The Daughter was going to go on a school field trip to the state capital building and the state museum for the bulk of a school day in the middle of December. The opportunity was available only to the students who were doing well in their classes.
When I used to work downtown, I used to donate blood at the Empire State Plaza, fairly religiously, every eight or nine weeks. Though I’d been back working downtown for over a year now, I had fallen out of the habit until mid-December.
After I had donated for the 159th time, by their records, I stopped at McDonald’s. The odd ritual I used to have was going to Mickey D’s every time I gave blood, and there’s one in the ESP concourse, not too far away.
I’d ordered my food, but I hadn’t received it yet when this horde of kids show up. It’s my daughter and her classmates! The line is so long that I figure I’ll be done eating by the time they get their food. I DO bring her some French fries and ketchup while she was in line, which she appreciated, though her classmates, I’m told, ate most of them.
However, a lot of her classmates weren’t ordering food, just standing in line with their friends. So the Daughter and two of her friends sit down and ate with me. But what happened to the turkey and cheese sandwich The Wife had packed for the Daughter? The girl hands it to her father to schlep home, naturally.
I finish eating and kiss the Daughter goodbye on her forehead, as one of her friends rolls her eyes. I walk away, but double back behind that friend, who I know better than any of my child’s buds, and make a sound right behind her approximating a belch. The Daughter and her other friend laughed hysterically.
What a rare, and serendipitous, midday meeting with my girl.
Denzel Washington and Viola Davis were Tony winners in the 2010 Broadway version of Fences.
The movie Fences is quite extraordinary. Some critics said it may be the best self-directed film ever, with Denzel Washington as not only star and director, but producer as well.
Troy Maxson (Washington), a garbage collector in 1950s Pittsburgh, who had dreams, and arguably the talent, to have been a major league baseball player, had integration in the sport come sooner. His wife Rose (the magnificent Viola Davis) tries to keep him and their working-class family ship afloat.
Fences is an adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer-and-Tony-award-winning play. James Earl Jones and Mary Alice also won Tonys in the 1987-1998 Broadway production. Washington and Davis were Tony winners in the 2010 Broadway version which also won the award for best revival of a play.
Interesting video comparison between Jones’ and Washington’s performances here or here. Jones’ reading is sterner, while Denzel’s reading is garnering laughs.
I had seen a production of Fences at Capital Rep in Albany during the 1990-91 season with John Amos (Good Times, Roots) in the lead role, and that iteration, as I dimly recall, seemed less intense early on.
Denzel in the movie, though, is as ferocious as James Earl Jones was on the stage; that scene does not garner guffaws. Is it the different media, or six years that have passed that got him to revisit the character, or both, I can’t say. But what it does do is make the chinks in his armor even more profound.
The rest of the cast of Fences, the movie, is also strong. Stephen McKinley Henderson as Troy’s good friend Jim Bono, Jovan Adepo as Troy’s younger son Cory, Russell Hornsby as his grown son Lyons, and Mykelti Williamson as his brother Gabriel creates a fine ensemble.
I knew fellows like Troy Maxson and his friends growing up, mostly the men of the church where I grew up. It stirred some strong emotions throughout. There’s a bit of my father there, for sure.
The Wife and I saw Fences on Martin Luther King’s actual birthday, naturally at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. The less you know going in, the better. Recommended.
There are Constitutional scholars who believe that not only must Donald Trump take his salary, but that it is appropriate so that he knows he’s being paid by the people of the United States.
The Constitution
If you’re ever looking at the Constitution of the United States, make sure you look at one that is footnoted, such as this one. It gives the reader a better sense of the trial and error that is the American experience.
For instance, Article I, Section 2, paragraph 3: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons.”
“All others” were slaves, who were three-fifths of a person. The matter was altered by Amendment 13.
Article II, Section 1, paragraph 3: “The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President.”
This became unworkable in the election of 1800 when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each received 73 electoral votes, and dealing made TJ the Prez and Burr the Veep. The process has been superseded by Amendment 12, with separate ballots for President and Vice-President. This was referred to in the musical Hamilton.
The first 10 amendments are called the Bill of Rights. Amendment 1 is probably best known: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Some legal scholars feel Amendment 4 is particularly under attack: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The post-Bill of Rights amendments often deal with expanding the vote. 15 – regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” 19- regardless of “sex.” 24 – regardless of “failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” 26- allows 18-year-olds to vote, when the age had been 21, generally. Amendment 17 allows for the direct election of US Senators, rather than them being selected by state legislatures.
Two Amendments canceled each other out. The 18th permitted prohibition of alcohol, but the 21st scrubbed the social experiment.
One section I had not noted until recently is Article II, Section 1, paragraph 7: “The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.”
This has been an issue for a few reasons. The new president, Donald J. Trump, has indicated that he would not take a salary for being President. There are Constitutional scholars who believe that not only must he take the payment, but that it is appropriate so that he knows he’s being paid by the people of the United States. George Washington tried to avoid being paid, but was talked out of it.
Also, the Trump organization owns buildings for which the US government is paying rent. This could be considered “other emolument,” and could cause a Constitutional crisis early in his administration.
Amending the Constitution of the United States is very difficult. There has been only one amendment passed since 1971, and that was in the hopper for more than two centuries.
The director of LION, Garth Davis, in his feature debut, used the animated film WALL-E as part of his template.
The story in the 2016 movie Lion, based on the non-fiction book A Long Way Home, with a screenplay by Luke Davies, is harrowing, even before the event that catapults the plot. Saroo (the amazing young Sunny Pawar) and his older brother Guddu (Abhisek Bharate) sneak onto trains, steal coal, then jump off the moving transport to exchange it for milk. Their mother Kamla, (Priyanka Bose) does menial tasks as well.
The boys arrive at a train station to look for recoverable items. Saroo loses track of his brother, and boards a train which departs the station. Saroo cannot get off until he arrives in Calcutta, hundreds of miles away, where almost everyone speaks Bengali, but he does not. Saroo somehow survives on the streets until he ends up in an orphanage.
He gets adopted by an Australian couple, Sue (Nicole Kidman) and John (David Wenham), who lives in Tasmania, and a year later they adopt another boy, Mantosh (Keshav Jadhav).
Twenty years later, Saroo (Dev Patel) heads to Melbourne and meets some new friends – Saroo Lucy (Rooney Mara), Prama (Pallavi Sharda), Bharat (Sachin Joab), Sami (Arka Das), and Annika (Emilie Cocquerel). “As they dine on Indian food, Saroo heads into the kitchen and observes things that cause him to reminisce about his childhood. He confides in his friends that he was adopted and Prama advises Saroo to use Google Earth to search for his hometown.”
All of this is rather well documented in the trailer, or in the description of the book, so it is in the TELLING of the story that makes the movie work. And it does. It’s a feel-good story about a most improbable journey of Saroo Brierley’s real life.
Yet I was far more engaged in the first, harrowing, half of the tale, than the somewhat overwrought second act. Maybe it’s that it’s inherently more interesting. There’s a lot less dialogue early on, and that works in the film’s favor. The director, Garth Davis in his feature debut, used the animated film WALL-E as part of his template.
Still, the last pictures on the screen are real tearjerkers, well earned, and I’m glad to have seen it. Incidentally, the title of the film does not show up in the opening credits, only at the end, when it is explained.
Of course, the Wife and I saw Lion at the Spectrum in Albany, because that’s just what we do in January.
I’ve seen a bunch of community bloggers come and go, and Mike’s always out there, shaking the trees for new folk, trying to create a diverse platform.
TU cat herder Mike Huber
Long before the Times Union came up with blogs for community members and staffers, it housed these websites for community organizations. I did a couple of them, including for my church at the time, and since that was in the last century, that should give you a timeframe. And the guy in charge was Mike Huber.
I started my own blog in 2005. When the TU was looking for community bloggers in 2006, he saw my track record of blogging every day for a year and tried to get me to participate with the TU, but I demurred.
He asked again the next year, and I pretty much ignored him. But it’s hard to ignore Mike, because, in his own quiet way, he can be a bulldog.
Finally, in 2008, I capitulated. Mike helped me figure out blogging on the WordPress platform – my personal blog at the time was on Blogspot – such as the time I had a picture of Dudley Do-Right, who I swear looks like Eliot Spitzer, which took up about six times the dimensions of the whole page. Mike got that right-sized for me.
I’ve seen a bunch of community bloggers come and go, and Mike’s always out there, shaking the trees for new folk, trying to create a diverse platform. I’ve witnessed some tension between some community bloggers and a couple of staff writers, or among community bloggers, or the community folks resenting that they provide free content while getting less and less from the TU, which must have been exhausting at times. with poor Huber, stuck in the middle, trying to make everyone happy. Occasionally, I probably gave him a harder time than he deserved once or twice.
I saw Mike by chance this past Friday in the building where I work. I almost didn’t bother him – he was sitting at a table, talking with someone – but Mike and I go WAY back. We’ve talked a LOT, especially in the early days, not just about the project at hand, but more philosophical musings, most recently when he gave me a ride to some blogging event.
O the other hand, I knew that Mike was my link to get more than a few things fixed on the Times Union website, which I’d come across more than occasionally.
Mike Huber, thanks for being your wise self. I wish you well in whatever you’re doing. Shannon Fromma, good luck; I understand a water gun is good at controlling unruly felines.
The Daughter was going to go on a school field trip to the state capital building and the state museum for the bulk of a school day in the middle of December. The opportunity was available only to the students who were doing well in their classes.
