November 2018 - Page 6 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Registering to vote for Election Day

The Supreme Court has eviscerated the 1965 Voting Rights Act

votingrightsact_0 It’s Election Day in the United States. One of the things that needs explaining to the ABC Wednesday folks from outside the US is that each state gets to set the rules for voting; the window for registering, what is required for registering, the hours the polls are open, et al.

Someone noted on Facebook that Oregon provides automatic voter registration unless the person opts out. The story was from 2015, but there were recent comments suggesting that this method should be in the US Constitution.

Of course, changing the Constitution is difficult. Still, many of the amendments after the first ten, the Bill of Rights, are about voting. #15 allowed blacks to vote, at least theoretically. #19 provided women’s suffrage. #24 prohibited a poll tax. #26 permitted 18-year-olds to vote. And there are others.

A guy named Frank S. Robinson is no relation to the baseball Hall of Famer, as far as I know. He says he was “a devoted conservative Republican for 53 years,” but feels “today’s Republican party must be exterminated (electorally).” He explains this all in about 1000 words on Facebook. I’m going to quote just a part of the stuff related to elections.

“Republicans have… become masters of vote suppression, imposing ID requirements, reducing early voting, closing polling stations, and purging voter rolls, all cunningly targeted against non-white, elderly, and poorer voters likely to back Democrats. Stopping them from voting.

“For example, North Dakota has passed a law requiring a street address for voting. Indian reservations — guess what? — don’t have street addresses. This will probably mean defeat for Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp.

“Meantime, such vile voter disenfranchisement tactics may well have made the difference in three key states Trump narrowly won in 2016, giving him the presidency. (And they have the chutzpah to talk about ‘election fraud.’)

“Democratic governors can veto Republican gerrymandering and vote suppression schemes. One noteworthy governor’s race is Georgia’s where Stacey Abrams, a black woman with a tremendous background of accomplishment, faces a cringeworthy Trump sycophant flaunting his almost sexual love for guns.

“He’s also the Georgia secretary of state overseeing the election (refusing to recuse himself) and trying to keep as many blacks from voting as possible. He’s canceled more than a million voter registrations, including 50,000 new ones — mostly by blacks. To steal the election.

“‘Disenfranchisement’ was an overused buzzword some years back. But now it’s a huge reality, with the Supreme Court having eviscerated the 1965 Voting Rights Act; it even upheld North Dakota’s atrocity.”

I’ve complained about most of these tactics in the past, but it’s nice to read them all in one place. If you’re in the US and CAN vote, do it!

For ABC Wednesday

Matthew Shepard as Emmett Till

Matthew Shepard’s parents, Dennis and Judy Shepard, became activists for gay rights and more vigorous prosecution of hate crimes.

Recently, Arthur wrote about Matthew Shepard’s interment, a surprising ending of a two-decades-long journey.

In case you are unfamiliar, per NPR: “Matthew Shepard, the young gay man brutally killed on a chilly night in Wyoming 20 years ago… was finally laid to rest at Washington National Cathedral… A reflective, music-filled service offered stark contrast to the anti-gay protests that marred his funeral two decades ago.”

The music included Lacrimosa from the Mozart Requiem, which always affects me greatly. His parents had been afraid to bury him in Wyoming, lest his grave be ransacked.

Somehow, that murder became a flashpoint where other crimes of that nature had not. “Shepard’s killing became the basis for a play, The Laramie Project, which brought widespread attention to the problem of homophobia.” The events were the subject of a 2002 TV movie, The Matthew Shepard Story.

“Shepard’s parents, Dennis and Judy Shepard, established the Matthew Shepard Foundation and became activists for gay rights and more vigorous prosecution of hate crimes.”

It occurred to me that, in some basic ways, his death paralleled that of Emmett Till, the Chicago-born black teenager who was murdered, purportedly for whistling at a white woman, in rural Mississippi in August 1955. The woman in the case has only recently recanted her allegation.

His brutal demise, which helped energize the efforts for black equality, has been the subject of Dreaming Emmett, the first play by the Nobel-winning African-American writer Toni Morrison, in 1986, and the Oscar-nominated short film My Nephew Emmett (2017), both of which I have seen.

The parallels are interesting. Neither victim was a publicly known person; they weren’t activists in their respective civil rights struggles. Yet because Emmett’s mother had his battered body photographed in an open casket, because we saw the fence upon which Matthew was symbolically crucified, they were remembered nationally far beyond how the average murder victim is recalled.

As I’ve mentioned here more than once, Emmett Till’s death has haunted me ever since I saw the photos in either JET or Ebony magazine in 1960. When some idiot pseudo-Christian group came to Albany to protest a production of The Laramie Project at Albany High School in 2009, I was one of the great number of counter-protesters.

It’s kismet the way some lives, and deaths, transcend to tell the larger story.

Submission, women, the Bible: 1 Timothy 2

“There are those who believe this text is making a blanket statement about the role of women in the church. “

religious-inclusion01 There was this picture on Facebook of a guy holding a sign that women “should be quiet, submissive to husband, cooking, ironing, silent in church”. It specifically cites 1 Timothy 2.

I came across this article by Jenna Daniels, who was, at least as of the publication date was associate pastor at Awaken Community Covenant Church, St. Paul, MN. The piece was undated but was posted at least two years ago.

Rev. Daniels pulls our verses 11-15:

“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety.”

She notes, correctly, that “There are those who believe this text is making a blanket statement about the role of women in the church. There are other passages that seem to say this same thing, where women are to remain silent, or that they are the glory of man, they are to submit, they can’t lead.”

So what is she doing preaching? She sees Paul’s writing in this and other cases as a contextual prohibition. Specifically, the apostle may have been referring to the culture in Ephesus and the worship of Artemis, the goddess of fertility, for example.

Paul “is addressing a group of women who were false teachers influenced by the Artemis cult in which female supremacy was the norm. When [he] talks about the authority these women are exercising, he uses a word that is used nowhere in the entire New Testament: authentein, translated as ‘exercise authority.’ Other times when Paul is referring to authority, he uses [the generic] exousia…

“But authentein carries a sense of abusing power and acting on your own authority. These women are teaching things that aren’t true, and doing it in an abusive way, so Paul tells them to be silent. Interestingly, he still tells them to learn.”

In this vein, here are Six Things Submission Is Not by John Piper, coincidentally also a Minnesota pastor. My broader point is that it is easy to cherry-pick scripture to support oppression; American slavery was justified in that manner.

As Rev. Daniels notes, “I believe the Enemy’s greatest and strongest work is to cause us to misunderstand God’s Word in a way that binds up and constricts and prevents where God’s intent is freedom and life in Christ for all people.”

Music Throwback: To Sir With Love

To Sir With Love was, the best-selling single of 1967 in the US

I was watching the 31 October 2017 edition of JEOPARDY! a few days later. There was a category in the second round called FILMS OF THE 1960s. The $1600 clue: “British pop singer Lulu had a small role in this 1967 film & also sang the title song.”

None of the contestants rang in, but then again, none of them appeared to have been born before 1970. Naturally, I knew, instantly, that it was To Sir With Love. At the time of the show’s airing, the song was in the midst of the 50th anniversary of its five-week run at #1 on the US Billboard charts. Interestingly. it also got to #9 on the US soul charts.

Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie was born 3 November 1948 in Glasgow, Scotland. Tony Gordon, who would eventually manage Culture Club, discovered the 14-year-old performer. Tony recommended to his sister, Marian Massey, that she should manage the singer.

It was Marian who came up with a new name for Marie. “She actually gave up, and then said, ‘I’ll tell you one thing, she’s a real lulu of a kid,'” Lulu explained.

Marian’s sister Felice tipped off Marian about the script for To Sir With Love. Director James Clavell saw Lulu perform at a Beach Boys concert, and she got the film role and got to sing the title song.

In June 1967, Epic Records released The Boat That I Row, a Neil Diamond song. The song from the film was relegated to the B side. American DJs flipped the record. But To Sir with Love never made the UK charts and it was never even nominated for an Oscar.

Lulu has been an active performer on TV in the UK for decades and was married to Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees from 1969 to 1973.

LISTEN to:

Shout – Lulu & the Luvvers, #7 UK, #94 US (1964); #96 on (1967 re-release)

The Boat That I Row, #6 in the UK, #115 in the US (1967)

To Sir With Love, the best-selling single of 1967 in the US

The Man Who Sold the World, produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson; the former wrote, played saxophone, provided back-up vocals. #3 UK (1974), Top 10 hit in several European countries, did not chart in US

I Could Never Miss You (More Than I Do), recorded in 1979, but not properly released as a single until 1981. #18 pop US, #2 US Adult Contemporary chart, only #62 UK

If I Were You, #44 US (1982)

Independence, #11 UK (1993)

“Googlified” Brains on the Internet

“If we don’t know the answer to something, our first thought is likely to be ‘Google.'”

Googlified There was a recent article in Median recently entitled “This Is Your Brain on the Internet, by Erman Misirlisoy, PhD. The subtitle: “We know where to find information — we just can’t remember it anymore.” I thought the primary points were self-evidently true.

“Our internet usage has ‘Googlified’ our brain, making us more dependent on knowing where to access facts and less able to remember the facts themselves.” That’s the key sentence for me.

“The internet acts as a great aid, but our faith and reliance on it can make us overconfident in our own abilities.” I think this is why I get cranky when people say, “I’ll just Google it.” People seem to use it, not just as a helper for thinking, but in lieu of thinking.

“The internet has changed the way that our brains work. Humans have always been good at learning and adapting to new environments. So given the internet’s dramatic impact on life in the developed world, it is no surprise that we have adjusted our thinking and behavior…”

How do you know the information is incorrect if you don’t already have general knowledge already? I recently caught an error on a podcast I listen to. The announcer said Rockin’ Robin was a Jackson 5 song when I knew it was a Michael Jackson song. It was also a cover of a 1958 hit by Bobby Day. A small thing, sure, but if one were to Google that uncorrected info, the misinformation spreads.

“Researchers have used this principle to test whether difficult trivia questions automatically activate internet-related concepts in our brain. If we don’t know the answer to something, our first thought is likely to be ‘Google.’ When study participants took part in a behavioral task immediately following difficult trivia questions, their performance in that task worsened when words like ‘Google’ appeared on a screen, distracting them…”

This is why, I suppose, I am old-fashioned enough to be impressed when people I know IRL show that they can extract information sans electronic aids. Like Chuck’s team winning a national trivia competition. Or Darrin placing second in the inaugural Times Union Crossword Championship.