homework, I watched Ava DuVernay’s compelling 13th for the second time, assiduously taking notes. If you are not familiar with 13th, the jumping off point for its examination of the state of race relations in America in 2016 is the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution --- particularly the clause stating: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime, . . . shall exist in the United States. Tracing the history of race in the U.S. starting with “convict leasing” after the Civil War (the first application of the 13th to maintain white control of black bodies) to the Jim Crow segregation of the first half of the 20th Century, through our current mass incarceration that began in the 1970s with Richard Nixon’s “law and order” administration, DuVernay presents a clear portrait of how America’s racism has manifested itself from our earliest history.

Using a variety of narrators who present their ideas in a viewer-friendly “interview” format, DuVernay illustrates that there can be “no understanding of American political culture without race at the center of it.” (unidentified narrator) While the documentary is propelled by our current prison crisis, the step-by-step evolution of the crisis is clearly outlined for the viewer --- and it is a story all Americans should know. When Newt Gingrich says, “No one who is white understands the challenges of being Black in America,” it is time to sit up and listen! Even with the recent explosion of videos illustrating police violence against black citizens, there is still a strong current of belief that courses through this society insisting that Black men, in particular, are dangerous and criminal by nature. 13th traces the roots of that mythology from its genesis in the post Civil War South, when 4 million freed slaves could no longer be compelled to work for free to maintain the Southern economy. The loophole in the 13th Amendment was seized upon quickly by Southern legislatures and law enforcement: “except as punishment for a crime.” Involuntary servitude, in the form of chain gangs and forced labor, became the order of the day in rebuilding the South’s economy. That, combined with the terrorism of groups like the KKK, continued the oppression of African-Americans in the U.S.

It is noted that Blacks who moved to northern cities in the Great Migration of the first half of the 20th century should not been seen as “immigrants” but as “refugees” --- people fleeing an oppressive society which constantly threatened them with incarceration or terror. We see photographs from the early 20th century where public lynchings are featured in local newspapers and the myth of the Black male rapist promoted the notion of Black criminality. D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” portraying the KKK as the saviors of the South, actually introduced cross-burning to that group (Griffith thought it was a dramatic cinematic element). The 1924 Democratic Convention had 350 KKK members as delegates on the floor. More significantly, in all this storytelling, we see how the threads of racist myths and stereotypes were woven into the core fabric of our country, simply morphing and adapting as times changed while maintaining its guarantee that Blacks would remain second class citizens.

The Jim Crow South, of course, introduced all kinds of restrictions on voting rights and political participation, along with its ubiquitous “whites only” signage. It was not until the 1950s and television that the nation had to literally see the abusive treatment nonviolent Blacks received while protesting for their Constitutional rights. What 13th does best throughout its narrative is show how the white window dressing has changed over time but the foundation of our racist home has remained intact. Once the terrorism, violence, and police brutality against the Civil Rights movement was exposed, there was a need to shift tactics and 13th clearly follows the path that began with Richard Nixon’s “Law and Order”/“Southern Strategy” in 1968, and led to to Bill Clinton’s 1994 mass incarceration Crime Bill, featuring “mandatory minimums” and “three strikes (felonies) and you’re out.” Along the way we see how Ronald Reagan gutted social and health services to the poor and how H.W. Bush used Willie Horton as the divisive racial linchpin of his 1988 campaign. Clinton and Gore, of course, supported the Death Penalty and promised to be “tough on crime” as a way of stealing the Republican's thunder and Slick Willy’s denunciation of “Super-predators” became the sound bite the media most repeated.

Going back to Nixon, we are given an incriminating quote from John Ehrlichman, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs. In an interview years after leaving D.C., Ehrlichman noted: “Nixon had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. . . . (if we could) associate hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. Did we know we were lying? Of course we did!” Similarly, Reagan was able to use the Crack cocaine epidemic of the late 1980’s to decimate the black community. The punishment for possessing one ounce of crack cocaine was equal to the punishment for possessing 100 ounces of powdered cocaine. Everyone knew, then and now, crack was a poor (black) person’s drug and powder was a rich (white) person’s drug of choice. The escalating numbers of the prison population that are periodically displayed in the documentary speak most clearly to the use of the 13th amendment to maintain the political and social advantages for white society.

In a nutshell, the United States has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s incarcerated criminals. The U.S. prison population has risen from 357, 292 in 1970 to 2,306,200 in 2014. While 1 in 17 white men can expect to spend some time in prison in his lifetime, 1 in 3 Black men face the same fate. And, while Black men make up only 6.4% of the population of the United States, they make up 40.2% of the prison population! Now, we could, of course, simply subscribe to the myth that would have us believe that Black men are clearly criminal in nature, thereby accounting for that 40.2% figure. Or, we might consider that 95% of prosecutors in the United States are white and that the system is designed (because of “mandatory minimums”) to “convict” through plea bargaining, resulting in many innocent people admitting to crimes they didn’t commit because if they can’t prove their case in court (a long, expensive process which most poor folks can’t afford) they will serve maximum time. Of course, once you have served time you will, once out, face “40,000 collateral consequences” (Cory Booker) that include those questions on job applications or deny your voting rights (30% of the Alabama Black male population cannot vote, even though they served their time).

All of this --- and more --- is brilliantly brought to our attention in 100 minutes, integrating powerful musical segues connecting historical narratives while presenting an array of compelling speakers who clearly explain the inequities of our society. In its opening, a white professor, Kevin Gannon, notes: “History is not just stuff that happened, by accident. We are the product of the history our ancestors chose, if we are white.” Of course, if you are a Black person, you, too, are a product of choices America’s white ancestors made. “We, together, are the products of that set of choices.” We are now faced with an incoming administration in which its only Black cabinet nominee does not believe that statement! Like Clarence Thomas before him, Ben Carson thinks that one only need to focus and work hard, no matter what your circumstances, and you can achieve greatness. 13th intercuts video from Trump rallies with Civil Rights footage, and they are eerily familiar: shoving Black people, spitting on them, blindsiding them with a forearm shiver --- scenes we may have thought were ancient history but which we may again be seeing on the nightly news. Trump’s declaration that he is the “Law and Order candidate”, while encouraging his supporters to “get him out of here,” or telling a rally that “guys like that would be carried out on a stretcher” or “I loved the old days, in the good old days they’d rip him out of that seat so fast. . . law enforcement acted a lot quicker than this.” We can only wonder what might be in store for us as a nation and for the minority population in particular.

Watching 13th made me think about Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, a brilliant philosophical/historical tract about the evolution of the modern prison system. The book starts with a primary source account of a torturous public punishment where the convicted criminal is physically ripped apart, first by a pincer-wielding executioner and then quartered by a team of six horses pulling in different directions. Far more gruesome than the public lynchings in early 20th century America but certainly conveying the same message. Foucault continues to show how the “modern” prison developed first as a place where the state totally controlled your body but evolved in such as way that, as Foucault argues quite persuasively, it ultimately also imprisons your soul. Your very spirit is defeated by the system. I originally read Discipline and Punish because the parallels --- which Foucault is quite explicit about at times --- to the modern schoolhouse are striking --- particularly in the notions of controlling the body and spirit of the “inmates.” What 13th presents is an extension of Foucault’s treatise, illustrating that the state’s power to imprison goes far beyond the confining walls of the institution, that it creates the idea that there is a permanent “criminal” class in our midst (and, DuVernay points out, some Blacks believe this, too). That class, the descendents of the kidnapped Africans brought to North America against their will and brutally enslaved for 246 years, then virturally enslaved for another century are now the victims of systematic incarceration and criminalization that denies the equal rights of citizenship in this country.

As we look toward Friday and the peaceful transfer of power from the first African-American President who was mercilessly and baselessly harassed by the man who is now his successor, we can only wait and see what will transpire. Of course, this is not new to Black people. Van Jones, the CNN pundit, when discussing the inherent racism of America, notes: “We don’t know the next iteration, but we have to be vigilant.” For those of us “race traitors” who believe it is our obligation to support all our fellow citizens, we, too, have to be vigilant.

Monday, January 16th
Blast #122

Yikes!
Where the Hell Did
That Half-Century Go?

   On January 15, 1967, I was sitting in the insulated sun porch at Billy Harrison’s house on the Brightwaters Canal on the South Shore of Long Island. It was a Sunday afternoon and Billy, Michael Lynch, and I had gathered to watch the first ever “Super Bowl” (though it was not called that yet). The Green Bay Packers of the National Football League were about to play the Kansas City Chiefs (formerly the Dallas Texans) of the American Football League. The three of us were 17 years old (Billy & I would turn 18 in May, Michael in October), we hadn’t yet registered for the draft and we were all waiting to hear from various colleges to see where we would be in September. Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive and well, as was Robert Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson was president and the Vietnam anti-war movement was just heating up. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band wouldn’t be released until June 1st and America, in my eyes, was still a pretty bright and shining place, full of promise.

All that would change, of course, and it’s difficult to sort it all out when trying to view it through the miasma of a half-century. What does one remember clearly and what has been warped or embellished by the years?   Worse, what is totally forgotten? I had hardly taken a drink by 1967 and drugs were still awaiting me in the years ahead --- who knows how that has addled the recollections. But fifty years in a person’s life is a pretty long stretch of time and the world always undergoes serious changes in a half-century.

Trying to put it in perspective, having been born in 1949, I can conveniently set up a simple comparative. How much did the world (particularly the United States of America) change between 1901 and 1950? Similarly, I can look at what the changes were from 1949 to 2000 --- but more particularly 1967 to 2017 --- with my personal point of view deftly inserted. Taking the broad view, the U.S. went from an “emerging” international power (politically, economically, militarily) in 1901 to a “superpower” by 1950. The nation experienced two World Wars, a Great Depression, and dropped two atomic bombs in that time --- that’s a hell of a half-century. The advances in technology were staggering: the personal automobile, heavier than air flight, the radio morphing into television, with an array of home appliances and office “tools” we now take for granted. The U.S., by 1950, was riding the crest of a wave that created a large (white) middle class and was just beginning to truly wrestle with its original sin (thank you, Jackie Robinson).   It was, by any account, a marvelous half-century and, by 1950, our parents’ generation, the “greatest generation” (a questionable moniker, but we’ll go with it for now) was striding forward and producing the Baby Boom --- erstwhile successors who are now limping into their Medicare and Social Security years.

Big Picture-wise, Baby Boomers have seen air travel evolve into space flight, the decline and resurrection of great cities, an explosion of the “entertainment” industry (sports, music, cinema, television, streaming), wars without end, economic roller-coastering and stunning political scandals. There’s more, of course, historically, politically, economically, militarily, etc. but I’m going to use this Blast to simply trace some highlights I recall between that first Super Bowl on January 15, 1967, and the NFL Divisional Playoffs of January 15, 2017. The easiest way to do that is to “chunk” time periods as they connected to my development over the last half-century (Yes, this is a totally self-indulgent Blast.)

1967-1973. After that first Super Bowl (the Packers won, 35-10) the world moved very quickly for me --- April 15th I was accepted to Yale and that changed my life forever (I was totally planning on going to Rutgers, where I had a nice scholarship offer). The years at Yale sped by --- playing football & lacrosse & intramural sports morphed into more and more political activism, including helping to organize the MayDay, 1970, protests in New Haven. (The Super Bowl highlight of this time, of course, was Joe Namath leading the Jets to victory in Super Bowl III and bringing about the merger of the two leagues.) The MayDay activity led to a summer job with the Yale Council on Community Affairs where I worked with people starting the New Haven High School in the Community (an “alternative” school) and my lifelong commitment to education started in earnest. I dodged the draft (high blood pressure), spent the year after graduation working as a carpenter’s apprentice and substitute teacher and then went to Colgate, in upstate New York, to get a Master of Arts in Teaching degree, landing a job at a brand new school in Rye Brook, New York, starting in September, 1973. I had also gotten married that June to a beautiful, intelligent, and lovely woman.

1973-1984. I worked at Blind Brook High School for eleven years and it was a great time in many ways --- great colleagues, honing my skill as a teacher, fabulous students, and coaching sports. I became far more interested in basketball and baseball than football and, while continuing to watch “The Super Bowl” every year, did not follow the NFL much at all. The first year teaching was the height of the Watergate scandal and we (my friends/colleagues & I) were pretty obsessed with the entire affair. As an American History teacher it was a perfect vehicle for teaching about the workings of the U.S. government and integrating history. As the 70s moved into the 80s and we lived through Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter’s malaise, WIN (Whip Inflation Now), gas shortage lines at the pump, and the election of Reagan (thanks to the Iranian Hostage Crisis, which created a 20 year gig for Ted Koppel) I discovered that I was not “the marrying type” (my marriage dissolved). Over time, as I grew older, I realized that for me (and maybe others?), when you’re in your 20s you are really trying to figure yourself out (who am I?) --- so taking on life with another person (who is doing the same thing) can be disastrous (let’s not even talk about bringing kids into that equation). In my 30s I was getting a real bead on my profession and becoming a pretty good teacher. By my 40s I had a pretty good handle on my personal/professional duality and clearly realized that I was more interested in my career and being able to pick and move at a moment’s notice than in being a “family man.” Wisdom comes slowly.

1984-1994. The beginning of the “urban years” for me. As the Reagan presidency proceeded into the Bush 41 administration, the Challenger had exploded, we ventured into Desert Storm, cable television was “uniting” national culture (to some degree) and we had begun using personal computers. I lived in Boston and then New York City. The Boston years were crazy --- working full time as a high school English teacher (and coach, and fall drama producer/director), teaching part time at a Greek Orthodox college, and bartending on Boylston Street three nights a week, plus Sunday Brunch . In 1987 I celebrated the Giants winning the Super Bowl and moved to NYC (teaching in the affluent suburb of Bronxville so I could afford my studio on West 75th Street) living through the Koch/Dinkins years --- rejoicing in a second Super Bowl win --- and leaving as Giuliani took over. For me, connecting with the Coalition of Essential Schools, a reform organization working out of Brown University, became the focus of obsessive work for the remainder of my career.

1995-2008. Like many of my generation, I was seduced by Slick Willy Clinton back in 1992 and hoped that a fellow Baby Boomer would bring about the kind of changes we were making so much noise about in the 1960s. As I watched Bubba move the Democrats more and more to the center of the political spectrum, I threw myself deeper into my work, helping to found a charter school (theparkerschool.org) and publishing a two-volume book on performance based assessment. I was also traveling around the country a lot, doing consulting, and marveled at the diversity this country possesses on so many levels --- geography, population, economy, topography. Teaching at Brown in the Education Department’s Teacher Preparation Program in Providence, Rhode Island, I was once again lucky to be working with great colleagues and students --- who taught me a little about social media as we moved into the age of the smart phone. We had survived 9/11 and were distressed by the “W” administration but tried to stay focused on how to make the public schools work better. As departmental political issues became more and more troublesome at Brown I decided (in 2007-2008) to return to Yale. It was interesting to see how much New Haven and my alma mater had changed (one for the better, the other less so). I enjoyed watching the Giants win another Super Bowl, hosting a party in my spacious New Haven apartment in 2008. Finally, though, after 13 years of teaching people to be teachers, I needed to see if I was, in fact, telling the truth. I believed it was time to go back into a high school classroom to make sure that I had been giving my student-teachers good advice.

2008-2014: Teaching in the New York City schools for my final six years as an educator was a wonderful and heartbreaking experience on almost a daily basis. The city itself, of course, was thriving and I lucked out by finding a great place on West 82nd St. off Broadway (thanks, housing crisis!). It was there I celebrated yet another Giants Super Bowl victory in 2012. My students and colleagues reinforced, every day, why I loved being a teacher. The dedication of my (far younger) colleagues and the energy of the students was compelling. As we moved into the Obama Years (I voted for him in Brooklyn in 2008, when I was living in Bed-Stuy. There was a long line at 6:00 a.m. --- everyone excited to be voting for the first black president) I was confronted with the inequities of a system that privileges some and deprives others daily. It’s not a matter of “throwing money” at the problem --- although I know our computer labs were nothing like the ones in the suburban schools I had taught in. That our students didn’t have wi-fi access or computers at home, that they went back to families who didn’t speak English after school, that many were only guaranteed decent meals at school, were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the challenges students and their teachers faced. What’s truly remarkable to me, and a genuine testimony to the human spirit, is how those kids and teachers show up every day to attempt to make the system work, trying to live out an American Dream they honestly believe in!

2014-2017: Despite all those glowing words, when the opportunity arose, in 2014, to retire (it all had to do with a contract settlement that had been “in negotiation” for SIX years --- five of which were ignored by Mayor Bloomberg!), I did. After 42 years in all varieties of classrooms, living up and down AmTrak’s Northeast Corridor, starting schools and writing books, it was time to take a break and reflect. Luckily for me, the Lovely Carol Marie was at a similar juncture in her life, so we are now living happily ever after. I had, over this fifty year span (1967-2017), seen every Super Bowl ever played --- with varying degrees of personal interest and emotional investment. It certainly has been interesting watching the NFL go from a sports league that couldn’t fill the Los Angeles Coliseum on January 15,1967, to become the Church of America with millions and millions of worshippers around the country attending "services" every Sunday. We’re 20 days out from the Super Bowl (but only 28 from pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training!) and I can guarantee I’ll have the game on come February 5th. Hell, I haven’t missed one yet so I’m not going to start now. It’s a national ritual and, as we head into the clearly uncharted waters of the Trump administration, the Super Bowl should provide the bread and circus we need.

Sunday, January 15th
Blast #121

NYT “Vows” Section

If you are familiar with the Sunday New York Times you are undoubtedly aware the Sunday Styles section always contains the “Vows” segment --- the wedding announcements for couples tying the knot (or about to) in the New York metropolitan area. The former mayor of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke, introduced me to this part of the Sunday Times when we were freshman at Yale in 1967. Our Sunday morning ritual, initiated and overseen by future Mayor Schmoke, was to go through the wedding announcements and tally how many Yale graduates were getting married, as compared to how many men (remember it was 1967, Yale was still an all-male institution) from Harvard were getting hitched. It was fun and funny and we enjoyed our sarcastic “we’re better than this” counter-cultural moment each week.

David Brooks in the 2000 book, Bobos in Paradise, a sociological look about bourgeois bohemians (“bobos), which begins brilliantly but then fizzles into homilies, starts his study by describing the state of the “Vows” page in the 1990s. Brooks notes that the Times wedding announcements, through the 1950’s, was confined to “noble birth and breeding," focusing on family lineage, prep schools, and inherited wealth. As the “Vows” section became less popular due to the cultural shifts of the 1960s the Times struggled to break from the old and figure out “the new.” Until the “bobos” of the 1990s (successors to the yuppies of the 1980s), that is, who changed the landscape of the wedding announcements. According to Brooks, “when you look at the Times wedding page, you can almost feel the force of the mingling SAT scores. It's Dartmouth marries Berkeley, MBA weds Ph.D., Fulbright hitches with Rhodes, Lazard Freres joins with CBS, and summa cum laude embraces summa cum laude (you rarely see a summa settling for a magna - the tensions in such a marriage would be too great). The Times emphasizes four things about a person - college degrees, graduate degrees, career path, and parents' profession - for these are the markers of upscale Americans today." (Chapter One, Bobos in Paradise) And the announcements do, in fact, follow a simple formula: a photo of the happy couple, then a paragraph announcing the wedding date and place, as well as the official conducting the ceremony. That is followed by two paragraphs about the bride --- the first describing her age, occupation, and educational background, the second a description of her parents and their occupations. The next two paragraphs describe the bridegroom (or partner, in our age of same-sex marriages) the same way: age, current occupation, educational background and then a paragraph on family. The final paragraph usually describes how, where, and when the couple met. A simple formula and a fun read for a snowy Sunday morning in January 2017.

As I perused today’s announcements I jokingly said to the Lovely Carol Marie, “You know, we should have sent an announcement to the Times when we got married.” She, of course, laughed heartily and agreed: “How could we have forgotten to do that?” So, since we failed to do it then, I’m going to post it here in the Sunday, January 15, 2017 Blast, for the entire world to read and enjoy.

  Carol Bjork Elefante Lacerenza Mathews Bjork,
  Wilbur Johnson, Jr.

Carol Bjork Elefante Lacerenza Mathews Bjork and Wilbur Johnson, Jr. were married on October 26, 2014 in Norwalk, Connecticut, outdoors and overlooking the fragrant Norwalk River. The ceremony was officiated by Ms. Bjork’s brother, Eric, who is, we believe, a Justice of the Peace in Easton, Connecticut. Only immediate family members attended the simple ten-minute exchange of vows.

            The bride, 64, married 3 previous times (never a widow) will not be taking her husband’s name. She is a retired educator, having worked 25 years in the public schools of Stamford, Connecticut with the last five serving as the Assistant Principal at Westhill High School, withstanding enormous amounts of grief from the schools’ students and parents over that time. Ms. Bjork also founded a very successful charter school (Trailblazers) in Stamford, CT. She received a B.A. & M.A. from Sacred Heart University (Fairfield, CT), as well as a Sixth-Year Degree after a sketchy start at Centenary College in New Jersey in the late 1960s and a checkered career in the private sector. This is her fourth marriage (hence the numerous last names in the announcement above) and her daughter, Jessica, and son, Mark, as well as her four grandchildren, are all hoping this will her final foray into the swamps of matrimonial bliss.

            Ms. Bjork is the daughter of the late Ruth (Nelsen) Bjork of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, (Miss Brooklyn, 1943)and the late Merwyn (Mal) Bjork, also of Brooklyn. The bride’s mother was a homemaker in the “Ozzie and Harriet” years and, later, a secretary. Her father was a business executive who tragically died in a plane crash outside of Cincinnati, OH in 1965. Mr. John Covington, a prominent corporate accountant ,was the bride’s stepfather for 32 years before passing away in Florida in 2005.

Mr. Johnson, 65, is also a retired educator, having plied his trade in numerous venues starting in the early 1970s. Mr. Johnson was a public, secondary school teacher in Rye Brook, NY, Winchester, MA, Bronxville, NY, Devens, MA (where he co-founded one of the first charter schools in that state), and Manhattan (at two different schools). He also taught at Brown University for 12 years and one year at Yale in the teacher preparation programs. Mr. Johnson received a B.A. from Yale in 1967 (with no honors) and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Colgate in 1973. He completed the coursework for an Ed.D. at Columbia but failed to write a dissertation, joining the thousands who never quite clear that last hurdle. This is his second marriage, having been widowed in 1997.

            Mr. Johnson’s mother, Grace (DiGangi) Johnson, 89, lives in Stroudsburg, PA and was a homemaker and secretary for a variety of civil service agencies during her “career.” His late father, Wilbur, Sr., was a policeman, auto mechanic, auto parts & service manager, a drill core operator for New York State and a stoic presence in the household.

            The couple met in 1991 (when Ms. Bjork was called “Carol Lacerenza”) in Providence, Rhode Island. While they both describe there initial encounter during a week long school reform institute as “electric,” they put off engaging in a serious relation for 21 years because of personal confusion, Mr. Johnson’s peripatetic lifestyle and Ms. Lacerenza’s child-rearing responsibilities (which Mr. Johnson has neither the talent, interest, nor ability for). They remained close friends over those 21 years, often working together and even spending parts of holiday seasons in each other’s company. Ms. Bjork was particularly fond of Mr. Johnson’s longtime companion, Jack, the Black Lab, who passed away in 2012.

            Since the nuptials the couple has lived happily ever after in Norwalk, CT, with Mr. Johnson trying to crank out “the Blast,” an attempt at humor and commentary on a website/blog page while Ms. Bjork dotes on her children and grandchildren as much as possible and puts up with Mr. Johnson, whose primary contribution to the relationship was bringing along Haley, the mixed breed mutt formerly belonging to his mother.

Friday, January 13th
Happy Triskaidekaphobia!
Blast #120

   A Guide for the Middle Class

As the wealthiest President prepares to take office, many of us are still reeling from the 2016 campaign, concerned over the divisions in our society. We heard a great deal about the “middle class,” starting in the primaries, and the concern over their plight continues to draw the attention of the media and politicians. According to CNN Money in “What is middle class, anyway?” (http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/what-is-middle-class-anyway/) we can use any number of characteristics to define who, exactly, is in the “middle class.” Using income, wealth, consumption, aspiration, or demographics CNN says you can render your own definition of “middle class” --- but I’m going to recommend a way you can create a scale to personalize a definition that will put you on the “middle class” spectrum.

Here's a simple criteria for gauging where you are on the “middle class” continuum. Now, if you’re rich, you know it. Believe me, I went to Yale, taught in Bronxville, New York, and lived in New York City, so I’ve seen rich people in their natural habitats. And if you’re poor, you pretty much know that, too. But “middle class?” What exactly is it? Here’s a pretty simple way to figure it out (assuming you know you’re not rich or poor). Two simple questions can help you figure out your status.

#1. What is it I do that rich people don’t?
#2. What is it I do that poor people don’t?

Looking at the first question, here are some of the items I came up with that I’m pretty sure I do that rich people do not (ever) do. For example, I look at my checking account balance every day (to make sure I know where my “break point” is). Or, I’m pretty sure rich people don’t cut out coupons to go grocery shopping (and certainly don’t return their bottles for the 5 cents each). My guess is that not (m)any rich people get their oil changed at Valvoline (with a $5 coupon from the internet). And I doubt you’ll see many rich people riding that #1 Train or the M11 bus, my preferred modes of travel in NYC. Do rich people only eat at “fine dining” establishments during NYC Restaurant Week, as I do? One's lack of membership in Tennis, Golf, Country, and other “clubs” might also be a clear indication you are not rich. If you get your theater tickets through the Theater Development Fund ($34 yearly membership fee), you probably aren’t rich, either. If you’re always looking for that Senior Discount on the first Tuesday of the month at Walgreens, you’re probably not a 1%er. Finally, if you are like me and have never owned anything larger than a car --- no house, no property, no equity --- you can make a pretty solid case for not being rich.

If you run through that criteria, as we just did, it’s easy to conclude: “You are not rich.” But does that make you “middle class?” Maybe not. What you need to do is put that list of items into high relief with a similar inventory of what you do that poor people don’t (or, more appropriately can’t) do. For example, I told my brother years ago that one distinguishing characteristic of wealth (or lack thereof) is teeth. Dental care is expensive and it doesn’t take a genius to see that going to the dentist is not something poor people can do (and I can). In the same way, the Lovely Carol Marie and I take a vacation every year --- and stay at hotels --- a luxury poor folks can’t afford.   Making car payments with little or no stress, going to live theater, sports, music events on a regular basis (not with those primo seats that rich folks get, of course, but we’re there), taking a cab if we really need to --- these are "luxuries" no genuinely poor person can afford. Eating at the local diner at least once a week, not worrying about heat in the winter or a/c in the summer, are the comfortable “middle class” amenities that many poor people do not have. Shopping regularly at Trader Joe’s is not something a poor person is be able to do.    Finally, I own a Macbook, iPhone, and an iPad Pro --- a lot of technology worth a pretty nice chunk of change. Of course that’s nothing to the rich, but it’s out of reach for the poor, so that puts me right there in the middle, doesn’t it?

So, as we are about to enter a period of “wealth ascendant” and we keep hearing about how much help the “middle class” needs, how they have been overlooked and “left behind.” Let’s make sure we clarify our terms and focus on who, exactly, we’re talking about. My guidelines for being “middle class” aren’t ironclad, of course --- in fact, they are totally personal and probably a bit frivolous but the underlying issue here is serious and important. There’s no doubt that there are “middle class” people facing challenges and struggling with problems but more than 45 million people (14.5% of our population) live below the poverty line ($24,300 per annum for a family of 4). As a member of the middle class, I aspire to living even better than I do but I believe we, as a society, need to think about how to help those who are suffering under the weight of crushing poverty. I’m not talking about some social welfare system on steroids but finding ways to deliver quality education and decent, safe housing to the millions trapped in what seems an endless cycle of poverty. I know this sounds like a classic “bleeding heart liberal” screed but we know that the gap between the top 1% (as well as "the rich," & the "very rich") and the rest of us has continued to grow as the 21st century has progressed. So, whether you are “middle class” or “rich,” where do you want to see us go, as a society, and how do you want us to get there?

Thursday, January 12th
Blast #119

Pretty Funny-ish

We do not watch much broadcast television (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox). Our viewing leans toward NetFlix, HBO, sports, PBS, and documentaries. Before November 8th we were addicted to MSNBC and CNN but --- and this is the honest truth --- we have not watched one minute on those stations since November 9th. And last night’s episode of black-ish on ABC provided the explanation for our behavior, but also brought a lot more to the table.

While I have seen a few episodes of black-ish we are not regular viewers by any means. Any allegiance we may have is based on the fact that Larry Wilmore, one of our political comedy heroes, is a co-creator of the show with Kenya Barris (no relation to Chuck). However, in my Wednesday morning New York Times reading ritual, I checked out their “What’s On Wednesday” list of television programming. The first show summarized (with a photo --- above right) for last evening was black-ish and their summary read as follows:

Dre and his colleagues find they can’t get any work done after the
presidential election. And Pops gives a history lesson when Junior is
asked to deliver the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”
speech at his school in his role as class president.

Knowing the show has a reputation for tackling tough (particularly racial) issues, I thought it would be worth watching and made sure I was tuned to ABC at 9:30 p.m. If you didn’t happen to see it, I recommend you “On Demand” it and watch it.

The episode, entitled “Lemons,” is a bit didactic at times but does manage to blend comedy with some very serious talking --- and thinking --- points. The 2016 election storyline revolves around three set pieces, the two mentioned in the NY Times blurb (work & school) as well as scenes between Tracee Ellis Ross (Mom, “Rainbow”) and Yara Shahidi (older daughter, Zoey) in which Zoey is making homemade lemonade for the “Healing Rally” that will be held at the older kids’ prep school, where Junior will be making the King speech. We open in the present day --- January, pre-inauguration --- but flash back to Election Day and its immediate aftermath in Dre’s workplace, which sets up the “teachable moments” in that setting. The “school” segment involves the brilliant Laurence Fishburne (granddad “Pops”) informing Junior that the “I Have a Dream” speech included much more than the signature statement everyone tends to remember and was, in fact, quite an indictment of white society. Throughout the show we get powerful black and white documentary images of the Civil Rights movement.

The “home” segment, involving the lemonade, includes a great exchange between Ross and Shahidi in which Mom tries to find the “meaning” in her daughter’s creation of the lemonade (“Like, when you get lemons, you make lemonade?” “No.” “Ah, like Beyonce’s statement ‘Lemonade’ about female empowerment?” “No.”) Zoey explains, quite eloquently, that it’s about the “love” that goes into making the drink and sharing it with everyone. Not quite a bludgeoned lesson (but close) yet this cast (and Barris’s writing) make it quite palatable.

Similarly, Pops’s exchanges with Junior (as the old man sips his scotch, at one point offering it to the teen and then pulling it away in a beautiful piece of business by Mr. Fishburne) about the King speech are clearly intended to inform the (predominantly white?) audience about the heart and soul of King’s speech. Without going into great detail, Pops teaches Junior that the speech was mostly about that “promissory note” the Founders had written and never cahsed. The old man points out that Martin’s speech had quite a bit of “Malcolm” in it, inspiring the youngster to give a stirring rendition of the speech (with Dre in attendance), knowing its full meaning, to close the episode.

The bulk of the program takes place in Dre’s office, at the advertising agency he works for. The seven characters involved --- 3 whites & 4 Blacks --- all represent a separate political point of view, characterizing the election through these different lenses: Peter Mackenzie (Mr. Stevens), the head of the agency and a Republican who didn’t vote for Trump, Jeff Meacham is Josh, the young white liberal, Catherine Reitman (Lucy) is the white girl who voted for Trump and then Allen Maldonado as Curtis, plays the young Black man, Deon Cole (Charlie) is the older, ill-informed Black man, and Wanda Sykes as Daphne portrays the older (somewhat angry) Black woman. Dre, of course, is the central character in the show, a 40-ish well-educated, creative Black man who is wrestling with being Black in a white world (hence, the shows title) --- “making it” financially (his wife is a doctor), sending their kids to “good” prep schools, living in the “right part” of town, but not wanting to lose the “hard core” Black identity his father (Fishburne ) represents.

The “office” segment of the episode revolves around the fact that a big account landed on November 8th has lain fallow well into January as a casualty of the hangover from the Clinton loss. We get flashbacks from Nov. 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th to show the paralysis that has overtaken the office. Finally, their “pitch” meeting with the client is due and the advertising team has to kick it in gear to get it all ready to go. Before that can happen, however, the air must be cleared: who was “responsible” for Trump winning (Black people & white women are candidates) and why would anyone vote for Trump? (Lucy provides a credible answer) and what can we do going forward? These scenes are the heart of the show’s deeper content and they work. Barris states in this morning’s NYTimes, “We wanted to tell an honest story that there are two sides to this, and it’s not about my opinion or Anthony’s opinions. As a show, we were trying to show the opinions the country has on both sides.” And they do it very well (even if it is, at times, a bit didactic).

There is still comedy amid the sturm und drang (the whole notion of the school’s “Healing Rally” is quite humorous --- very SoCal, very entitled, very funny) which speaks to the quality of the show and Barris’s writing. I know there were episodes during the election season that took on police brutality and the Trump campaign and, after watching “Lemons,” I’m probably going to check out the “On Demand” viewing option. The final point of “Lemons” is that we need to begin a dialogue with those we don’t agree with ---- that, in fact, we’ve ended up in this situation because that dialogue ceased a while ago (with the election of a Black president?) and is something we desperately need as we go forward.

Wednesday, January 11th
Blast #118

The Bourne Presidency

For fans of the Robert Ludlum/Eric Van Lustbader/Matt Damon Jason Bourne franchise you’ll be glad to know that a novel outlined by Ludlum years ago and drafted by Van Lustbader might finally see the light of day --- and, eventually, a theater in your neighborhood. The Bourne Presidency is an arcane thriller which has the eponymous hero globe-trotting between New York, Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington, D.C., as he tracks down the devious agents working for the KGB and its malevolent leader, Sergei Hadinov. Ludlum’s outline (written just before his death in 2001) was set in the fall of 2008 with its centerpiece being the U.S. Presidential election of that year.

In Ludlum’s fictitious world one of the candidates for President is a self-made millionaire who became popular hosting a television show, So, You’d Like to be Rich? which pitted contestants against each other to execute demeaning tasks for “the Boss” in hope of winning his favor and a million dollars. The millionaire, Richard Crass, had been a well-known public figure in New York City before his television success, having built an empire when he got in on the ground floor of the cable broadcasting monopoly granted by the City in the early 1980’s. He had a reputation as a bon vivant man-about-town and had been through several marriages but, according to Ludlum’s outline, the country in 2008 was ready for a radical change and Richard Crass had been publicly railing about the government and public figures for almost a decade, even suggesting the current president had fostered some “mulatto” children in his youth. Running against the first African-American female candidate (Morgana Freedman), no holds are barred and the country takes a turn down some dark roads, electing Crass by a slim margin in the Electoral College (though he loses the popular vote!).

And that’s where the novel picks up steam (as fleshed out by Van Lustbader). During the election the C.I.A. suspected that the Russians were tampering with information --- hacking government sites, using the Internet to disseminate false information, and planting operatives at rallies and press conferences to disrupt the proceedings. As other intelligence agencies are brought in to investigate it starts to become clear that the Russians are trying to tip the scales for Crass. In a related subplot, there is a flashback to the Mogul spending time in Moscow and striking multi-million dollar deals to deliver cable television & internet to the Russian people, while cozying up to the Russian President, Gregori Volkov --- with Hadinov always lurking in the background. During the presidential campaign, Crass made statements that concerned many old Cold Warriors and intelligence professionals because of his favorable comments about Russia and Volkov.

In January of 2009, shortly before the inauguration, Ludlum’s/Van Lustbader’s plot kicks into high gear. The combined U.S. intelligence agencies reveal that the Russians not only interfered in the U.S. election in November but also had some very “delicate” information about the president-elect (involving finances and sexual activity) that could throw the new administration into unprecedented turmoil, de-stabilizing the entire United States government and political system! Enter Jason Bourne. Secretly traveling to Moscow, Bourne learns that Hadinov’s right hand man, Alexander Otsho, has been behind the entire plot and now controls the information that could send the Free World plummeting toward catastrophe. Even as Bourne finds the president-elect a despicable and arrogant womanizing egomaniac, he has a duty to protect and serve his country at all costs --- and he does.

Hop-scotching the globe, from Moscow to London to Paris to Istanbul, Bourne pursues the calculating Otsho, just missing him at each stop. Knowing that Otsho is planning on releasing the most crushing information on January 19th, the pressure mounts on Bourne to catch him as the days tick by. A furious chase in New York ending in Otsho’s base-jumping leap off Crass’s 55 story headquarters in the Financial District leaves Bourne cooling his heels and having to delve into the devious mind of his opponent to anticipate the final move.
The chilling final scenes occur in Washington, D.C. on January 19th and I won’t reveal the ending here but I will note that it is unlike any other Bourne novel or movie we have seen. In its art-reflects-life aspects, this is a timely Bourne story, of course, and it should make us take a step back and consider what might happen if, in fact, a foreign power actually manipulated an American election so that their chosen candidate would win --- and then be blackmailed into submission! How de-stabilizing would that be for the United States and how would we cope with such an impossible story? Only from the mind of a Ludlum/Van Lustbader novel, of course, could such a crazy plot emerge. Can’t wait to see how Damon and Paul Greengrass adapt it --- see you at the movies!

Tuesday, January 10th
Blast #117

My Kind of Town

   One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.
Tom Wolfe

   Whoever is born in New York is ill equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem,
at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent.
   James Baldwin

For me, New York is comfortable, not strange.
  Karl Lagerfeld

When I lived in New York City I used to describe it this way: Everyday, when I walk outside, I feel like I’m in a movie that someone forgot to give me the script to --- so I have to spend the rest of my day improvising, working with others to make sense of the story we’re in today. Having now been exiled to the Connecticut suburbs for several years, I miss the city but we go in as often as possible --- to see friends or shows (music, drama, comedy) or sporting events (baseball, basketball). Monday night we went to the iconic 92nd Street Y (Lexington & 92nd Street on the Upper East Side) for “A Celebration of E.L. Doctorow,” with readings from noted writers TaNehisi Coates, Jennifer Egan, and Don DeLillo.   Since Coates and DeLillo are particular favorites of the Lovely Carol Marie and mine, we were anticipating an interesting evening --- and we were not disappointed.

One might think that going to an auditorium to listen to other people read aloud is not the most exciting way to spend an evening. In fact, it is an age-old tradition and when it occurs in New York City I would contend it is an extraordinary event --- because of the talent New York attracts and the audience that will show up. Where else, I would ask, can you attract almost 1,000 people on a raw & frigid Monday night to hear a trio of excellent writers reading the words of another writer? Yet New York does this all the time. And to have three New Yorkers (Coates was born in Baltimore and Egan in Chicago but both have lived in Brooklyn long enough now to be New Yorkers --- just read the Tom Wolfe quote above) reading from the works of a writer whose narratives capture, like no other, the City at various historical junctures in its development is a genuine treat.

Part of the wonder associated with an event like this, for me, is the people watching that is integral to the experience. Lord knows, if you are going to be in the daily New York Movie you need to be a careful observer of your cast-mates who may, at any given moment, throw you a line! Here are my hastily scribbled notes, taken as the Kaufman Auditorium was filling up between 7:00 & 7:30 p.m. on January 9th.

A mixed crowd, leaning toward the older --- very, very white, except for the hipster (20ish) couple yammering to our right. She (black) sipping on a drink (with a straw) and tittering, he, a ginger with a Rollie Finger’s waxed moustache, smiling oafishly and drinking from his sippy cup, too --- non-stop talking since arriving (first date?)

30-ish guy on immediate left reading what appears to be a paperback novel entitled Authority (I find out later these are X-File-ish sci-fi books). 30/40ish couple in front of us next to a Dad & very preppy son.

Everyone is in their bulky winter wraps & accompanying silly hats. An East Side Lady in full-length fur with parka-ed friend arrive (40-ish) . . . LOTS of bald men --- more fur arrives (3/4 length on a 60-ish matron with hubby in tow)…lots of dyed hair, mostly blonde but some shoe-polish black, too …Some professorial East Side gents and many older couples. A gaggle of what can only be East Side Book Club Damsels/Dames.

Many 40ish bespectacled couples….white and gray hair sprinkles the auditorium like altocumulus clouds . . . The balcony is filling up and this is truly an NYC phenomena --- capacity here must be almost 1,000 and it’s going to almost fill up!

And then, the program began. A man named John Greenwood, whose family sponsors these readings (this was the 3rd Annual Greenwood Reading) gave a short introduction to a wonderful tape recording of E.L.Doctorow (when he was right there at the 92nd St. Y in 2009) telling a story of how, at Bronx Science High School, he took a journalism class and, for an interview assignment, managed to write about talking to “Carl,” the doorman at Carnegie Hall --- and how Carl was acquainted with all the great conductors and musicians who performed there. The journalism teacher was so impressed with the piece that she wanted to put it in the school newspaper and asked Doctorow if he could accompany a student photographer to Carnegie Hall to take Carl’s picture for the school paper as well. At that point, young E.L. had to admit to the teacher that he had made up the entire story! “It was so much more interesting than the tedious business of interviewing,” he explained --- and there was the beginning of one of the great chroniclers of New York City.

New York City, for me, is the greatest teacher in the world. Your entire time on the streets of New York, in its theaters and auditoriums, at its arenas and ballparks, are teachable moments if you’re looking for them. So, when TaNehisi Coates came out to a wall of applause last night, I was ready to learn something, and I did. He explained how E.L. Doctorow was influential and inspirational to him as a writer --- and then shared some ideas that, as an aspiring writer, I thought were extremely useful and important. He likened Doctorow to the best writers in the “Golden Age of Hip-Hop” when he (Coates) was growing up. The novelists and hip-hop artists of the '90's were both great at “sentence-crafting,” using emotion, feeling and rhythm to drive their work. “Sentence crafting is a lost art,” Coates said, “the rhythm of a sentence” is seldom the goal of today’s writers. He then explained that “how sentences are organized, long and short, etc.” determine the power and effectiveness of a piece of writing --- and Coates believed Doctorow was a master of that. He then read a segment from Waterworks, a lesser-known Doctorow novel, and the natural glee in Coates’s reading, interrupting himself to say, “How did he think of that?”, was wonderfully ingenuous and endearing.

Jennifer Egan, a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist (A Visit from the Goon Squad), described the debt she owed to Doctorow by teaching through example how a historical novel could go beyond the simple research and “telling” of a story. Her reading from Ragtime illustrated her point, as the opening chapter she selected introduces not just characters but the world of early 20th century America (particularly around NYC) and seamlessly weaves historic events with Doctorow’s fiction in a fashion that can only be described as brilliant.

Don DeLillo, the reclusive novelist, took a little time to describe the late-in-life friendship he and Doctorow developed. Looking a bit frail (he’s 80), with a voice that is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s rasp, DeLillo talked about the “energy of language” that Doctorow infused in his work, how “the word ‘and’ serves as a kind of hinge that generates the narrative.” That kind of insight, that writer’s insight to another writer, are the moments you wait for, the little pearls you put in your pocket as you leave the auditorium. Doing a “free-form” reading of excerpts from Billy Bathgate, the Bronx native DeLillo clearly enjoyed reading about his home borough as Doctorow portrayed it. He chose passages that highlighted the novelist’s keen eye for detail and wonderful sense of humor. Finishing with a simple “Thanks,” DeLillo closed his folder and ambled stage right, stopping briefly to acknowledge and wave to the audience, a totally endearing gesture from a brilliant and humble writer in what could be one of his last public appearances (for all we know).

The evening of "listening"/learning was incredibly energizing and we hit the cold street with our minds racing --- ideas bouncing around, thoughts flying here and there. Cold though it was, we also were commenting on the walk down Lexington Avenue, how it was so different from our “home turf” on the Upper West Side (and not as good, in our eyes) --- yet it just increased the wonder that always accompanies our time in New York. For us, it’s all summed in a Robert DeNiro quote:

I go to Paris, I go to London, I go to Rome, and I always say, “There’s no place like New York.”
  It’s the most exciting city in the world now. That’s the way it is. That’s it.”

Monday, January 9th
Blast #116

Around the World
with
Meryl Streep

If you didn’t watch the Golden Globes you really didn’t miss much. As predicted, La La Land, a wildly overrated “old wine in new bottles” musical, ran away with the field and some other predictable winners were announced. The showstopper of the evening, as she often has been throughout her career, was Meryl Streep, who received a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” After a glowing introduction from Viola Davis, along with an array of clips from Streep movies that reminded us of what a long and varied career “Dame” Streep has had (Sophie’s Choice to Mama Mia and the like!), Meryl took time to enumerate what a wonderful melting pot Hollywood is.   She scanned the room and enumerated who was there and where they were from, emphasizing how the diversity in the film/television industry is what makes it so compelling and powerful. And then she shifted gears and, without naming “he who shall not be named,” drew a bead on Washington and issued the following statement.

They gave me three seconds to say this, so: An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us, and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that. Breathtaking, compassionate work.
But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good, there was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose. O.K., go on with it.

O.K., this brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call him on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in the Constitution. So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood Foreign Press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, because we’re gonna need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.

One more thing: Once, when I was standing around on the set one day, whining about something — you know we were gonna work through supper or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me, “Isn’t it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor?” Yeah, it is, and we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight.

As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once, take your broken heart, make it into art.

            Now, we know Hollywood, in general, is a “liberal” place and we know Streep, in particular, has been an active progressive --- particularly in her support of Hillary Clinton in the past year. All that aside, as we approach January 20th and our peaceful transition of power, it is important to realize that we are entering a phase of American history that is truly untested waters. Yes, in 2008 Barack Obama was the first black man to be elected president --- but he was a rather predictable politician who, as we learned, erred on the side of caution (far too much, for my blood). What we are about to see in the next four years is impossible to predict, whether in the foreign or domestic realm. Based on what we have seen not just in the last 18 months but also in the last few decades, is that we will be led by a man who is thin-skinned and petty (his Twitter response to Streep – “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood” and “a Hillary flunky” -- was predictable), who cannot bear to be criticized, who is shockingly ignorant about domestic and world affairs, and who is nominating people like himself (that is, rich, white, older men) for his Cabinet.

            We can only hope that the press --- far beyond the Hollywood Foreign Press who sponsor the Golden Globes (see note below) --- will, in fact, do a far better job telling truth to power in the next few years than they did in the last two. It may be time, too, for citizens to become far more activist to insure our rights are protected and our voices heard as we proceed through the end of the twenty-teens.

A quick note on The Golden Globes:

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is comprised of 90 members who conduct interviews and try to view all the movies and television shows released in any given year. Scuttlebutt has it that these 90 are wined and dined ferociously by the nominated studios as the GG voting approaches. Certainly, some of their offbeat selections over the years (including this year’s awarding Best Supporting Actor to Aaron Taylor-Johnson/Nocturnal Animals over Mahershala Ali /Moonlight –WTF?) do lead to questioning their judgment. The Globes as predictors of Oscars are usually pretty good at forecasting nominations (which most of us can do at home with reasonable accuracy) but less so at winners. Keep in mind, the Oscars are voted on by thousands of members of the “Academy” and the Globes are selected by 90 kooky foreign journalists who happen to be living and working in Hollywood (which explains a world view that would love La La Land while also having the luxury of nominating it in the “Musical/Comedy” category --- remember Matt Damon won “Best Actor” in the Musical/comedy category last year for The Martian! --- and then selecting Moonlight (totally deserving!) as the best Drama. I’m just sayin’.

Saturday, January 7th
Blast #115

Weekend Potpourri

For 2017’s first weekend I’d like to use a “magazine” approach and present several topics in one Blast. This might become a weekly feature but it might just be a passing event --- we’ll see. This week will take a quick look at politics, culture (sports), and a personal idea. Enjoy!

The Moscovian Candidate

Well, it’s official --- the Russians, led by Vladimir Putin, very intentionally interfered with the 2016 presidential election, in support of Donald J. Trump’s candidacy. Despite that unanimous conclusion from the C.I.A., F.B.I., and the National Intelligence Agency, the president-elect, of course, still does not buy into the report’s statement of clear Russian hacking and manipulation. While we’ve come to accept Trump’s alternate universe thinking, there are deeper concerns we should have here. Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA, notes in the Saturday NY Times (Jan.7th), Mr. Trump’s repeated attacks on the C.I.A. (and other intelligence agencies) is not only bad for morale (Morell predicts wide scale resignations as Trump takes office) but also dangerous for our national security. If the president and the intelligence community are in an adversarial posture there is a great danger that our commander-in-chief will be operating without all the information necessary to make intelligent decisions in the best interests of the American people. If wide scale resignations do occur, as Morell predicts, we may also lose experienced agents around the world whose skill and connections are vital to U.S. security. Morell also notes that we need to maintain our intelligence alliances (with countries like Great Britain, for example) and Trump’s undermining the CI.A. may affect that, too.

     Finally, cozying up to Putin simply cannot be good for the long-term interests of the United States. Not to sound like a Cold Warrior but this is not Mikhail Gorbachev and it is not 1991. KGB Putin is a devious and crafty autocrat who clearly understands that flattering Trump works in Russia’s favor. Of course, the appointment of Rex Tillerson, winner of Russia’s “Order of Friendship” for his favorable oil dealings, as Secretary of State may be another cause for concern, particularly in concert with the hacking scandal. It all remains to be seen, of course, and we can hope for the best --- but I believe we should also fear for the worst.

It’s all a Fantasy World

I do not participate in any ”Fantasy” football or baseball leagues and am, by my own admission, relatively ignorant about what they are and how they work, though I have done some research over the years to try to figure out the appeal of such “leagues.” I only know a few people who participate in this growing industry ($26 billion in 2015) but I do, of course, have opinions about it --- and they are all negative.

            That “fantasy” sports (football, in particular) have fostered the growth of a huge online gambling industry (DraftKings, FanDuel, etc.) is the most blatant criticism I can offer, knowing thousands of people (mostly men, of course) are risking hard earned money to feed a gambling addiction that is encouraged by the easy access to online sites coupled with an advertising bombardment promising “instant” wealth. With the number of gambling addicts in this country growing, these sites are the last things we need. A November 22, 2015, NY Times report (“For Addicts Fantasy Sites can Lead to Ruinous Path” – Walter Bogdanich & Jacqueline Williams) noted:

Fantasy contests have become so popular, and their advertisements so ubiquitous, that gambling counselors say young children are now playing with their fathers or, in some cases, by themselves. Neva Pryor, who counsels gamblers in New Jersey, said that at a recent conference, teachers were saying that on Monday mornings, “all the students talk about is fantasy sports.”

That these sites are now being “legalized” means the sports betting “industry” will continue to make upwards of $20 billion each year --- often at the expense of those who can least afford it.

            What bothers me more about “fantasy” sports leagues, however, is how they work against the spirit of community that sports teams naturally engender. My colleague at Brown, Eileen Landay, could never understand the childlike devotion another colleague (Larry Wakeford) and I had for the New York Yankees --- referring to it as “tribal,” and I think there’s a great deal of truth to that. I can’t help but believe, though, that if Larry and I had been involved in a baseball “fantasy” league and had members of the Red Sox, Orioles and Blue Jays in our “fantasy” lineup, we would then root for those players to do well, quite possibly to the detriment of our beloved Yanks! By breaking team sports down to individual accomplishments (and statistics) there is an undermining of the basic philosophy of each sport --- and as the “manager” or “coach” of one’s “fantasy” team you become more invested in individuals than teams. There is something quite wrong with that equation and it is the second deep, black mark against “fantasy” sports in my book.

My Ideal App (and I Hope Someone is Developing It Right Now!)

         My guess is there is someone in Silicon Valley or Silicon Alley (NYC) already working on my “dream” app. As I grow older, my eyes (and mind) seem to tire more quickly than they used to when reading, causing me to put down a book sooner than I’d like at times. That got me to thinking about “books on tape,” of course, which led me down another path. For me, “books on tape” (or streaming, nowadays) are associated with being in the car and driving --- particularly a long distance (two or more hours). Reflecting on the drive to Florida and back that the Lovely Carol Marie and I made in 2014 --- seldom taking the Interstate and mostly using “blue highways” --- I began to think about what a wonderful combination those “books on tape” and a “virtual reality” road-trip might make, particularly for older people. When we visit my mother in her assisted-living facility in Pennsylvania there are always a dozen or so people (many in wheelchairs) watching television --- usually some mindless show an attendant has put on. That got me to thinking: wouldn’t it be great if each of these people had a Virtual Reality headset with some nice ear buds so that they could take a “trip” (like our drive) and listen to a book (or music) of their choosing while they “traveled?” It seems we could equip people with those headset cameras like Google Earth drivers use, to create Trip Content (here’s the NYC to Montreal Road Trip or the Chicago to Seattle Road Trip, etc.) and we already have all the music and literary content we need. Personally, I know I would just bliss out sitting there, in my eighties, listening to the latest Richard Price novel and driving from Jacksonville to New Orleans --- now that’s a (virtual) life!

Friday, January 6th
Blast #114

   What George Said

For anyone who thinks Donald Trump’s scolding of the Republican Congress shows some sign of “hope” for the president-elect, please read Frank Bruni’s Wednesday (Jan.4) op-ed piece in the New York Times, Trump’s Disastrous Example. Bruni likens Trump’s congressional reprimand to “a crackhead dad fuming at his kids for smoking a little weed.” The larger point is that Trump’s tone --- and the messages he has been sending since Day One of his campaign --- has emboldened the lesser angels of the Republican Party’s nature, as well as a certain segment of the populous. A Facebook posting by one of my former students (also Wednesday) showed grotesque graffiti scrawled on a Jewish headstone (F . . .ing Jew) as hate crimes reported in New York City doubled (compared to one year earlier) after the election. My grandfather, a Sicilian immigrant, loved to use the phrase, “The fish stinks from the head” when talking politics and we’re seeing a pretty clear example of it here. But I want to use this opportunity to illustrate how prescient our first president was when warning us about political parties.

George Washington, by any account, was a pretty amazing president (overlooking the slave-owning, of course). He created the office and many of his actions can be seen in the Chief Executive we know today. Washington instituted the cabinet (there’s nothing in the Constitution dictating Secretaries of this and that, Attorneys General, etc.). He insisted on a two-term tradition (only broken by FDR & then officially legalized by the 22nd amendment) to show that we were a democracy based on peaceful transitions of power. Washington also declared he would be called “Mr. President,” and not “your Excellency” or “your highness.” His shaping of the office was far-reaching and precedent setting and when he left office the presidency was an articulated head of state position. His contribution to the creation of the office is immeasurable. And his Farewell Address is still studied in every U.S. History class for the wisdom and foresight he shared with the new nation.

By the time Washington issued his Farewell Address in Philadelphia’s Daily Advertiser on September 19, 1796 political parties, led by Hamilton and Jefferson, were already well established. Nonetheless, the Founding Father offered his thoughts --- and particular concerns --- about the negatives associated with the creation of such parties. Consider this statement by our first president as he left office:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Certainly the election of 2016 was focused on “disorders and miseries” which were the result of “the spirit of revenge” in our political party system (not holding hearings on a Supreme Court Justice, attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, etc.) --- and now the Democrats will display “party dissension.” But it seems we have already moved toward Washington’s prediction that people, in the election of 2016, sought “security and repose in the absolute power of an individual.” Again, Washington’s foresight regarding “the chief of some prevailing faction (political party), more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.” (Italics & bold, mine) This certainly appears to be a description of what we witnessed November 8th. A candidate (certainly “more able” to manipulate the media) seeking to elevate himself, above all else, leveraged the political party system to deliver the presidency to himself.

            In the same vein, Washington issued this warning in the Farewell Address as well:

However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

If we consider this statement in light of what the House Republicans just attempted to do, Washington, again, seems to clearly see the long-term negative effects of political parties. Since the Obama election in 2008, in particular, the deep party divisions that started in earnest with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” in 1994 have come to reveal that “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men . . . subvert the power of the people.” The congressional vote to pull the teeth of an independent ethics investigator is simply a blatant manifestation of what we have in store for at least the next two years.

            Washington, while warning of the ills of political parties, also offered a prescription for action.

The common and continual mischief's [sic] of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion.

Our first Chief Executive, then, reminds us that it is in “the interest and duty of wise people to discourage and restrain it.” The barrage of phone calls and emails reacting to the congressional ethics bill, not Trump’s reprimand, caused the Representatives to reverse themselves. But this was a minor skirmish, a flare, a shot over the bow. We already saw, in the election, how “the door to foreign influence and corruption” was, indeed, opened (though the president-elect seems to prefer Julian Assange’s analysis over our own intelligence agencies).
It is amazing, really, how prescient Washington was 221 years ago.

            Of course, political parties couldn’t be stopped, even as Washington issued these warnings in 1796. Hamilton’s loose constructionist Federalists and Jefferson’s strict constructionist Democratic-Republicans had already built strong and committed followings. It is interesting that the basic philosophies instituted during the dawn of our Constitutional republic are still the basic threads that determine whether one is liberal (loose) or conservative (strict)(See "clarifying note," below). But the machinations of party politics have gone far beyond the philosophical and, beginning with the 1960’s, slowly frayed and divided us into more and more extreme caricatures of their original models. As we progressed through Carter’s malaise, Reagan’s revolution, and then the Clinton/ Bush years, culminating with the Obama administration, U.S. party politics became so divisive as to essentially destroy the political (governing) system, leaving the voting electorate and populous at large worlds away from what goes on in Washington, D.C. Trump may well want to “drain the swamp” --- and with good cause --- but it will be interesting to see how a self-aggrandizing narcissist of questionable moral character can lead these political parties to some kind of higher ground that will make the government actually work for the American people. In the long run, it may have taken 221 years to ultimately prove Washington right --- one more time.
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A clarifying note (in case people are rusty about U.S. political philosophy):

Loose contructionists believe the Constitution was intended to be a “living” document designed to be interpreted over time. For example, the 8th Amendment’s phrase “cruel & unusual punishment” would apply to the Death Penalty --- death is cruel & unusual and the Government should not kill people. The concept of implied meaning, due to historical change & ciricumstances, undergirds loose construction. (Loose leans toward liberal ideas with a large role for the Federal Government)

Strict construction is a literal reading of the Constitution --- if it says it, you do it; if it doesn’t say it, the State’s decide for themselves. So, when the 2nd Amendment says you have a “right to bear arms” there is no touching that clause.
The Constitution does not specifically say “no death penalty,” therefore, the States get to decide (NOT the U.S. Supreme Court)
(Strict leans toward conservative ideas with a belief in States' Rights over Federal power)

Thursday, January 5th
Blast #113

What’s in a Name?

I’ve written about team names before --- particularly those that don’t jibe once a franchise has changed locations (the “Utah Jazz” moving from New Orleans being the most obvious example). I caught a segment of an MLBTV show last week in which the commentators were discussing possible team name changes because of updated circumstances or locations and it got me thinking about how I might re-name franchises so that the team nickname became more appropriate for their 2017 setting --- politically, culturally, geographically, or historically.

What was being bandied about on MLBTV was the Los Angeles Dodgers name. The Dodgers, of course, got their nickname when they were in Brooklyn and the residents of that borough were “trolley-dodgers” --- people avoiding the mass transit in the streets. Clearly that isn’t applicable to 2017 Los Angeles. The discerning characteristic of today's Los Angeles is GRIDLOCK, so I was thinking a great name for the team might be the Los Angeles (Traffic) Jams. Just as “trolley” was dropped from Brooklyn’s original name, we could drop “traffic” from the new moniker and simply call the team, The Jams. Likewise, the NBA Lakers (having moved from Minneapolis --- but keeping their name), once dubbed Showtime (the James Worthy 1980’s group) might be better called “The Stars” (like the Walk of Fame) or the “Idols” (as movie stars are known . . . matinee idols).

If we move up the west coast, to San Francisco we know the NFL’s 49ers have a historically appropriate name, given the 19th century gold rush. Since we’re in the 21st century, however, and things have changed, it might be time to rejuvenate the franchise with a new nickname and what could be more appropriate, given the proximity of Silicon Valley, than to ring in the new San Francisco (Micro)Chips? If we continue up to Seattle, and stay with our NFL franchises, calling the football squad “Seahawks” doesn’t really characterize the national image of the city. We might want to consider manes like the Seattle Baristas, as homage to Starbucks, or the Seatlle Grunge, to keep Kurt Cobain’s spirit alive. The baseball team may want to use the name Slackers until they make it to a World Series.

We’ve already taken note that nothing could be more inappropriate than a team in Utah being called the Jazz. But how about this: The Utah (Choir) Boyz? Given that they are in the NBA the identification with the iconic Boyz in the Hood film cross-pollinated with the local Tabernacle Choir seems a stroke of genius. Why should the NFL’s Dallas franchise be the only ‘Boys on the block, right?

While we’re out west, two other teams that might want to reconsider their nicknames are MLB’s San Diego Padres and the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. In the Padres case, like the 49ers, we’re dealing with an historical reference (the Spanish colonization and “Christianizing” of the natives) that we might want to shed in 2017. It seems, given the aura of San Diego, that the Beachcombers, Windsurfers, or Forecasters (based on their incredible weather!) might be more appropriate names. As far as Arizona’s Cardinals go --- their original name, when the franchise started in Chicago, was the result of ordering maroon jerseys (like the University of Chicago) and having cardinal red jerseys delivered by mistake. The team kept the jerseys and adopted the nickname, keeping it through moves to St. Louis and then Phoenix. Looking at how, in other cities you have Lions and Tigers, Bears and Cubs, the NFL team may want to play off baseball’s Diaamondbacks with their Phoenix franchise and have the team become the Arizona Rattlers --- a more intimidating name for an NFL team.

While we’re in Arizona, the NHL team there is the Coyotes, which might be fitting for the area’s ecology but certainly leaves something lacking regarding a team on skates. Given the population of Phoenix, and the sport involved, it might be pretty cool to call the team the Arizona Snowbirds. Attendance might soar if they start their games at 6 pm after an all-you-can-eat $9.95 4:30-6:00 pm buffet. Oh, and while we’re in Phoenix, it’s pretty common knowledge the NBA Suns have tried to keep their team 50/50 white/black in terms of player personnel (for fan attendance purposes --- like Boston) so they might want to change their name from the Suns to the Phoenix Eclipse.

Today’s last segment focuses on a touchy nickname area --- those teams that use Native American oriented nicknames for their squads. You know whom we mean --- The Atlanta Braves, the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Redskins, the Golden State Warriors, the Kansas City Chiefs. In each case, it would be fairly easy to substitute an appropriate and clever new name, ending all controversy. The Redskins, who have the most vitriolic controversy, could easily become the Diplomats, or the Supremes (for the Court), which fans would love, I’m sure. With the Braves, Atlanta’s football and basketball teams are the Falcons and Hawks, so why not become the Owls --- another bird of prey but, like baseball itself, older and wiser. The Cleveland team could re-name itself for its best known tourist attraction and become the Rockers (for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, of course). The Chiefs, in Kansas City, could choose between the Jazz (which would be far more appropriate there than in Utah!) or, given that KC is Jesse James’s hometown, the Outlaws --- a pretty cool name. Finally, Golden State, which dragged its “Warriors” nickname all the way from Philadelphia, has many possibilities for nicknames. Hipsters might be a good one, the Start-ups would fit the current mood of the Bay Area and the Splashers matches the unofficial nickname of the Curry-Thompson led team. Historically, Bay Area teams have been called Seals, Oaks, and Missions but those don’t have the pizzazz a 21st century nickname needs.

There are a number of teams out there that could probably use renaming (the Phillies, the NBA's Spurs & Pelicans, the NHL's Islanders, Avalanche, & Sharks, and those teams that simply use colors --- Reds, Browns --- or socks --- Red, White) but I'll leave that up to reader recommendations or another, later Blast. Please send ideas to estreetbil71@gmaill.com. Thanks.

Wednesday, January 4th
Blast #112

Talking Heads Run Amok

Still in the thrall of Bowl Games and Week 17 of the NFL, I have to write one more “sports” Blast. With the turning of the New Year we heard a great deal about those artists, celebrities, politicians and newsmakers we “lost” during 2016. As a sports fan, the greatest loss we had was the retirement of Vin Scully and even a passing look at this weekend’s football insanity was ample proof that any moron can be a “sportscaster.” I’ve complained before about the New York Yankee broadcasters (gasbags and dimwits all) but I believe the football community deserves equal time on the subject and, having spent far more hours watching football over the New Year’s Holiday than I should have, it’s time to hold their feet to the fire.

Let’s start with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, the Fox Sports #1 NFL broadcast team. Watching a game while listening to the two of them confirms that they live in an alternate universe. Buck, who recently published a memoir entitled “Lucky Bastard,” wouldn’t even have a job if his father hadn’t been the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals --- and is enshrined in both the Baseball and Football Halls of Fame! “Lucky Bastard” indeed. Aikman is in the booth because he quarterbacked “America’s Team” to two Super Bowls in the early ‘90’s and is, therefore, an “expert” color commentator. The fact is, together, these two have an IQ (sports or otherwise) which strains to reach triple digits. Their cliché-riddled “commentary” is as vacuous as an overheard conversation on the M11 bus on 9th Avenue (which might actually be far more interesting, when I think about it). They prattle for two-plus hours every weekend, adding no insight to the game you are watching and often screwing up with their words, what you know you have just seen with your eyes (do they not have monitors to show what the viewers see?)! “Did he go out of bounds there, Troy? Do you think McAdoo will challenge that?” “Well, Joe, it’s hard to tell and I don’t know if the coach wants to risk his time out on that one.” Okay, we all can see that the receiver’s foot was clearly out of bounds --- but these two numbskulls think silence is the worst thing that can happen in a game. Someone should let them know it’s called television, not teletalking, so they would just leave us in peace.

And now, for some commentary on the Bowl game genuises. I’m not going to cite who the announcers were (because I didn’t write it down) but the following quotes (and the commentary they generate) are the result of watching The Capital One Orange Bowl (Florida State 33, Michigan 32), The Rose Bowl (USC 52, Penn State 49), The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl (Alabama 24, Washington 7) and the Playstation Fiesta Bowl (Clemson 31, Ohio State 0). Across the board --- and this holds for many NCAA basketball announcers, too --- could we please get these imbeciles to stop referring to “the young freshman” player? It would be news, indeed, if we were watching an old freshman but I believe we can assume, even if the athlete spent a year on the practice squad (redshirt) he is still only 19/20 years old and qualifies, automatically, as young. We can also do without hearing, time and again, about the “legendary programs” of Alabama, Ohio State, Penn State, USC, etc. the same way we do not need to hear that the Rose Bowl is the “granddaddy of them all.”

I heard some new nuggets this weekend that made me sit up and take notice (that is, write them down!). For example, there was this gem: “Your offensive line has to show up all four quarters.” Now, there’s a piece of insight I’m sure every coach in the country will be lapping up in the offseason! In the “Really?” department, the comment by an announcer that “I’m looking forward to seeing that (January 9th Championship) game” was a real "this just in bulletin" moment! Why should we have the slightest care or concern about what some dope that sits on his butt making inane commentary is “looking forward to?” But that’s how important these guys (and, yes, 100% of those in the booth are men --- women are relegated to “sideline interview” window dressing) think they are --- like we care about what they’re looking forward to! I also love the “code” spoken during the college games. Generally, when they go to great lengths to point out that someone is “a fine young man” that generally means --- no felony arrests (yet). Watching a few minutes of the beginning of the Allstate Sugar Bowl game the announcers went on and on about how Oklahoma’s star running back had really become an outstanding citizen after being suspended the entire previous season for a misdemeanor assault in which he punched a woman, breaking four bones in her face. Speculation is that he will be scooped up in the NFL draft which, of course, makes perfect sense given Roger Goodell’s domestic policy record with the league.

Back to announcer clichés and the like: During an injury time out we heard the classic: “The last guy you’d want to see down like that is . . . “ Now, there’s a comment we haven’t thought of or heard before. During the Rose Bowl the announcers (Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit) were waxing poetic about the USC “young freshman” quarterback, with one of them finally pronouncing: “Some people are put on Earth to do one thing . . . and he’s a quarterback.” Now, I’m sure the player --- and possibly his family --- may be shocked and surprised by the limited options this young man will have in his future (god forbid an injury). This type of pontificating is par for the course by these yammering idiots, though, and that quote, given the holidays, had me thinking about a quiet “Quarterback Nativity” scene, with the infant USC quarterback in the Manger, his proud parents greeting three major college football coaches who brought gifts to recruit him (little “USC onesies?") and the Trojan Marching Band playing “Come, All Ye Faithful” while fireworks exploded in the Southern California heavens.

My only disappointment was that at the end of the Rose Bowl, which was a high scoring, back-and-forth contest, no one used the classic cliché, “Well, whoever has the ball last will win this one” (which proved to be true!) So, I, of course, said it to the Lovely Carol Marie, so she could have the complete, cliché experience to finish our New Year’s Weekend off properly. With the NFL playoffs and the NCAA Bowl Championship on deck for Monday, you might want to get your pads out to jot down some of the “classic” comments you will hear from all those Mensa members in the (fill in the name of the sponsor) Broadcast Booth this weekend. Happy listening!

Tuesday, January 3rd
Blast #111

Bread and Circuses?
Nope,
Bowl Games and Pizza!

Okay, it’s January 3rd and we have almost finished College Football season. For those who are not football fans, I’m sure you will be glad to see it go and even for those who are, there has to be some sense of, “Whew, thought that would never end.” The final “National Championship” Bowl game will happen on Monday night, January 9th, crowning either Alabama or Clemson as the best team in collegiate football. That’s not the focus here, of course, as we look for the larger issues attached to such phenomena in our society. And the Bowl Game phenomena is quite a story, indeed, with a long history that has become quite twisted and perverted by, what else, corporate money!
College football bowl games began in the first half of the 20th century primarily to promote tourism and business in warm-weather cities. The first, now incessantly referred to as “the granddaddy of them all” by moronic announcers, was the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. It started as an outgrowth of the New Year’s Day Rose Parade and it began in earnest in 1916 (there had been a 1902 game) as the “Tournament East-West Game,” inviting what was considered the best team from eastern U. S. colleges to play the best of the west. In those pre-WW II years eastern teams from Brown, Penn, Columbia, and Washington & Jefferson colleges made appearances at the Rose Bowl. In 1935, three more cities created New Year’s Day Bowl games --- Dallas (Cotton), New Orleans (Sugar), and El Paso (Sun). In 1938 Miami hopped on the bandwagon with the Orange Bowl. Thus, the tradition was born and Bowl Games became a staple of New Year’s Day American culture. (They were scheduled on New Year’s to give teams and fans enough time to travel --- by rail --- to the warm weather destinations in winter. Almost all bowl games still are played below the 36th parallel which, if you remember your U.S. History, is pretty much the southern border of the state of Missouri --- the 1820 Missouri Compromise Line was 36-30” --- check it out on a map.)

After World War II, with the advent of commercial air travel, we began to see big changes in the U.S. economy and culture, and the Bowl Game picture became part of that. Those initial 5 Bowl games became 8 by 1960 (and I remember watching Terry Baker, Oregon’s left-handed Heisman Trophy winning quarterback --- an idol and role model for me --- playing in the Liberty Bowl in Philadelphia) and 11 by 1970. By 1980 they had climbed to 15 when a more significant innovation than air travel struck our culture --- cable television! With the advent of cable TV and its lucrative advertising-money driven contracts, Bowl games expanded to 25 by 1990, 35 by 2010 and now, in 2016-17, we have seen 41 games since December 17th --- with one more on deck. To put this all in perspective, there are only 128 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, an official designation by the NCAA. That means there are 128 Division One football schools eligible for the National Championship game. Four now play in a "semifnal" round (this year in the Fiesta & Peach Bowls) before competing for the National Championship a week or so later.

Let’s do some math here. If there are 41 Bowl games that means 82 teams are playing in them. That’s 82 out of a possible 128 which means 64% of eligible schools are going to Bowl games! You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out that some of those teams might actually have records that are .500 at best --- or may even be below .500! And here’s where the corporate money comes into the picture. Between televising ALL the games (“Capital One” Bowl Week began on December 17th & ran through New Year’s) and creating games with corporate sponsors named in their title, the universities involved and the sponsoring venues make a boatload of money. It doesn’t matter any more if the stadium sells all its seats, as long as there are sponsors paying for the televised airtime! “Naming rights,” of course, are the other big-ticket item for the sponsors and the schools. So, you can go to Montgomery, Alabama on December 17th to the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl to see Appalachian State (9-3) play Toledo (9-3) --- or watch it on ESPN. Or, if you were in Orlando on the 17th, you could go to Camping World Stadium to the AutoNation Cure Bowl to watch Arkansas State (7-5) square off with the University of Central Florida (6-6) --- or watch it on CBS Sports Network. If you were vacationing in southern Florida you could have gone to the Miami Beach Bowl on December 19th to watch the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes(10-3) take on the Central Michigan Chippewas ( 6-6) and on the 20th you could go to the Boca Raton Bowl to watch the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (10-3) take on the Memphis Tigers (8-4). Both of those games were on ESPN if you just felt like staying home. My favorite bowl game name this year was the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl played at Qualcomm Stadium, pitting BYU (8-4) against the Wyoming Cowboys (8-5) --- also on ESPN.

With the exception of the Rose Bowl, even the oldest Bowl games now have sponsor names, too: the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the Capital One Orange Bowl, and the Hyundai Sun Bowl. There are two points here which reflect a serious flaw in our society. The first, and most obvious, is that money calls the tune. Schools love to promote themselves through their football programs and citing a Bowl Game appearance is both prestigious and a recruiting tool --- and, oh, yeah, they (or their conference) get between $400,000 and a million dollars or more for going to the game. Beyond that rather cra$$ nature of Bowl games, there is also the “participation trophy” aspect to it all.

Having grown up as a sports fan when there were only 8 Bowl Games and 16 Major League Baseball teams, 12 NFL teams, 8 NBA teams, and 6 NHL teams --- before “wild-cards” and rounds & rounds of playoff games --- today’s sports landscape is a bit dizzying, indeed. We now see more than half of the NHL teams, and almost as many NBA teams “making the playoffs.” Baseball now has 10 teams eligible for the World Series, when it used to be 2. Likewise, the NFL used to be a simple “East” champ playing the “West” Champ for the NFL title. Now, 12 teams are eligible for the Super Bowl. And, while college football is trying to create a playoff system for their national champion that has not at all stopped the rampant creation of more and more Bowl Games. Like the suburban Little Leagues that give everyone a trophy (for “participation”) we more and more see mediocrity rewarded! God forbid we spend a summer playing baseball on a miserable team when we’re 10 years old and not go home with a trophy to show for our “participation.” Ridiculous --- the same way having 41 Bowl Games is absurd.

But that’s what it’s come to. On December 26th you could have tuned in to ESPN & ESPN2 to watch the St. Petersburg Bowl, featuring the 5-7 Mississippi State Bulldogs playing the 6-6 Miami(OH) Redhawks followed by the Camping World Independence Bowl (from Shreveport, LA) to see the 6-6 North Carolina Wolfpack take on the 6-6 Vanderbilt Commodores. Now that’s how I want to spend my Boxing Day! Clearly, we have lost our senses and every aspect of our society is being driven by money. Collegiate football is simply another platform to be used to sell a name, a product --- and Bowl games have no particular special quality to them --- they are participation trophies universities can use for their own purposes to fatten their coffers.

My question is simple: is there a saturation point? Will we simply end up with 64 bowl games because there are 128 Football Bowl Division teams? Will we resurrect the 1947-55 Phoenix Salad Bowl? Can New York, aside from its Yankee Stadium Pinstripe Bowl (Dec. 28th), have room for a CitiField Toilet Bowl in Flushing --- maybe sponsored by Charmin? With room for creating 23 new bowl games, who knows what we might see. There must be sponsors for Bowl Games with titles like Stainless Steel, Wood, Glass, Copper, Tupperware, Plastic, and the like. And imagine the wonderful trophies the schools would get for winning the game, as well as all the keen participation trophies for all the players, win or lose.

Sunday, January 1st
2017
Happy New Year!

The Department of Redundancy Department

   Some old-timers, like me, may recognize the title of today's Blast as being stolen from The Firesign Theatre, one of the greatest guerilla comedy groups of the late Sixties and early 70s. You might also note that today's Blast has no # on it and that's because, even though it is the first Blast of 2017, I am simply repeating Friday's Blast #109 --- encouraging readers to provide feedback. That said, you may want to Google or Wikipedia or YouTube The Firesign Theatre for some pretty good laughs and otherwise enjoy the first day of 2017!

I want to thank everyone who's been reading the Blast --- particularly if you read it on a regular basis --- and I would like to bring in 2017 (which promises to be a doozy, right?) by asking for audience participation as this New Year begins.  Here's what I've got in mind.

#1. If you have only read the Blast section of the Leave the Gun website, I'd like to invite and encourage you to check out other parts of this website. The Politics & Culture tabs as well as Reviews, are all items that were written before the Blast was created, so they are "Blast-like" and might be interesting reading. The Art and Songs tabs are self-indulgent but fun, I think, and may be worth a look and listen. The New Writing and Old Writing Tabs are exactly that, with the Old Writing being short stories written in the 1980s. The Archives & the rest of the "More" tabs are generally old, but possibly fun to check out.

#2. I would like to hear from YOU. If there are particular Blasts you liked --- and would like to see more of --- and/or if there are other parts of the website you have some reaction to (positive or negative), please feel free to let me know: estreetbil71@gmail.com.
I'm hoping your feedback will help me shape The Blast for 2017 and the future (if there are things in other Tabs you think should be "Blast-ed," let me know, for example).

   So, that's my New Year's Blast. I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve and that we have an interesting, exciting, productive, and happy 2017 --- and I look forward to hearing from you!

And thanks for reading!

Saturday, December 31st
Happy New Year's Eve
Blast #110

Ha-Ha-Ha
&
Oh-Oh-Oh
Xmas Movie Reviews

Office Christmas Party and Why Him? are Xmas movies with some definite similarities. Both films have all-star casts, both involve the technology sector of our economy, both revolve around a difficult family dynamic, and both features use a failing business scenario to propel the action. Yet, for all those similarities, one film works and the other doesn’t and it’s not the fault of the actors in the latter case. Office Christmas Party is a goofy, no-holds-barred slapstick romp that delivers a lot of laughs while Why Him? wastes some talented performers with a puerile script and barely competent direction.

Why Him? is the product of John Hamburg --- the man who brought us the “Meet the Parents/Focker” movies (Ben Stiller is a producer of Why Him?) and it seems he believes sticking to the tried and true formula of those films, but amped up a bit, will leave us laughing. Wrong! It is almost painful to watch Bryan Cranston, a truly gifted actor who can certainly do comedy well, wasted in his role as 55 year old Ned Fleming, the owner of a failing Michigan printing company. The plot, for what it’s worth, revolves around Ned and his wife Barb (Megan Mullaley, wasted here, too) and youngest son Scotty (Griffin Gluck, a ray of sunshine in a gloomy landscape) travel to Palo Alto to visit Stephanie, their daughter, a student at Stanford (competently played by Zoey Deutch). What they do not know is that Steph has had them come out to California to meet her boyfriend, Laird Mayhew (James Franco, in a horribly forgettable performance), a 32-year-old millionaire (video game app $$$). If you saw DeNiro & Stiller dueling in Meet the Parents imagine all that in Silicon Valley with a tattooed & foul-mouthed boyfriend character vying with a mugging, exasperated father. An attempt at lightening the action is introduced when we meet Laird’s right-hand-man, concierge, parkour/martial arts trainer, Gustav --- played by the wildly talented Michael-Keegan Key and proving that John Hamburg can truly waste any talent put before him. For the most part, the characters are cartoonish caricatures (yes, that redundancy is intentional) and Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley only emphasize that with a guest appearance in full Kiss regalia! Cedric the Entertainer picks up a paycheck in this disaster, too, playing Ned’s longtime employee and friend. The attempts at humor are lame throughout and the Rogerebert.com site points out that Gustav’s surprise attacks on Laird are like “Cato” and “Inspector Clouseau” in the old Pink Panther movies --- but they go to great lengths in this film to explain that point, over and over again. A joke is not funny if you have to explain it to the audience. Which pretty much sums up Why Him? If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve seen enough. Don’t waste any money (like the $9.50 senior admission I flushed at the Bow Tie 8 in South Norwalk) on this piece of dreck.

Office Christmas Party is a pretty hilarious romp that makes no bones about being a full out, slapstick comedy in which directors Josh Gordon & Will Speck maximize the talents of their excellent cast. I have to say, up front, that I pretty much will laugh the minute I see T.J. Miller or Kate McKinnon ---so, having both of them featured in this movie had me smiling as I took my seat. And they did not disappoint. However, they received excellent support from the always reliable, incredibly versatile Jason Bateman (who doesn’t like this guy?) as well as Jennifer Aniston, who is pretty excellent at playing a bitch these days. Supporting cast members like Courtney B. Vance, Rob Coddry, Randall Park, Vanessa Bayer, Jillian Bell, and Olivia Munn help put this film over the top. The story is pretty simple, Clay and Carol (Miller & Aniston), have inherited their father’s tech company. She is the CEO and he runs the Chicago branch of the firm. Carol is determined to make the company “leaner” and plans on closing Clay’s shop --- emphasizing there will be no Christmas Party this year. The rest of the story, of course, revolves around not only getting the party up and running but creating a bacchanal that leaves the two floors of the Chicago branch in rubble. In the meantime, a little romance is struck between Bateman & Munn, McKinnon’s H.R. director loosens up, Vance’s staid business man flies across the room like Tarzan (almost), and Aniston arrives, too late, to shut it all down. There is more going on that you should simply go see and enjoy. Office Christmas Party is pretty non-stop and even though it has aspects that are way over the top, they are executed in a fashion that do not grate but tickle, unlike Why Him? So, if you want some laughs as 2017 begins, check out Office Christmas Party --- it was more than worth the $6 Tuesday Special price we paid at the Bow Tie 8!

Friday, December 30th
Blast #109

Thanks for Reading:
Time for Audience Participation!

I want to thank everyone who's been reading the Blast --- particularly if you read it on a regular basis --- and I would like to bring in 2017 (which promises to be a doozy, right?) by asking for audience participation as this New Year begins. Here's what I've got in mind.

#1. If you have only read the Blast, I'd like to invite and encourage you to check out other parts of this website. The Politics & Culture tabs as well as Reviews, are all items that were written before the Blast was created, so they are "Blast-like" and might be interesting reading. The Art and Songs tabs are self-indulgent but fun, I think, and may be worth a look and listen. The New Writing and Old Writing Tabs are exactly that, with the Old Writing being short stories written in the 1980s. The Archives & the rest of the "More" tabs are generally old, but possibly fun to check out.

#2. I would like to hear from YOU. If there are particular Blasts you liked --- and would like to see more of --- and/or if there are other parts of the website you have some reaction to (positive or negative), please feel free to let me know: estreetbil71@gmail.com.
I'm hoping your feedback will help me shape The Blast for 2017 and the future (if there are things in other Tabs you think should be "Blast-ed," let me know, for example).

So, that's my New Year's Eve Blast. I hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve and that we have an interesting, exciting, productive, and happy 2017 --- and I look forward to hearing from you!

And thanks for reading!

Thursday, December 29th
Blast #108

A Blast Primer
on
The “Sixties”

Yesterday’s Blast mentioned the “counterculture” during the discussion of Baby Boomer presidents and it got me thinking about “The Sixties.” Since the term, “the ‘60’s,” has many different meanings to people, I thought I’d provide a simple, straightforward explanation here --- so that if the term, Sixties, is used in future Blasts it will be totally clear what I’m referring to. Okay? Here we go.

Years ago some historian (whose name I can’t recall --- early Alzheimers?) said the Sixties, to him, were the years between the Kennedy assassination (November 22, 1963) and Richard Nixon’s resignation (August 4, 1974) --- and I agree. I think it was during that span of years that a significant number of political, cultural/social, and artistic shifts occurred that altered American life for the next 50 years --- and beyond. The strife and energy of the period generated repercussions felt to the present day. So let’s take a look at November ’63 to August ’74 through the prism of categories.

While the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) pre-dates our designated “Sixties,” the Cold War that generated the crisis was front and center throughout the ’63 to ’74 period, most noticeably in the Vietnam War. The political drivers of the Sixties were the War and the Civil Rights movement, which gained huge momentum after the August ’63 March on Washington. The anti-War movement was propelled by a new generation of college students --- many of whom were the “first in the family” to go beyond high school --- while the Civil Rights crusade was led by many old-school lefties and religious leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. As the Sixties progressed, the two anti-Establishment movements became more aligned, drawing more than a little attention --- and ire --- from J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. The key to both groups was disruption --- a legacy that instigated the reactionary right political swing that continues to the present day. The rise of the “Reagan Revolution” in the 1980’s rested on rolling back the “evils” of the Sixties --- particularly the “reckless” protesting against the Establishment. The student anti-war movement and the Civil Rights movement were both vilified in propaganda that exaggerated --- and sometimes blatantly lied --- about the violence these groups perpetrated against society. The Black Panthers and SDS/Weather Underground were portrayed as soulless villains focused on destroying the existing order. We can see how long the shadows of that vilification have been cast when we look at the 2008 Obama campaign being attacked because the candidate “consorted with” a “domestic terrorist,” Bill Ayers --- a former member of the Weather Underground. Ayers has been a dedicated school reform and social justice educator for the last 30 years, with a doctorate in education from Columbia. His connection to Obama had to do with work they did in connection with the Chicago schools during the early aughts and have nothing to do with his radical activism of the Sixties. Just as an aside, Ayers won Chicago’s “Citizen of he Year” Award in 1997! The power of the Sixties was in clear view in 2008. Similarly, the reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement is eerily similar to the film footage we see from the Sixties, when Civil Rights marchers faced virulent opposition.   Watching militarized police forces brought out to quell BLM protests strongly echoes the Sixties. Tentacles from the 1963-1974 era are far-reaching, indeed.

When we look at the social/cultural landscape (which naturally overlaps with the political) that surrounds us --- particularly concerning womens’ and LGBTQ rights, the direct connection to the Sixties is pretty clear. The Gay Rights movement began in New York City in June of 1969 with the Stonewall Riots and, even with the Supreme Court’s approval of gay marriage rights, the subject is still controversial, to say the least --- another direct legacy of the Sixties. As regards women’s rights, the presidential election certainly reflected some of the inherent sexism that still permeates our world. Beyond Trump’s clear objectification and degradation of women (with many voters simply looking the other way --- it’s just “locker room talk”) the characterizations of Hillary Clinton by the media (“shrill,” “shrieking” her “laugh”, etc.) emphasizing the phony bromide of “I’ll vote for a woman, but not that woman” reflects just how sexist our society remains. That women still only receive 77 cents for each dollar a man in the same position earns does not seem to deeply trouble large numbers of the populous. It is telling, I think, that America elected a black man before they have elected a woman to the presidency. While women make up more than 50% of our population they only comprise 19% of the Senate and House of Representatives. So, the issues originally raised in the Sixties --- particularly regarding LGBTQ and women’s rights are still front and center in our 21st century U.S. society.

When it comes to “the arts” the Sixties proved to be a revolutionary time in music and literature --- with some artists mingling the two (this year’s Nobel Laureate in Literature is Bob Dylan, of course). New directions in music --- in rock and jazz --- are still front-and-center in 2016/17. There is little we hear today that can’t be directly traced back to Sixties legends like Hendrix, Jim Morrison/The Doors, Miles Davis, Weather Report, the Beatles & Rolling Stones (of course), the Who, etc., Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, etc.,
Joni Mitchell, The Band, Simon & Garfunkel, etc. The emergence of “country & Southern rock” with the Byrds, Poco, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Allman Brothers, etc. totally foresaw today’s C& W music scene. Needless to say, Bob Dylan’s influence on songwriting --- both lyrics and composition --- is still that rock in the pond sending out ripples into the 21st century.   In literature, the Sixties proved a watershed not only for “traditional” (read: white, male) writers but also for women, African Americans, and international authors and poets. The creativity and brilliance of Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey, Toni Morrison, Malcolm X (and Alex Haley), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ralph Ellison (rediscovered as a result of the civil rights movement), Hunter S. Thompson, Amiri Baraka, Joseph Heller, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few --- as well as playwrights like Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, and Tom Stoppard (not to mention Hair on Broadway!) --- exploded on the scene in the Sixties, breaking barriers and creating stunning works of art that are still emulated in today's world.

There was also a revolution in the visual arts of movies and television during the 1963 to 1974 period. On the big screen we saw our reflection (Baby Boomers) in The Graduate, Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy and our “issues” in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and irreverent comedy like Blazing Saddles or piercing satire in Robert Altman's M*A*S*H*.   Television experienced a sea change from the early ‘60’s to the mid-70’s. What started with predictable, happy (white) sitcoms like Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, etc. in the early ‘60’s transformed into the Norman Lear shows like All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Maude, as well as a small screen anti-war weekly t.v. show in M*A*S*H* and a feminist Mary Tyler Moore program. Satiric programming was first presented on Laugh-In and The Smothers Brothers shows, which took weekly potshots at politics and culture. With today’s glut of cable and streaming television services we can see all the Sixties issues as part of our daily lives --- just grab the remote and find your issue!

So, if you lived through the ‘60’s, I hope this Blast was a short, pleasant stroll down Memory Lane and, if you weren’t there, maybe this elucidates why the Baby Boomers are a little off-center. There’s no doubt that “The Sixties” were a turbulent and revolutionary period in U.S. History --- like the “Roaring Twenties” --- and the long term repercussions are around us every day --- if you simply step back and take a look.

Wednesday, December 28th
Blast #107B

Not with a Boom(er)
But a Whimper

As we approach January 20, 2017, I was reflecting on the fact that Donald J. Trump will be our fourth, and possibly last, Baby Boomer President of the United States. George H. W. Bush (1989-1993) finished off the “Greatest Generation” (who are now 89 or older) and the Boomers --- born between 1946 and 1964 --- are probably reaching their presidential expiration date, too. We may squeeze out one more for the 2020 or 2024 elections, but I’m guessing not. More likely we’ll see “ Generation X” (1965 – 1982) taking the stage with the Paul Ryan (born, 1970) cohort stepping forward. So, as the Donald prepares to ascend to his position (will he really occupy the White House, with its noticeable lack of gold and bling?) I thought it might be interesting to look back on what the Baby Boomers wrought, something my generation might collectively ruminate about it. One note I would insert here is that none of the four Baby Boomer Chief Executives were genuine counterculture Sixties kids. Bill Clinton would like you to believe he was (without inhaling and "not really" dodging the draft), but he wasn’t. So, for those of us who consider ourselves countercultural Baby Boomers (and there aren’t that many left, particularly as we proceeded through the ‘70’s --- with Law and Med School --- the ‘80’s --- with stock markets and new families --- the 90’s--- with “middle age”, mortgages, college costs, and “responsibilities”) none of these guys ever truly represented us. I will freely admit that I took Frost’s
"less traveled” path so certainly do not at all speak for the Baby Boom generation. But I offer observations and commentary from that 1946-1964 perspective and this one is close to home.

Coming of age in the late-Sixties, the Baby Boomers were, from their start, a divisive group. And certainly no one represented that better than our first Boomer President, “Slick Willy,” William Jefferson Clinton. Winning with a 43% plurality in our last legitimate 3-caniddate race (against George H.W. Bush & Ross Perot, in an all left-handed pool of candidates). Clinton had his great origin story, coming from Hope, Arkansas. Taking the name of his adoptive father, young Bill went to American Legion Boys' Nation in the summer of 1963 and shook the hand of his idol, Jack Kennedy. After attending Georgetown, winning a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, and graduating from Yale Law School, the draft dodging, “I didn’t inhale” political novice became Arkansas’s Attorney General in 1976 and Governor in 1978. In the interim, of course, he married fellow Boomer, Hillary Rodham, the Wellesley and fellow Yale Law School graduate. Clinton then lost and re-won the governorship before throwing his hat in the presidential ring in 1992. Those who are old enough to remember can recall that, from the outset, the Clintons were beset with scandals --- Gennifer Flowers, Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster, Paula Jones, etc. Some may also remember Clinton campaigning on MTV, wearing sunglasses and playing the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall talk show, and portraying himself as the "new" alternative to the staid, “greatest generation” H. W. Bush. In the long run, of course, we got a balanced budget, a boatload of scandals culminating in the Monica Lewinsky affair, and a deep divide between Republicans and Democrats, despite Clinton’s own effort at making his party a version of “Republican Lite," moving the Democrats much closer to the center than the left on the political spectrum. He proved to be an albatross for his former VP and fellow Boomer Al Gore (born, 1948) in the 2000 election which cluminated in the Supreme Court annointing another Boomer as victorious.

Enter George W. Bush (July 6, 1946), a "legacy" at Andover, Yale, Skull & Bones, and the White House. Not a draft dodger like Clinton, Bush spent the Vietnam years protecting Texas as part of the Texas Air National Guard, an appointment he got through family favors. He received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in the mid 1970’s and then, after some notorious episodes involving alcohol and drugs, “W” found Laura and Jesus, cleaned up his act, and became his one of his dad’s campaign managers in 1988. After becoming a successful partner in the Texas Ranger baseball team operation, he was elected governor of Texas in 1994 and 1998 which, of course, led to his nomination and "election" (via Supreme Court fiat) as president in 2000. Early in his administration, of course, terrorists attacked the nation on 9/11 and much of what followed for the next eight years had to do with our involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where we still have a significant presence. The use of torture (at Abu Ghraib and other “black sites”), the creation of the prison at Guantanamo Naval Base, and the administration’s inaction/reaction to the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina left black marks on the Bush presidency as he left office with a 25% approval rating in 2008. The devastating housing market/ financial crash in 2007 added to the woes of the Boomer in Chief as his second term ran out.

In 2008 America did what many thought was impossible (myself included) and elected a black man as president. Promising “Hope and Change” Barack Obama won a convincing victory over John McCain in 2008 and then re-election over Mitt Romney in 2012. While he did improve the nation's financial situation, the big banks remain intact and our financial footing may not be quite as firm as it should be. Obama got the Affordable Care Act passed, a far more limited package than he (and some of us) hoped for and, since 2010, has faced a more and more obstructionist congress --- which wouldn’t even hold hearings for a Supreme Court Justice, setting a bizarre and possibly dangerous precedent for future political issue hostage-taking (by both parties). I don’t think most people see Obama as a Baby Boomer, but he was born in 1961 and, therefore, qualifies. Plus, he was born and raised in Hawaii, which literally puts him out of the mainstream! Where Clinton was Elvis and “W” was Hank Williams, Jr., Obama is more Wynton Marsalis and cool jazz. The controversy about his nativity, forcefully raised by our now president-elect, stirred a pot of “otherness” throughout Obama’s tenure and, like his Boomer predecessors, he certainly did not accomplish nearly as much as he set out to.

So now we have what might be our final Boomer. Born the same year as Clinton and Bush (1946), a disciple of the Playboy Philosophy of Hugh Hefner, it will be interesting to see where this (probably final) Boomer takes us. His background, of course, is pure New Yawk. Born in Queens, the scion of a real estate mogul, he attended a Military Academy (to learn discipline his family couldn't instill in the belligerent middle schooler) before starting college at Fordham, in the Bronx. He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, where he got his B.A. in 1968 and then moved back into the family business. The rest, as we know, is history --- the Trump Brand, The Apprentice, and now, the presidency. For those of us on the Left, Trump is, of course, a nightmare incarnate. His proposed cabinet appointments raise questions about “draining the swamp" offering mostly rich, white, male resumes --- but there is a bizarre disdain for “elites” and “the establishment" (who tend to reject them, as they do their Boss). It will be interesting to see how this administration goes about tearing down the house they live in (though my money’s on Trump residing on Fifth Avenue with the White House only serving a perfunctory, ceremonial purpose for the next four years.) We’ll see, of course --- and hope for the best.

So, as we review our Baby Boomers "at the helm" timeline we pretty much see what most of American History shows us about U.S. Presidents. Scanning the 44 Chief Executives to date, it is an array of mostly mediocre administrations with only a few really great leaders and several truly terrible ones. Those debates, of course, are reserved for historians and you can look them up. There may be a future Blast on it, but not today. It will be interesting to see how one more Baby Boomer leads the way in what could well be the last stand for our generation.

With that in mind, and not to be too apocalyptic, it makes me think of what T.S. Eliot told us in The Hollow Men (and I recommend you read the entire poem) – which starts with an homage to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (another MUST read):

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

However, with the recent talks about increasing our nuclear arsenal, we may just get the Big (Baby Boomer) Bang! Who knows?

Monday, December 26th
Blast #107

 A Reminder about Genius

Quickly referring to yesterday's Blast -- Bringing It All Back Home was a breakthrough for Bob Dylan and all of us who were fans. One side was completely electric, a departure for the folk legend. It was released in March, 1965 and I got to see him in February, 1966 at The Island Garden in Hempstead, Long Island --- and half the crowd walked out when he came back from an intermission with his electric band (The Hawks --- later to be The Band). Here are the liner notes from that 1965 album release --- maybe a look at the future Nobel Laureate in Literature. The final line about "a poem is a naked person" became the title of Les Blank's 1973 documentary about the late, great Leon Russell. Enjoy.

Bob Dylan
Bringing It All Back Home
Columbia Records
CK 9128
_________________________________________________________________

1. Subterranean Homesick Blues (2:21)
2. She Belongs To Me (2:47)
3. Maggie's Farm (3:54)
4. Love Minus Zero / No Limit (2:51)
5. Outlaw Blues (3:05)

6. On The Road Again (2:35)
7. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream (6:30)
8. Mr. Tambourine Man (5:30)
9. Gates Of Eden (5:40)
10. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (7:29)
11. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (4:12)
Produced by Tom Wilson
_________________________________________________________________

By Bob Dylan

i'm standing there watching the parade/ feeling combination of sleepy john estes. jayne mansfield. humphrey bogart / mortimer snurd. murph the surf and so forth/ erotic hitchhiker wearing japanese blanket. gets my attention by asking didn't he see me at this hootenanny down in puerto Vallarta, mexico / i say no you must be mistaken. i happen to be one of the Supremes / then he rips off his blanket an suddenly becomes a middle-aged druggist. up for district attorney. he starts screaming at me you're the one. you're the one
that's been causing all them riots over in vietnam. immediately turns t a bunch of people an says if elected, he'll have me electrocuted publicly on the next fourth of july. i look around an all these people he's talking to are carrying blowtorches / needless t say, i split fast go back t the nice quiet country. am standing there writing WHAAAT? on my favorite wall when who should pass by in a jet plane but my recording engineer “i'm here t pick up you and your latest works of art. do you need any help with anything?"

(pause)

my songs're written with the kettledrum in mind / a touch of any anxious color. unmentionable. obvious. an people perhaps like a soft brazilian singer … i have
given up at making any attempt at perfection / the fact that the white house is filled with leaders that've never been t the apollo theater amazes me. why allen ginsberg was not chosen t read poetry at the inauguration boggles my mind / if someone thinks norman mailer is more important than hank williams, that's fine. i have no arguments an i never drink milk. i would rather model harmonica holders than discuss aztec anthropology / english literature. or history of the united nations. i accept chaos. i am not sure whether
it accepts me. i know there're some people terrified of the bomb. but there are other people terrified t be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. experience teaches that silence terrifies people the most ... i am convinced that all souls have some superior t deal with / like the school system, an invisible circle of which no one can think without consulting someone / in the face of this, responsibility / security. success mean absolutely nothing ... i would not want t be bach. mozart. tolstoy. joe hill. gertrude stein or james dean / they are all dead. the Great books've been written. the Great sayings have all been said / I am about t sketch You a picture of what goes on around here sometimes. tho I don't understand too well myself what's really happening. i do know that we're all gonna die someday an that no death has ever stopped the world. my poems are written in a rhythm of unpoetic distortion/ divided by pierced ears. false eyelashes / subtracted by people constantly torturing each other. with a melodic purring line of descriptive hollowness – seen at times thru dark sunglasses an other forms of psychic explosion. a song is anything that can walk by itself / i am called a songwriter. a poem is a naked person … some people say that i am a poet

(end of pause)

an so i answer my recording engineer "yes. well i could use some help in getting this wall in the plane"

© 1965 by Bob Dylan. All Rights Reserved

Sunday, December 25th
Blast #106
Happy Hanukkah & Merry Christmas

Seasons Greetings & I hope everyone has a peaceful and happy day. I'm happy that I won't have to hear those "holiday" songs after today. Today's Blast is a simple visual pun, thanks to Michael's Art Supply store, where I ran across half-price Vivitar snap-on smartphone lenses, including a fisheye, one of my favorites --- and an inspiration for the Holiday card the Lovely Carol Marie & I are sending (late) this year.

Inspired by the fisheye lens and Bob Dylan's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, I thought about the Bringing It All Back Home album, a vinyl disc my borther and I played incessantly (to our father's displeasure) after its March, 1965, release. The iconic cover, shot by Daniel Kramer in upstate New York, had that fisheye effect along with many elements that prompted endless discussion and speculation about what it all "meant" --- something Dylanophiles always searched for ad nauseum. Nonetheless, it inspired us to parody the cover, incorporating it into our Holiday greeting. (Thanks to old pal Delbert Shortliffe for taking the picture!) Enjoy.

Saturday, December 24th
Blast #105
Merry Xmas Eve & Happy Hanukkah

It's a Saturday. It's Christmas Eve. It's the beginning of the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, this evening as well. So, I'm going to finish the Blast year up with pictures from April through December --- random, sometimes nonesensical, all designed to entertain and/or amuse.
Have a great Holiday and tomorrow will be the special Holiday Blast.

p.s. Once again, I'm going to use the "Slideshow" app available on the Weebly website tool bar

Friday, December 23rd
Blast #104

   Lost in Translation
or
What DID Jesus do?

While I’ve been known to rail about the crass commercialism the Holiday Season brings, I also have to admit that I honestly do love the Christmas and Hanukkah (Chanukah) stories. Given that I was raised as a Roman Catholic, the stories about Jesus --- his nativity and his miraculous life --- particularly resonate at this time of year. A recent viewing of some Netflix special really got me to thinking about something that I want to share, though. The comedian (and I can’t remember who) was saying that Jesus was a carpenter and yet, no one thought to keep anything he made! “You’d think, someone would have had the idea --- hey, that guy Jesus made our chair, this could be worth something!” A funny concept, of course, but it caused me to reflect on the stories I most remember about Jesus and a revelation about the possibility of Biblical mistranslation. Let me explain.

The stories I remember best about Jesus are several miracles he performed. One of the most prominent for me has to do with the Sermon on the Mount (the Beatitudes), one of Christ’s most beautiful statements (“Blessed are the poor . . . etc.”) After the Sermon, of course, the concerned Apostles pointed out to Jesus that there were about 5000 people, whom the Apostles thought should move on to local towns to buy food, particularly since they (the Apostles) only had five loaves and two fishes. Jesus, of course, told the disciples not to worry --- he blessed and broke the bread, gave it to his Apostles, and told them to feed the crowd. The miracle, of course, was that not only were the 5000 fed but there were 12 baskets of food leftover! (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John Gospels)

   Similarly, there is another story, generally referred to as “The Feeding of the 4,000” (In Matthew’s & Mark’s Gospels) in which Jesus duplicates this feat. A quick summary (by way of Wikipedia) goes as follows:

"Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?"
"How many loaves do you have?" Jesus asked.
"Seven," they replied, "and a few small fish."
"Jesus told the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan (or Magdala)."

Not only does he feed everyone but, once again, leftovers!

            Finally, anyone familiar with the Gospels of Jesus is aware of the Marriage Feast at Cana story. For those who may not remember, here’s The English Standard Bible version, John 2: 1-10:

2: 1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. [a 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

            So, here we have three miracles that, clearly, have nothing at all to do with carpentry. That got me to thinking. Now, full disclosure: I have NO knowledge of either the Aramaic or Greek languages that the original Gospels were written in and my one year of Latin in 9th grade is pretty rusty BUT, given those three miracles --- and with no physical evidence of Jesus’s carpentry and no Gospels about woodworking --- I believe there was a clear mistranslation of Biblical texts. It seems rather obvious, if you just look at those miracles, that Jesus was a caterer! (The fishes & loaves --- pate & toast points!) Now, just looking at the word --- caterer --- you can see how it is very similar to carpenter, so it’s quite understandable that the translation was bobbled. An “r” here, a “t” there.. . what the heck? And, if you look a little deeper --- here’s Jesus, a Jewish guy traveling around to these big events with his mother and his crew (was Peter the chef de cuisine?) in tow --- hardly sounds like a carpenter to me. No, I’m betting Jesus was a caterer and I think that adds another, even more festive note to the Christmas stories. Mary was probably baking some sweet treats for the Nativity and his later birthday parties, the ones we missed in those "lost Gospels" --- we can only imagine what a spread must have been put out there!

            So, as you celebrate this holiday season, re-consider those old stories we know so well, with an eye toward interpreting them for this new century --- and as you chow down on your holiday feast, don’t forget to give thanks to Jesus the caterer!

Thursday, December 22nd
Blast #103

What, More Pictures?

Okay, it's kind of a cop-out, I know, but I love pictures --- our Dad was an avid amateur photograph, in the days when you actually had "dark rooms" and all that --- so, as we head to 2017 I thought another array of photos might be fun. Most of these were taken between January and April of 2016, but there are few oldies but goodies thrown in, too, for nostalgia's sake. Enjoy!

Okay, loading ALL those pictures individually is really a long, slow process. I'm going to experiment with a "Slideshow" app here to install the rest of the photos. With luck it will work and prove just as entertaining. Please send feedback to let me know: estreetbil71@gmail.com

Thanks.

Tuesday, December 20th
Blast #102

La La La

Before reading this “review” of La La Land, which I saw yesterday, you may want to check out Richard Brody’s December 8th New Yorker critique (pretty negative) and Peter Travers December 6th Rolling Stone opinion (“best film of the year”). Seeing the musical at my local Bow Tie 6 Cinema in Norwalk at a Monday matinee, I fall somewhere between those two critics. I came home and read their reviews, as well as several others, as kind of “tuning” for my own thoughts. So, here’s where I came down.

            First and foremost, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are real Movie Stars --- and director Damien Chazelle plays that to the hilt. Miss Stone’s performance, in particular, with her wonderfully emotive/fluid face, steals the show. But, before going any further, let me put my cards on the table: with the exception of West Side Story I don’t just dislike musicals --- I loathe them. From the Jazz Singer on, I have no use for the musical as a genre. My contention is that the only reason Broadway, and Hollywood came up with musicals was because it took so long to invent television --- because producers believed there was a great need for mindless entertainment with little redeeming value. If you like the music from Oklahoma or Les Miz, fine, buy the CD or iTunes version and listen to it. La La Land, in fact, has pretty good music throughout but the movie could have easily been made without any of it, other than the usual background score.

            Of course, that is not the point here. From the opening visual, in which the word CINEMASCOPE is vividly splashed across the screen, just like in the ‘50’s, you know this is an homage to all those “great” musicals from the past. With two huge production numbers in the first 30 minutes, Chazelle shows he has done his homework. But, like many of the diligent students I had over the years, he is only adept at replicating what has gone before without creating much that is original. The opening number, filmed on a closed freeway ramp (I learned) is quite spectacular, with hundreds of people getting out of their cars to dance, skateboard, and execute Parkour leaps and bounds throughout the long, seamless shot (Touch of Evil or Citizen Kane, anyone?) while “Another Day in the Sun” (a perfect L.A. topic) is sung throughout. It is during this scene that we meet aspiring actress Mia Dolan (Stone) and struggling jazz pianist Sebastian Wilder (Gosling) --- who exchange third finger salutes before driving off on their separate ways.

            The stars next have a coincidental meeting when Mia, leaving another failed audition, is drawn into a restaurant/supper club when she hears some alluring piano playing from the street. She goes in to see Sebastian finish his tune and watches the pantomime between the pianist and the restaurant owner (J.K. Simmons in a small but quite effective role), leading to Sebastian’s being fired on the spot. As he storms out she walks up to compliment him but he blows by her, rudely bumping shoulders. Some time passes and the main characters reconnect as Mia is dragged to a Hollywood party (after a Bye Bye Birdie-ish apartment/bedroom/bathroom scene in the shared confines of four aspiring actresses).   Sebastian is playing keyboards in a cover band and, in maybe the best moment of the movie, Mia requests they play “I Ran” (the Flock of Seagulls “classic” --- and the bane of any good keyboard player, as we learn through Gosling’s expressions). Miss Stone’s sarcastic and hilarious lip-synching of the song clearly clinches why Sebastian will fall for this young woman.

            After that we get a fairly standard & predictable romantic story about two aspiring artists, their ups and downs, their happy/sad/difficult relationship, and a poignant, somewhat bittersweet conclusion. What I kept wondering was: Do we really need the singing and dancing? Gosling and Stone prove themselves adept as hoofers (if you remember Stone’s star turn in Broadway’s Cabaret you should not be shocked by her talent) and Gosling is quite impressive on the keyboards (yes, he did all the playing you see). But the pervasive music and dancing --- even with its fantasy flying and other cinematic legerdemain --- does not enhance the story or make it any better, in my view.

            As I noted, the music, composed & orchestrated by Chazelle’s Harvard classmate, Justin Hurwitz, is very nice --- with some particularly clever lyrics from the team of Pasek and Paul (currently garnering rave reviews on Broadway for Dear Evan Hansen) but a nice soundtrack album, separate from the Mia/Sebastian story, would have worked just as well for me.

            There are items I could pick on about the film but I’d simply recommend reading Brody’s review for that (http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-empty-exertions-of-la-la-land) --- he does a pretty good job eviscerating the entire film, and not without justification if you understand his point of view. But I enjoyed my time in the theater. As one who appreciates the history of the cinema, without being a fan of this particular genre, I liked the Cinemascope intro and the final “The End” (in classic script) with the notes along the bottom of the screen saying “Panorama” and “Made in Hollywood” --- a classic night time shot of Hollywood, with searchlights and all, in the background. This is a clear homage to the musicals of old. Is it the year’s best picture, as many are claiming? Hardly. With Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea in theaters right now it is difficult for me to see how this rather superficial romance can even be mentioned in the same breath. If there were solely a “best musical” category, then it should be considered but, as a “best movie?” Never.

            Simply put, it was worth about $7.50 of the $9.50 senior admission I shelled out. Worth a look, a nice piece of light entertainment with two excellent performances, but not a “best picture” nominee at all.

Monday, December 19th
Blast #101

The Electoral College Votes Today

If you haven't read, or forgot you read, BLAST # 82 about the (insidious) history of the Electoral College please scroll down and check it out. The Electoral College votes today, taking us one step closer to the Presidency of Donald J. Trump.

Sunday, December 18th
BLAST #100

   Looking Back/Looking Ahead

   Yesterday was my dear friend Gil Schaeffer's birthday, so I called to wish him a "happy" and we both reflected on how our minds and bodies don't coincide --- something I also hear from my soon-to-be 90 year old mother quite a bit. We can clearly remember Little League games we played in, specific plays from high school football contests, the late Sixties, and all the rest as if it were yesterday! In looking ahead, we both agreed a "wait and see" attitude was the best we could muster at the moment, given the circumstances. There were some other things Gil said that I'll incorporate in future Blasts (he's certainly one of the smartest people I know!) and I'll cite his input appropriately.

   But this is BLAST Number 100 --- and this past week readership reached an all-time high of 944 (take that, New York Times!) and I thought I'd "celebrate" number 100 with a kind of "Year in Review" in pictures. There is not much rhyme or reason to what's being placed here --- it's all based on whimsy as I flipped through the iPhoto files. The intent is less informative than amusing, but if you actually glean any meaning from it, please write and let me know (estreetbil71@gmail.com). Beyond that, have a happy, healthy, and safe Holiday Season (yes, I'm waging war on Christmas) and please keep checking in at The Blast. And thanks for reading!

(A note on viewing: The photos are arranged in groups of 6 from January through about August, then all hell breaks loose and they are wildly random.)

Saturday, December 17th
Blast #99

Not Much Cheer Here
(but well worth a look)

Well, “‘tis the season to be jolly” and I’m sure Office Christmas Party and La La Land are the kind of feel-good movies that coincide nicely with the gaiety of approaching New Year’s celebrations. And I’ll probably write something about those movies if/when I see them. In the meantime, there are two movies more appropriate to the post-election blues many folks are feeling these days, and I highly recommend checking them out. Manchester by the Sea has already garnered the rave reviews and “Oscar buzz” that it deserves and I’ll throw my two cents in on that below. As interesting, to me, is Nocturnal Animals, a film written and directed by Tom Ford, who may be better known as a fashion designer to some (I, of course, was oblivious to this aspect of Mr. Ford’s talents). Nocturnal Animals is a fascinating and disturbing movie --- but not exactly full of Christmas cheer.

Starting with Manchester by the Sea, Casey Affleck has received accolades for his performance as Lee Chandler, a man whose life of tragedies is borne out in his very carriage. Kenneth Lonergan’s screenplay and direction is impressive, using a crosscutting storytelling style that reveals the back-story of the main character while proceeding with his in-the-moment narrative. The basic plot, which many probably already know, is that Lee’s older brother Joe, a single father, succumbs to a heart attack, leaving Lee as the guardian to Joe’s 16-year old son, Patrick (brilliantly played by Lucas Hedges!). Lee lives just outside of Boston, in Quincy, and works as a janitor/handyman for several apartment buildings. Lonergan provides us with several wonderful, and revealing, scenes of Lee at work, dealing with tenants. For those not familiar with Massachusetts’s geography (and why would you be if you didn’t live there?), Quincy is about 45 miles from Manchester and it takes a little over an hour to make the trip, depending on the vagaries of Route 128, in particular. I bring this up because it is the first of many issues Lee has to face when presented with the dilemma of becoming Patrick’s guardian. While that story unfolds, we are given flashbacks to Lee’s earlier life, when he was married to Randi (Michelle Williams) in a few endearing and raucous scenes, where we learn he has three children (two young girls and a baby boy). Michelle Williams has limited screen time as Randi but proves once again to be one of our most compelling actors. Having seen her powerful work on stage (in Blackbird) it was no surprise to watch her bring an equal amount of strength and emotion to the screen. A centerpiece of the movie is the relationship between “Uncle” Lee and Patrick, as we are first given flashbacks to show the youngster fishing with his father and uncle on the small, commercial boat named for Lee’s and Joe’s mother. Affleck and Hedges are endearing, charming, bellicose, sensitive, and callous, in turn, but never boring in the slightest. They both deserve recognition (Oscar nominations) for their work here --- with Williams in the running, too. Without revealing more of the plot, let me just say that Manchester by the Sea is a disturbing and sad movie but one well worth seeing --- certainly worth our $9.00 Senior admissions at the Garden Cinema in Norwalk on a Monday night.

Nocturnal Animals is an entirely different kettle of fish, plot wise, than Manchester but is also a marvelous piece of work with several outstanding performances. Amy Adams, who was excellent in Arrival, makes her second appearance for the holiday season in this noir-ish thriller that also stars Jake Gyllenhall, who is certainly one of our most diverse and talented leading men these days. Tom Ford adapted the screenplay from a novel (Tony and Susan) by Austin Wright and his direction is interesting at every turn. Nocturnal also uses a crosscutting storytelling style but, in this case, it is not only flashbacks to Adams’s and Gyllenhall’s characters earlier lives but also to showing us the novel that Edward (Gyllenhall) has written --- a disturbing thriller entitled Nocturnal Animals and dedicated to Susan (Adams). In weaving the three stories together, the present, past, and fiction, Ford uses an array of techniques that owe a debt to film noir, particularly as regards lighting and music. What is particularly striking is that in Susan’s envisioning the novel (thus creating our point of view) the main characters --- a husband, wife, and daughter ---as portrayed by Ford, are played by Gyllenhall, Isla Fisher (who can pass for Amy Adams’s fraternal twin), and Ellie Bamber (who bears a striking resemblance to Adams’s Nocturnal daughter, played by Andrea Riseborough). It is more than clever because it interlocks Susan’s present with her past and the novel in a way that is both compelling and disturbing. Again, without revealing important elements of the plot, let me only note that Michael Shannon, playing a West Texas lawman, once again proves himself to be one of the finest actors we’ve got, turning in, yet again, a brilliant performance. Aaron Taylor-Johnson proves to be a memorable and creepy/scary villain, and Armie Hammer, in a small part, is perfect for his role. Likewise, Laura Linney, brought in to replace Kim Basinger, creates a memorable scene that drives home an important plot point. Nocturnal Animals is taut, compelling, and interesting from start to finish --- another movie well worth the $9.50 paid at Bow Tie 8 in South Norwalk on a Thursday afternoon.

So, that’s my Holiday viewing so far but there will be more coming in the next week or so. Office Christmas Party is high on my list, though I’m afraid I’ve already seen all the funny scenes in the previews. I’m also hoping to check out Miss Sloane, the Jessica Chastain lobbyist movie, as well as Loving (even though I feel as though I’ve seen it, by way of the HBO documentary). Not being a big fan of musicals, I’m not sure I’ll see La La Land but the rave reviews and Ryan Gosling may get me in a theater. I’m eagerly awaiting the Christmas Day release of Fences with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis but have zero interest in the science fiction of Passengers or Rogue One. There may be a review of Hidden Figures, the NASA movie focusing on the contributions of African American female mathematicians breaking barriers. So, that’s the movie landscape I’m surveying at the moment --- have a great holiday season and, despite their sad and disturbing elements, go see Manchester by the Sea and Nocturnal Animals.

Friday, December 16th
Blast #98

,
   It’s STILL the Economy, Stupid!
   (How the Democrats made an Ass out of U and Me)

Based on what I see posted on Facebook these days, many of my friends remain extremely distraught about the election results. That’s understandable, of course, but most of what I’m reading takes the form of “Wait and see, you Trump voters, you’re not going to like what happens!” Now, that may well be true, but I don’t think castigating those folks, no matter how misguided you may believe they are, is where we need to be at this point, particularly if you are a progressive, a liberal, or a Democrat. The fact of the matter is this: while you can argue that Clinton got 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump, she still only got 48% of the popular vote. Beyond Donald Trump’s 46% (and 62-plus million votes) eight million voters chose third party or write-in candidates! That means 70 Million Voters did not want Hillary Clinton. It’s time for those on the left to recognize that having “the most qualified, prepared candidate who has ever run for President” means nothing if: a) that person is perceived as arrogant and entitled (and has been perceived as such for about a quarter of a century) and b) that candidate does not recognize that a large swath of the population (white, primarily rural) has not benefitted from the eight years of economic growth that transpired.

Wednesday’s New York Times ran an article that showed Trump “Found Votes Where the Jobs Weren’t.” Today’s Times describes how Tom Vilsack, the Secretary of Agriculture and former governor of Iowa, tried to get Mrs. Clinton to pay more attention to rural America but found his entreaties fell on deaf ears. As Vilsack notes, “Rural America is 15% of the population . . . It’s the same percentage as African-Americans; it’s the same percentage as Hispanics.” (A21, NYT, December 16) More telling, in the Wednesday article was a chart that displayed “Jobs added or lost since Nov.2007, by race or ethnicity.”   In terms of millions of jobs gained or lost in that nine-year period, Hispanics gained almost 5 million, African-Americans gained over 2 million, Asians gained over 2 million and Whites lost about three-quarters of a million. The article, which cites much of its research from the Brookings Institute, points out that jobs in large cities grew throughout the period --- most significantly in “service” occupations. But whites make up only 56% of large metropolitan populations, as compared to their making up 78% of non-metropolitan areas and 71% of small cities. Clinton’s strategy of primarily campaigning in large metro areas explains, at least in part, a failed strategy.

I am not going to give the media a free pass in this election --- or Russian hacking, or James Comey & his alt-right appearing F.B.I. --- but I believe when you are beaten by 5 million votes, total, a long, hard look must be taken at WHY? Just as the Republicans conducted an “autopsy” after the 2012 election, it's time for those on the Left to examine what’s going on here. Certainly the focus for the Democrats was on identity politics and, over time, that will surely favor the Left but does that justify progressive/liberal politics maintaining its elitist and arrogant stance toward the rural and working white voters? The Democrats, incorrectly, assumed (making an ass out of “u” and me), that the old New Deal/LBJ white working class coalition would turn out in sufficient numbers to handily defeat Trump. There was no sense that the anger and disaffection with this candidate in particular was great enough to swing 77,000 voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania to tip the scales for a clearly unqualified candidate. Hubris: a failure to sense that large scale anger and white backlash exists in the country proved the undoing of Clinton and the Democrats.

Having had conversations, in person and through email, with people I respect --- people whose political views do not coincide with my own --- I have learned that Trump (or Stein/Johnson/McMullen/Write-in) voters are not all a mass of bigoted, racist, ignorant, ill-informed people. Some who are lifelong Republicans --- who found Trump distasteful, at the very least --- could not bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton. As I said to the Lovely Carol Marie recently, “I believe committed right-leaning and right-wing Republican types feel about Hillary Clinton the way we feel about Donald Trump (or Mitch McConnell, or Paul Ryan).” As a result, I think many of those people were among the 8 million who voted “other.” Some, though, probably pulled the lever for Trump. Whatever the case, I believe those of us on the Left must face the reality that there are a huge number of Americans --- and not just ignorant, racist, rednecks --- who do not see the world through the Coastal multicultural inclusive lens that permeates our view of things.

In 1992, Bill Clinton won with 43% of the vote propelled by a simple phrase: “It’s the economy, Stupid.” Somehow, blinded by statistics, perhaps, Hillary Clinton and her staff neglected to note that a significant percent of the old Democratic base (the white working/rural class) had not shared in the Obama recovery. Again, I’m not trying to soft-pedal Trump’s dog whistles or the disgraceful actions of the Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, vowing to “rid” the country of Obama in 4 years and then obstructing every action emanating from the White House for two terms. I am not going to downplay the immediate rise in hate crimes since November 8th, and I will not deny that inherent, institutional racism is still the great problem facing this nation (and one that will be exacerbated by the new President). But I believe those on the Left, if they hope to regain a footing in the legislative and executive branches of our government, must take a good, hard look at who, in fact, their possible candidates are --- on local, state, and national levels --- and they must understand that America is changing demographically but you cannot simply --- and crassly --- leave people behind.

Social media and the Internet have changed the world and the gap between the “informed” and the “ill-informed” is wide, permeated by "fake" news and the like. But there is an economic gap, too, that has left people behind. I doubt the Trump administration will do much to close that gap, given the list of Cabinet appointees we’re seeing and hearing what proposals the McConnell/Ryan led legislature are proposing. Nonetheless, those on the Left need to wake up to the harsh reality that this election was lost by 5 million votes. Whether Clinton got more votes than Trump, at this point, is rather immaterial. Blaming Gary Johnson and Jill Stein and Evan McMullen will not rectify anything. Where do we go next --- and whom do we go there with? Let’s start to focus on those questions while we mount a strong “Loyal Opposition” campaign for the next two to four years.

(A quick note for the Bernie Sanders people: I think you have to seriously consider the campaign Trump would have waged against a Socialist Jew who is 74 years old --- Bernie's economic message may have worked but I think if we consider what Trump would have been Tweeting about Bernie --- and the media’s obsession with covering that --- would have brought the same result we got. Just my opinion, of course.)

Thursday, December 15th
Blast #97

   Would Studying History Help?
(Probably not . . . but . . .)

There is no evidence that teaching U.S. History in a purely chronological fashion (you may recall plodding through facts and dates, starting in 1492 --- probably in your junior year of high school) is any more effective than teaching it thematically or conceptually. Personally, my preference as a U.S. History teacher (often teaching “Advanced Placement” classes) was to look for parallels in history, hoping students would see connections that would help them make more sense of the world. So, as we look forward to the beginning of what will be a new era in our history come January 20, 2017, I’m trying to see if there is anything in our past that might inform the present.

Using examples to illustrate what we’re searching for, let’s examine past parallels that seem particularly apt, thereby highlighting what we might look for as we move forward. One historical parallel that seems blatantly obvious in hindsight --- and was even pointed out by some at the time, to no avail --- is the American Revolution and the Vietnam War. Even though the revolutionary Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh was referred to as “the George Washington” of Vietnam (seemingly a dead giveaway) we, nonetheless, engaged in a protracted war of attrition that was doomed to failure, just as the British Empire did in the 18th century. If we look at the wars in parallel, here’s what we see: the leading worldwide empire (Great Britain/United States) engages in a war against an “oppressed” population (Vietnamese people/North American Colonials) who are fighting on their own terrain, a great distance from the homeland of the empire (3000 miles for G.B. in 1780,/8,000 miles for the U.S. in 1970). The leader of the revolutionaries (George Washington/Ho Chi Minh) knew that simply keeping an army in the field (war of attrition) would ultimately insure victory, as the expense in lives and treasure would lead to protest and dissent in the empire’s homeland. Couple all that with a belief of the empire’s troops that the enemy had particular advantages (the British knew the Colonials were sharpshooters with Kentucky rifles; US troops knew Vietcong in South Vietnam were booby trapping their vehicles, etc.), led to a widespread loss of morale and you have the unmaking of an empire.

Similarly, if we look at the 1920s and the 1960s in United States History, the parallels are quite striking. By simply examining an array of “topics” we can see how one era echoes the other. (Note: I would define the “60’s” as JFK’s assassination in November, 1963 to August, 1974, with Nixon’s resignation as the "real" Sixties) For example, both periods trumpeted the arrival of big-time/big $$$ sports (baseball/Babe Ruth & Jack Dempsey in the 20’s, NFL football/Jim Brown & Muhammad Ali in the 60’s). “Heroic” moments were provided by Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927 and Neil Armstrong’s Moonwalk in 1969. The prohibition (and attempted enforcement) of alcohol in the 20s was quite comparable to the first “war on drugs” (particularly marijuana) in the 60s. Likewise, in music, the 20’s Jazz Age was paralleled by the 60’s Beatles and the “rock” revolution. Political scandals (Teapot Dome in the 20s, Watergate in the “60s”) were similar and there was also a revolution in communication with the 20’s ushering in the era of Radio while the 60’s saw the advent of a (color) television in every home. The beginning of equality movements also created some significant parallels, with the Harlem Renaissance (and race riots) in the 20’s paired to the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s. And, of course, there was women’s suffrage (the 19th amendment) and “Flappers” in the 20’s compared to the bra-burning “Women’s Lib” of the 60’s. Finally, we see how the automobile became accessible to everyone in the 1920’s (thanks, Henry Ford) and then created the suburbs that began to see massive “white flight” in the 1960’s. In all, very comparable times.

Looking at 1865 to 1900 in parallel with 1965 to 2000 shows how the history of our past can inform the present. Historically, of course, 1865 to 1900 in “historian’s” terms encompasses “Reconstruction,” “The Age of Conservative Reaction,” along with the seeds of the “Progressive Era” and America’s entry into Imperialism. In simpler terms, it is a period of wide scale Jim Crow segregation and racism, there is the growth of monopoly capital concentrated in a small group of people (Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan); we see a huge wave of immigration, and there is a rise of “populism” with the growth of labor unionism as well as increased concern for the “common man.” There is also, at the end of the period (the 1890’s) a surge in global expansion by the U.S. How does that measure up with 1965 to 2000? Well, we see the “triumph” of the Civil Rights movement (like the “triumph” of the Civil War) lead to “white flight” and increasingly segregated neighborhoods & schooling; wealth in the late 20th century becomes concentrated among the top “1%,” and the United States is the dominant world power, particularly in light of the U.S.S.R.’s demise. As in the 1865 to 1900 period, where Thomas Edison and Alexander Bell ushered in a new world of technology, 1965 to 2000 saw the accelerating growth of the Digital Age, radically altering our day-to-day world, just as Edison & Bell did theirs. And, of course, the Southern & Eastern European immigration in the late 19th century is paralleled by the Asian & Latino immigration of the late 20th, met wth equal animosity and nativist reaction. Again, looking at the periods side by side, we can see how history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself but it surely follows certain patterns that might enlighten us when dealing with our own world.

Again and again in United States history we see parallelism that might be used to help anticipate problems or search for solutions to current situations. So, as we approach the inauguration of Trump on January, 20, 2017, would it be any help for us to examine the 1900 to 1920 period as a parallel to 2000 to 2020? If we look at the international adventurism of Teddy Roosevelt (“Speak Softly & Carry a Big Stick”) --- with his “gunboat diplomacy” and virtual takeover of Panama to create the Canal; his wielding control over the Philippines and Cuba; his sending the “Great White Fleet” around the world to impress/intimidate others; and his “Roosevelt Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine (the U.S. would be the “policeman” of the Western Hemisphere) --- we can see some parallels to the George W. Bush administration’s Iraq/Afghanistan forays, even comparing the 9/11 attack with the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor, leading to the Spanish American War (TR, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy ordered Admiral Dewey to attack Manila Harborin 1898).

     Of course, TR did win the Nobel Peace Prize, like Obama, so we might be smudging the historical parallel a bit --- though less than we might believe. TR and his successor Taft, and their successor, Woodrow Wilson, all spoke about “hope” and “change” for the common American, reflecting the Progressive Movement of the early 20th century. Certainly we might look at Obama’s attempts at recovery from the economic crash of 2007 and his Affordable Care Act as similar to some of the Progressive movement's legislation. The drive for minimum wage (and now, its increase), the push for equality by women and minorities, talk of breaking monopolies, are certainly parallel topics in the early years of both centuries. And, as in the 1920's, we again see racial unrest and a rise of nativism (the KKK membership surpassed 4 million at its peak in the 1920's).

     The question is, will Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” administration parallel Warren G. Harding's “Return to Normalcy” and Calvin Coolidge’s “America’s Business is Business?” Certainly the conservative turn away from Progressivism at home and War abroad in the 1920's focused on limiting the role of the Federal government and letting the business people "get on with their work" --- something that sounds and feels quite familiar today, just as Trump's "neo-isolationist" rhetoric parallels that period, too. We all know how the 20's ended, of course, with a Great Depression followed by New Deal liberalism --- neither of which is appealing to 21st Century America voters. While hoping the economy does not crash, of course, the question still remains: “Can keeping an eye in our historical rear-view mirror actually help us avoid “accidents” ( repeating mistakes) as we drive ahead in the 21st century?”

     Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

   But I’d recommend keeping an eye in that rear-view.

Wednesday, December 14th
Blast #96

'Tis the Season for Nostalgia?

One of the enduring mysteries high school teachers experience is that you spend a year, sometimes two, with countless students, many of whom you grow attached to and see real promise in --- and then they’re gone! That yearly parade continues throughout a career and, if you do it for 42 years, there are thousands of adolescents passing through your life. Reflecting on your own life as a student, how many high school teachers did you (or do you?) still have contact with? In our age of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram the possibilities, of course, are far greater than ever for connection and, therefore, more likely. But “virtual” connections, ultimately, are superficial --- you know what someone looks like, where they live, something about their family, perhaps, but I would question how much genuine connection truly exists. I am reflecting on this because last night I was at Morton’s Steakhouse in White Plains, New York, attending a dinner with three of my former teaching colleagues and eight of our former students. What made the dinner unique, I believe, is that it was the 7th year in a row having this reunion, with the four former teachers now all retired (and in their mid to late 60’s) and the eight former students in or approaching their mid-fifties. The ostensible connection is that the students played on a high school basketball team that I coached, but it really goes much deeper than that.

On Monday I wrote about Cora Lattanzio’s passing and the significance of Cora in the history of Blind Brook High School, a very special place in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. The dinner at Morton’s last night is the real testimony to how unique and unusual Blind Brook was in those years. All school’s have a “mission statement” but most of them sound pretty familiar (“Anyplace High School seeks to create a safe and secure environment that will allow every student to attain his/her maximum potential to become a successful and productive citizen in a democratic society.”) Not that there is anything wrong with such statements but when I was consulting with schools throughout the ‘90’s and early aughts I would ask: “Where’s the evidence that you’re attaining your Mission Statement?” I would also want to know if the school was doing anything right now that a visitor might observe illustrating the school was, indeed, creating an environment where students were attaining their potential or becoming a responsible, democratic citizen. Many schools, of course, when faced with that challenging question, would march the visitor into an “Honors” or “Advanced Placement” class to show off the school’s “best.” Anyone who has been around schools (or has attended school, for that matter) knows that, very often, the “Honors” or “Advanced Placement” students are the overachieving, compliant, goody-two-shoes kids (I know, I’m stereotyping and being a bit unfair, but not by much!) and are not necessarily representative of the student body.

I’m not sure what Blind Brook Junior/Senior High School’s explicit Mission Statement was when we opened in September of 1973 but I do know that there was a clear commitment, from Principal Dave Schein down through the ranks of the teaching staff, to make sure that every student was known well and given a chance to live up to his/her potential, even if it wasn’t necessarily academic. As a result, we didn’t have “Honors” classes and, when the community pressured us for “Advanced Placement” courses, as the only 11th Grade United States History teacher I said, “Fine, everybody in our 11th grade will be taking Advanced Placement United States History starting next year.” That amounted to about four classes of 25 students each, with a wide range of talents and abilities. They didn’t have to take the A.P. exam if they didn’t want to but they were all going to get the high school equivalent of a college freshman U.S. History class.

What’s significant about things like no “honors” and “everyone takes A.P.” is that 1) you avoid the tracking that creates “elitist” cliques (students are pretty good at doing that by themselves) and 2) everyone has a shared educational experience (for better or worse) with that crazy history teacher! By trying to reach the potential of every student at Blind Brook, the Industrial Arts and Music programs became areas of excellence, teeming with students. Because the school was small (400 students 9-12) almost everyone found a place that made them special --- or at least well known by one or more of the adults on the staff. The Nurse’s office was a beehive of activity because our colleague there was a generous and welcoming presence. Cora and Dave, in the Main Office, took in all kinds of “strays” --- kids who just needed to sit and work on a jigsaw puzzle (in the principal’s office) or wanted a quiet place to read. The Media Center/Library was another area where the Director and her assistant always had staff and/or kids in their office.

The architecture of the place was unique, too, with a huge, wide-open Commons Area dominating the entrance to the building. Glass walls looked into the Science classrooms as teachers conducted Labs for all to see. There were no permanent interior walls in the “Humanities” teaching areas --- only rolling partitions and it took us a while to learn how to deal with “ambient” noise. Much of the teaching staff was young --- almost none of Dave’s “new hires” (starting in 1973) were even approaching 30 and there was a preponderance of Colgate and Columbia Master’s of Arts in Education graduates --- teachers whose preparation was based on a large dose of what was then called “Humanistic Education," taking its cues from John Dewey, John Holt, Jonathan Kozol, and Paolo Freire, which put students at the center of the educational institution.

That was the world where the four now-retired teachers truly learned to hone their craft and the eight former students grew from 7th graders to high school graduates. Going full circle, it is hard for me to describe the incredible sense of joy, satisfaction, pride, and, yes, love generated by this yearly dinner. As you grow older and watch friends pass away as new life enters simultaneously (Steve Jones’s second grandson joined the world as Cora left), you begin to appreciate the little gifts you are given along the way. This holiday season our family made a commitment to not get presents for any of the adults but to spend more time with our families instead.

So, yes, this is a very sentimental Blast, to thank the Blind Brook High School graduates from the classes of ’78, ’79, ’80, and ’81 who were at last night’s dinner. Seeing the “product” of work you put your heart and soul into 40 or more years ago is a rare blessing, indeed, and when that “product” is such an admirable, generous, and caring group of people, it is all the more satisfying. So, I hope others get the best gift possible during this Holiday Season --- TIME with people who make a difference in your life, and in whose lives you hope you’ve made a difference in as well.

Tuesday, December 13th
Blast #95

Parallax View of History

While we’re reading a lot about all the conspiracy theorists on the right these days (and they are legion) I’m going to turn my attention to my favorite left-wing conspiracy theorist, Oliver Stone. JFK, of course, was an incredible example of one man’s vision of the always controversial Kennedy assassination, implicating the CIA, the military, the Mob, and Cubans in one fell swoop. Personally, I’m always a bit wary of the “lone nut” assassination conclusions (with three-name assassins: John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray) but Stone’s theorizing and conspiracy-tinged film was even a little around the bend for me. So, as I sat down to binge watch The Untold History of the United States, a 2012 documentary produced, directed, and narrated by Stone, I assumed it would have a distinct left-leaning point of view --- and it certainly does. BUT, there is nothing in the documentary you cannot fact check as accurate --- when it comes to the pure facts and statistics (for example, that 27 million Russians died during WW II, compared to less than a half-million Americans). Statistics and facts are also subject to interpretation, of course, and Stone certainly does plenty of that. Well aware of his bias, and my own (which coincicdes with his), the documentary is compelling and presents a number of facts that many folks probably do not know --- particularly regarding the shaping of U.S. History in the last 75 years.

As a high school U.S. History teacher I used point out that the dropping of the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, was a calculated political move by Truman aimed at the U.S.S.R. as much as it was at the Japanese. The traditional narrative, of course, is that an invasion of Japan would have cost hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, American casualties (not deaths).   If you investigate that claim, however, you’ll discover that estimates ranged from 31,00 to 1.4 million casualties for the Americans (compared to 10 million for the Japanese) and almost no consideration of an American invasion ever mentions that the U.S.S.R. would also have invaded (having already defeated the Japanese in Northern China), thereby quickly crushing Japan in a pincer movement --- and possibly causing Japan to surrender before any such invasion could occur.   Stone points out that the U.S.’s insistence on unconditional surrender (where Emperor would have to be disgraced) was the stumbling block for the Japanese. Ironically, of course, even after two atomic bombs were dropped, Japan surrendered without the Emperor abdicating his throne. More to the point, though, Russia was the real target of the A-bombs. Victory in Europe was on May 7, 1945. Our alliance with Stalin stipulated that Russia did not have to enter the Pacific Theater until three months after the war in Europe ended. A simple look at a calendar and one can see that Russia wouldn’t enter the Pacific war until August 7th! If Japan immediately surrendered when we dropped the first A-bomb (August 6th), Russia would have no say in the spoils of the Pacific Theater, leaving the United States and England to determine the future of the Asian world. When Japan didn’t surrender on the 6th, the U.S.S.R. officially entered the Pacific war. As a result, the U.S. not only punished Japan but also threatened the Soviets by dropping a second A-bomb on August 9th.

Stone’s documentary goes into great detail to describe how Henry Wallace, FDR’s Vice President during his third term (1941-45), a progressive, left-leaning politician, was ousted by the Democratic machine bosses at the 1944 Democratic Convention. Wallace was seen as too friendly to labor and integrationist causes for the conservative Democrats --- particularly Southerners --- and was replaced by the more pliable Truman, whose Senate seat had been obtained by way of the corrupt Kansas City “Pendergast” machine. Stone points out that Truman, who moderated some of his views during his tenure as President, nonetheless never stopped using the “n” word when discussing African-Americans. More significantly, Truman’s right-hand-man, virtual vice president, and Secretary of State after FDR’s death in April, 1945, was South Carolina’s James (“Jimmy”) Byrnes. Byrnes had been a confidant of FDR and a dyed-in-the-wool New Dealer but also a supporter of lynching and a rabid anti-communist. As Truman’s Secretary of State, all of the positive relations FDR had begun to develop with Stalin were flushed away in one fell swoop. Stone makes that point and I have elaborated upon it here because it set the stage and tone for the next 70 years of U.S. history.

As Stone presents it --- and I largely agree --- the narrative of post-WWII United States history is that we won the war because we are not just “the good guys,” but the best guys (the "Greatest Generation"). Our democracy, our capitalism, our American Dream is the greatest thing the world has ever seen and, as a result, we are the leaders of the World. Now, in post-WWII, of course, that became the FREE World. Ignoring Russia’s 27 million dead, we failed to see that Stalin’s desire for his sphere of influence to be Eastern Europe (after Napoleon and after Hitler, Russia wants a buffer zone). The Russian takeover of what became “Eastern bloc” nations was quickly translated into “ruthless Communist aggression,” a “domino theory,” and a new enemy the U.S. must stand up to. Stone wonders, “what if” some of the Marshall Plan aid to rebuild Europe had been extended to Russia and Eastern bloc nations --- would that have altered history? Of course we’ll never know because the Byrnes led State Department made it clear from the start that the Red Menace had to be stopped.

I am not going to defend at all Stalin’s atrocities or the heavy-handed takeover of Eastern Europe. But to not see the United Kingdom’s and other European nations’ colonialism, as well as our own actions in the post-WWII as less than "noble" would be hypocritical at best. England and Europe grudgingly gave up their colonial possessions largely because of the shadow of HItler's racism. Our own ruthless destruction of democracies is a sad chapter, indeed, of U.S. History.   In Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa when indigenous popluations, for some ridiculous reason elected a Socialist --- as the Guatemalans, the Chileans, the Iranians, the Congolese, and the Dominicans did --- we had our C.I.A., often at the behest of United Fruit or another multinational corporation --- orchestrate assassinations in each and every case . The facts are there: as much as the Russians and, later, the Chinese Communists may have been brutal overlords, it is disingenuous to not see that much of the world sees the United States the same way we have painted those dictatorships. Claiming our “democracy” (where the winner of popular votes does not, necessarily, win) makes us exceptional has been the enduring theme of U.S. History over the last 70 years --- but much of the world no longer buys the myth.

The overarching tale The Untold History of the United States tells connects a through-line about American Exceptionalism that is based on faith (a belief with no empirical evidence) that we are “chosen” to lead the world, that our way is the best (and only?) way. While George W. Bush may tell us that the Twin Towers were destroyed because “they hate our freedom,” we may want to step back and consider other possible reasons. That 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi Arabians (our “ally?”), devoted to a philosophy espoused by Osama Bin Laden portraying the U.S. as “the Great Satan” should tell us something. If you consider U.S. history, post-WWII to the present, you can see how the recurring theme (now resurrected in its newest incarnation by Trump’s “Make America Great Again”) has been that there is an enemy “out there” who wants to destroy our exceptional nation. The Communists were the easy targets until 1991 and now it is “radical Islam” and terrorists (terrorism, as Stone points out, "is a tactic, not an ideology" or a nation-state). We have gone from Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare to Richard Nixon’s “enemy within,” rallying his "Silent Majority," through Ronald Reagan’s opposition to an “evil Empire” and George W. Bush’s hard line against an “axis of evil” to find ourselves on the brink of “Making America Great Again.” Stone, by the way, is not at all kind to the Democratic presidents in the film --- skewering and filleting Truman, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Obama, and only letting JFK off a bit (and only a bit) easier because he wasn’t in office too long.

The Untold History of the United States is an interesting and informative documentary where you can easily read Stone’s bias and take that for what it’s worth. As an old adage says, “Everyone’s entitled to his own opinion. Everyone is not entitled to his own facts.” Anyone can easily see Stone’s opinions here but there are facts that can’t be denied, whether you sit on the left or right, and those facts have been ignored or mangled through the pervasive narrative of American Exceptionalism. As concerned citizens, we need to honestly look at the facts presented in our history to understand the complex and complicated landscape we face as 2017 approaches.

Here's an excerpt from an interview on October 21, 2013, by Matt Zoller Seitz with RogerEbert.com contributor Steve Boone about "Untold History" that might sum up in a few words, what it just took me all that space to write! At the very least, it's an appropriate coda for this Blast.

Boone:  Yes, if you listen carefully, Stone and company are framing this narrative as a story of America as a member of a community. Sometimes we were good neighbors, sometimes we were drunk and disorderly, some times we went around picking pockets and climbing through windows.
Stone's approach seems to treat us as if we're the spoiled daughter of a drug lord who hasn't seen much of life outside the family compound and vacations. We're learning about where the money and prosperity came from and why some of those people out there on the street are so angry at daddy. So many Americans are still sheltered from that side of history, in the 21st century! It's outrageous, and you can sense in the density of Stone's narration and the urgency of his montage, the scramble to get Americans of all political stripes accustomed to the notion that we are not #1—that there is no #1, and that the world should not be organized around a concept of #1.

To that end, he spends a lot of time praising sane, brave and humane policy decisions by our traditional enemies. Some of his praise of the Russian people during WW II and the U.S.'s leading hand in the Cold War would have been enough to get Stone exiled in the 1950s.

Monday, December 12th
Blast #94

Let’s Talk About Education

When I was working as an educator I used to like to joke about it, saying, “I haven’t left school since I was 5 years old.” That was, pretty much, true. Without elaborating in detail I will only say that it was a profession that “made sense” to me. There is a certain autonomy to it that allows for personal creativity and there is an enormous sense of gratification for “giving something back.” As you may have noticed in some earlier Blasts, I am a little thin-skinned about criticism of teachers. Having spent my adult life (starting in December of 1971, at age 22) in a wide variety of classrooms (middle school through graduate school, urban and suburban) I worked with hundreds (if not thousands) of teachers --- and a lot of people who were aspiring teachers. Which is why I bristle at this narrative that permeates the media and political landscape about public schools being rife with “incompetent” teachers. This is just not true --- 95% of my colleagues were dedicated, hard-working, and far more than competent professionals!    Certainly, every teacher is not “gifted,” and some are challenged by the job, but I believe if you examine occupations that are in the same economic tier as teachers ($56,000 per year national average) you would also discover not everyone was a “star” (which may well be true in more high-paying occupations as well). I’ll use another Blast to rail about the salary problem, which we know is one reason more “qualified” people don’t go into teaching.

   What I want to focus on here are two things: 1) how difficult the job is and 2) how cavalierly the public --- including our president-elect --- treats the profession. As to the first point, let me share a quote I used to hand out to the students in my Teacher Preparation classes at Brown and Yale.

If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 30 people in his/her office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn’t want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher’s job. (Donald D. Quinn)

The point here is not to denigrate being a doctor, lawyer, or dentist but to put in some perspective the first challenge every teacher faces. If we factor in where a teacher is working (suburban/urban/rural) there would be another extremely difficult layer of problems (poverty, poor physical facilities, lack of resources, helicopter/snowplow parents, etc.) to contend with. As a high school teacher in suburban schools, I was fond of asking parents what it was like when their child had a group of friends over, trying to get them to imagine focusing the attention of a group of teenagers on learning something. With urban parents I often needed to talk through an interpreter (having taken Latin and German in high school & college --- great choices, there) and tried to stress how important it was that their child speak English as much as possible and get to the library to get access to computers and books.

   The myriad problems teachers face every day is staggering. Again, I’ll use another Blast to talk about the maze of bureaucracy and politics that one is confronted with, as well as a general paucity of enlightened leadership (which gets back to an economic issue: those who are not necessarily the best teachers, or who do not particularly like teaching can make more money becoming principals and superintendents --- often leaving the people who are really creative and know what they’re doing in classrooms, subject to observation/evaluation by “less able” --- but now “in charge” --- individuals). But today I’d like to share a wonderfully written “open letter” to our Secretary of Education nominee, Betsy DeVos. This appeared first in the Huffington Post and then in December 10th’s Washington Post and was brought to my attention by the Lovely Carol Marie.

Teacher to Trump’s education pick:
Let’s ‘address the elephant in the room.’ It’s you.
By Valerie Strauss
   December 10 at 3:30 PM

The selection of Betsy DeVos by President-elect Donald Trump as his education secretary nominee has been attacked by public school advocates who see her longtime support for school “choice” and private Catholic education as evidence that she does not support America’s public education system. In this post, that sentiment is explained by an educator who has written an open letter to DeVos.
He is Patrick Kearney, facilitator for Teacher Leadership in the Johnston Community School District in Iowa. He spent 25 years as a band director in private and public schools of Iowa, and is a past-president of the Iowa Bandmasters Association and past co-chair of the Iowa Jazz Championships. He was also a founding board member of the Jazz Educators of Iowa. His wife teaches in the Des Moines Public Schools and his son is studying education at Drake University.

Here’s the letter, which first appeared on Huffington Post. Kearney gave me permission to republish it.

Dear Ms. DeVos,

I don’t think we’ve really met yet; we are America’s public school teachers. There are about 3.1 million of us. We teach in large urban areas, we teach in the suburbs, we teach in small rural communities, and we teach in some really remote parts of our country. The most important thing to recognize is that we teach every kid who shows up. We don’t pick and choose the types of kids that we will teach, we teach ALL of them.

Because we haven’t really had much interaction, we thought it might be nice to share a little bit about the public schools we teach in. First of all, we are very proud of our schools. Public schools today have the highest graduation rate in American history. The Gallup Poll says that the rate of parents who are satisfied with their public school is the highest in American history. We are also very proud that our public schools offer more services to students with low socioeconomic backgrounds and special education needs than ever before. Not to be redundant, but we are proud that we serve ALL of the students in our communities.

Our communities are very important to us. We are taxpayers in our local communities and many of us have children of our own who attend the public schools that we teach in. We care deeply that our schools are safe and that they are providing a rigorous and relevant curriculum to EVERY student who walks in the door. We recognize that each of our communities have different needs and sometimes get frustrated with a “one size fits all” mentality.

We also know that our public schools face real challenges. Twenty-two percent of U.S. public school students live in poverty, 50 percent more than the next highest industrialized nation. English is a second language to almost 10 percent of the students we serve. Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has fallen more than 10 percent in the last 10 years. We are challenged to keep up with increasing state and federal mandates regarding standardized testing.

America’s public schools are here to serve EVERY kid. As the teachers who keep those schools ticking, all that we ask is that you listen to us.

So, I suppose we also need to address the elephant in the room. We are a little freaked out by your nomination to be secretary of education. You aren’t an educator. You haven’t ever attended or sent your children to a public school, yet you seem to have some pretty strong opinions about them. You don’t seem to have been involved in the study of curriculum or school standards. What you have done is lobby (and spend millions of dollars of your own money in advocacy) for taxpayer dollars to go to unregulated for-profit charter schools. As teachers we like to look at data. Interestingly, the data from Michigan (where you have been able to use your wealth to influence a lot of education policy) would suggest that the charter schools you lobby for aren’t really achieving any better than their public counterparts.

If you are confirmed by the Senate to become secretary of education (and we hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings that many of us will work to oppose your nomination), we hope that you will work to get to know us. It seems that anecdotes of ineffective teachers who get to hold on to jobs without accountability are popular these days. Those anecdotes really don’t match up with what we see in our schools. No one is going into education to get wealthy. We go into teaching because we care about young people. We go into teaching because a teacher in our lives inspired us. When you get to know us we think you will find that we desperately continue to work to improve our schools. If you were to meet us and find that you don’t think much of the work we are doing, we will be curious if you can find an army of better qualified people who want to do this work for less money, fewer benefits, and with more regulation.

The education of America’s young people is important. The challenges in front of us are real. Giving families “choice” in their education options is a worthy conversation, but let us not presume that using tax dollars to support those interested in turning a profit to open unregulated schools with no record of success will improve education in our country. How we use our resources is a reflection of what we value. The most unpopular thing a teacher can say is that there is a cost to providing the best possible education to our students, and yet like most things, you often get what you pay for. Many for-profit charter schools have gone out of business because they quickly discovered that the public schools they replaced weren’t the inefficient operations they assumed them to be.

America’s public schools are here to serve EVERY kid. As the teachers who keep those schools ticking, all that we ask is that you listen to us. You are new to all of this and we are here to help. Once we introduce you to the young Bosnian kid who translates letters home to his parents; the kid living out of the family car who does homework with only a street light to illuminate his textbook; the kids who wants to be sure their school offers great music courses, a world language program, and some advanced courses; and the special education students who love spending part of their day with their peers, we think that you will fall in love with our public schools.

Sincerely,
America’s Teachers

Sunday, December 11th
Blast #93

A Note on Heroes

Heroes can come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, colors, and creeds. America lost a hero this week in John Glenn. The pioneering astronaut entered my life at age 13 when he became the first American to orbit the Earth. At the time, I didn’t appreciate the heroism (the pure balls it took to sit on all that rocket fuel igniting underneath you, etc.) as much as thinking we were catching up to the Russians --- who had already sent Yuri Gargarin into space almost a year earlier. Glenn’s service to our country, as a Marine, a test pilot, an astronaut, and a Senator is impressive across the board. His return to space at age 77 was nothing less than remarkable and revealed, again, the courage of the individual. So, we lost John Glenn this week and a true American hero has left the scene.

One thing I’ve learned over the years, though, is that someone who is a great role model for others can be quite heroic in a less gaudy or headline grabbing fashion. Most kids, when asked who their heroes are, often cite a parent or grandparent --- and rightly so. Someone who lives life admirably, in a fashion that sets a great example we’d all like to follow, can be heroic in his/her own way. In that sense, the passing of Cora Lattanzio at age 86 on December 8th marked the departure of a genuinely heroic person for me --- one who is lesser known to the general public, publicity-wise, but extremely well-known to average folks who know someone in their family, or at the their job, or in their community, who represents the best of who we all can be, day-in and day-out, without looking for public recognition or accolades.

Cora Lattanzio was the secretary to the Principal at Blind Brook High School from 1973 through 1996 and was, without a doubt, the glue that held the school together over those years. In 1973 Blind Brook Junior/Senior High School was brand new, with only grades 7, 8, 9, and 10 --- planning to add 11 & 12 over the next two years. The building was finishing construction that September (with a new, “open” --- read “no interior walls” --- concept) in Rye Brook, a tiny unincorporated village on the border of Greenwich, Connecticut and New York State. David Schein was the first Principal and responsible for staffing the new high school. As luck would have it, I was hired to teach at BBHS and, in the spring of 1973, I first got to know Cora Lattanzio. Traveling down to Rye Brook (I was finishing my Master’s at Colgate in upstate Hamilton, NY) for my interview with Dave, I had a brief, but a very positive, meeting with Cora, who was extremely pleased to learn my mother was Italian-American! Within a week, Cora was the one who called to let me know I had gotten the job --- and also inform me that there was a small carriage house on the property of the district’s lone elementary school that was available for rent: would I be interested? So, Cora became my real estate agent and I lived in that house (with my first wife, Kathy) for the eleven years I worked at Blind Brook. When Cora called again, several days later, to inform me that my contract and my lease were ready to sign, my roommate, Steve Jones, answered the phone. He asked Cora if there were any other job openings at Blind Brook for September and Cora told him there was an English position, arranging an interview for Steve before I even got on the phone --- Cora was also Dave Schein’s job placement officer. The rest, as they say, was history.

Steve got the job and we began working at Blind Brook in September, 1973. Cora and Dave, in the front office, were the perfect team for a young staff of energetic, idealistic teachers. Serving as Dave’s gatekeeper, Cora knew who to let in when and who to turn away from Dave’s door. She made each of us feel as though we were her(and Dave's) favorite teacher on the staff without creating any jealousy or rivalry --- and getting the maximum production from the group. In a school district that was about 65% Jewish and 35% Italian, having David Schein and Cora Lattanzio as the “face of the franchise” was straight out of central casting.

If you have not been involved in a school start-up you have no idea how crazy it is. Just as most people don’t really understand how complex and complicated schools are as institutions, even fewer have any clue as to how difficult it is to establish that institution! But we had a real vision about what we wanted Blind Brook to be and Dave, as Principal, and Cora, as First Officer, set the course perfectly. Cora, as a member of the community who had voted to create the school (her older daughters, Carol & Lynn, had commuted to high schools outside the village --- her youngest daughter, Joyce, was our student), was able to provide Dave with all the intel he needed about the community at all times. What we created was an incredible school that reflected a set of values about students being at the center of the educational process. When we were first accredited five years into our existence, the Committee described Blind Brook Junior/Senior High School as a “House of Joy.” And it was --- and Cora Lattanzio, who left us this week --- was the heart of that House.

I was on our school’s Steering Committee for that first Acceditation and we spent long hours meeting and putting together reports and trying to make sure we had all our “i’s” dotted and “t’s” crossed correctly. There were countless dinners at the Lattanzio household during that time with Al, Cora’s husband of 62 years who passed away just a couple of years ago, serving as the most gracious host you could imagine. Because of Joyce’s involvement in the music program at Blind Brook, Cora and Al hosted all kinds of events for our beloved music director, George Trautwein, and his choirs and choruses over the years. The warmth and generosity of Cora and Al seemed boundless and, for a young Blind Brook teaching staff (many of us started in our early/mid 20’s) she was clearly a surrogate Mom --- and a wonderful role model, heroic in stature, to be sure.

So, John Glenn passed away to great fanfare this week --- all of it well deserved. But in my corner of the world, the passing of Cora Lattanzio is a far greater loss. Cora loved life and lived it to the max, with a beautiful smile and a caring heart always. She was not above zinging you with a quick barb, too, but always in fun because you knew, beneath it all, she really loved the people around her. Cora, who devoted her life, love, and energy to Al, to the girls, and to all of us, will be missed, but left us all a great model to live up to. Cora Lattanzio, R.I.P.

Friday, December 9th
Blast #92

 10, 000 Hours of Practice

Last night, the Lovely Carol Marie and I went to the Fairfield Theater Company’s Stage One venue (about 200 seats) to see Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams perform. It was a thrilling, uplifting evening --- the kind that reminds you how transcendent music can be.
Most folks don’t know who Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams are, which is a shame. Carol Marie and I first saw them perform together a few years ago when they were the opening act (and then back-up performers) for Jackson Browne.

I knew Larry Campbell’s name from his work as a producer and multi-instrumentalist (stringed instruments) with Levon Helm, the late great drummer/singer with The Band. Campbell, in fact, won two Grammy awards as Helm’s producer of Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt --- winners in the “Americana” category. Watching Campbell play with Jackson Browne’s band --- moving from acoustic to electric guitar, mandolin, and pedal steel guitar with equal virtuosity --- was a revelation. On top of that, he’s got a great voice. Watching him last night, on acoustic (electrified/amplified) guitar and mandolin it made me think of Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 Hour Rule.” In Outliers, Gladwell posits that it takes 10000 hours of practice or rehearsal to become a master at any skill. As I watched Campbell effortlessly play song after song, playing and singing with clear joy, I thought of how much practice had to go into developing virtuosic skill like this. And then, he sings, too! Not just sings but has a warm, folksy voice with an ability to hold a note longer than humanly possible. A stunningly talented individual.

And then there’s his wife, Teresa Williams, whose angelic and powerful voice is a showstopper. A Tennessee native, Ms. Williams briefly mentioned her childhood of picking cotton and singing at church, joining a “girl group” by 8th grade, singing popular country songs. If you watch the video (of the Rev. Gary Davis, Jr. song, “Keep your lamp trimmed & burning”) you can begin to appreciate the dynamism and power of Teresa Williams’s voice. Seeing her in person is an incredible experience --- her ability to infuse a song with emotion and texture is really quite amazing. She is also an accomplished guitarist in her own right, providing excellent support for Campbell’s excursions up and down his fret board. Beyond that, like Campbell, she emits the sheer joy of playing and singing music for others --- a real gift for all concerned.

Campbell’s and Williams’s (she explained that “Larry said the names are billed alphabetically”) set list was an array of country/blues originals and classics (like the video) made unique by Ms. Williams’s voice, the duo’s beautiful harmonizing, and Mr. Campbell’s exceptional guitar and mandolin playing. In all, it was a “joyful noise” for almost two hours and I’ll conclude by simply saying, if you ever get a chance to see Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams in person, DO IT! They are a pure joy and a visceral reminder of just how much music can prove to be a real gift for the heart and soul.

Here's a video of Campbell & Williams performing the aforementioned Rev. Gary Davis, Jr. song.

Thursday, December 8th
Blast #91

A Hot Stove Blast

I know lots of folks aren’t baseball fans and, if you are among those people, please read the essay at the end of this Blast first and then decide if you want to read this piece, which is Baseball in December! This time of year, for baseball fans, is referred to as the “Hot Stove League” because, back in the day, when baseball was the main sport in America, people sat around their pot-bellied stoves and discussed how the next season was going to shape up.

In this day and age of 24/7 news coverage, with the MLB Network out there (and their program, “Hot Stove”), baseball fans can keep up with not only their home team but also see what their opponents are up to. As a diehard and lifelong New York Yankee fan (I can hear the boo’s from the heartland now), 2017 is shaping up as an interesting season. For the first time in anyone’s memory, the Yankees are actually trying to rebuild their team (while staying competitive). Watching the Yankees in August and September, with young stars like Gary Sanchez leading the way, Yankee fans have something to look forward to come April. Even though the Red Sox have added Chris Sale to their starting rotation --- and the Yankee General Manager Brian Cashman has likened them to the NBA Golden State Warriors (veritably unbeatable) --- I think Cashman is being sly as a fox about this. Having added the right-handed hitting Matt Holiday (a lifetime .303 hitter with power), the 2017 Yanks have some power from the right side of the batter’s box (aside from Holliday, the lineup will feature Starlin Castro & Gary Sanchez – 40 plus homers last year – as well as Aaron Judge with his world of potential). The American League East is always a dogfight and I think, contrary to many, the Yankees will be in it. Without going into further details --- for fear of boring some readers --- I’ll leave it at that. But the essay that follows may explain why you should be a baseball fan.

BTW --- 66 Days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in Florida & Arizona.

  Why you should LOVE Baseball

  I always feel the need to explain to all those who believe baseball is a “boring” game, or that it “takes too long,” or who simply say “How can you watch/like that?” why they are missing the beauty of the sport. I won’t steal George Carlin’s brilliant monologue on the differences between baseball and football (though everyone should hear it: simply Google YouTube- “George Carlin on Baseball and Football”) but I will focus on a point or two he makes. Most significantly, in baseball the DEFENSE has the ball and controls the game. Imagine if this happened in basketball or football? Of course, it couldn’t! It’s a genuinely unique concept and part of what sets baseball apart and makes it a game where every pitch requires new strategy. More than that, THE most difficult athletic skill, bar none, is hitting a well-pitched baseball. To hit a round ball (moving at speeds up to --- and now beyond --- 100 mph, spinning in a variety of ways --- or floating and then breaking in who-knows-what-direction, like a knuckleball) with a round bat SQUARELY is rare athletic gift. In what other sport – or occupation, for that matter – would you be considered at the top of your profession when you were only successful 3 out of 10 times? Yet a .300 hitter in baseball is seen as among the best in the game. Those who don’t understand this lovely subtlety are missing just some of the beauty of the game. (Think about Michael Jordan's baseball career if you want to consider how challenging the sport is.)

   That baseball is also a game that does not discriminate as far as height, weight, fleetness afoot, etc. is another extraordinary element of the sport. Where football and basketball clearly prefer extreme endomorphs or ectomorphs and value almost inhuman strength, blazing speed and other worldly jumping ability--- almost as prerequisites---baseball has room for everybody. A 2015 photo of Dellin Betances, the 6’8’’ Yankee pitcher next to Houston’s (allegedly) 5’6” Jose Altuve at an ALL-STAR game (above, right) displayed the wonderful democracy of baseball.

This speaks to another aspect of baseball that is extraordinary. While athletes have most certainly gotten bigger, faster, stronger as time has gone on, baseball fields and the records established on them have been incredibly consistent (let’s ignore the PED fueled ‘80’s and ‘90’s for the moment). By that I mean, no matter how much bigger, faster, stronger athletes have become --- if you hit the ball sharply to shortstop, you cannot run the 90 feet to first base safely. A .300 hitter is a .300 hitter and a pitcher with an Earned Run Average (ERA) below 3.00 are still the best in the game, just as they were in the 1920’s or ‘30’s and so on.   Basketball and football records have changed dramatically in the last 50 years (and let’s not even speculate on what PEDs might be used in those leagues) because the athletes have gotten bigger, faster, stronger. Not to mention some basic changes in the games themselves. While the American League has added the designated hitter, the most radical change in baseball, it is nowhere near the game changer the 3 point line has become in basketball --- not to mention how basketball scoring records are now altered by allowing people to score a new way (I think of what Pete Maravich would have accomplished with a 3 point line)! Football has remained a 100 yard field, but goal posts and hashmarks have changed over the years and rules regarding defensive line play (head slaps), coverage of receivers (jamming people at the line) as well as the new array of rules to try to keep the game "safe" have adjusted to the bigger, stronger, faster players. And baseball? Look at the Betances-Altuve photo – a pitcher with an ERA below 2.00 and the league leader in hits and stolen bases—playing on the same fields, dimensionally, as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, et al.

Baseball is a summer game (no time limit – enjoy yourself at the park, as Carlin tells us) and it’s a throwback.  Everyone can play baseball and to not see how this extremely simple yet beautifully complicated game is so much a part of who we are is to genuinely miss something special.

One final note: I read a sociological essay years ago about how a baseball field perfectly reflects the geography (and psyche?) of America. While I can’t remember the author or all the details, the gist was this: Between the pitcher’s mound and home plate, a distance of 60 feet and 6 inches, you have four people (pitcher-catcher-batter-umpire) and all the action takes place there, since every play begins with a pitch. It is a busy place --- very urban. As we move out to the infield, where the bases are 90 feet apart, we find 4 players “living” in the suburbs. Of course I have forgotten to mention the basic shape of a baseball field is ever-expanding down the first and third base lines and, if not for fences built at fields and stadiums, would go on forever --- quite the limitless, "westward ho" American Dream. But those fences, anywhere between 300 and 450 feet from home plate in most major league parks, contain the outfield --- a huge pasture patrolled by only three people, much like the rural areas of America --- vast, wide open and sparsely populated. I find it an apt analogy and it reinforces my love for this timeless and wonderful game.

James Earl Jones, playing Terrance Mann, the iconoclastic author in the movie “Field of Dreams,” captures an important sentiment in his wonderful monologue toward the end of the film.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

If you haven't gone to a baseball game in years --- or if you haven't ever gone to one --- get out to the ball park on a nice summer afternoon or evening and revel in the pace of the game, the thoughtfulness of the batters and pitchers as they duel, the alertness (or absentmindedness) of the fielders. Enjoy it.

An old friend, a teacher and poet, Tom Brush, sent me a poem back in 1986 called "Dreamland" and its final stanza sums up what I'm trying to say far better than I could.

This year I'll sit in the bleachers, take
off my shirt, catch the sun, chase
a red hot with cold
beer, bring back the Babe,
The Bambino, before he shifted
to right, when he still threw
smoke, when the Red Sox were something
like magic.

Wednesday, December 7th
Blast #90
(Pearl Harbor Day, 1941)

Rules Don’t Apply
(to Warren Beatty)

I first remember seeing Warren Beatty on the old TV show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, where he played the rich kid, Milton Armitage (before handing his stereotype off to Steve Frankel as Chatsworth Osborne, Jr.). It was a few years later that I saw Splendor in the Grass, also on television, impressed with the young Beatty’s performance. During my early adulthood Warren Beatty became a permanent part of my Hollywood landscape, with Bonnie & Clyde, Shampoo, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Parallax View, Heaven Can Wait, and Reds (which totally blew me away). Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” of course, was already wildly popular and everyone seemed to know, almost immediately, that the recurring chorus was about Warren. Despite Ishtar, his monumental flop with Dustin Hoffman, Bugsy and then Bulworth (brilliant!) re-established Beatty’s bona fides and now we have Rules Don’t Apply, a fictionalized portrait of Howard Hughes (played by Beatty) that is an uneven romantic comedy, Hollywood satire, and political commentary --- worth seeing but not anything that’s going to knock your socks off.

Because of Beatty’s stature as an actor and filmmaker, and because of his body of work, I wanted to see Rules Don’t Apply, having a vague idea about the story from previews I had seen and comments in the press. I also heard Beatty interviewed on NPR recently, with an interesting story about his only encounter with Howard Hughes (or, more appropriately, the Howard Hughes legend). Not long after his success in Splendor in the Grass (1961) Beatty was staying in a Las Vegas hotel and noticed that his hallway always had a number of what were clearly bouncers/bodyguards patrolling it. He went to management to tell them he did not require such security (an insight into the young Beatty’s sense of self-importance) and was informed that the men were in the employ of Mr. Hughes to protect his privacy. As you watch Rules Don’t Apply you might wonder how long Beatty has been playing with the myth of Hughes in his own, filmmaking imagination. Another segment of Rules Don’t Apply that is quite autobiographical is the female lead character, Marla Mabry (played by Lily Collins), a Baptist from Virginia --- just as Beatty was when he arrived in Hollywood for Splendor. And, in some ways, the arc of Lily’s character is not unlike Natalie Woods’s Deanie in the 1961 film (the confused sexuality of a post-pubescent woman). In that sense, there is a certain circular symmetry to Rules Don’t Apply.

Satiric notes in the film include Hughes having 26 young starlets at his beck and call under the pretense of casting them in feature films (echoing Beatty’s own historic Lothario reputation); the intersection of big money movie making and big money politics (and, it should be noted, Steve Mnuchin, the next Secretary of the Treasury, was a producer on this film with a small, non-speaking role!); and the growing prominence of (black and white) television (including the TV dinners Beatty & Collins share in an early scene). The films title, Rules Don’t Apply could also be seen as a commentary on Beatty’s approach to filmmaking in Hollywood --- he can, like Hughes, do what he wants.
As for the film itself, the core of the plot revolves around the romance between Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich) and the ingénue Marla Mabry (Lily Collins) who arrives in Hollywood with her Baptist mother (Annette Bening). Frank is a driver for Howard Hughes who has never met the man but is angling at getting Hughes to back a real estate scheme Forbes has in mind. The film begins in 1964, with a televised press conference --- reporters are waiting for Hughes to make a call by a designated time to dispel a tell-all, unauthorized “biography” written by a Clifford Irving type “novelist.”

Before that call is made, however, we flashback to 1958 or ’59, when Lily arrives in Hollywood, picked up by Frank at the airport. We see the immediate attraction between Frank and Lily and many of the plot’s twists and turns revolve around that romance --- rather unevenly because of the Hughes element of the story. There is a sterling supporting cast, including Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Alec Baldwin, Oliver Platt, Paul Sorvino, Martin Sheen, and Hart Bochner --- none of whom is given a role they can really sink their teeth into, a terrible waste of talent. Matthew Broderick, as Levar, Frank’s fellow-driver and mentor, displays his usual understated professionalism and Candice Bergen is excellent as Nadine, Hughes gate keeping office manager. But even there, neither actor is given anything particularly challenging or interesting to do.

Beatty’s performance as the eccentric m/billionaire on the cusp of madness (see Scorsese’s The Aviator for that) always proves engaging: sometimes quite comical, sometimes pathetic, sometimes frustrating. Watching the 79-year-old Beatty play the 59 year old Hughes almost seems a parody itself of Hughes’s attempts at charming much younger women. Again, there are autobiographical overtones when Hughes’s discusses his “Daddy” and Frank describes his father’s abandonment of the family --- Beatty’s own father, was an “excessive drinker” (Wikipedia) and Beatty’s mother and older sister (Shirley MacLaine) were clearly the stronger influences on the young man.

In all, it may be that Warren Beatty will produce one or two or three more movies before he shuffles off this mortal coil but I think Rules Don’t Apply is a kind of “just-in-case” movie, where Beatty is engaging in self-parody (“I know what you all have been saying and thinking about me all these years”), getting in some last licks about Hollywood and Washington, and doing it all his own way. A way in which Rules Don’t Apply.

Monday, December 5th
Blast #89

Keeping the “X”
in “X”mas

Friends and family alike will tell you that I am no fun to be around during the “holiday” season (which now runs from mid-October through New Year’s). The onslaught of advertising, ubiquitous piped-in (brain-numbing) music, impossible traffic snarls, and frothing shoppers everywhere turn me into Scrooge Squared. And it’s not my atheism --- far from it, in fact. I would have no problem whatsoever if the Holiday/Christmas season was truly about spending time with loved ones, sharing some great meals with family and friends, a couple of parties with colleagues & neighbors, and exchanging a gift or two with those you are closest to and care about most. However, through my entire adult life (since the 1970s) The Season has become more and more insane, with ugly Consumerism holding Christmas hostage, a pearl-handled luxury Swiss Army Knife at its throat. There has been a hostile takeover of what was once a lovely time of year.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of things about the holiday season that drive me (irrationally?) crazy. I don’t like bringing a dead tree into the house to decorate for a few weeks and then have to recycle it while those pine needles haunt our abode for months! The carols and hymns would be fine if we only had to hear them once or twice and not day-in, day-out, over and over again. It doesn’t take long before I want to shoot that Little Drummer Boy (even with Bowie & Crosby singing it) and turn Rudolph into venison stew! But that’s me and I might be more understanding or patient about it if I weren’t surrounded by people who have been driven to the point of wild-eyed hysteria by the Advertising Council of America and the constant bombardment from their television and internet outlets telling them they have to get this or that for this Holiday Season.

I do like the whole Christmas story, even if I’m a cynic and don’t buy into it as a matter of faith (as with believing in Santa, the Holiday, for me, is a season that abounds with fantasy). My senior thesis in college was about mythology and collective consciousness (and U.S. literature --- a lot of Joseph Campbell & Carl Jung) and I believe that humans need things to believe in --- and need to have common beliefs to knit a society together. Given that, I honestly like the whole story of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, the visit from the Wise Men, the star in the heavens --- it’s a great story and it’s about someone who became a critical figure in Western cultural history by preaching about peace and love! My early religious education made a strong impression on my young mind and the stories about Jesus, particularly, helped shape my values and view of the world as I grew older. Despite my problems with formal, organized religion --- and a basic scientific rationality that denies “faith” in a deity --- the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have had a lasting impact on my worldview.

Given that, the following Gospel passages are what strike me as being in direct contrast to what we have to deal with at this time of year.

And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade. John 2:13-16

And, if we read Matthew 21: 12-13 we get this version of the story:

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

So, call me old-fashioned but I would really like to drive Toys-R-Us, Wal-Mart, and Amazon.com out of our lives, making the primary focus of the season the connection of people to each other, promoting compassion, empathy, sympathy and caring. I know, that’s schmaltzy. But it’s at the heart of what drives me crazy about each holiday season. If a news clip from any Black Friday doesn’t make you recoil in horror then you probably don’t agree with what I’m saying here.

I know I’m making a losing argument --- the horse is out of the barn, that ship has sailed, we’ve crossed the Consumer Rubicon and the 2017 Xmas advertising will probably start right after Labor Day Weekend. Nonetheless, I would simply like to put the “X” back in “Xmas.” Driving the merchants and moneychangers out of our lives, even to some small extent, might be a first step in that direction. We are trying to move that way this year --- all the adults in our extended family have agreed to forego exchanging gifts, as a trade-off for spending more time (that would have been spent shopping for grown-ups) with our respective families. Less time spent out with the manic, madding crowd and more with those who are nearest and dearest to us seems more in the true spirit of the season. (And maybe we can market the whole thing as a Reality Show!)

Saturday, December 3rd
Blast #88

Taking Note of
The End of an Era

This weekend, in Providence, Rhode Island, the final Fall Forum of the Coalition of Essential Schools is transpiring. After thirty plus years as a prominent school-reform organization, the Coalition is calling it quits, finding itself in an education landscape that has become fragmented and, too often, influenced by corporate testing conglomerates along with politically motivated hacks. What started as a 12 school Coalition focused on whole-school reform in 1984 ultimately became a 600-plus school reform group based on 10 “Common Principles” that introduced a number of concepts that have now become commonplace in schools. Sadly, the vast population of our nation knows little about the Coalition and its founder, the late Theodore (Ted) Sizer, who is undoubtedly rolling over in his grave by the proposed appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. No one could be further from Ted’s vision of public school education than DeVos and her “school choice” and “voucher” compatriots. So, let’s look at that more ideal vision for school reform to contrast it with what may be coming down the pike in the next few years.

What started as a study of American high schools in the early 1980s (sponsored by the National Association of Secondary Schools Principals and the National Association of Independent Schools) became Ted's seminal work on school reform, Horace’s Compromise, which focused primarily on teacher-student relationships. As Steve Drummond noted in Education Week, “In Horace's Compromise, Ted Sizer takes this most familiar of institutions—the high school—and makes those who think they know what teachers do and how schools work see that the whole thing is a lot more complicated than they realize. He also argues that much of what goes on in high schools doesn't really make sense and needs to be changed.” And that’s where the Common Principles came into play. On the heels of the publication of Horace, in 1984, Ted became the chair of the Education Department at Brown University and founded the Coalition of Essential Schools (Ted always said, “The Coalition is at Brown but not of Brown” --- an important distinction). He recruited some noted public high schools, led by outstanding Principals, to be in the vanguard of his reform movement. Deborah Meier at Central Park East Secondary School (NYC), Dennis Littky at Thayer (NH) High School, Judy Codding at Bronxville (NY) High School and Sam Billups at Walbrook (Baltimore, MD) High School were the first recruited, beginning the creation of a diverse and energetic core of educators that would grow over the years.

So, what was the Coalition about? The Common Principles were the heart and soul of the organization and read as follows:

1.     Learning to use one's mind well
2.    Less is More, depth over coverage
3.    Goals apply to all students
4.   Personalization
5.    Student-as-worker, teacher-as-coach
6.    Demonstration of mastery
7.    A tone of decency and trust
8.    Commitment to the entire school
9.    Resources dedicated to teaching and learning
10. Democracy and equity (added later, in the mid-nineties)

Schools joining the Coalition had to make a commitment to implementing these principles --- not in a piecemeal fashion but as whole-school reform/change. That’s a tall order, of course, and given how schools work, it was not an easy process. In 1987 I joined the staff at Bronxville High School and that’s where my story of the Coalition begins!

            I had read Horace’s Compromise when it first came out and was excited by what it proposed. Having already been committed to reforming the public schools (going back to my experience as an undergraduate in 1970, working to help create New Haven’s first “alternative” school, The High School in the Community --- which still exists!) I had been steadily reading over the years (Paolo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and James Herndon’s How to Survive in Your Native Land were big influences), hoping to implement change in the public schools. Working at Blind Brook High School from 1973 to 1984, we had a great group of young, reform-minded teachers (with a brilliant principal in David Schein) who didn’t have a framework like the Common Principles so we were flying blind, as it were. Looking at those Principles, though, I can say we lived up to a lot of them at BBHS and our lifelong connection to our students from those years bears some of that out. It wasn’t until I returned to Westchester,in 1987, to work for Judy Codding at Bronxville High School, that I became an active member of the Coalition.

            Bronxville High School was in serious revolt when I arrived, with an “established” faculty resisting Judy’s attempts at reform. There was a distinct “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality from a significant portion of the faculty (particularly the older men!) so the Coalition climb was definitely uphill. Nonetheless, I was energized by the chance of working in a Coalition School and threw myself into it. Without belaboring the experience, here are some of the highlights of my career as a member of the Coalition, which illustrates some of the significant work the organization did.

            We did accomplish some good things at Bronxville (interdisciplinary English/History classes, a democratic Student-Faculty Legislature, Exhibitions of Mastery instead of multiple choice tests) and, at my first Fall Forum in 1988, I got to meet Ted and Nancy Sizer (they were always a team). Ted was a genius at raising money and in 1989 he got CitiBank to contribute a significant sum to create a “National Faculty” of school reform teachers. I was in the first cohort and our job was to consult with other Coalition Schools to help them implement the Common Principles. It was great fun and it reflected the new, national scope of school reform in the 1990’s, along with the importance of the Coalition. I got to travel all over the country (and even took a year off to work on a doctorate at Columbia, making a living as a consultant!) and see the great work teachers were doing, making “less more,” “personalizing” work for students, and creating Critical Friends Groups with colleagues to improve professionally. It was a heady time. It also marked my first meeting with I the Lovely Carol Marie in the summer of 1991. A cohort from her school spent a week in Providence to do a Coalition “Institute” about school reform that I was co-leading. By the next year she was a member of the National Faculty and we became close friends, joined by our commitment to school reform.

            I got to continue “the work” as a Senior Lecturer at Brown, directing the Social Studies/History teacher preparation program (1994-95, 1996-2007), turning out young teachers imbued with the Common Principles. As one of the founders of the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School (www.theparkerschool.org) in 1995-96 we created a school that followed the model Ted outlined in Horace’s School, the second book of the “Horace” trilogy. Parker is a great model of what a Coalition School can be (in a rural/suburban setting) as is The Blackstone Academy, in urban Pawtucket, Rhode Island. I was lucky to work with the founders of Blackstone, who used Parker as their model. Blackstone is an equally successful charter Coalition school (www.blackstoneacademy.org). Compared to what is being passed off as “charter schools” in 2016, Parker & Blackstone provide a refreshing alternative and I’m proud to have been a part of both of them.

            So, the Coalition has run its course and is wrapping up its business but, like the philosophy of John Dewey, its reach will continue to influence educators far into the future. Critical Friends Groups for professional development, the use of portfolios and other performance-assessment activities, the personalization of curriculum (beyond IEPs), as well as the move toward more democratic environments (Restorative Justice practices) are all directly descended from the Common Principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools.

            It is very difficult to change embedded institutions. James Herndon (in the aforementioned How to Survive in Your Native Land) put it best in 1971:

The public school is the closest thing we have in America to a national established church. Getting-An-Education the closest thing to God, and it should be possible to treat it and deal with it as the church has been treated and dealt with. This treatment has not really changed the existence of the one institution and will not harm the other, but it has allowed the growth of alternatives to it and that is what is wanted, even if those alternatives have become, and will become, institutions themselves. (p. 112)

The Parker School and Blackstone Academy are well-established alternative institutions, living by the Common Principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Who knows, maybe some time in the future they will become the institutional models for a new, enlightened school reform movement. I guess I’d like to believe the Coalition is not dead but simply on hiatus.

Friday, December 2nd
Blast #87

A Time for Vigilance

The following article by Amanda Taub was on page A7 of Monday's New York Times. It's the kind of article that can be easily overlooked, considering how much news we are all bombarded with every day. Given that a headline on today's front page of the Times reads, In an Angry Wave of Populism, The Next Domino Could be Italy and the front of the Business Day section states A Leading Candidate in France Is Intent on a Conservative Overhaul, it is all the more important that we pay extremely careful attention to the news of the world. While Trump is making breezy phone calls to Pakistan and Kazakhstan, we need to insure that democracy in our own country is not slowly whittled away through the administration of a man who has no genuine understanding of the Constitution or our history.

How Stable Are Democracies?
‘Warning Signs Are Flashing Red’
The Interpreter
By AMANDA TAUB NOV. 29, 2016 NY Times

WASHINGTON — Yascha Mounk is used to being the most pessimistic person in the room. Mr. Mounk, a lecturer in government at Harvard, has spent the past few years challenging one of the bedrock assumptions of Western politics: that once a country becomes a liberal democracy, it will stay that way.

His research suggests something quite different: that liberal democracies around the world may be at serious risk of decline.
Mr. Mounk’s interest in the topic began rather unusually. In 2014, he published a book, “Stranger in My Own Country.” It started as a memoir of his experiences growing up as a Jew in Germany, but became a broader investigation of how contemporary European nations were struggling to construct new, multicultural national identities. He concluded that the effort was not going very well. A populist backlash was rising. But was that just a new kind of politics, or a symptom of something deeper?

To answer that question, Mr. Mounk teamed up with Roberto Stefan Foa, a political scientist at the University of Melbourne in Australia. They have since gathered and crunched data on the strength of liberal democracies. Their conclusion, to be published in the January issue of the Journal of Democracy, is that democracies are not as secure as people may think. Right now, Mr. Mounk said in an interview, “the warning signs are flashing red.”

Early signs of decline

Political scientists have a theory called “democratic consolidation,” which holds that once countries develop democratic institutions, a robust civil society and a certain level of wealth, their democracy is secure. For decades, global events seemed to support that idea. Data from Freedom House, a watchdog organization that measures democracy and freedom around the world, shows that the number of countries classified as “free” rose steadily from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. Many Latin American countries transitioned from military rule to democracy; after the end of the Cold War, much of Eastern Europe followed suit. And longstanding liberal democracies in North America, Western Europe and Australia seemed more secure than ever. But since 2005, Freedom House’s index has shown a decline in global freedom each year. Is that a statistical anomaly, a result of a few random events in a relatively short period of time? Or does it indicate a meaningful pattern?

Mr. Mounk and Mr. Foa developed a three-factor formula to answer that question. Mr. Mounk thinks of it as an early-warning system, and it works something like a medical test: a way to detect that a democracy is ill before it develops full-blown symptoms.
The first factor was public support: How important do citizens think it is for their country to remain democratic? The second was public openness to nondemocratic forms of government, such as military rule. And the third factor was whether “antisystem parties and movements” — political parties and other major players whose core message is that the current system is illegitimate — were gaining support. If support for democracy was falling while the other two measures were rising, the researchers marked that country “deconsolidating.” And they found that deconsolidation was the political equivalent of a low-grade fever that arrives the day before a full-blown case of the flu.

Venezuela, for instance, enjoyed the highest possible scores on Freedom House’s measures of political rights and democracy in the 1980s. But those democratic practices were not deeply rooted. During that apparent period of stability, Venezuela already scored as deconsolidating on the Mounk-Foa test. Since then, Venezuelan democracy has declined significantly. In 1992, a faction of the Venezuelan military loyal to Hugo Chávez attempted a coup against the democratically elected government. Mr. Chávez was elected president in 1998 on a wave of populist support, and he immediately passed a new constitution that consolidated his power. His government cracked down on dissent, imprisoned political opponents and shredded the country’s economy with a series of ill-planned economic overhauls.

Likewise, when Poland joined the European Union in 2004, it was hailed as an especially strong example of a post-Communist country making the transition to consolidated democracy. But Mr. Mounk and Mr. Foa found strong signs of deconsolidation during that period: As early as 2005, nearly 16 percent of Poles said they believed democracy was a “bad” or “fairly bad” way of running the country. By 2012, 22 percent of respondents said that they supported army rule. And in the mid-2000s, a series of antisystem parties began to gain traction in Polish politics, including Law and Justice, Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland, and the League of Polish Families. Today, that fever is starting to look a lot like the flu. Law and Justice, which won the presidency and a parliamentary majority in 2015, has systematically weakened democratic institutions. The government’s attempts to undermine the country’s constitutional tribunal, for instance, set off an investigation by the European Union. The resulting report warned that the government’s actions “endanger not only the rule of law, but also the functioning of the democratic system.”

Warning Bells?

According to the Mounk-Foa early-warning system, signs of democratic deconsolidation in the United States and many other liberal democracies are now similar to those in Venezuela before its crisis. Across numerous countries, including Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States, the percentage of people who say it is “essential” to live in a democracy has plummeted, and it is especially low among younger generations. Support for autocratic alternatives is rising, too. Drawing on data from the European and World Values Surveys, the researchers found that the share of Americans who say that army rule would be a “good” or “very good” thing had risen to 1 in 6 in 2014, compared with 1 in 16 in 1995.

That trend is particularly strong among young people. For instance, in a previously published paper, the researchers calculated that 43 percent of older Americans believed it was illegitimate for the military to take over if the government were incompetent or failing to do its job, but only 19 percent of millennials agreed. The same generational divide showed up in Europe, where 53 percent of older people thought a military takeover would be illegitimate, while only 36 percent of millennials agreed. In the United States, Donald J. Trump won the presidential election by running as an antisystem outsider. And support for antisystem populist parties in Europe, such as the National Front in France, Syriza in Greece and the Five-Star Movement in Italy, is rising.

Of course, this is just one paper. And the researchers’ approach, like all data-driven social science, has limitations. It is only as good as the survey data that underlies it, for instance, and it does not take into account other factors that could be important to overall stability, such as economic growth. At least one prominent political scientist argues that Mr. Mounk’s and Mr. Foa’s data is not as worrying as they believe it to be. Also, of course, correlation is not the same as causation. Although the researchers found a relationship between deconsolidation and democratic instability, that is not the same thing as proving the root causes of either factor.

“That’s only one measure,” Mr. Mounk acknowledged of his own research. “But,” he added after a pause, “it should have us worried.”
He fears that the minutiae of politics can easily distract from these more fundamental dangers. “It’s not just about what Trump will do to the E.P.A.,” he said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency. “It really is that Trump may try to undermine liberal democracy in the United States.”

“Look, this stuff is already going on in other places,” Mr. Mounk added. “If there’s one task that we have as journalists, as academics, as thinkers, it’s to drive the stakes of this home for people.”

Thursday, December 1st
Blast #86

The Second Time Around

Sequels, by their very nature, are difficult beasts. They will invariably be compared to their original and, if a sequel is being made, that generally means the original was pretty darn successful. Given the 13-year gap between Bad Santa and Bad Santa 2, however, I don’t think the “sequel rules” apply. The hiatus has been so long, in fact, that two of the principle (and sterling) characters from the first movie have passed on (Bernie Mac and John Ritter --- both outstanding in the first film). The addition of Kathy Bates to the Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly triumvirate is a good move, while Christina Hendricks’s talent, as the replacement for Lauren Graham as Bad Santa’s “love” interest, is pretty much wasted here. Nonetheless, I found the hour and a half of viewing to be an interesting, if not exhilarating, experience.

First and foremost: I loved the original Bad Santa! It is still one of those movies, if I see it when I’m clicking around with the remote, I might stop and watch. And I will laugh, guffaw, slap my knee and thoroughly enjoy the experience. Having seen some previews for Bad Santa 2, I was not expecting the same level of hilarious relief but thought, "With that cast, it could still be pretty good." I didn’t read any reviews prior to seeing the movie. After seeing it, I read the New York Times, Variety, and The New York Daily News accounts, all of which were pretty straightforward pans of the flick (even calling it “ho-ho-horrible”). The Village Voice actually gave it a positive spin, commenting that in this election year we need to step back and laugh at nihilism and grotesque behavior, just to release our anxieties. My own reaction to the movie was neither negative nor positive. That it did engender a great deal of conversation between the Lovely Carol Marie and me seemed to indicate something was going on.

We both agreed that the film could have been better, particularly given the cast, but that it had some redeeming and interesting aspects to it. In all, I thought the director (Mark Waters of Mean Girls fame) couldn’t decide what kind of film he was making. It was clearly not intended to be a rollicking knock off of Terry Zwigoff’s 2003 Santa, but it was almost as if Waters couldn’t decide how much “heart” he wanted to insert in the film, so it comes off as a half-baked comedy a lot of the time. My immediate reaction, and one that I still hold, is that the movie is a morality play and if Waters had really committed to that idea it would have been more fully baked.

As in Bad Santa, Willie Soke (Billy Bob Thornton) is an alcoholic ne’er-do-well who is led astray by his diminutive erstwhile “partner” Marcus (Tony Cox). He is still trailed around by Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly), the boy “on the spectrum” who periodically elicits the best in Willie’s character and the “twist” in this film (as you probably know) is the appearance of Willie’s Mom, Sunny, played by Kathy Bates --- excellent as ever. Christina Hendricks is pretty much window dressing for Willie’s wanton sexual side, although it is the charity she runs that Willie, Marcus, and Mom are planning to rob. To my morality play point, the characters are broad caricatures, representing clear cases of good and evil. Sunny, Marcus, and Regent Hastings (Hendricks’s husband in the film) are representatives of the dark side of the soul, with, by the movie’s end, no redeeming qualities. Diane Hastings (Hendrix) and Thurman clearly represent the goodness we all have within, brought to full flower in Thurman’s beautiful soprano singing in the charity’s choir. Willie, despite his nihilistic cynicism, has a soft spot that, at times, reveals the goodness in his humanity and leads us to believe that even this dissolute sinner might be saved. Hence, we have a genuine morality play. However, Waters presents so much of the film in such broad strokes that he loses the potential outrageous comedy from the first Santa without providing a new and thoughtful Santa 2, even though the potential is there.

All that said, I would not discourage anyone from seeing Bad Santa 2. I found it interesting for the reasons I’ve written here. I’d love for people who go see it to let me know what you think. Out of the $9.00 senior matinee admission, I’d rate Bad Santa 2 at $6.50.

Wednesday, November 30th
Blast #85

Preparing for 2017
Part Two

My fabulous colleague from the Brown University Education Department, Polly Ulichny, has followed the work of George Lakoff for years and thought it a good idea to peruse his latest article about the election. I believe it is an excellent piece everyone can benefit from. This is a LONG essay but it is well worth reading so put some time aside and have at it. Thanks for reading!

A Minority President
Why the Polls Failed,
And What the Majority Can Do
By George Lakoff

1: The American Majority
Hillary Clinton won the majority of votes in this year’s presidential election.
The loser, for the majority of voters, will now be a minority president-elect. Don't let anyone forget it. Keep referring to Trump as the minority president, Mr. Minority and the overall Loser. Constant repetition, with discussion in the media and over social media, questions the legitimacy of the minority president to ignore the values of the majority. The majority, at the very least, needs to keep its values in the public eye and view the minority president’s action through majority American values.
The polls failed and the nation needs to know why. The pollsters and pundits have not given a satisfactory answer.
I will argue that the nature of mind is not a mere technical issue for the cognitive and brain sciences, but that it had everything to do with the outcome of the 2016 election — and the failure of the pollsters, the media, and Democrats to predict it. They were not alone. The public needs to understand better how the human mind works in general — but especially in politics. There is a lot to know. Let us go step by step.

2: The Mind
I am a cognitive scientist. I study the human mind. Our minds are neural minds. The mind is physical, constituted by the neural circuitry of our brains and bodies. Most thought is unconscious, since we don't have conscious access to our neural circuitry. Conscious thought is a small part of thought — estimates by neuroscientists vary between a general “most” to as much as 98%, with consciousness as the tip of the mental iceberg. We do know that people tend to make decisions unconsciously before becoming consciously aware of them. How the neural unconscious functions in decision-making is vitally important for politics.

3. Worldviews and Worldview Differences
Our fixed worldviews are made up of complex ideas carried our by relatively fixed neural circuitry. Our worldviews determine how we think the world operates, as well as how we think it should operate. In short, our worldviews are constituted by neural circuitry for what we understand as normal, and what we take as right and wrong.
There are, of course, radical differences in worldview, and we see those differences in politics, religion, culture, and so on.
Here is the crucial fact about worldview differences: We can only understand what our brain circuitry allows us to understand. If facts don't fit the worldviews in our brains, the facts may not even be noticed — or they may be puzzling, or ignored, or rejected outright, or if threatening, attacked. All of these happen in politics. A global warming denier does not say, “I am denying science.” The facts just don’t fit his worldview and don't make sense to him or her. In short, the neural system characterizing a dominant fixed worldview will act as a Neural Filter, letting in only what fits.
Consider some all too real examples.

If you have an evangelical religious belief that the End Days are near, when the believers will be swept up to Heaven and the evil people left behind destroyed. The issue will be whether you will be saved, not the planet.
Suppose you believe, as many do, that laissez-faire capitalism is both natural supremely moral. The most important, natural, and right thing to do would be to maximize your profits, and those of the firms you invest in, while you are alive on earth. Then it will make sense to maximize fossil fuel profits. Passing them up for the sake of the planet will not make sense.
Suppose you are a small-time rancher with a small herd of cattle in a remote area of a red state, living next to a federal nature preserve where there are endangered species. You work hard, have a hard time making a living, cannot afford expensive feed for you cattle, and think you should be able to have your cattle graze on the “unused” publicly-owned land next door so you can make ends meet. So you just tear down the fence and drive your cattle in. The feds tell you to leave, but the Republican governor tells the state police to leave you alone, and the Republican elected judge rules for you over the government. You feel morally vindicated.

You can only make sense of what the neural circuitry characterizing your worldview allows you to make sense of.
What about undeniable all-important facts that violate one’s moral worldview, like the Trump election? That can result in shock, physical shock. We will discuss why below.

4. What is a Political Moderate?

A moderate has a major worldview and an opposite minor worldview.
A moderate conservative has mostly conservative views, but some progressive views.
A moderate progressive has mostly progressive views, but some conservative views.
There is no political ideology shared by all moderates.
There is no consistent political “middle.”

5. Bi-conceptuals
In order to be a moderate, you have to hold two opposing worldviews at once, but apply them to different issues. How can you have two opposing worldviews in the same brain, when each is a fixed neural circuit? Easy. They “inhibit” each other: turning one on turns the other off. This is called mutual inhibition. It is common in the brain.
Political change has worked through bi-conceptualism — through moving minor worldviews in a more major direction, by “strengthening” minor worldviews until they become major.

6. Frames
A worldview is an overall conceptual framework you use to understand the world. It is made up of mental “frames,” which are used to understand situations. A restaurant frame contains waiters/waitresses), customers, tables and chairs, a chef, a menu, food, a check, and so on, together with expectations about what each will do. Political worldviews are complexes of political frames that fit together coherently.
Words have meanings that are defined relative to conceptual frames. If you hear “Here's the dinner menu”, you know you're in a restaurant. If you hear, What’s the easiest way to eliminate the Department of Education?”, you know you’re with the Trump transition team.

7. Language in Politics
In politics, institutions, and cultural life, words tend not to be neutral. Instead their meanings are defined with respect to political worldviews. There are conservative and liberal vocabularies. “Save the planet!” is liberal. “Energy independence” is a conservative ‘dog whistle.’ It means dig coal and drill for oil and gas, even on public lands, and don’t invest seriously in solar and wind. Some might think those are politically neutral expressions. If you take them literally and ignore worldview differences, you might think everyone should want to save the planet and everyone should want energy independence. Liberals want literal energy independence, but through sustainable energy like solar and wind. Conservatives don't believe in man-made climate change and want energy independence through maximizing coal, gas, and oil. Politically charged meanings put the other side in a bind. The opposition cannot answer directly. You won’t hear conservatives say “I don't want to save the planet,” nor liberals say, “I’m against energy independence.” Instead they have to change the frame.
In general, negating a frame just activates the frame and makes it stronger. I wrote a book called “Don't Think of an Elephant!” to make that point. Liberals are often caught in this trap. If a conservative says, “we should have tax relief,” she is using the metaphor that taxation is an affliction that we need relief from. If a liberal replies, “No, we don't need tax relief,” she is accepting the idea that taxation is an affliction. The first thing that is, or should be, taught about political language is not to repeat the language of the other side or negate their framing of the issue.
The Clinton campaign consistently violated the lesson of Don't Think of an Elephant! They used negative campaigning, assuming they could turn Trump’s most outrageous words against him. They kept running ads showing Trump forcefully expressing views that liberals found outrageous. Trump supporters liked him for forcefully saying things that liberals found outrageous. They were ads paid for by the Clinton campaign that raised Trump’s profile with his potential supporters!
The basic lesson comes from a legendary story in framing circles. Lesley Stahl interviewed Ronald Reagan, bringing up stinging criticisms of Reagan. The morning after the interview ran on tv Reagan’s chief of staff called Stahl and thanked her for the interview. “But I was criticizing him,” Stahl replied. The response was jovial, “But if you turned off the sound, he looked terrific. The presidential image is what will be remembered.”
The more neural circuits are activated, the more the stronger their synapses get, and so the more easily they can be activated again and the more likely they will become permanent. The more the public hears one side’s language, or sees one side’s images, the more that side’s frames will be activated, and the more that side’s worldview will be strengthened in the brains of those who watch and listen. This is why political communication systems matter.
Think for a moment of the conservative Leadership Institute’s 20th anniversary boast that they had trained over 159,000 local conservatives spokespeople from all over America in 20 years. Think of 159,000 trained conservative local leaders and spokespeople spread over all those red states on the 2016 presidential electoral map, in addition to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. That is how working white men and women, who might have started out as liberals or moderates years ago, gradually became more conservative by hearing conservative language day after day.
And it was through such repetitive exposure every day to Trump’s forceful language and forceful image, through free media and social media, that a great many people were affected.

8. Metaphors We Vote By
Much of unconscious thought is metaphorical. Not fanciful or “poetic” metaphors, but everyday ones we generally don't notice. We understand More as being Up, as in “Turn up the radio,” which does not mean to throw it up to the ceiling. We understand achieving goals as reaching destinations: “You’ll get there. There’s nothing standing in your way. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” The many metaphorical expressions reveal the presence of a conceptual metaphor, a mode of metaphorical thought. There’s nothing special about metaphorical thought. Given commonplace experience in the world and given a neural system, thousands of everyday metaphorical thoughts arise spontaneously. It happens around the world, and it mostly goes unnoticed, carried out by your neural system.
Certain kinds of metaphorical thought, which go largely unnoticed, are central to our politics, as we shall see.

9: Values Over Demographics
Briefly, the polls failed because they work by demography, using census data, and other readily accessible data. The census tells us where people live, their age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, marital status, income level, etc. These are objective data, and this kind of data is easy to get and sample. But demographic data leaves out what is most important in elections and in political polling generally: Values! One’s sense of right and wrong. That omission was crucial in this election.
It is not just crucial in polling. It is also crucial in journalism. Most people in the press also talk as if demography were the gold standard of political truth: the suburban educated women, the Hispanics, the white working class — all defined by demographics. But the relationship between voting and demographics is not one-to-one. This election showed that in spades. Many progressives think the same way: Demography and issues — issue by issue. Democrats looking for donors will ask, “What is your most important issue?” Instead, the values that define one’s deepest identity are what matters most. Polling issue-by-issue misses the overall values that are all too often primary in elections.
Indeed, the very question, “What is your most important issue?” almost guarantees that climate change will barely enter the electoral debate. What comes to mind when the question is asked are relatively immediate concerns — jobs, health care, immigration, poverty, student debt, and so on. Global warming is not seen as imminent — it comes in about number 20 on the list of voters’ “most important issues.”
Part of the reason is that the causal link between global warming and weather disasters is not direct, but is a result of systemic factors in the ecosystem. High temperatures over the Pacific produce more evaporation, which means high energy water molecules go into the air, blow northeast and in winter come down as snow in Washington — more than ever before! The weather disasters throughout the country — severe hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires, — are often systemically caused by global warming and they should be named as such — a global warming hurricane, a climate change flood, a global warming drought, global warming fires — with illustrations of the systemic steps involved in the cause. To establish a frame, you need a name.
I’ve been studying such matters from the perspective of the neural mind for two decades, starting with Moral Politics (now in its Third Edition) and in seven books and dozens of papers, as well as with those doing survey and experimental research. Because this perspective has not been part of the public discourse, it is worth going over in some detail.

10: All Politics Is Moral
When a political leader proposes a policy, the assumption it that the policy is right, not wrong or morally irrelevant.
No political leader says, “Do what I say because it’s evil. It’s the devil’s work, but do it!” Nor will a political leader say, “My policy proposal is morally irrelevant. It’s neither right nor wrong. It doesn’t really matter. Just do it.”
When political leaders have opposing policies, that means they have opposing moral worldviews.

11. Why do voters vote their values?
Everyone likes to think of himself or herself as a good person. That means that your moral system is a major part of your identity — who you most deeply are. Voting against your moral identity would be a rejection of self.
That is why poor conservatives vote against their material interests. They are voting for their moral worldviews to dominate, and for public respect for their values.

12. The Mystery
In the 1990’s, as part of my research in the cognitive and brain sciences, I undertook to answer a question in my field: How do the various policy positions of conservatives and progressives hang together? Take conservatism: What does being against abortion have to do with being for owning guns? What does owning guns have to do with denying the reality of global warming? How does being anti-government fit with wanting a stronger military? How can you be pro-life and for the death penalty? How do these conservative positions make sense together? Progressives have the opposite views. How do their views hang together?

13. The Nation as Family Metaphor
The answer came from a realization that we tend to understand the nation metaphorically in family terms: We have founding fathers. We send our sons and daughters to war. We have homeland security. The conservative and progressive worldviews dividing our country can most readily be understood in terms of moral worldviews that are encapsulated in two very different idealizations of family life: The Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and the Strict Father family (conservative).

14. Why Idealizations of the Family?
What do social issues and their politics have to do with idealizations of the family? We are first governed in our families, and so we grow up understanding governing institutions in terms of the governing systems of families. Those governing institutions can be classrooms, teams, armies, churches, businesses, and so on. Nurturant and Strict family models pervade our culture.

15. Idealized Nurturant Families
Nurturance starts with empathy. In nurturant families, caring for a child requires knowing what the child needs and wants. It requires open, two-way conversation. Parents have to take care of themselves if they are to care of their children. For their well-being, children need clear limits and guidelines (Don’t put your hand on a hot stove. You’ll get burned.), personal responsibilities (“Brush your teeth”), and family responsibilities (“Take care of your sister. Set the table.”) Children also need to empathize with others and act on that empathy. If not, as Barack Obama said his 2008 Father’s Day speech, we’ll have a generation of people who don’t care about anybody else. Children also need to be fulfilled in life, and for this they need education, exercise, good health, a connection to nature, and a warm social life. And if some children require special attention, either because they are very young, or ill, or injured, or have other inherent problems, the rest of the family has to step up to help out.

16. Nurturance and Progressive Values
These family values map via metaphor onto progressive political values: Citizens care about other citizens and act through their government to provide public resources for all, for both businesses and individuals. That’s how America started. The genius of the founding fathers centered on public resources. The public resources used by businesses were not only roads and bridges, but public education, a national bank, a patent office, courts for business cases, interstate commerce support, and of course the criminal justice system. From the beginning, the private depended on public resources — both private enterprise and private life. In private life, there were laws to protect freedoms and basic rights, as well as resources like police protection, public education, a national currency, access to banks for loans, courts for redress of grievances, and goods made available through interstate commerce.
Over time public resources have grown to include sewers, water and electricity, government protections in the form of “regulations” to keep unscrupulous corporations from harming the public, and to keep banks, mortgage holders, and investment houses from cheating the public. As commerce grew, the need for protective regulations grew into whole regulatory agencies of government. Modern life now depends on even more public resources, such as research universities and research support: computer science (via the NSF), the internet (from ARPA), pharmaceuticals and modern medicine (via the NIH), satellite communication (NASA and NOOA), and GPS systems and cell phones (satellite systems maintained with security and unbelievable precision by the Defense Department).
Private enterprise and private life utterly depend on public resources. Not on “the government.” But on “the public.” What these public resources provide is freedom: freedom to start and run a business, and freedom in private life. You’re not free if you are not educated; your possibilities in life are limited. You’re not free, if you have cancer and no health insurance. You’re not free if you have no income — or not enough for basic needs. And if you work for a large company, you may not be free without a union. Unions free workers from corporate servitude — free working people to have a living wage, safety on the job, regular working hours, a pension, health benefits, dignity.
All of this arises from basic progressive values — empathy and care for one another — at the level of the nation.

17. The Strict Father and Conservative Values
In the strict father family, father knows best. He knows right from wrong and has the ultimate authority to make sure his children and his spouse do what he says, which is taken to be what is right. Many conservative spouses accept this worldview, uphold the father’s authority, and are strict in those realms of family life that they are in charge of.
When his children disobey, it is the strict father’s moral duty to punish them painfully enough so that, to avoid punishment, they will obey him (do what is right) and not just do what feels good. Through physical discipline they are supposed to become disciplined, internally strong, and able to prosper in the external world. What if they don’t prosper? That means they are not disciplined, and therefore cannot be moral, and so deserve their poverty.
This reasoning shows up in conservative politics in which the poor are seen as lazy and undeserving, and the rich as deserving their wealth. Responsibility is thus taken to be personal responsibility not social responsibility. What you become is only up to you; society has nothing to do with it. You are responsible for yourself, not for others, who are responsible for themselves.

18. The Moral Hierarchy
The strict father logic extends further. The basic idea is that authority is justified by morality (the strict father version), and that, in a world ordered by nature, there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral hierarchy in which those who have traditionally dominated should dominate.
The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures, America above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women, Whites above Nonwhites, Christians above nonChristians, Straights above Gays.
On the whole, conservative policies flow from the strict father worldview and this hierarchy. Trump is an extreme case, though very much in line with conservative policies.

19. Strict Father Complexities
There are political policies that follow from strict father morality. As we discuss them, please bear in mind that many if not most conservatives are bi-conceptual, that is, that have a strict father major worldview and a nurturant minor worldview on some issues or other.
In-Group Nurturance: More importantly, it is common for conservatives to show in-group nurturance — care for members of some in-group. What counts as an in-group varies.

The minimal in-group is your family.
The in-group can be members of your church or your religion — and the church or religion may offer help to the needy members of the church or religion.
The in-group can be in the military, with military family getting housing, education, health care, and cheaper goods on the military base, and where platoon-members (“bands of brothers”) are taken care of and never left behind.
In small towns all over America where people are mostly conservative, the in-group can be community members and whoever lives in the town. The small-town nurturance for long-term neighbors can override differences in politics, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and so on.

This means that in national or state politics, one may be a typical conservative, but those political views can be adjusted locally by moderation or in-group nurturance. Part of the conservative revolution of 1994 was the move by Newt Gingrich to rid the Republican party of moderates by running extreme conservatives against them in primaries.
It is also important to remember that moderate progressives are biconceptuals, that they have a minor conservative worldview on a certain issues, and that they can be made more conservative by repeated conservative language

20. Strict Father Political Policies
The most obvious strict father political policies are the following, group by group.

White Evangelical Christians:
Right-wing white evangelicals offer you a strict father God you are to fear — who can send you to burn in hell for eternity. Sinners get a second chance, to become “born again.” After that, sinners who don't follow his commandments will burn in hell. Those who follow the commandments will be “saved.”
The moral hierarchy creates a white evangelical politics:

God above Man: Churches get major tax breaks, and seek public funding for religious schools.
Men Above Women: Men get to decide on reproduction. Against Planned Parenthood, abortion, and morning-after pills. For laws requiring spousal and parental notification prior to abortion.
Marriage between a man and a woman: no gay marriage.
Child-rearing should follow the strict father model.
Religious Christmas scenes in public places funded by public money.
Large crosses erected on public land.
The Ten Commandments in courtrooms.
Political candidates must proclaim their religion.

Laissez-Faire Free Marketeers:
Corporations and those who own and run them are metaphorical strict fathers. Corporations are “persons” who can engage in political lobbying, who seek to maximize their profits, set rules for their employees and can punish them in various ways, ultimately by firing them or laying them off.
Corporate conservatives want laissez-faire free markets, where wealthy people and corporations set market rules in their favor with minimal government regulation and enforcement. They see taxation not as investment in publicly provided resources for all citizens, but as government taking their earnings (their private property) and giving the money through government programs to those who don't deserve it. This is the source of establishment Republicans’ anti-tax and shrinking government views. This version of conservatism is quite happy with outsourcing to increase profits by sending manufacturing and many services abroad where labor is cheap, with the consequence that well-paying jobs leave America and wages are driven down here. They profit from many cheap imports important for business profits, such as steel, building materials, electronic parts, etc.
They also want to privatize public resources as much as possible: eliminate public schools, publicly financed health insurance, drill and mine on public lands, build private highways, and so on.

The White Working Class:
Many members of the white working class have strict father morality, even those in unions. Many have their strict father views limited to their home life, but many have them as a major worldview. As conservatives, they believe in individual responsibility not government “handouts;” they may resent union dues and prefer “right to work” laws; and they may implicitly accept the moral hierarchy and believe they are superior to nonwhites, Latinos, nonChristians, and gays and should be in a higher financial and social position. Conservative women may accept their position as inferior to their men, but still see themselves above the rest of the hierarchy. The white working class has been hit hard by income inequality, globalization and outsourcing, computerization, the decline of coal mining, low-wage chain stores driving out small business, and if older, ageism. They are largely uneducated and see themselves as looked down on by the educated “elite” who tell them that everyone should go to college to merit today’s jobs. They also resent “political correctness,” which directs resources to those who need them even more, but are lower on the conservative moral hierarchy. They want the respect of being on the right side of politics, of having their moral views— and hence their deepest identity — confirmed.

Political Correctness
Nurturant parent morality puts a premium on helping those in the family who need it the most: infants, sick or injured children, and so on.
In liberal politics, those lower on the conservative moral hierarchy are seen to have been victimized by those who are more powerful. The result is a reverse moral hierarchy, in which the less powerful are more deserving of assistance than the more powerful: the poor more than the non-poor, non-white more than white, women more than men, immigrants more than residents, and so on.
The white working class calls this view “political correctness.” It leaves out poor whites, especially in nonurban areas, who have had to face the problems of a culture that, as we have just seen, has been devastated by corporate greed (income inequality, globalization and outsourcing, computerization, and low-wage chain stores driving out small business) and factors like the decline of coal mining.
All three of these groups — evangelicals, corporatists, and the white working class correctly saw the Supreme Court issue as central to upholding their values across the board, on all issues.

The Main Issue Is Identity
For each type of conservative, the main issue is one’s identity, which is defined by strict father values. One can have a religious version, a business version, or a working class resentment version, but in each case self-identity is the issue. That is why those who voted for Trump didn't care if he constantly lied, or if he treated women outrageously, or if he was ignorant of foreign policy. What mattered was the voter’s moral identity, the voter’s sense of right and wrong, the voter’s self-respect as a conservative.
Trump and those in his campaign understood this. Those in the Democratic party, the media, and pollsters did not.

21. Why the Moral Indicators Were Missed
Corporatist Republican leaders tended to study business economics in college, and as a result studied marketing. Marketing professors study the mind and how people really think: using frames, metaphors, narratives, images, and emotions — mostly applied to advertising. These Republican leaders learned how to market their ideas.
Progressives who go to college and are interested in politics tend to study political science, law, public policy, and economic theory. Those courses of study almost never include cognitive science, neuroscience, and cognitive linguistics — and so progressives interested in politics don't learn about the Neural Mind, that is, about unconscious thought, frames, conceptual metaphors, moral worldviews, the role of language, etc.
Instead, they are taught a version of Enlightenment reason, following René Descartes around 1650, namely:

that all thought is conscious
that reason is a matter of logic, as in a mathematical proof
that since reason defines what means to be human, all rational people reason according to logic
and therefore, if you give everybody the facts, they ought to all reason to the right conclusion.

This is an utterly false theory of reason — taught as rationality and “critical thinking.” It was vitally important during the Enlightenment because it taught that people could think for themselves and did not have to follow the thinking the kings and religious leaders. One might like it to be true, but it isn’t.

22. False Reason, False Analyses
The polls, the media, and the Democratic Party all failed to understand conservative values and their importance. They failed to understand unconscious thought and moral worldviews. While hailing science in the case of climate change, they ignored science when it came to their own minds. The pollsters, given easy access to demographics via census and other data, came up with their own view of mind, that demographics reflects public opinion, and that public opinion understood this way, drives elections. This amounts to a strange demographic theory of mind, that demography determines thought.
The demographic theory of mind is naturally paired with the view that people simply vote their material interests, that their interests vary, and hence that issues are separable. This is widely assumed, despite the well-known facts that poor conservatives and rich liberals of often vote against their material interests.
But it does make polling — and fund raising — easier. Just ask people what their most important issues are, or to what degree that are for or against a particular policy.

The Justifications
This type of polling has its justifications.
First, people with similar worldviews can tend to cluster in some demographic categories.
Second, most of polling is done by advertisers selling products. If the polls miss by differences as small as those between Trump and Clinton, they are doing well by their clients.
Incidentally, polling methodology used in advertising leads to the view that candidates are products, to be sold like cars, pharmaceuticals, and beauty products, and have to establish a recognizable, popular brand.
It is true that moral worldviews generalize over specific issues, and so a specific issue can activate a general worldview. But the general moral worldview is not studied or discussed.

An Alternative
There is a way out that may be simple, but need to be tested. One can include questions about values, even if the values are unconscious. The technique was developed by Elisabeth Wehling, Matt Feinberg (U. of Toronto) , Laura Saslow (U. of Michigan), and myself. It was based on the conceptual metaphor of the Nation As Family, with two types of families — strict and nurturant. Technically, a conceptual metaphor is a neural mapping, linking the frame structure of one domain (e.g., the values of a type of family) to another domain (e.g., political views about the nation).
Beginning with the theory proposed in my 1996 book, Moral Politics, we constructed two mappings linking family values to political values. We separated the family values from the political values and randomized each. We then asked, in surveys and experiments, the randomized questions to see if the correlations fit the predications of the mappings.
The correlations were overwhelming, and are reported in Elisabeth Wehling’s 2013 doctoral dissertation, A nation under joint custody: How conflicting family models divide US-politics. The basic idea is that of a Moral Politics Scale that can be used in surveys, and that might be included in future polls. Questions about family values can be used as indicators of the moral values used in political worldviews. Other studies have been done and are in the publication pipeline.
A few early studies do not, and should not, create a field, but it is a beginning. Polling studies using these ideas need to be done.

23. Clever Trump
Democrats and most of the media looked upon Trump as a clown, a dimwit, a mere jerk, a reality show star, who did not understand the issues and who could not possibly win when he was insulting so many demographic groups. I am anything but a Trump fan, but I estimated that he would get about 47% of the vote. Although I was sure he wouldn't quite win, I kept warning people that he could, especially given the Democrats’ failure to understand the role of values.
Nine months before the election I wrote about how Trump used the brains of people listening to him to his advantage. Here is a recap of how Trump does it, with examples taken from his campaign.
Unconscious thought works by certain basic mechanisms. Trump uses them instinctively to turn people’s brains toward what he wants: Absolute authority, money, power, and celebrity.
The mechanisms are:

Repetition. Words are neurally linked to the circuits that determine their meaning. The more a word is heard, the more the circuit is activated and the stronger it gets, and so the easier it is to fire again. Trump repeats. Win. Win, Win. We’re gonna win so much you’ll get tired of winning.
Framing: Crooked Hillary. Framing Hillary as purposely and knowingly committing crimes for her own benefit, which is what a crook does. Repeating makes many people unconsciously think of her that way, even though she has always been found to have been honest and legal by thorough studies by the right-wing Bengazi committee (which found nothing) and the FBI (which found nothing to charge her with.) Yet the framing worked.

There is a common metaphor that Immorality Is Illegality, and that acting against Strict Father Morality (the only kind of morality recognized) is being immoral. Since virtually everything Hillary Clinton has ever done has violated Strict Father Morality, that makes her immoral to strict conservatives. The metaphor makes her actions immoral, which makes her a crook. The chant “Lock her up!” activates this whole line of reasoning.

Well-known examples: When a well-publicized disaster happens, the coverage is repeated over and over, and watched on tv and read about many times. Neurally, the repetition activates the frame-circuitry for it over and over, strengthening the synapses with each repetition. Neural circuits with strong synapses can be activated more easily that those with weak synapses, and so the probability that they will be activated is higher. And so the frame is more likely to be activated.

Repeated examples of shootings by Muslims, African-Americans, and Latinos make it seem probable that it could happen to you. It thus raises fears that it could happen to you and your community — despite the miniscule actual probability. Trump uses this technique to create fear. Fear tends to activate desire for a strong strict father to protect you — namely, Trump.

Grammar: Radical Islamic terrorists: “Radical” puts Muslims on a linear scale and “terrorists” imposes a frame on the scale, suggesting that terrorism is built into the religion itself. The grammar suggests that there is something about Islam that has terrorism inherent in it. Imagine calling the Charleston gunman a “radical Republican terrorist.”

Trump is aware of this to at least some extent. As he said to Tony Schwartz, the ghost-writer who wrote The Art of the Deal for him, “I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and it’s a very effective form of promotion.”

Conventional metaphorical thought is inherent in our largely unconscious thought. Such normal modes of metaphorical thinking are not noticed as such. Consider Brexit, which used the metaphor of “entering” and “leaving” the EU.

There is a universal metaphor that states are bounded regions in space: you can enter a state, be deep in some state, and come out of that state. If you enter a café and then leave the café, you will be in the same location as before you entered.
But that need not be true of states of being. But that was the metaphor used with Brexit; Britons believed that after leaving the EU, things would be as before when the entered the EU. They were wrong. Things changed radically while they were in the EU.
That same metaphor is being used by Trump: Make America Great Again. Make America Safe Again. And so on. As if there was some past ideal state that we can go back to just by electing Trump.

There is also a metaphor that A Country Is a Person and a metonymy of the President Standing For the Country. Thus, Obama, via both metaphor and metonymy, can stand conceptually for America. Therefore, by saying that Obama is weak and not respected, it is communicated that America, with Obama as president, is weak and disrespected. The inference is that it is because of Obama.

The corresponding inference is that, with a strong president like Trump, the country should be strong, and via strict father reasoning, respected.

The country as person metaphor and the metaphor that war or conflict between countries is a fistfight between people, leads to the inference that just having a strong president will guarantee that America will win conflicts and wars. Trump will just throw knockout punches. In his acceptance speech at the convention, Trump repeatedly said that he would accomplish things that, in reality, can only be done by the people acting with their government. After one such statement, there was a chant from the floor, “He will do it.”

The metaphor that The nation Is a Family was used throughout the GOP convention. We heard that strong military sons are produced by strong military fathers and that “defense of country is a family affair.” From Trump’s love of family and commitment to their success, we are to conclude that, as president he will love America’s citizens and be committed to the success of all.

There is a common metaphor that identifying with your family’s national heritage makes you a member of that nationality. Suppose your grandparents came from Italy and you identify with your Italian ancestors, you may proudly state that you are Italian. The metaphor is natural. Literally, you have been American for two generations. Trump made use of this commonplace metaphor in attacking US District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is American, born and raised in the United States. Trump said he was a Mexican, and therefore would hate him and tend to rule against him in a case brought against Trump University for fraud.

Then there is the metaphor system used in the phrase “to call someone out.” First the word “out.” There is a general metaphor that Knowing Is Seeing as in “I see what you mean.” Things that are hidden inside something cannot be seen and hence not known, while things are not hidden but out in public can be seen and hence known. To “out” someone is to make their private knowledge public. To “call someone out” is to publicly name someone’s hidden misdeeds, thus allowing for public knowledge and appropriate consequences.

This is the basis for the Trumpian metaphor that Naming is Identifying. Thus naming your enemies will allow you to identify correctly who they are, get to them, and so allow you to defeat them. Hence, just saying “radical Islamic terrorists” allows you to pick them out, get at them, and annihilate them. And conversely, if you don't say it, you won’t be able to pick them out and annihilate them. Thus a failure to use those words means that you are protecting those enemies — in this case Muslims, that is, potential terrorists because of their religion.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Our neural minds think in certain patterns. Trump knows how to exploit them. Whatever other limitations on his knowledge, he knows a lot about using your brain against you to acquire and maintain power and money.

24. The Media
It is vitally important for the public to be aware of how their brains can be used against them. Can the media do such a job? There are many forces militating against it.
First, there is obvious pressure on those reporting on politics in the media to assume that thought is conscious and not to talk about matters outside of public political discourse, that is, don’t talk about things your audience can’t understand.
Second, many in the media accept Enlightenment Reason. It is common for progressive pundits to quote conservative claims in conservative language and then argue against it, assuming that negating a frame will wipe it out, when instead negating a frame activates and strengthens the frame. They are ignoring the warnings of Don't Think of an Elephant!
Third, there is the metaphor that Objectivity is Balance, that interviews are about opinions and that opinions should be balanced.
Fourth, there are political and economic levers of power that are being used on the media. Trump is choosing the new members of the Federal Communications Commission, which has the power to take away broadcast licenses. The Congress has the power of the purse over National Public Broadcasting and one can already see where NPR correspondents are hesitant to challenge lies. Similarly corporate advertisers have that power over radio and tv stations, as do their corporate owners.
Fifth, there are ratings, which mean advertising money. The head of CBS, Leslie Moonves, for example, said that CBS benefitted by giving Trump free airtime during the campaign. “It may not be good for America, but it's good for CBS,” he said.
Sixth, it is virtually impossible during an interview to do instant fact-checking and constantly interrupting the interviewee to confront his lies, or at least report them. It would of course lead the interviewee to refuse future interviews with that reporter or that station — or keep him or her out of the White House Press Corps.
The result is media intimidation and steps toward the loss of the free press. The question is whether people in the media can join together in courage when their careers, and hence their livelihood, are threatened.
One possibility is for journalists to used more accurate language. Take government regulations. Their job is to protect the public from harm and fraud composed by unscrupulous corporations. The Trump administration wants to get rid of “regulations.” They are actually getting rid of protection. Can journalists actually say they are get rid of protections, saying the word “protection,” and reporting on the harm that would be done by not protecting the public.
Can the media report on corporate poisoning of the public — through introducing lead and other cancer-causing agents into the water through fracking and various manufacturing processes, through making food or toiletries that contain poisonous and cancer-causing ingredients, and on and on. The regulations are there for a purpose — protection. Can the media use the words POISON and CANCER? The public needs to know.
Seventh, there are science-of-mind constraints. Reporters and commentators are expected to stick to what is conscious and with literal meaning. But most real political discourse makes use of unconscious thought, which shapes conscious thought via unconscious framing and commonplace conceptual metaphors, as we have seen. Can the media figure out a way to say what in this article?
More than ever we need courage and imagination in the media. It is crucial, for the history of the country and the world, as well as the planet.

25. What the Majority Can Do
A strong American Majority movement is necessary, and its backbone has to be a citizens’ communication system — or systems — run through the internet, framing American values accurately and systemically day after day, telling truths framed by American majority moral values — and appealing honestly and forthrightly to those in-group nurturant values in small towns across America. The idea that must be brought across is empathy for those in your in-group, your town. This is basic progressive thought: citizens care about citizens and provide public resources for all, maximizing freedom. It fits in-group nurturance. And it undermines — rather than negates — strict father morality.

What a Strict Father Cannot Be
There are certain things that strict fathers cannot be: A Loser, Corrupt, and especially not a Betrayer of Trust.
Trump lost the popular vote. To the American majority, he is a Loser, a minority president. It needs to be said and repeated.
Above all, Trump is a Betrayer of Trust. He is acting like a dictator, and is even supporting Putin’s anti-American policies.
He is betraying trust is a direct way, by refusing to put his business interests in a blind trust. By doing so, and by insisting on his children both running the business and getting classified information, he is using the presidency to make himself incredibly wealthy — just as Putin has. This is Corruption of the highest and most blatant level. Can the media say the words: Corruption, Betrayal of Trust? He ran on a promise to end corruption, to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Instead, he has brought a new and much bigger swamp with him — lobbyists put in charge of one government agency after another, using public funds and the power of the government to serve corporate greed. And the biggest crock in the swamp is Trump himself!
The Trump administration will wreak havoc on the very people who voted for him in those small towns — disaster after disaster. It will be a huge betrayal. The $500 billion in infrastructure — roads and bridges, airports, sewers, eliminating lead water pipes — will probably not make it to those thousands of small rural towns with in-group nurturance for the townspeople. How many factories with good-paying jobs can be brought to such towns? Not thousands. Many of those who voted for Trump will inevitably be among the 20 million who will lose their health care. And they will become even further victims of corporate greed — more profits going to the top one percent and more national corporations, say, fast food and big-box stores paying low wages and offering demeaning jobs will continue to wipe out local businesses. Will this be reported? Will it even be said? And if so, how will it be said in a way that doesn't wind up promoting Trump?
The American majority must create an online citizen communication network — or multiple networks — to spread its positive American values and truths as antidotes to those small towns with in-group nurturance as the Trump swamp swamps them!
The message is not merely negative, that they are being betrayed. That’s the Don’t Think of an Elephant! trap. Rather it is that the town’s in-group nurturance is nurturance. It works because care is morally right.
Right now the majority is fighting back, pointing out what is wrong with Trump day after day. In many cases, they are missing the message of Don't Think of an Elephant! By fighting against Trump, many protesters are just showcasing Trump, keeping him in the limelight, rather than highlighting the majority’s positive moral view and viewing the problem with Trump from within the majority’s positive worldview frame. To effectively fight for what is right, you have to first say what is right and why.

George Lakoff is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and Director of the Center for the Neural Mind & Society (website: cnms.berkeley.edu). His many books and articles can be found at his website: www.georgelakoff.com. He is one of the most cited of American scholars, with more than 130,000 citations in scholarly journals — the second most at UC Berkeley. The citations of his work can be found at the Google Scholar Citation Index: scholar.google.com/citations?user=KEU0vpcAAAAJ&hl=en.

Tuesday, November 29th
Blast #84

Preparing for 2017
Part One

Part of the fun of writing The Blast is getting responses from old friends and colleagues to various postings. In the last week I 've received a couple that I think are worth sharing, particularly as we prepare for January 20, 2017 and beyond. The first was sent to me by my dear old friend (going on 50 years!), Jay Bryan, the distinguished North Carolina judge. It was an item posted by a Yale history professor, Tim Snyder, and seems well worth considering. Stay tuned for Part Two tomorrow.

November 15, 2016

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.

2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.

3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.

4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of "terrorism" and "extremism." Be alive to the fatal notions of "exception" and "emergency." Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don't fall for it.

6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don't use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps "The Power of the Powerless" by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.

7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.

10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.

14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.
15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.

16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.

18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)

19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.

20. Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

Timothy Snyder
Housum Professor of History
Yale University

Timothy Snyder is a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. Before joining the faculty at Yale in 2001, he held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw, and an Academy Scholarship at Harvard. He speaks five and reads ten European languages.

Monday, November 28th
Blast #83

Professional Sports and U.S. History

I had the opportunity to attend an NBA game on Sunday night. The Brooklyn Nets were playing the Sacramento Kings at the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn. I haven't been to an NBA game in quite some time and had only been to this arena once before, so it was an interesting experience on a couple of levels. As is my wont, it made me reflect on all the years I've been a sports fan and my own history with the Nets team, as well as the more general history of not only the NBA but the NFL and MLB as well. Much of America's 20th (and now 21st) history is tied up in professional sports leagues and I find that story fascinating. But let's start with the Nets and the Kings and then work our way into the greater historical narrative.

I first started watching the Nets play basketball, "live," when they were denizens of the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island and members of the outlaw American Basketball Association. The ABA, a rival to the established NBA, featured a three-point shooting line and a red, white, and blue basketball. They established teams in cities where the NBA didn't have franchises, hoping to build new audiences for professional basketball. As a result, you had teams like the Pittsburgh Pilots, the Oakland Oaks, the Virginia Cavaliers, the San Diego Conquistadors, the Nashville Tams, the Utah Stars, the Spirits of St. Louis and the Kentucky Colonels. Four teams survived the NBA merger in 1976 --- the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, and my NY (later New Jersey, then Brooklyn) Nets. As we know, the red, white, and blue basketball disappeared (the ABA failed to copyright or trademark it!) but the three point shot has become a staple of the game. What the ABA also brought --- first to their league and then to the NBA --- were exciting players with great nicknames. Julius "Dr. J" Erving, George "The Iceman" Gervin, and Marvin "Bad News" Barnes were among the great talents now featured in the older league.
Before merging with the NBA, though, the New York Nets, with Dr. J and "Super John" Williamson (and a great supporting cast) won the ABA Championship in 1974 and 1976. Because Nets tickets were cheaper and easier to get than New York Knickerbocker seats in Madison Square Garden, we would head down to the Nassau County (from Westchester County) to see the games in person, once catching the Wilt Chamberlain coached San Diego Conquistadors --- not a great team but Wilt was the most imposing human any of us had ever seen. It was great fun and a world away from the Barclays Center and these Brooklyn Nets, for sure.

The Sacramento Kings lead to the larger sports narrative and tales of U.S. History. The Kings are the descendants of a once revered NBA franchise that started in upstate Rochester, New York, in the late 1940s, as "the Royals." They then moved to Cincinnati (1957), where the franchise established itself as a competitive, but not championship, team featuring Oscar "The Big O" Robertson and the sweet shooting Jack Twyman. As their stars careers faded, so did the franchise, prompting a move west to Kansas City in 1972, sharing home court time with Omaha , Nebraska (the KC-Omaha Kings)until 1975(dropping Omaha at that time) before finally moving to Sacramento in 1985. They remain the only major sports franchise in that city. And that's where our narrative expands because professional sports teams, starting in the post-WWII era, began to spread westward with the population of the country, reflecting the economic and social fortunes of America as the time went by.

I often tried to use sports teams as an entrée to learning concepts about U.S. History with my high school students --- with varying success. Having been an avid sports fan while living through the second half of the 20th century, it was/is natural for me to conflate American History with sports --- so that came out in my teaching. But I think if we look at two things in particular about our sports teams in post-WW II America --- their names and their geographic movement --- we can find some interesting things to learn about our country.

If we start with the nicknames of our sports teams there’s some fun and some history to be had. Most of us are aware of the controversy surrounding nicknames like the Redskins, Braves, Chiefs, and Indians as being derogatory to Native Americans. The St. John’s Redmen changed their moniker to the Red Storm several years ago. Similarly, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays dropped their “devil” for their more religious southern fans (the Duke Blue Devils feel no such compunction, apparently --- but they win more). There are several teams which have historically relevant nicknames worth noting: the 49ers in San Francisco (the Gold Rush), the Steelers in Pittsburgh, the Packers in Green Bay (due to the local canning factory there) and the Patriots in New England (which began as the Boston Patriots). Of course, the Seattle NBA franchise --- now the Oklahoma City Thunder --- were the Supersonics, in honor of local commercial giant Boeing. We also used to have the Houston Oilers (who have become the Tennessee Titans-- thereby losing the great regional nickname.)

There are some teams that have incongruous names, if you understand history and geography. The Los Angeles Lakers? L.A., as anyone aware of geography knows --- or if you’ve seen the movie Chinatown --- is a water-starved area in Southern California. But the basketball franchise that has been so successful there started in Minnesota --- “The Land of a Thousand Lakes.” Now the name makes sense. The Utah Jazz? It’s hard to imagine the Mormon Tabernacle Choir breaking out in Miles Davis tunes. But that NBA team started in New Orleans, which makes a lot more sense. Some teams, upon moving, completely change their names so the Seattle Supersonics become the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Buffalo Braves (NBA) become the San Diego (now Los Angeles) Clippers, the Dallas Texans (AFL) become the Kansas City Chiefs, the St. Louis Browns become the Baltimore Orioles. Other teams move and keep their mascot/nickname: The Chicago/St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals, the Philadelphia/Golden State Warriors, the Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland Athletics, the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts. My favorite name non-change, though, goes to my old hometown team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. The nickname for the Brooklyn baseball club, though the fans in the early 20th century sometimes called them “the Robins, ” was originally the “Trolley Dodgers” because the residents of the borough often had to quickly weave across streets to avoid the public transportation vehicles of the day. In today’s terms, but even in 1958 when they first moved to Los Angeles, there were no trolleys to “dodge” and the name is, in essence, meaningless. Yet it persists.

Starting with the Dodgers and (New York/San Francisco) Giants move from the east coast to the west in 1958, we can also see how technology and economics of post WW II America is reflected in our sports franchises. When I was a boy, there were only 16 teams in Major League Baseball, 12 in the NFL, and 8 in the NBA. Now each league has 30 or 32 teams. Back before 1960 the only West Coast teams were in the NFL, with San Francisco and Los Angeles. It took the advent of jet airliners (1958), a major technological breakthrough, to change the sports world’s geography. Combined with the growth of televised sports viewership --- particularly beginning with the cable-access of the early/mid -1970s that veritably exploded in the 1980s --- we see sports moving from a local phenomena to a billion-dollar industry!

Going back to my childhood --- there were no teams west of St. Louis (save those two NFL franchises, but in those days baseball ruled and it wasn’t until CBS’s 1958 NFL overtime championship game between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts that the NFL began to gain some traction). So, even when teams moved, it was still east of the Mississippi, where train travel or piston-driven planes could fly in a reasonable number of hours. We saw the Boston Braves move to Milwaukee (winning a championship in 1957) and the hapless St. Louis Browns actually move east to Baltimore to find success. It wasn’t until the baseball Dodgers and Giants made their big move in 1958 that we began to see the mass migration of teams and the creation of new franchises around the country.

As noted earlier, the Athletics moved to Kansas City and then Oakland. The NFL Cardinals moved from Chicago to St. Louis to Arizona. The key here, of course, is economic markets. If we look at the current landscape, Kansas City has developed a new baseball franchise (the Royals) --- and has an NFL team as well. Milwaukee, while Brave-less, added the Brewers (originally the Seattle Pilots but moved to Milwaukee in 1970 by car dealership magnate Bud Selig). In the NBA, the Syracuse Nationals moved to Philadelphia to become the 76ers after the Warriors flew the coop for Golden State (Oakland). The Oilers left Houston only to be replaced by the Texans. After the Jazz left New Orleans, the Hornets (now Pelicans) replaced that franchise. What we see when we look at our MLB/NFL/NBA sports map is a reflection of how the country grew during the second half of the 20th century.

Because of jet travel and cable television money, the markets have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in size. Markets that were barren and now have at least two professional sports franchises (and I haven’t even mentioned the National Hockey League --- which had only SIX teams when I was a boy) include Denver, Miami, Tampa Bay, Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis, Dallas, Houston, Buffalo, and Charlotte. In 2016 we find some singleton “small market” franchises, too, in Portland, Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, Orlando, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Memphis, and Sacramento. How long they will last in those towns remains to be seen, particularly with suitors like Las Vegas, Louisville, and Albuquerque out there considering their prospects for a “big league” sports team.

While I believe professional sports have hit a saturation point (your talent is diluted by the expansion of teams) there is no doubt that investors are out there looking for the next Sports Golden Goose, hoping to match the right city and sport to make a killing. The television money is what ultimately drives it all, of course. We went to a college basketball doubleheader last week and Madison Square Garden was virtually empty --- but ESPN was there and that’s all the really matter$$$$$$. Whatever the case, the next time you happen to be watching a professional sporting event, think about the history of the cities, the nicknames of teams, and add a dimension to your viewing and listening pleasure.

Sunday, November 27th
Blast #82

  The Electoral College’s
Insidious Roots

For those few people who were paying attention during their 11th grade U.S. History course (A.P. or otherwise) you were probably taught that the Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers to make sure that the high-population (large) states did not dominate the low-population (small) states, preventing a “tyranny of the majority.” While true in theory, there is a more insidious side to that story and it rests in another part of the Constitution, the infamous “3/5th’s Compromise.” Again, if you were a student who paid attention to this arcane bit of Constitutional chicanery, the Southern slave states balked at ratifying the Constitution unless the northern (soon to be more populous) states agreed to this clause, which counted every five slaves as three eligible voters (that means FIVE slaves “counted” as THREE landed white men who could cast a vote! Illustration #2, above). In return, the North was “given” the legal promise that the African Slave Trade would cease in 20 years (1808)! Some compromise. But Hamilton and Madison, the leading lights of the Constitutional Convention (and primary authors of “The Federalist Papers,” one of the most successful propaganda campaigns ever), believed the ratification of the Constitution was of paramount importance and were willing to accede to this insidious compromise.

If we look at the 1790 United States census (the first official census in our nation’s history) we see the following:

1790 Census Records

                           STATE TOTAL POPULATION SLAVE POPULATION   PERCENT OF TOTAL POPULATION ENSLAVED

New Hampshire 141,899 157 0.1%
New York 340,241 21,193 6%
Massachusetts 378,556                                                       0 0%
Rhode Island 69,112 958 1%
Connecticut 237,655 2,648 6%
New Jersey 184,139 11,423 6%
Pennsylvania 433,611 3,707 0.8%
Delaware 59,096 8,887                                                                         15%
Maryland 319,728 103,036 32%
Virginia 747,550 292,627 39%
North Carolina 395,005 100,783                                                                        26%
South Carolina 247,073 104,094 42%
Georgia 82,548 29,264 35%

Based on the 3/5th’s clause, the dominant slave-owning states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia) gained almost 400,000 (383,214) “voters” counting toward representatives in the House. Keep in mind that Electoral votes for each state are the number of Representatives in the House plus each state’s two U.S. Senators (originally chosen by the state legislatures, and not directly elected by the people). The other flaw in the system, also negating the power of the national popular vote, is that (with the exception of Nebraska and Maine) states award “winner-take-all” to the candidate winning the popular vote in each state --- even if it’s by the slimmest of margins. As evidenced in 2000 and again this year, someone can win the popular vote but still lose the election.

Going back to our history lesson, let’s see how the skew toward the 3/5th’s South helped elect our presidents up until the Civil War. Of the 15 presidents who preceded Abraham Lincoln 8 were southerners BUT three of the “non-southerners” had the support of the South, and a fourth (John Quincy Adams) was beaten by a Southerner (Andrew Jackson) in the Electoral College. Without an electoral majority, however, Jackson’s election was decided --- for Adams! --- by the House of Representatives (the infamous “Corrupt Bargain” between Adams and Henry Clay --- Speaker of the House, from Kentucky). George Washington, of course, was from Virginia, as were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe (the “Virginia Dynasty”).   John Tyler (1841-45) was also a Virginian, succeeding the one-month presidency of William Henry Harrison, who was born in Virginia but elected from Ohio. John Adams, our second president, won by three electoral votes that were Elector defections (an unusual event): ONE elector in Pennsylvania, ONE in Virginia, and ONE in North Carolina each voted for Adams (probably due to Washington’s influence), denying Jefferson the victory (he received the other 14 electors in Pennsylvania, 20 in Virginia, and 11 in North Carolina.) The point here is that the South dominated the Presidency and the legislature until the 1850’s when the North’s growing population in agricultural and industry was becoming overwhelming. Cotton was still King but, after the weak presidencies of Pierce (New Hampshire) and Buchanan (Pennsylvania), the election of Lincoln signaled the end of the Cotton Kingdom with the imminent demise of slavery.

As a result of the Republican Lincoln’s election, of course, the South became solidly Democratic until the 1960’s, when JFK, LBJ, and MLK’s Civil Rights movement forced the hand of the “Dixiecrats.” Senators like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond supported Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” (though it should be noted that segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace carried FIVE states, plus one elector from North Carolina--- for a total of 46 electoral votes --- in the 1968 election).   From 1972 forward the “Solid South” became a Republican stronghold --- only bolting to the Democrats for Georgia’s Jimmy Carter in 1976. Even the charming Arkansan Bill Clinton could only carry a few Southern states. And, despite winning the popular vote in 2000, Al Gore couldn’t even carry his home state of Tennessee.

If you follow the news you know that “minority” voter suppression (particularly in states like North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas) is alive and well and has become an oft-used political tool of the Republican party (Scott Walker and his Republican legislature in Wisconsin are catching up with the South in this area), along with gerrymandering districts to disproportionately favor their party. Gerrymandering is yet another factor in skewing representation in the House and illustrates how perverse and dysfunctional our government has become.

Donald Trump lost the popular vote by over 2 million. Nonetheless, he and the Republican Party now have “control” of the Executive and Legislative branches of the government and, with his appointment of a Supreme Court Justice (pending approval by the Senate), it will be a clean sweep for at least two years and possibly four, and beyond --- all because of an Electoral College system installed to guarantee that power rested in the hands of the slave-owning South. How appropriate that a race-baiting misogynist should benefit from such a system.

Thursday, November 24th
Blast #81

I really don't have time to write a Blast for Thanksgiving Day --- yesterday's was my "thankful" Blast. But I've been meaning to move a text from the "Culture" tab to this Blast blog. It's a piece I wrote back in June, after reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me. Coates is a MacArthur "genius" grant winner and a writer for The Atlantic and a true public intellectual. HIs short book (barely over 150 pages) was a real eye-opener for me, as I hope this essay reveals.

Between Ta-Nehisi Coates
   & Me

The intersection of my 45th Reunion at Yale University and completing my reading of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me has led to some deep soul-searching. Two years into retirement from a teaching career in a wide variety of institutions (from elite Ivy League schools to New York City public high schools) I admit to a certain self-satisfaction in trying to fashion a career that was relentless In pursuing equity and social justice --- a personal passion initially driven by JFK’s “ask what you can do for your country” lo, those many years ago. But Coates’s book brought me up short when I had to face how shallow my thinking has been and just how deeply ingrained the pervasive white-European narrative is. This is not a confessional piece lamenting what a horrible, privileged liberal I have been. I believe I did some important and good work over the years, and think former students could attest to that. Nonetheless, beyond the old, “if I knew then what I know now,” it is far more serious than that --- and that’s what I’m writing about.
I started reading Between the World and Me in the San Diego airport on May 27. Having seen Ta-Nehisi Coates on several talk shows and having heard the buzz about the book, I thought I should read it (plus, it’s only 152 pages and might be read during a 6 hour flight to JFK). It took several days to finish it, though, because I kept stopping and reading passages aloud to Carol Marie (my wife, an equally dedicated educator) and we would discuss what I read, examining our efforts as white, privileged teachers, in addressing the issues Coates raises. In the end, I realized the overwhelming impact of the book was that, while believing myself a thoughtful and culturally sensitive teacher, I don’t have a clue. I had not given nearly enough thought --- deep, reflective thought --- to issues I somehow (arrogantly) believed I was “on top of.” Again, I think former students might say I’m being hard on myself, but hear me out.
A personal mantra during my years of teaching high school was that I hoped every student would be given the opportunities I had been afforded.   Quite simply, I knew in the fall of 1967, when I started classes at (the all-male) Yale College, I had hit the lottery. And I also knew that being a white guy named Johnson played some part in that. Yale is far more diverse today. When we co-educated in 1969, with women transfers making ours the first co-educated class of Yale undergraduates, it became clear to me just how lucky I had been. One of those 1969 transfers was a woman who had been the Salutatorian of my public high school graduating class in 1967. Clearly, if women could have applied in the fall of 1966, I would not have been admitted. That’s how good fortune and opportunities have always fallen for me --- and I always wished the same for my students (including the $cholar$hip money, the great teachers, the loyal friends, and the supportive family).
Wherever I was & whatever I was teaching, race was always at the forefront of my curriculum. Working with privileged, white suburban kids, the message was “Given your advantages in society, what are you going to give back?” Working at Brown and Yale, my objective was to recruit and prepare as many educators of color as possible and raise the cultural consciousness of the Caucasian students. I created a course at Brown entitled “Critical Pedagogy and White Privilege.” When I tried to offer it at Yale --- students from two residential colleges wanted it as a “College Seminar” --- it was quashed by the Council of Masters (now called “Heads of College”), who deemed it inappropriate for Yale. Working in New York City high schools my last six years of teaching, 98% of my students were “of color” and I tried to impress upon them the importance of getting an education, leveraging power, and working to “uplift the race” (in the old, clichéd jargon). After reading Between the World and Me, I realize how much more I should have tried to do.
It’s not that I was not empathetic and sympathetic to the “situation” of black people in the United States. When confronted by someone complaining that “they” were now getting “all the breaks” (the “reverse discrimination” myth many Trump supporters subscribe to), I’d ask a simple question: Would you be a black person in America? If they answered, “yes,” (often saying they’d like to be Michael Jordan or Denzel Washington) I’d accuse them of lying and if they said “no,” I’d point out that they understood the odds against black Americans. While I think this is a fair question to easily confront a basic issue, I believe I’ve been too self-satisfied with my own cleverness while being too shallow thinking I understood why the answer is “no.”
And that’s where Coates’s book was revelatory. In what is, essentially, a letter to his 15-year-old son, Coates eloquently animates just how endemic and deep-seated U.S. racism is. While my question about “would you be . . .?” might evoke the obvious thoughts about being followed in stores or images of redneck hate, it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the daily struggle being black in America elicits. If I were still preparing history/social studies teachers I would insist that this be the first book assigned. Knowing my students of color may have already read it --- or would simply applaud someone who had put their daily experience into words --- I know the white students, no matter how well-meaning, well-educated, and progressive they might be, would need extensive discussion to process the book.
Flashing forward to my 45th Reunion, we (Carol Marie & I) were struck by how few people of color were there and how much it felt like 1916 not 2016. More than that, I was struck by thinking how my political activism and lifelong beliefs were forged in this crucible during the late 60s/early 70s. Helping create the first alternative high school in New Haven (The High School in the Community is still around!), working on the May Day protests in support of the Black Panthers and the Chicago 8, and tutoring in the New Haven schools, were all part of my formative experience at Yale. And, while I was proud to have been a member of the NAACP at age 15, participating in voter registration work, I never gave any deep thought to my own simple question’s answer: why wouldn’t I choose not to be a black person in America? Beyond the superficial, I never probed where Coates goes, thinking about how, when you are black in America, you can be harassed indiscriminately by the police, how you are always a suspect to the majority, how every day your every movement is scrutinized, and how your body is not yours --- your entire history, in fact, is based on that! While abolition may have come and gone, while Brown v. Board of Ed. may have been ruled, while civil rights and voting rights bills have been signed, one basic premise has not changed since 1619: black people are not equal, as all the recent violence --- Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddy Gray, Eric Garner, et al --- clearly highlights.
Three years ago, undercover NYPD officers gunned down a student who attended the NYC school where I taught. They claimed he had a gun. We knew that couldn’t be true and suspected the weapon “found” at the scene was a plant. The 15 year-old boy was shot 7 times, four in the back. A recent NY Daily News article, barely noticed, I’m sure, reported that the investigation of the shooting revealed that our student’s DNA and fingerprints were nowhere to be found on the gun in question. The officers weren’t suspended or disciplined --- then or now. As Ta-Nehisi Coates points out, that’s just the expectation. America barely blinks as another black kid is shot by police. Even when the video of the defenseless Laquan McDonald being riddled with 16 bullets on a Chicago street is released, we get several days of coverage and then move on. Is it any wonder people of color are skeptical about getting fair treatment, much less justice in this country?
If we confront our Nation of Incarceration, our disproportionate poverty rates, our “achievement gap,” can we really believe we are in the “post-racial” America some claim Obama has delivered? Yes, we have had eight years of a black presidency but that has wrought the Trump backlash, the Charleston shootings, the need for a Black Lives Matter movement, and a much keener awareness, for me, of ideas I should have been paying more, and closer, attention to far sooner.
As new stories emerge, almost daily, about “vacated” sentences for black men falsely accused, of privileged white rapists given 6-month sentences when blacks serve 15 to 25 years for the same offense, as the 24/7 news cycle reveal realities to white America that our black citizens have known for years --- the impact of Between the World and Me is all the more stunning. Left to reflect, I recognize my teaching was not hurtful but was not all it could have been. I was arrogant, believing I was far “cooler” than I was. I allowed a black student’s compliment (“Isn’t Bil Johnson the blackest white man you ever met?”) carry my feelings farther than I should have. The “blackest white man” is still a clueless white man --- and a perfect example of just how clueless whites are. Coates’s story about bumping into another black man at a baggage carousel and their exchanging a simple “My bad” and “You straight” was far more than a lesson in Ebonics. “And in that exchange there was so much of the private rapport that can only exist between two particular strangers of this tribe we call black.” (pp.119-120) It’s not only that white people can never be members of that tribe, it’s recognizing the larger issues Coates raises about an American “Dream” built on oppression and “plunder.” That blacks were slaves longer (by almost a century!) than they have been free is a stunning historical fact. I was born only two years after Jackie Robinson first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers and five years before Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education. Watching George Wallace stand in the doorway of the University of Alabama to stop integration is a clear t.v. memory, as is the “I Have a Dream” speech. But I was never told I needed to be “twice as good” to get “half as much,” an adage that still holds true in black America. Missing the parallels between Emmitt Till and Trayvon Martin speaks to the historical blind spot we white people, and our media, have perpetuated.
“Race” (a social construct and not a biological category) has always been the Elephant in America’s living room.  Between the World and Me makes it clear that it is a problem created by white people who insist black people must solve it. The irony is perverse. Those of us “who believe we are white” (Coates’s repeated phrase, adapted from James Baldwin) cannot ignore what this book clearly presents: the United States was built on the backs of oppressed peoples who were sold an unattainable “Dream.” What Coates makes abundantly clear is that the majoritarian culture built a world whose rules allow for their rationalizations while accepting the perpetuation of inequality; a world where “the police reflect America in all of its will and fear” (p.78), and that “Hate gives identity. The nigger, the fag, the bitch illuminate the border, illuminate what we ostensibly are not, illuminate the Dream of being white, of being a Man.” (p. 60) A brutally harsh critique that is flawlessly accurate.
Between the World and Me provides no answers for blacks or whites. It offers advice from a black father to his son, pulling no punches and painting a realistic picture of the American landscape, historically and presently. For white readers it provides a window to the world as it is, not how we’d like it to be, or hope it will be. Eight years of a black President has not changed the realities of black life in America --- in some ways, the intensity of racism may have increased!
Between the World and Me is direct and scathing, insightful and informative, eloquent and enlightening. So, read it, all of you "who believe you are white." Read it.

June 10, 2016

Wednesday, November 23rd
Blast #80

Giving Thanks
for a Fortunate Life

Over the years I’ve often said that I’ve had a most fortunate life. Watching Vin Scully, the legendary Dodger baseball announcer, receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his 67 years announcing Dodger games caused me to reflect on my own 68 years (Scully started announcing about 6 weeks before my first birthday) and all that I have to be thankful for. I won’t get into the “givens,” like being thankful for my brother & parents, the Lovely Carol Marie, all the great friends, teammates, classmates, students, mentors and other individuals, far too numerous to name, but whose presence I was lucky enough to share during my time so far. I’ve tried to run through my life chronologically, in a quick way, noting personal “milestones" --- kind of like a “greatest hits” list. This is hideously self-indulgent, I know, but I am genuinely thankful for having lived through all the experiences that follow.

March 6, 1956 – Family moves to Bay Shore, Long Island – great place to grow up (and I become “Mr. Bay Shore” in May, 1967)
Labor Day Weekend, 1957 – Ebbetts Field & my first Major League game.
October, 1957 – Sputnik is launched & I remember the front page of Newsday (“Long Island’s Newspaper”) announcing it.
Summer, 1960 – my first year of Little League – Windsor Fuel (my team) wins the Bay Shore-Brightwaters Little League Championship with a 20-3 record.
1961 – My first Yankee games (in the old, original “House that Ruth built”). We see Roger Maris hit homers 47 & 48 (photo above) off the White Sox on August 16th (ironically, “Babe Ruth Day” and Mrs. Ruth is in the crowd). I also see my first New York Football Giants game at Yankee Stadium on December 17th.
1963: JFK’s assassination dominates, of course, but I also remember first hearing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles in December – Freshman year in high school --- the real beginning of a rock and roll addiction.
1963-67 – Playing football & basketball for Bay Shore High – great teams, great teammates (our JV basketball team wins 17 straight games before losing a heartbreaker by ONE point in our 18th game! Senior football team goes undefeated, junior b-ball wins League Championship). Take the Bay Shore Varsity Club (as President) to a Namath/Jets game at Shea & to the 50th Street Madison Square Garden for a Rangers game.
April 15, 1967: I get into (then still all-male) Yale – the formative experience of my life! MLK & RFK assassinations. Football & lacrosse, Morse College (lifelong friends), Skull & Bones, art historian/mentor Vincent Scully, teaching assistant to Charlie Reich, living in North Guilford Senior Year. Co-Education Junior Year. The MayDay Strike in May 1970 --- trips to D.C. to “March on Washington” & much more.
1972 – Colgate University for a Master’s in Teaching & the beginning of the Watergate investigation (the ‘Gate year!) Knicks win NBA! More lifelong friends!
1973 – 1984: teaching at Blind Brook High School – a brand new school with incredible colleagues and students; a perfect place to start my teaching career, not to mention coaching basketball, playing a benefit basketball game against the Yankees, playing rec league softball for Rye Ridge Deli & numerous trips to Yankee Stadium (to see the Munson/Jackson/Randolph teams) and Madison Square Garden (for college and Knicks basketball). Too much more to mention.
1984-1987 – The Boston Years: teaching at Winchester High School, living on Commonwealth Avenue – directing school plays and coaching the runner-up State Championship tennis team, winning the Golden Apple (Teacher of the Year) and Coach of the Year (tennis) awards in ‘86/’87. Finally get to see baseball at Fenway Park & Celtics at the original Boston Garden.
1987-1994 – New York City & the Upper West Side; teaching at Bronxville High School and becoming an active member of Ted Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools at Brown University. This period includes a Columbus Day weekend trip to Caracas, Venezuela with the late Billy Harrison where I catch a 250 pound blue marlin! More basketball & tennis coaching, directing plays, and summers spent in Providence, working for the Coalition --- meeting the Lovely Carol Marie in the summer of 1991. Also begin doctoral studies at Columbia University.
1994-95: Working at Brown University (sabbatical replacement as the Social Studies/History Clinical Professor), planning the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School (opens in Sept. 1995), and writing the two volume Performance Assessment Handbook (published November, 1996). Wildly productive year.
1996-2007: Working at Brown full-time with incredible colleagues & students & continued work with Ted Sizer & the Coalition. Win the William McLaughlin Award for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences in 2000-2001; published another book (Student-Centered Teaching Handbook 2001), took a semester sabbatical to teach in Fairbanks, Alaska, and won the Henry Wriston Fellowship (outstanding junior faculty member). While I’ve had a lot of great jobs, the Brown experience was probably the most fun, day-in/day-out with Jack the Wonder Dog! always at my side.
2007-2014: ‘07/’08 was a return to Yale & New Haven (highly disappointing) and then a return to NYC with a teaching job on the Lower East Side & an apartment in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn (also disappointing). Renaissance with a return to the Upper West Side & a teaching job on West 50th Street at the Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction – great young colleagues and fun living in Seinfeld’s neighborhood. Superstorm Sandy leads to what becomes the permanent reconnection with the Lovely Carol Marie. We retire from education June, 30, 2014 and the rest is pretty much documented on the website & in The Blast.

So, that’s my incredibly self-indulgent Thanksgiving Blast, as I prepare for my most un-favorite time of year, the Holidays, which wear on endlessly, like that phrase at the end of The Great Gatsby (the most overrated novel in American literature). I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving & Holiday Season (despite my personal misgivings!).

Tuesday, November 22nd
Blast #79

   Living in the Future

Late one Saturday night in October the Lovely Carol Marie and I were on our way home from Daryl’s House, a music club in Peekskill, New York, when the flashing lights of a NY State Trooper cruiser appeared in my rear view mirror. I pulled off to the side of the road, expecting the trooper to pass me by and was surprised when the car pulled up behind me. After the license/registration procedure, the trooper informed us that our left front headlight was out. I had noticed that we hadn’t seemed to be projecting a lot of light recently, but didn’t think to check the headlight (the high-beam was still working). Whatever. Promising to fix it posthaste, the officer let us go and told us to be careful.

The next morning I went on YouTube, plugging in “2010 Chevrolet Cobalt headlight replacement” and, just like that, there was an instructional video from “1A Auto.” The job looked challenging, but do-able, so I went out and bought a replacement bulb (for just under $6.00) and started wrestling with the headlight. Not finding the task as simple as I anticipated, I went back into the house and watched the video again. After about 15 minutes, I had the headlight assembly removed, the new bulb in and the entire fixture back in place. YouTube to the rescue.

We are having some renovations done by Carol Marie’s (former) colleague and Master Builder, Bob Jordan. Working on one of the bathrooms, Bob had to remove the toilet in order to lay new tile on the floor. He was concerned about water left in the toilet.   Even after it had been turned off and drained, there was still some water sloshing at the bottom of the bowl. Bob came back the next day and said, “I checked it out on YouTube --- just stick a sponge in there to absorb any leftover water.” He and I shook our heads, realizing that’s a pretty simple solution one of us should have thought of but, once again, YouTube to the rescue!

This got me to thinking about a book I first read in the summer of 1972 called Deschooling Society. The author was Ivan Illich, a Viennese born theologian/philosopher who came to the U.S. in 1951 (serving as an assistant pastor in a NYC Irish-Puerto Rican parish) and, from 1956 to 1960, was the vice-rector to the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. He then spent the bulk of his career in Cuernavaca, Mexico, as the co-founder of the controversial Center for Intercultural Documentation --- essentially a philosophy think tank. Deschooling Society was a collection of essays that proposed thinking about education in new ways. For those who are not educators, you may not be familiar with the school reform movement of the late 1960s/early 1970s. Illich and Paolo Freire (in Brazil), along with Jonathan Kozol, John Holt, and James Herndon in the U.S., were aligning school reform notions that paralleled the sociological work of Theodore Roszak (The Making of Counter Culture, 1969) and Philip Slater (The Pursuit of Loneliness, 1970). There was a left-leaning (Marxist) base to their work, questioning the existing institutions --- particularly in education --- they believed were standing in the way of genuine human progress. What was most interesting about Illich’s work was his belief that schools were, essentially, unnecessary. He foresaw, in some ways, the YouTube world we live in.

   In Deschooling Society Illich proposes the creation of “Learning Webs,” which would be networks where people who wanted to learn something could connect with someone who knew how to teach it. Like many of the other reformers mentioned above, Illich was suspicious of “experts” who needed certification or licenses --- believing this allowed institutions (the schools, churches, banks, corporations) to control the general populous. Illich is very much a liberation theologist (not unlike Freire) who wants to free people from the shackles of government and corporate control. What he boldly proposed, in 1970, was the following:

I propose . . . four different approaches which enable the student to gain access to any educational resource which may help him to define and achieve his own goals:

Reference Service to Educational Objects – which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning.
Skill Exchanges – which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at which they can be reached.
Peer-Matching --- a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.
Reference Services to Educators-at-Large --- who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self-descriptions of professionals, paraprofessionals, and free-lancers, along with the conditions of access to their service.

It is hard to imagine how Illich might have reacted to YouTube, OnLine Courses, and the endless variety of possibilities now presented on the WorldWideWeb. In some ways, he would probably be horrified because at the heart of Deschooling Society is a treatise on humanitarian values. Illich sees the educational establishment, along with overreaching governments and corporations, as morally bankrupt institutions. He genuinely believed that man’s basic nature was good and, left unimpeded by institutions, would seek “real” education as well as other noble goals.

Early in the book, Illich provides this futuristic speculation:

The most radical alternative to school would be a network or service which gave each man the same opportunity to share his current concern with others motivated by the same conern.
Let me give, as an example of what I mean, a description of how an intellectual match might work in New York City. Each man, at any given moment and at a minimum price, could identify himself to a computer with his address and telephone number, indicating the book, article, film, or recording on which he seeks a partner for discussion. Within days he would receive by mail a list of others who recently had taken the same initiative. This list would enable him by telephone to arrange for a meeting with persons who initially would be known exclusively by the fact that they requested a dialogue about the same subject. (p. 19) (boldface, mine)

Looking back from 2016, Illich’s seems a wonderfully naïve notion, bound by a now-dated technology and society. However, isn’t he exactly describing the world we live in --- where Facebook Groups, or Fantasy Sports Leagues, or Pinterest serves exactly the purposes he describes? What Illich failed to recognize in his prognostication was the far-reaching grasp of the institutions he was hoping to displace through his Networks and Learning Webs. In fact, with all the technology we now have, how much of it is really being used for the kind of educational goals Illich was proposing? (I’d proffer: very little!)

So, despite Bob’s and my learning from YouTube, the technology that could now provide the magical “deschooled” world Illich envisioned is no closer to reality than it was in 1970. Worse, the technology is rife with misinformation. The front Business Day page of today’s New York Times features this headline: Fact Check: This Pizzeria Is Not a Child-Trafficking Site. The story is about a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor that was the subject of articles on Facebook and the websites The Vigilant Citizen and The New Nationalist. The stories claimed that Hillary Clinton used the back rooms of the pizza establishment to kidnap, molest, and traffic young children. The owner of the pizzeria and his staff were bombarded with electronic messages threatening, “We’re on to you,” along with death threats --- all coming on Twitter, Facebook, and texts.

A July, 2016, Pew Research study found that almost 40% of Americans get their news online. Not unlike this blog, where I can write whatever I want and make claims that may or may not be factual, there is a proliferation of information flooding our citizenry without any filtering, fact-checking, or, at times, basis in reality. We just witnessed the first presidential campaign in which lying became par for the course and “I’m hearing . .. “ and “people are saying . . . “ became an inherent part of the Trump campaign. The WorldWideWeb has simply become an echo chamber for each of us to have our beliefs confirmed, whether they are truthful or not. People are most comfortable when surrounded by those who tell them what they want to hear. The internet allows that with no regard for facts or accuracy from sources.

Ivan Illich was a brilliant man who foresaw much as to the direction our world was headed. Late in the book he says, “We know which switch must stay open to avoid an atomic holocaust. No switch detains an ecological Armageddon.” (p. 110) Deschooling Society spends much time talking about “environment” and the pro’s and cons of humans shaping it to suit their needs, expressing concern that we might not be cautious stewards. Illich foresaw the world, and education, in the positive light that he generated, in which he believed people were inherently good and would do the right thing. We can only hope, at a time when we are not always seeing the best from people, that he will, ultimately, be right.

(You can get a pdf copy of Deschooling Society at: http://learning.media.mit.edu/courses/mas713/readings/DESCHOOLING.pdf)

Monday, November 21st
Blast #78

 The Rural/Elitist Electoral Complex

There may seem to be a contradiction to the title of this piece, but allow me to explain and hope you’ll see that the concept I’m trying to explain is less of an oxymoron than it first appears. The election of 2016 has ironically borne out the dreams and fears of both Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, the founding fathers of American political philosophy. Jefferson, of course, foresaw America as a land made noble by its hard working agrarian class, spreading across his Louisiana Purchase and ensuring national “goodness” through their hardworking attachment to the soil. Hamilton, on the other hand, distrusted those very people and, with Madison, constructed safeguards so that urban & business ruling elites would be ensured control of the government. The Electoral College, indirect election of U.S. Senators, and stipulations on the franchise (white, male, property owners) were part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing that only the upper echelon of the “farming” class (read: wealthy plantation owners) would have any say in a government where members of the educated, elite class (our “natural” aristocracy) would operate. For many years it looked as though the Hamiltonian principle prevailed, even though there were some rumblings that the Senate had disproportionate power leveraged by smaller (often “agricultural”) states. The urban centers, where the political elites were concentrated, generally held sway. A serious rift began emerging in the 1980s --- and that political rift, featuring Ronald Reagan “conservatism,” also contained a strong racial component. We have seen that fissure in our society grow ever since.

After a quarter century of growing division between the urban and suburban/rural, between whites and people of color, between the haves and the have-nots, as well as developing a nation more and more influenced by social media and technology, we get an election like 2016’s. As Emily Badger notes in Monday’s New York Times:

Rural America, even as it laments its economic weakness, retains vastly disproportionate electoral strength. Rural voters were able to nudge Donald J. Trump to power despite Hillary Clinton’s large margins in cities like New York. In a House of Representatives that structurally disadvantages Democrats because of their tight urban clustering, rural voters helped Republicans hold their cushion. In the Senate, the least populous states are now more overrepresented than ever before. And the growing unity of rural Americans as a voting bloc has converted the rural bias in national politics into a potent Republican advantage. (November 18th)

So, Jefferson’s “rurals” have manipulated Hamilton’s system to work in their favor --- something I’m sure Hamilton did not anticipate. However, there are two flies in this ointment: one is that the rural heroes of Jefferson’s vision are subscribing to a less-than-filial vision of their fellow citizens, and, two, Donald Trump is a member of the “elite” and, despite the “blue-collar billionaire” rhetoric during the campaign, is already moving well-established lobbyists and power-brokers into his administration.

Examining the first fly in the ointment, my friend Jim Moyer forwarded an article from the Lexington (KY) Herald Leader from November 18th, about the election of state representative in Kentucky named Dan Johnson. Mr. Johnson used Facebook, primarily, to propel his campaign (the local Republicans abandoned him) and, on that platform, published photos of the Obamas as apes, ran a poster that decried “Islam is a Hate Group, Not a Religion,” had photos of men draped in Confederate battle flags, and displayed a bumper sticker that pronounced “I (heart) Being White.” The Leader notes Mr. Johnson is:

a Tea Party activist with community ties through the Heart of Fire Ministries, a religious organization he runs down the road in Louisville. The Heart of Fire is part evangelical church, part motorcycle bar. Its Heart of Fire Gun Choir belts out spiritual classics while the singers hold an assortment of pistols and AK-47s. There are liquor signs in the windows of its clubhouse and a yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” flag waving out front (http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article115696453.html)

Mr. Johnson, of course, sees all of this (particularly the Facebook posts) well within his First Amendment rights (which it is, of course) but I do not believe Mr. Jefferson would believe that these are the sentiments his enlightened agrarians would bring to the polls. That the Trump campaign played on the fears, anger, and frustrations of white working class and rural poor is well-documented at this point but the election of someone like Dan Johnson reflects the tip of an ugly iceberg we may well see more and more of during the coming four years.

As to the second point, Senator Elizabeth Warren has already written to President-elect Trump bringing to his attention numerous campaign promises about reforming Washington and “draining the swamp” that now stand in stark contrast to a number of his early moves in establishing an administration (http://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documents/2016-11-15-Trump_Letter.pdf - Thanks to Polly Ulichny for bringing this to my attention). Senator Warren cites 21 people on Trump's roster who all have ties to Wall Street banks or lobbying concerns on K Street. Read the letter, it’s well documented and provides some genuine insight into the directions our next President may go. The point here is simple: the ruling elite knows how to use the system for their own ends, something Hamilton (despite his “diverse” Broadway success) definitely believed in. “The rich and the well-born” have always had the inside track on power and despite the “common man, make-America-great-again” rhetoric, Trump really doesn’t know any common people --- and has never shown any propensity for helping them. His history is pretty clear regarding stiffing contractors, creating a bogus university, treating women as objects, and engaging in discriminatory practices regarding people of color. Given the moves he has made so far, there is no reason to believe that being President (I was going to write “living in the White House” but, even there, I believe he will flaunt tradition and continue to operate out of Trump Tower) will change his proclivities.

So, as we approach January 20, 2017 we can see how our political godfathers, Jefferson and Hamilton, are still alive and well, affecting our daily lives. Jefferson’s rural populous tipped the election to Trump yet we still live in the grip of Hamilton’s elitist system, providing a victory to the candidate who did not win the popular vote. In two of the last five elections (40%) the popular vote winner has not won the presidency! Make of it what you will. My only plea would be that people study the history of our political system, avoid “news” on social media sites, take some time to read and reflect critically on all the information you consume, making sure you consider the credibility of your sources, and act as a responsible citizen at all times.

Sunday, November 20th
Blast #77

Born to Run 2020

As we watch Donald Trump begin to recommend people for various executive advisory positions our cause for concern engendered by the election is deepened. Steve Bannon as chief strategist, Michael Flynn for NSA director, Jeff Sessions for Attorney General? For those who were not convinced that Trump is a raving conspiracy theorist (who is listening to total wing-nut Alex Jones, according to the November 17th Washington Post), we are seeing the president-elect surround himself with alt-right, white nationalist bigots, a truly bad sign. The Democrats are delirious if they think they’ll be able to move Trump to reasonable or practical higher ground. McConnell and Ryan are cackling like hens over their good fortune, as is Vladimir Putin. They all have the dupe they’ve dreamed of sitting where he can help them do the most damage. It is a sad situation.

So, this got me to thinking about 2020 and what it would take to unseat Trump and I had an epiphany on Saturday afternoon. Having just finished reading Born to Run, the Bruce Springsteen autobiography, I happened to see that MTV was airing a three and a half hour film of a June/July, 2000 Madison Square Garden Concert by “The Boss” and the E Street Band. I was interested in watching it because I now had so much “inside” information about Springsteen and his band-mates. And it was there that I witnessed the future.

In the book, Springsteen owns up to having a huge ego and being obsessive about being a bandleader, noting that a rock and roll band is not a democracy and that, early on, he would lead his band and it would fulfill his rock and roll dreams. He also describes how, starting with his early teenage bands, The Castiles and Steel Mill, he loved the excitement of playing before a crowd, how the audience’s reactions to his playing was, possibly, the most satisfying feeling he could achieve. Springsteen talks a great deal about compulsively driving his band to perfection (at the expense of friendship, at times) and that he wrestled with deep depression when he wasn’t performing, that the adrenaline rush of being onstage and playing music, seeing and hearing the adoration of the crowd was the thing that truly made him feel complete. Later, of course, he discusses pharmacological treatment and becoming a devoted “family man” but I was most struck with how much his energy, even in his writing, was most vivid and enthused when he discussed playing before huge crowds around the world.
I remember in the summer of 1974, I was working at Colgate, in the Master of Arts in Teaching program, and my new (soon to be lifelong) friend, Del Shortliffe, told me “you have to see this guy.” He was talking about Springsteen, who was still about a year away from hitting the big time. According to Del, this guy put on a show like no other and his music was good! I picked up Springsteen’s first two albums at that point (Greetings from Asbury Park; The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle) and was particularly impressed with the second album. Born to Run was released on August 25, 1975 and I now truly believed Jon Landau’s statement, “I have seen the future of rock and roll.” But I never got to see Bruce play live, only hearing that his shows were incredible and, more and more, verged on Roman spectacle, for their length and gladiatorial energy. So, when I saw MTV was airing the Madison Square concert from 2000, I jumped on board.

Knowing what I did from reading the autobiography, I was invested in watching the show, keeping tabs on each of the members of the E Street Band, putting faces and musicality to the names I had read about. But there’s no doubt that Bruce, the Boss, is the show. Yes, he shares the stage with The Big Man, the late Clarence Clemons, as well as with old friend Steve Van Zandt, guitarist/vocalist Nils Lofgren, as well as with his wife, Patty Scialfa, but make no mistake about it, it’s Bruce’s show. And, as noted in the book, he’s very, very good at it.

What struck me, though, as the concert wore on was the crazed, glazed-over look in Springsteen’s eyes as he gazed out at the adoring crowd. He was energized by the masses. I was also a little taken aback by his reclining on an amplifier with eyes closed, in some quasi-erotic trance. And then, I have to admit, I was close to embarrassed (for him) when he walked to the edge of the stage, turned around, and brazenly “shook his booty,” eliciting cheers from his fans. What struck me, at that point, was “This is a 50 year old man!” Is there a point where we outgrow our rock and roll fantasy or is this just extreme arrested development? And that, of course, made me think of our president-elect --- where the answer is clearly, “No,” you can ride arrested development into the White House.

And that’s when I realized, “Bruce Springsteen for President, 2020!” Why not? Why not give the Republicans a dose of their own medicine and run one of the biggest worldwide media stars at the top of the Democratic ticket? Springsteen has, since the mid-80s, supported one good cause after another. Whether its food drives or helping unemployed workers, supporting Hillary or veterans, the Boss has established his bona fides as a rocking left-wing humanist. Mr. “Born in the USA” has that dyed-in-the-wool working class, factory man image that will win back those Rust Belters who will be discouraged by Trump’s not bringing back their factories and coal mining gigs. He can speak to that “common man” but, and this is the key to my plan, he can sing to them.

Think of this --- “Born to Run – For President!” --- a 2019 album drop that includes songs like, “Tear Down that Wall,” “Bring Back Pedro,” “Ali-Akbar was a Friend of Mine,” “Mike Pence’s Blues,” “They Let Us Down,” “You Can’t Trust a Groper,” and the hit single, “With Hair Like That?” Sure, the Boss will be 70 but that’s the perfect time for him to “retire” to the next level – the same age Trump is now, btw. He’s a multi-millionaire with a perfect First Family including a wife with a Jersey accent, not a Slovenian one. Already well-known around the world, think about photo ops with Justin Trudeau and other world leaders who are dying to meet “The Boss.” Picture Springsteen on the campaign trail, guitar slung over his shoulder, harmonica at the ready (way better than Tim Kaine!), the E Street Band rocking his introduction to massive crowds chanting his name. His eyes, glazed over appreciatively, looking out and promising to bring back that working class, tolerant America. “Make America the E Street Band Again” baseball caps, in red, white, and blue, would fill arenas and dominate the political landscape.

It’s never too early to start gearing up for 2020 and I think the “Draft Bruce” movement needs to start, posthaste. It takes him a while to write, arrange, and rehearse the material he will need to take to the stump but we’ve got enough lead-time if we start now. I’m recommending we begin an e-mail writing campaign to Springsteen’s website (brucespringsteen.net), encouraging him to begin thinking about this idea --- he’s a natural and, if thinks his fans truly want this, there’s no reason to believe he’ll let us down. We can also start some CrowdFunding and GoFundMe sites raising a campaign war chest. Let’s not sit back and let Trump run roughshod over America, let’s fight back with The Boss and the E Street Band. Born to Run 2020 --- the time is now!

Friday, November 18th
Blast #76

I Remember Exactly
Where I Was When . . .

On November 22, 1963 I was in an 8th-grade study hall at Bay Shore Junior High School, 393 Brook Avenue, when Harry Anderson, my English teacher, came into the room and walked over to Tom Ford, another English teacher who was our study-hall teacher, and whispered something to Mr. Ford. Mr. Anderson left and Mr. Ford looked at us, quite seriously. Now, we were all aware of the hi-jinks Ford and Anderson played on each other. They were two relatively young --- and very smart --- teachers who would run in and out of each other’s rooms playing practical jokes on one another, to the delight of the freshmen class (my group). We were attending the Junior High as freshman because an addition was being built to our high school to accommodate the Baby Boom. We would have to wait a year to go to the “real” high school. At any rate, Mr. Ford levels an extremely serious look at us and says, “The President has been shot.” It’s about 2:30 in the afternoon. Our first freshman dance of the year is scheduled for that evening. We break into laughter, figuring this is another of the Ford/Anderson practical jokes. Of course, it’s not. Mr. Ford rises, angry now, and assures us this is not a joke; the President, our beloved JFK, has been shot. Our dance is cancelled and a group of us walk back to my friend, Gil Schaeffer’s house, to watch Walter Cronkite announce the President is, in fact, dead. It is difficult to describe the sense of shock, disbelief and disorientation.

On Thursday, April 4, 1968, I was in 68 Vanderbilt Hall, a freshman dormitory room at Yale University. We were watching Steve Dillon’s rabbit-eared black-and-white t.v. Less than a week earlier we had been sitting there together, about 5 or 6 of us, as LBJ announced he “would not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for President of the United States.” We were excited, feeling as though our anti-war movement was gaining momentum. I was particularly thrilled because I believed this paved the way for my candidate, Bobby Kennedy, to run --- and win --- in ’68. But on this evening a bulletin interrupted whatever it was we were watching (to avoid doing our coursework), informing us that Marin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The pall that fell over that usually jovial room was palpable. We were shocked. Once again, disbelief and disorientation. The world was making less and less sense.

On another Thursday that spring, June 6, 1968, I was at my parent’s house in Bay Shore (NY) watching the results of the California Democratic primary come in. I had begun working for Bobby Kennedy and his victory in California would make him the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Another Kennedy-Nixon campaign was in the offing. A little past 3 a.m. Eastern Time, RFK was assassinated, crashing the hopes and dreams of millions. On Friday, June 7th, Susie Furey and I took the Long Island Railroad to New York City to line up 25 blocks from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where a closed, flag-draped coffin lay in state. We moved forward slowly over an 8-hour period before we reached the coffin, silently shuffling past it, paying our respects to our hero. Shock, disbelief, disorientation --- the world was making even less sense as 1968 progressed, culminating in Nixon’s election that November.

On a clear, cold Tuesday morning, January 28, 1986, around 11 a.m. My colleagues in the English Department at Winchester (MA) High School informed me that we were going to take our 4th period classes out into the Commons Area to watch the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. That Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from neighboring New Hampshire, was a crewmember made the flight historic and we were excited to share that with our students. There was a big old tube television set mounted on an “audio-visual” cart placed at the front of the area; students and teachers were sitting and standing around the Area, filling it up. At 11:39 a.m., 73 seconds into liftoff, the unthinkable happened right before our eyes. We watched the Challenger vaporize in an instant. There was dead silence and slowly you could hear crying, muffled sobs and see tears streaming down the faces of teachers and students. Many of us just stood in disbelief. Once again, I was disoriented and disconsolate.

Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, I was on the way to my office in the Education Department at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) listening, as I did in those days, to “Imus in the Morning.” It was just past 8:45 a.m. as I headed up Angel Street when Warner Wolf, Imus’s sports reporter, was on the phone from his Greenwich Village apartment describing a plane crash at the World Trade Center. He made it clear that it was an airliner and the damage was significant. I turned my Toyota Rav4 around and went back to my apartment to watch the news on television. As I watched the first tower billowing smoke, a truly frightening image emerged on the screen --- a second plane. It was like watching a horror film. The plane sped down the Hudson and banked left. You knew what was going to happen and you were helpless to do anything about it. The crash was horrific, witnessed live, in living color. I immediately thought about my friend, Tom Leslie (married to the aforementioned Susie Furey), whose law firm had offices in the Towers. Tom split time between the Towers and White Plains offices. I called Susie to see if he was okay and she told me he was in a car on the way to LaGuardia when the first plane hit. Tom was safe and on his way home. My other New York City friends lived on the Upper West Side, so I assumed they were safe, as long as no other attacks occurred. Of course, as the morning went on, we learned of the Pentagon attack and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. Once again, shock, disbelief, disorientation. How do we make sense of a world that makes no sense?

Tuesday, November 8, 2016, proved to be a day equal to those I’ve described above. Even now, a full ten days later, I am still in shock, shaking my head in disbelief. As with each of the earlier events that have spanned my lifetime, I am disoriented. Down is up and I cannot make sense of the world around me. Even though more of my fellow citizens voted for Hillary Clinton (by over ONE MILLION votes!) Donald Trump is the President-elect. As the daily newspapers inform me of his possible choices for various cabinet positions, I feel as though I am still in some bad dream that can’t be happening. As last Tuesday night unfolded, and the Electoral Map shifted to red, red, and more red, my heart sank. I was 15 when JFK was killed, and only 19 when Martin and Bobby were assassinated. These were shocks, but I was young and resilient. The Challenger was a tragedy but I knew we would recover gracefully. 9/11 was horrific and tore at the city I love most in the world --- I was there about two weeks later, in October, in Queens, and looked at a skyline the reminded me of my youth, before the Twin Towers were constructed, with the Empire State Building once again dominating the horizon. There was something wrong with that, like going backward in time. In much the same way, this election feels like going backward in time. I can only think of the first verse in W.B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming:”

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

As I look around it does seem “the worst are full of passionate intensity” and we are in for a difficult, at best, four years. The center did not hold and the rest, as they say, remains to be seen.

Thursday, November 17th
Blast #75

Born to Ramble

I’m enough of a Bruce Springsteen fan to have gone out and bought this 510-page tome of an autobiography but, as I read it, I realized that I pretty much stopped listening to his music in 1985 or so. As the MTV generation took root in the 80s, and rock and roll headed in new directions, I started moving toward blues and jazz and, while a big fan of “the Boss,” only bought “greatest hits” or “live” CDs until I could stream all the albums I missed on Amazon Prime --- and I still haven't really given them a good listen. I bring this up because much of this autobiography is Springsteen discussing the making of various albums and writing certain songs and, to be honest, I was at sea regarding “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” “Nebraska,” “The Rising,” “Wrecking Ball,” “The Promise,” “Tracks” and others. I really only know the first 15 years of his 45 year career, musically. Nonetheless, I was very interested in reading his book because I do believe he is one of the great singer/songwriters in rock history (while not knowing the albums, I was still aware of some of his songs --- you couldn’t miss “Philadelphia,” right?). And I wanted to hear what he had to say about composing music. Good luck on that.

The strength of this book is that the chapters are short. It’s like an LP from the 60s, before FM radio and people started using drugs heavily. Remember those albums, with ten to twelve songs that were only about two and half to three minutes each?   That’s kind of what this book is like. The fact that it runs over 500 pages, however, requires a genuine commitment on a reader’s part because there is a lot of circling back to some primary issues (his father, being a bandleader, New Jersey, etc.) and there is more than a little sentimentality that, happily for listeners, doesn’t appear in his music. There is not much insight into his artistic process and, despite the book’s length, there is a great deal that is left out.

While I understand Mr. Springsteen’s decision to be “discreet,” his “subtle” allusions to life on the road with a rock and roll band is pretty sketchy and not particularly useful to his narrative (he could have used a more demanding editor). Not that I was looking for a peek through that keyhole (there are plenty of other books for that) but he says that he spends a lot of time “in the wee, wee hours” working on songs he’s brought along that are unfinished, or seminal ideas. Yet, he provides no more than that. For all those great songs, Springsteen only tells his reader he was influenced by this or that (early rock, Elvis, Motown, etc.) and wanted to capture a particular sound or rhythm, but we are given no insight beyond that.

More frustrating for me, is that Springsteen never reveals where his far-reaching vocabulary and world view really come from. In the second half of the book he alludes to various texts and authors (Flannery O’Connor, Nathanael West, Jim Thompson) but we, the readers, are never privy to when Springsteen is acquiring all the knowledge he has. We learn that he graduated from high school in 1968 and attended a community college for about a semester. But we are given no peek into what was going on, intellectually, for the author. The vision projected is an obsessive, highly focused young musician intent on honing his skills as a guitarist and perfecting his craft as an artist --- traits that continue throughout his life, and in the book. However, when talking about Darkness at the Edge of Town he states: “Film became a great influence, and my title, Darkness at the Edge of Town was straight out of American noir.” (p.262) This is 1978. When was he going to the movies or watching those old classics on television? And which ones? He alludes to film noir again later in the book (as well as to James Cain, the author of The Postman Always Rings Twice & Double Indemnity) but gives us no insight into which films were influential and why? By page 267, my margin notes read, “He talks more about motivation and political philosophy than process --- creating the music is still alchemy for Springsteen’s readers. AND we have no clue as to how he became so erudite, 'hyper literate,' and adroit with vocabulary.”   Now, this could be my problem and not the author’s.

   Springsteen and I are essentially the same age (1949 – me, May; him, September). I did not have a “come to Jesus” moment seeing Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show, as he did, and, obviously, I did not pursue the same career path. However, I lived through the same times (exactly) and was subject to many of the same influences. My bass playing in The Durations at the Bayway Beach and Cabana Club in 1965 was probably not as good as his guitar playing with The Castiles in Freehold or Asbury Park but we were both pursuing that rock and roll fantasy. I quit within a year and he’s had a brilliant career. The real point here is not that I believe I could have had Springsteen’s life, it’s that I know I was reading Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso and Ezra Pound, along with my required Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot, and that led to me writing reams of poetry (that I still have!). Were those influences for Springsteen? He alludes to someone being his “Dean Moriarty” but where did he pick up that reference? From Kerouac or Tom Wolfe? We know nothing about the life of Springsteen’s mind beyond the squirrels that make him clinically depressed.

Ah, yes, we finally learn, in the last 20% or so of the tome, that Bruce needs to take antidepressants. He spends a lot of the book wrestling with his relationship with his father and it led me to write “drama queen” more than once in the margins. His Freudian exorcism of his father is prominent throughout the book, clearly something he had to work out here and let us know. It’s a little over the top for my taste, but judge for yourself. He also spends a bit too much time describing sunrises and sunsets, riding his motorcycle, and dealing with various band members.

In all, I find it amazing how little I really know about Bruce Springsteen after reading 500 plus pages of autobiography. He was obsessed with becoming a rock and roll star and finally gets to perform with the Rolling Stones, a dream come true, and that’s great. He grew up in extreme, hardscrabble circumstances and proves to be a true “American Dream” story, who has a wonderfully altruistic, humanistic heart and soul. But didn’t we already know that? Just observing from a distance and listening to his music, most of that story has been beautifully, poetically rendered in song. Maybe it’s the teacher in me, or the desire to know how someone really learns his craft beyond the endless hours of practice (10,000 according to Malcolm Gladwell --- and Bruce has clearly done that) but I wanted to know more about that part of “the Boss.” Whenever he discusses his internal monologue it is invariably about his struggles with his father or simply “how will I tell this story through music?” But we never get to find out about the real process of the latter --- and that’s very frustrating for me.

If you are a diehard Bruce Springsteen fan, you should definitely read this book. You’ll probably enjoy it more than I. If you are curious about the life of our preeminent rock and roll star, prior to Kanye or Taylor or whomever, it’s not a difficult read, so have at it. However, if you’re looking for some kind of insight as to how Springsteen, whose demographic history fits a Trump voter, became a wordsmith and poetic musical craftsman, I’m afraid Born to Run will not prove very satisfying.

Wednesday, November 16th
Blast #74

Music

Well, we lost Leonard Cohen last week and now Leon Russell and Mose Allison are gone. Leonard was 82, Mose 89, and Leon “only” 74. I wrote an “obit” for Leonard last week and Mose and Leon deserve the same. I am currently finishing Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography (Born to Run) and want to say a little bit about that, too, since Bruce is a direct descendent of these, now late, musicians.

Leon Russell is pretty well known to most pop/rock music fans. His presence in the late 60s and early 70s, as Joe Cocker’s bandleader for the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, as well as his composing Delta Lady and his significant solo career made him a popular figure, indeed. His long hair and beard (growing white over time), along with his top hat, comprised Russell’s signature look. Few knew that he was a well-established, in-demand studio musician long before the screaming Sixties hit. A member of “the Wrecking Crew,” the studio band behind the Beach Boys(Pet Sounds), the Mamas & Papas, Sonny & Cher, and even Frank Sinatra, Russell’s piano playing, arranging, and band leadership skills were well regarded among the music industry’s cognoscenti. We were lucky enough to see Leon in February of this year at the Fairfield Theater Club’s Warehouse, an intimate venue, seating a few hundred. His show was fabulous, replete with stories about working with great musicians over the years and finishing up by telling the audience he was not going to exit the stage and wait for unending applause before coming back out to do an encore. Basically, he said, “Let’s make believe I’ve done that, and here are the encore songs.” He was in good voice, his musicians (bass, guitar/mandolin/keyboard, drums) were superb and it was a fabulous evening.

Russell suffered a heart attack in early July, but was already booked to perform shows in early 2017. Sadly, we’ll not get to see Leon play again but certainly his music lives on. Last summer, the Lovely Carol Marie and I went to NYC’s Film Forum to see Les Blank’s 1974 documentary “A Poem is a Naked Person,” which Leon Russell commissioned in 1973. It is a beautiful documentary about a year in Leon Russell’s life that he would not let Blank release until this past year. When asked in an NPR interview why that was , Russell said that, when he screened it in 1974 he felt it was too “artsy” and Blank had taken some excursions into avant-garde filmmaking that Russell didn’t care for at the time. Upon reviewing the film in 2014 or so, he decided it was finally okay to release it. If you get a chance to see it, do! Much of it is shot in Russell’s hometown in Oklahoma, where he was building a personal recording studio in 1973-74 and the documenatry has some great live concert footage as well as Leon playing for a friend’s wedding. It is a beautiful and insightful film, providing a peek into Russell’s virtuosity as a musician and his charm as a person.

Mose Allison may not be as familiar to people as Leon Russell but to any serious jazz/blues fan he is/was a giant in the field. Allison’s distinctive piano style and his clever, intelligent songwriting is well-respected in the music community. A younger generation may well know Allison’s Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy by way of Bonnie Raitt, or the hilarious Your Mind is on Vacation(But your Mouth is Working Overtime) thanks to Elvis Costello. Songs like “If You’re Goin’ to the City” had great satiric bite and Allison continued to write topical songs (“Certified Senior Citizen”) through his late 70s. I had the good fortune to see him play (accompanied only by a double bass) at the old Town Crier in Peekskill, New York (the site where Daryl’s House now stands) around a dozen years ago and, like Leon Russell, folksy charm was mixed with great piano playing and witty, interesting songs. Mose Allison consciously chose to remain a “lesser-known” jazz/blues artist who simply loved to create and play his music. His recording career began in 1957 and continued for a half century, influencing countless musicians along the way.

The September 5th “Blast” was about songwriters and I ranked Bruce Springsteen as only about a half-step down from Bob Dylan (and Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen) --- ranking him as a storytelling/songwriter, as opposed to a poet/songwriter. Presently, I’m reading Springsteen’s autobiography and I’ll give that a full-blown Blast Review in a day or two. Given the recent losses (Cohen, Russell, Allison), I thought a quote from Springsteen (who is only 4 months younger than I, having turned 67 in September) was particularly appropriate. At an early Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony Springsteen and his close friend Steve Van Zandt found themselves standing among Dylan, George Harrison, B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Les Paul and other rock/music luminaries. His quote could well serve as the thoughts many of our generation have had:

Steve and I often ruminated on how we felt we’d been born at exactly
the right moment. We were teenagers in the sixties, when rock and radio
had their golden age, when the best pop music was also the most popular,
when a new language was being formed and spoken to young people
all across the world, when it remained an alien dialect to most parents,
when it defined a community of souls wrapped in the ecstasy and
confusions of their time but connected in blood brotherhood by the
disciple’s voice of their local deejay. (p.429, Born to Run)

I have often reflected on how lucky I feel to have been born in 1949, living through the last 50 years of the 20th century as the world --- and the United States in particular --- turned in wondrous new directions. Despite our present condition (more on that some other time), when I look back at living through the Sixties --- seeing Dylan in 1966 during his first acoustic/electric tour with “the Hawks” (The Band) backing him, going to Woodstock, hearing Hendrix, Joplin, Cream; being introduced to the great blues players when they were still around, it was an incredible time and the music reflected it. So now, as that first generation of great musicians passes from the scene, we should reflect on the good fortune we have had in being able to share in the wonder of the work of great artists, right before our eyes.

Sunday Blast, November 13th
Blast #73

Photo on left: 1964 Bay Shore High School Junior Varsity Football Team - heroes in the making
Top Right: Me (#21) with Gil Schaeffer (#82) and Coach Joe Cuozzo
Bottom Right: Coach's sideline huddle.

   Tempus Fugit: Bay Shore H.S. 1966
A Totally Self-Indulgent Blast

Sunday morning I watched a team of 3rd, 4th & 5th graders complete an undefeated (tackle) football season and win a championship. I am no proponent of kids that age playing tackle football, but that’s not what this Blast is about. The game was played on a high school football field --- a perfect, sunny morning. Blue sky as far as you could see with a wispy cloud here and there. As I squinted into the glaring autumn sunlight to watch the game I was transported back half a century. Fifty years ago yesterday --- November 12, 1966 --- my Bay Shore High School football team completed an undefeated season on our home field, ending a journey we had started four years earlier as freshmen.

The BSHS Class of ’67 was unlike any of the classes before or after us. We had a large number of very fine athletes, as well as a significant number of excellent students. I spent four years playing basketball and football with guys who not only had talent but also an unrivaled work ethic. We lost 4 football games in four years and only one in our final two years (a 7-6 defeat during our junior year). Our senior year we scored 253 points in 8 games while yielding only 55.    What’s incredible to me, as I remember that autumn, are two things: 1) how clear some memories of that season are; and 2) that there are friendships I have maintained, with consistency, for 50 years. Some of those friendships actually stretch back to Little League and Middle School, before we ever even put on pads together. So, this Blast is a stroll down memory lane or, better, a trip in Mr. Peabody’s Way-Back Machine (compliments of Rocky and Bullwinkle).

This morning, I listened to the coach of the elementary school team give his post-game talk to the victorious squad. He told them that they had set out not to be undefeated and win the championship but to work hard together and become better friends with one another. Obviously, if you connect those dots (hard work and genuine friendship) you stand a chance of having a good, if not great, team (talent does enter the equation, of course). As he spoke, I saw the faces and heard the names of the guys I played with in the fall of 1966 and it confirmed what the young coach told his charges. I have never, in the 50 years since that autumn, worked with such a large group of people who, for four months, sacrificed everything, personally and physically, for the good of the team.

We had come away from our junior year with a bad taste in our collective mouth. We had lost a 7-6 game because the seniors ahead of us allowed an interception to be run back for a touchdown and couldn’t drive the ball into the end zone for an extra point that would have tied the game. In August of 1966 we arrived on the Bay Shore football field for “captains’ practices” with only one goal in mind: an undefeated, untied season in which no one would come close to us. Lest I give too much credit to my class of seniors, we were blessed by the presence of a junior, the late Wayne Huff who, at 6’2” and about 215 pounds, became a first-team All Long Island running back that year, amassing 120 points (that’s 20 touchdowns!) in an 8 game season. Nonetheless, the line that blocked for Wayne was comprised of 6 seniors. As quarterback, I not only had Wayne but also a group of both fleet and strong running backs to spread the ball around to. As noted in the summative point totals (253 to 55) our defense was equally ferocious.

It’s hard to explain how much fun it was to play with that group of guys. Practice was fun! Our coaches had instituted several innovate ideas starting our junior year. One was isometric conditioning drills, another was an “I” formation offense (not seen anywhere in our League or even in Suffolk County at that time) and, finally, they instituted a 4-4 defense (four down lineman, four linebackers), allowing our defense to confuse and overwhelm our opponents. Being given the flexibility of the “I” formation as a quarterback was like being given the keys to a very adept and powerful vehicle --- all I had to do was steer it in the right direction.

Luckily for me, as quarterback, I had Gil Schaeffer (a friend to this day --- check out the “California Streamin’” tab on this website) playing end and Roy Sandstrom at guard. These were two very, very smart young men who, after almost every play, would walk back to the huddle informing me about what was going on in the defensive line and backfield --- with insight and suggestions! What fun. It was like a wonderful push-button offense that often provided fabulous results.

What I know about that season, and that group of teammates, is reminiscent of that moment in Casablanca (if you haven’t seen the movie, you are missing an important piece of cinematic history) when Rick (Humphrey Bogart) tells Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), “We’ll always have Paris.” Melodramatic as that is, the 1966 Bay Shore Marauders football team will always have that season together.

Lo, these many years later, in conversations with Gil, and Dougie Tagner, and Michael Lynch, and Bob Dancik, we fondly recall not just that fall but see it through the prism of the four years of preparation for that fall. If you go to YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PvJYqpJHAs) you can see Michael (Semi-Pro Sarasota football player defies his age) still suiting up and playing football --- but mentioning our team in his interview. Gil and I still revel in the down-and-out-and-up pass pattern that totally fooled Bobby Wentzel and Hutch Hodgson (the West Islip defenders) in our first game that season, resulting in a 31-yard touchdown throw and catch. We had many incredible moments together, as a team, which are hard to describe. It’s one of those “you had to be there” experiences.

So, watching those little kids wrap up their undefeated season today, and hearing their coach congratulate them on their hard work and friendship, I was shuttled back an entire half-century, reminded by a text I received from Doug yesterday about another teammate, Trent Germano (who was an elementary school buddy, living around the corner), posting pictures of “the team” on Facebook, celebrating the 50th anniversary of our undefeated season.

We’re old now. Grey hair and beards, bald, hearing aids, false teeth, expanded waistlines. Some have, undoubtedly, shuffled off this mortal coil. But there’s something about being on one of those teams that stays with you. Watching the Cubs win the World Series triggered the memory the same way Giants Super Bowl victories did. Sure, we weren’t on “the big stage” but it was our stage and it was just grand. I want to thank those teammates and friends from 1966 and say, simply, “we’ll always have Paris.”

Saturday, November 12th
Blast #72

The Territory Ahead

I wrote a speculative piece on Wednesday morning, only to discover Garrison Keillor (late of Prairie Home Companion fame) had written a better piece for The Washington Post. Since it's my website, I'm posting my piece first, and then Keillor's.

The Morning After
for Trump Voters

What is the reaction going to be from those wearing the “Make America Great Again” caps when, during the next year, the following happens (or fails to happen):

Taxes are cut for the rich and corporations/businesses, but not for the working class in any significant way.
When jobs do not “come back,” because The Trump Organization and other businesses continue to make more profit with foreign labor, what will the excuse be?
When our economy drops precipitously because of all the immigrants who are deported --- leaving behind jobs “real Americans” will not do --- will there be a workable alternative plan?
What happens when the “Wall” isn’t built and Mexico doesn’t pay for anything.
When Health Care premiums go through the roof as Obamacare is gutted and private insurers are in charge again; and those 20 million who now have Health Care are back without coverage --- skyrocketing all health costs --- how will that be spun to make America look “great?”
And what about how the national debt will climb --- if Trump actually does fund the military as he promised and really tries to enact his promise to repair our infrastructure,; what then?
And what if the Veterans Administration continues to languish and not serve our troops properly?
And what about fracking, creating more earthquakes and poisoning more drinking water?
And what if his proposed 32% tax on imports starts a trade war that causes U.S. consumer prices to go through the roof?

The list could go on and on, of course, from the ridiculous (every Wofford College student would get a job at graduation) to the sublime (?) (allowing concealed carry in all 50 states while declaring no schools or military bases would be gun-free zones.) The point is simple and obvious --- Trump made a million promises that will be impossible to keep and, if some of them are enacted, they may well bankrupt America like one of his Atlantic City casinos.

There are also the frightening promises: deporting undocumented immigrants, including children; banning Muslims (and even deporting some, while instituting surveillance of mosques nationwide); creating libel laws that would destroy first amendment protections for the press; violating international law to interrogate suspected terrorist, while killing their families. There is a red-meat faction among Trump’s supporters who love these ideas but is there widespread endorsement of this across the Republican Party? Or is it truly the Trump Party now, with no turning back?

During the closing week of the campaign Trump tried to get early voters to change their ballot, if they had “buyer’s remorse” because they voted for Hillary. I’m wondering if Trump voters, like many of the Brexit supporters, will wake up one morning and say, “Oh, shit, is this what I voted for?” Buyer’s remorse.

I hope I’m wrong but I see no reason to believe otherwise. Trump is a shallow, ignorant, narcissistic misogynist at his core and, at 70 years old, there’s no reason to believe this leopard will change his spots. Progressives and fair-minded people across the political spectrum have to begin organizing now to meet the challenges we will face in the coming four years. “Mr. Unpredictable” should prove to be a true wild card in all the worst possible ways, wreaking havoc with both the left and the right. Preparing for the unimaginable is the challenge ahead and we need to be clear-eyed and well-rested for the battles we will undoubtedly begin waging on January 20th.

Trump voters will not like what happens next

By Garrison Keillor - Washington Post, November 9th
.
So he won. The nation takes a deep breath. Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president. We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. We liberal elitists are wrecks. The Trumpers had a whale of a good time, waving their signs, jeering at the media, beating up protesters, chanting “Lock her up” — we elitists just stood and clapped. Nobody chanted “Stronger Together.” It just doesn’t chant.

The Trumpers never expected their guy to actually win the thing, and that’s their problem now. They wanted only to whoop and yell, boo at the H-word, wear profane T-shirts, maybe grab a crotch or two, jump in the RV with a couple of six-packs and go out and shoot some spotted owls. It was pleasure enough for them just to know that they were driving us wild with dismay — by “us,” I mean librarians, children’s authors, yoga practitioners, Unitarians, bird-watchers, people who make their own pasta, opera-goers, the grammar police, people who keep books on their shelves, that bunch. The Trumpers exulted in knowing we were tearing our hair out. They had o