July 2019 - Page 2 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Lydster: Working Girl, per Melanie G.

stolen t-shirts

Coverville.CokeShirt-front The fun facts in our household this season:
1) I’m no longer working; I’m retired
2) My wife is not currently at work; she’s a teacher and it’s the summer
3) My daughter IS working

For some reason, the youngest among us seems to be irritated by this situation, the ONLY person employed. For instance, she’s been grilling me about MY first job, which was delivering the evening and Sunday newspapers in Binghamton, NY when I was 12 and 13.

“No, what was the first job when you had to Deal With Other People?” That’d be working as a page at the Binghamton Public Library when I was 16.

She’s involved in this Summer Youth Employment Program conducted by the city of Albany. While I know where she works, I haven’t quite sussed out what she DOES. Something about being a non-profit co-ordinator? Wha?

They’ve been teaching the teenagers some life skills. The teens have been wrangling smaller kids. My daughter noted that she kept running into one young girl and smiled at her. The girl brought my daughter a cup of water.

I did not expect that my daughter would start stealing my clothes. Specifically, my T-shirts. To be honest, my tees are more interesting than my wife’s. Mine tend to be about social causes (AIDS, peace), sports, and especially music.

I haven’t let her steal my green Beatles T-shirt yet, but I have allowed her to purloin my Coverville shirts, and I have about a half dozen of them. She doesn’t even listen to the podcast yet. I ought to just go out and buy my daughter her own set!

I understand that she likes earning money so that, one of these days, she can buy a car. I’m assuming she has no sense of the expense of owning a car beyond the purchase price and maybe the gasoline. You know, the maintenance, and the insurance.

Fortunately, a 20 hour/week job for five weeks won’t get her there THIS summer. Then again, she’s still too young to get a driver’s permit. Oh, and who’s going to teach her to drive? It can’t be me, and my wife and I agree that it oughtn’t to be her.

A problem for another year, thank goodness. Do they still teach driver’s ed in high school?

Not news: the racist Twit-in-Chief

Racism is sin

Stern.August 2017.Trump — The cover of the German magazine Stern, August 2017

While I was away in a low-news mode, the story about the Twit-in-Chief attacking four progressive congresswomen of color broke. “Go back” to the “crime-infested places from which they came” was the message. The crowd chanted “send her back” at the North Carolina pep rally, referring to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

He later disavowed the chants, though he had paused during the shouting, looking on for several seconds, appearing to show approval. The next day, he dubbed the chanters “patriots.” Sycophants such as Veep Mike Pence and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said, “Oh, he’s NOT racist.” The truly dreadful Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’s “on to something” with those attacks on four congresswomen.

You probably knew all this, but I’m just catching up.

It got me to wonder: what on earth does it take to label an action racist in America and to have it stick? Or is it just impossible? Perhaps, for Republicans, “xenophobia and nationalism are completely fine — just don’t call it racism.”

Mark Evanier linked to what he cheekily called “that bastion of Liberalism,” the National Review. “David French writes that when Donald Trump says something divisive and racist, Republican leaders will not so much as give an ‘ahem’ to express slight disapproval…

“There are many GOP leaders who, quite frankly, understand that they criticize even the president’s racist speech at their own peril. The grassroots have spoken. Loyalty to the president must be absolute, or one risks a primary challenge.”

The Weekly Sift guy attributes this process to his friend and former editor Tom Stites:
Trump makes blatantly racist statements. The responsible press and responsible leaders use racist in describing it. Trump’s confederate supporters think, See? All those elitists are calling me a racist! This pushes their victim buttons and turns their anger on the responsible press and leaders.
Then Trump repeats that he’s about the least racist person you’ll ever meet, and he calls the Squad racists who hate Israel and the U.S. Trump’s racist supporters feel vindicated by their hero.
More of the press becomes confident using the word racist. Trump turns up the volume a bit and repeats his pot-stirring trick. The confederates respond.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
He’s a twisted genius at manipulation.

He, his fans and defenders are wallowing in the language of hate crimes. There’s a scary undercurrent at every one of his rallies: “It is language with a very familiar ring: The language of community defense and purification, driving from the body politic any foreign—and therefore innately toxic—presence or influence.” But does it matter?

Like much of our language, ‘love it or leave it’ has a racist history. “it sort of conveys—particularly to people of color—that this is not our home… Historically, when people of color criticize America, they’ve been deemed un-American and unpatriotic, but when white people criticize America, it is normal.” And it takes an increasing psychological toll.

The hardly-liberal Foreign Policy magazine notes in America’s Road to Reputational Ruin: “The decline in U.S. soft power didn’t start with Trump, but he accelerated it… with his racist tweets.”

Yup, the mainstream media HAS been increasingly willing to at least acknowledge when an action is racist. For instance, Fox News’ Chris Wallace Burns Down Stephen Miller Over Trump’s Racist Lies. The CBS reporting repeatedly called his behavior racist, while NBC used that mamby-pamby “that many are calling racist.” (I taped them and am watching now.)

Congressman Elijah Cummings declared he is a racist — ‘No Doubt About It’. Former Vice-President Joe Biden compares him to segregationist George Wallace. In case I’ve been too oblique, yes, I’ve long believed the Twit-in-Chief is a racist. As Sojourners notes, “Racism isn’t a partisan issue. It is sin.”

The thing is, none of this behavior should be surprising, given his history. We CAN wonder, though, what it means to the future of the United States. Does his race-baiting evokes the Nuremberg rallies? Or should we not panic?

What do you think? I tend to lean towards ire/panic.

What the heck is a Triennium?

‘Here’s My Heart’

“The Presbyterian Youth Triennium is a gathering for high school age youth from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church that occurs every three years. The 2019 event is July 16-20, 2019 at Purdue University. The theme for the 2019 event is ‘Here’s My Heart.'”

Here’s the thing: my daughter and I just got back. Or we will have just returned since I’m writing this BEFORE we departed. Talk about your time warp. I’ve been one of four chaperones for the Albany Presbytery.

“Five days of CONVERSATION, RECREATION, LEARNING, WORSHIP, AND FUN! Drawing from the rich and diverse theology, history and education of the Presbyterian tradition – the Triennium experience is packed with the information students long to explore!”

Moreover, it will have taken about 17 hours on a bus to get to Lafayette, IN and another 3/4 of a day to get back. Our departure was scheduled for 8 p.m. on July 15. That was my wife’s birthday, which was our present to her! Our return ETA was July 21 at 8 a.m., by which time she will have had time to miss us.

If I had still been working, I almost certainly would never have agreed to go. A week away from the job meant taking two days just to catch up. That’s been the nature of the beast. Also, if my daughter didn’t want me to go, I surely would not have done so.

“Digging into faith through a variety of activities and experiences – all focused around the theme ‘Here’s My Heart’ (Recognize the line yet? Hint: It’s a lyric from a classic tune/hymn we sing!) participants at the Triennium will re-enter their lives with a fresh sense of inspiration grounded in the context of personal and communal worship!”

One other thing, I will have been without anything to write on electronically for a week, a curse when you have a daily blog. I will have a cellphone but no laptop. So, if I haven’t visited your website, or approved your comments, or commented on Facebook, it will have been a combination of busyness and inaccessibility.

One other selling point of the trip that can check Indiana off my list of states. That will be #31. I had been through there back in 1998 on a train, but I did not actually DO anything for it to count. Sooner or later, I may actually write about the experience.

Leslie Green and Larry Graham

“Dig a little deeper”

As you may recall, my sister Leslie had a terrible bicycle accident on June 4, 2018. In case I had forgotten, she recently sent me a picture of her, taken about day 12 of her month-long stay in the hospital.

After a few more operations and treatments, she is well on the road to recovery. She’s not 100%, but she is SO much better.

Besides the accident being all sorts of scary, that narrative all but obliterated the great time she and her daughter Rebecca Jade had just a couple week earlier. Rebecca was touring on a fortnight of cruises with Dave Koz and his band throughout Scandinavia, starting in Copenhagen.

Leslie participated in the “So You Think You Can Jam” talent contest. She has been singing about as long as I’ve known her, from the MAZET Singers in AME Zion Church in Binghamton, to various school choirs, to the Green Family Singers. She performed in a bunch of gigs in the Northeast – Crystal Ship! – and then for over a half dozen years in Puerto Rico.

She STILL sings in church and occasional local gigs. Every interview that Rebecca Jade has done, she’s rightly credited her mom to get her to sing harmonies as well as the melody.

When Leslie and Rebecca got to jam with Larry Graham, that was very cool. Larry, in case you didn’t know, was the bass player for Sly and the Family Stone. Then he fronted his own group, Graham Central Station.

So, for Leslie’s XXth birthday, I thought I’d link to some Larry Graham music. Happy birthday, sis. Enjoy the tunes.

Sly and the Family Stone

Dance to the Music, #8 pop, #9 RB in 1968 – “I’m gonna add some bottom”
Everyday People, #1 for four weeks pop, #1 for two weeks RB in 1969
Sing A Simple Song, #89 pop, #28 RB in 1969 – “I’m walkin’, walkin’ walkin’, walkin’, walkin’ in the street”
I Want to Take You Higher, #38 pop in 1970, #24 RB in 1969 – “Music’s gettin’ longer too”

You Can Make It If You Try – “Dig a little deeper”
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), #1 for two weeks pop, #1 for five weeks RB in 1970
Everybody Is a Star, b-side, 1970 “‘Til the sun that loves you proud When the system tries to bring you down”
Family Affair, #1 for three weeks pop, #1 for five weeks RB in 1971

Graham Central Station

We’ve Been Waiting
Can You Handle It, #49 pop, #9 RB in 1974

Chart action per Billboard; RB = R&B/soul

From the New York island to California

PUT the statehood IN ORDER: OK, CA, NE

California Continuing with US states, Canadian provinces and territories of both. The letter is C.

CA California – first two letters. The tradition abbreviation was Calif., though Cal. and Ca. were also used. Capital: Sacramento; largest city: Los Angeles. In fact, the state has three of the ten largest cities in the country: LA (#2), San Diego (#8) and San Jose (#10).

Famously, gold was discovered in Sutter’s Mill in Coloma. This lead to the migration known as the California Gold Rush. The National Football League team, the San Francisco 49ers, was named for this phenomenon.

When I was on JEOPARDY! in 1998, there was a clue in the category PUT ‘EM IN ORDER, in which we had to put the elements of the clue in chronological order. The choices of Oklahoma statehood, California statehood, Nebraska statehood. I knew that California rapidly became eligible, and in fact, became a state in 1850. Nebraska became a state in 1867, Oklahoma not until 1907.

BASEBALL

The United States population has been moving south and west for a number of years. But in 1957, all 16 Major League Baseball teams were in the Northeast and Midwest: MA: Boston (AL); PA: Philadelphia (NL) and Pittsburgh (NL); MD: Baltimore (AL); Washington, DC (AL); OH: Cincinnati (NL), Cleveland (AL); MI: Detroit (AL); IL: Chicago (AL and NL); WI: Milwaukee (NL); MO: Kansas City (AL), St. Louis (NL).

Plus there were three teams in New York City. The New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers were in the National League, while the New York Yankees were in, and usually dominated, the American League. The Giants and Dodgers stagger the sports world by relocating to California – to San Francisco and LA, respectively – “where growing metropolises greet them with record-breaking attendance figures…while millions back in New York City are numbed with betrayal.”

CO Colorado – first two letters. The traditional abbreviation was Colo. or Col. Capital and largest city: Denver.

CT Connecticut – first and last letter. the traditional abbreviation was Conn. ot Ct. Capital: Hartford; largest city: Bridgeport.

For ABC Wednesday.