April 2015 - Page 7 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

MLK: dead hero

“Do you know that most of the poor people in our country are working every day? And they are making wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

On Facebook, around MLK’s birthday this year, I noted that that, at the time of his death, Martin Luther King Jr. was hated by much of white America, and that the adoration with which he is now held is a function of a civil rights leader frozen, and distorted, over time.

This Facebook friend of a friend took exception to my assertion. “With a statement like that, you obviously were unaware that the only white people who were glad he was dead were the white bigots in power: Hoover and his cohorts being the prime suspects. Not all of us belong to the KKK and I take resentful issue with such a broad statement.”

I had never asserted that most people wanted him dead, only that he was increasingly unpopular. The numbers don’t lie. According to the Gallup poll:

“In 1963, King had a 41% positive and a 37% negative rating; in 1964, it was 43% positive and 39% negative; in 1965, his rating was 45% positive and 45% negative; and in 1966 — the last Gallup measure of King using this scalometer procedure — it was 32% positive and 63% negative.”

Read how King believed All Labor Has Dignity:
In his introduction to the newly published anthology of King speeches and writings, Cornel West writes, “This book unearths a radical King that we can no longer sanitize.” West writes of a charismatic leader who was “anti-imperial, anti-colonial, anti-racist” and embodied “democratic socialist sentiments.”

A month into the Memphis sanitation workers strike, on March 18, “strikers and their supporters packed Bishop Charles Mason Temple of the Church of God in Christ… With few notes, King addressed the overflowing church by connecting the localized strike to the plight of all workers, especially those in the service economy.” [The following speech was delivered by Dr. King… just two weeks before he was assassinated in the same city.]

You are reminding, not only Memphis, but you are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. And I need not remind you that this is our plight as a people all over America. The vast majority of Negroes in our country are still perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

My friends, we are living as a people in a literal depression. Now you know when there is mass unemployment and underemployment in the black community they call it a social problem. When there is mass unemployment and underemployment in the white community they call it a depression. But we find ourselves living in a literal depression, all over this country as a people.

Now the problem is not only unemployment. Do you know that most of the poor people in our country are working every day? And they are making wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation. These are facts which must be seen, and it is criminal to have people working on a full-time basis and a full-time job getting part-time income.

The notion that there would be a question of where Dr. King would have stood in the 1%/99% struggle is addressed in his own words. Those saying otherwise clearly have no idea what Martin Luther King actually believed. He had hopes for the poor, a dream America has yet to realize.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated 47 years ago today.

FBI’s “Suicide Letter” to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dangers of Unchecked Surveillance

Bayard Rustin: Martin Luther King’s Views on Gay People.
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The Speeches of Martin Luther King.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Through the sheer strength of the performances of the actors in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel I found myself still carrying about the fate of their characters.

If you did not see the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which I enjoyed, you will be, I suspect, hopelessly lost watching the sequel, the aptly titled The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. You won’t understand most of the characters’ relationships or motivations.

Even before The Wife and I saw the film at The Spectrum Theatre, my friend Steve Bissette had written this parallel to, of all things, the Andy Griffith Show:

“For me, SECOND BEST’s Dev Patel [as Sonny] was thanklessly trapped in the 21st-century faux-Bollywood Don Knotts role. Like, if India was Mayberry, and Barney Fife was of course going to mistake the wrong person as “important” and treat the right person like dung, making us all squirm in embarrassment to the end. Only if, like, Barney ran a hotel with Maggie Smith, could dance really, really well, and had a really hot fianceé [Tina Desai as Sunaina].”

That would make the gruff character played by Maggie Smith the sheriff. The movie threw away her best line, possibly the best one in the film: “I went with low expectations and came back disappointed,” referring to the United States.

Steve’s framing was quite helpful, actually, in allowing the Sonny character from driving me crazy. Near the end of the film, not much of a spoiler, Sonny promises to be a better husband than he was a fiance.

This is NOT a great film, and I wouldn’t quite recommend it. Yet, through the sheer strength of the performances of the returning actors Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and others, plus the newbies, such as Richard Gere, I found myself still carrying about the fate of their characters. They were old friends you catch up with at the reunion. And I like the second half of the film more than the first.

If you loved the first movie, tamp down your expectations of the second, and you might like it just fine.

Disinclined to get a smart phone

It would take a cheap, idiot-proof technology for me to get a smartphone. Or someone else paying for it.

Arthur, the Windy City Kiwi, writes:

Here’s another one for you: You’ve written about your lack of enthusiasm for smart phones, but do you see a time in the future when you might be persuaded to embrace them, and, related, what would it take for that to happen? For example, some people say that the ability to pay for things using their phone (rather than cash or card) would push them. That may or may not be true for you, but is there something that might be?

This is a far more complicated issue than merely smartphones. This has to do with me and technology in general.

1) I embrace technology, but technology does not always embrace me. There was a period when we would have our work computers were swapped out after so many months, and mine would always be a couple of months earlier than others. One of our techies theorized that I had some sort of anti-electronics aura, seriously.

I have had two Android devices, and they both have died, much earlier than they should have. I ENJOYED having them, but I was happy I had not become dependent upon them.

2) I have no instinctive understanding of technology. It took me days to figure out the way to start my cellphone was to press the red-colored END button; that made no sense to me. I can take pictures on my phone, but I’ve yet to figure out how to RETRIEVE them. I’ve read the manual, but it didn’t help. After a while, it just wasn’t that important to me.

I participated in the Pebble smartwatch Kickstarter. STILL haven’t figured out how it works. Yes, there’s a website that offers tech support, but anything that REQUIRES tech support just to find out how to turn it on quite literally gives me a headache from exhaustion. That was neither the first or last bit of technology I’ve purchased that I couldn’t suss out how to use.

3) I don’t want to become dependent on technology that I will lose, or will break, or otherwise not be able to use. I see people who are lost without their devices, and I don’t want to be one of those people. And I’ve misplaced my cellphone for days on end. Moreover, I’m convinced this true: Increased smartphone use equals lower GPA among college students; for some people, at least, it seems to take away their ability to think.

4) Similarly, I don’t want to be one of those people whose attention is buried in the device, oblivious to the surroundings. I see that a LOT on the bus each day.

5) I don’t always trust technology. This is actually more true of GPS that has taken me to wrong exits or around in circles, but smartphones have similar features.

6) I am very wary of geolocation. I don’t want to be omnipresent in the world, or hacked, or sent ads telling me what stores are nearby that I “want” to go to. Frankly, being able to pay for something on a smartphone is a disincentive. This is also why I hate the fact that The Wife has E-Z Pass on the car; the privacy concerns, for me, trumps the convenience of getting through the toll booths faster.

7) I find it very expensive. It’s not the phone, but all of the various deals for service. I see this ad about a “good price” for a family plan and it’s $175 a month for four people; gave me sticker shock. Moreover, they all seem to be tied to plans I loathe being trapped into.

The cellphones that the Wife and I have cost $14 per month, plus tax, total. It allows me to text, though in fact, I HATE to text, that’s more tied to not wanting to be always available. That’s is why I have an answering machine and caller ID at home.

So it would take cheap, idiot-proof, privacy-providing technology for me to get a smartphone. Or someone else paying for the monthly service.

It wouldn’t hurt if someone actually showed me how to do things. I went to the Apple store with my father-in-law a couple of years ago to investigate the possibilities, and these “helpers” spoke in a different language, assuming I understood terminology that I found incomprehensible. It probably had to do with 3G and 4G, or some such, but my eyes glazed over.

Arthur, you have a spouse who seems to be tech-savvy; I do not. Maybe the Daughter will figure out someone else’s smartphone to a degree that she can explain it to me in terms I can understand, and that might crack the door open.

Still, I don’t need one, I don’t feel deprived without it. Now if you want to SEND me one, my address is…

Now, one might say, “But Roger, if you’re so bad at technology, how have you blogged for ten years?”

Trial and error. Blogger had a product, I think it was called Picasa, to use to put photos in the blog; I NEVER got it to work. But I stumbled upon another way. (Blogger has made it much easier since then, of course.)

I remember one of the first times I used WordPress, for my Times Union blog seven years ago, there was a picture of either former New York governor Eliot Spitzer or the cartoon character Dudley Do-Right – they look alike, I theorized – that was three times the size of the page, and I didn’t know how to fix it. Now, I’ve looked at enough simple HTML code to correct the problem, using math. Basic MATH I understand.

Because I’m a librarian, I’ve occasionally been thrown into the deep end of technology. Usually, I drown, but now and then I swim, especially compared with someone actually computerphobic. I’ve actually helped people at the public library with their user problems, which are minor to my mind, but massive in theirs. It’s all a matter of degree.

Once I’m SHOWN many technologies, as opposed to being told or fumbling through the manual, I’m perfectly happy to use them.

I’ve learned how to fake it reasonably well. I know how to reboot, whether it be my computer or my home Internet/cable system; turning things off and on works remarkably effectively 80% of the time. But only if I can find the OFF button. Have you noticed the OFF buttons on computer hardware are never in the same place? That’s not user incompetence, it’s DESIGN error.
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I DO need, however, the Selfie Shoe.

Twelve coins and other tricks

7 Ways to Fool the Brain

For me, there are tricks that involve mental gymnastics, and then there are those that involve sleight of hand. I’m pretty good with the former, not so hot with the latter.