C is for color, or the lack thereof

I got interested in the issue of skin color – well, always.

I’m finding this a little weird. Because of my skin color, some of the Daughter’s friends don’t believe I am black, or African-American if you prefer (I don’t), so they don’t think she’s part black.

Her first set of friends are first- or second-generation sub-Saharan Africans, so I sort of get that. But I’ve been getting the same message from her American black and even American white buddies.

In fact, we were all at a play at her school this spring, the fourth iteration of Lion King I’ve ever seen. My wife and I were sitting a dozen rows behind the Daughter and her friends. At the intermission, she and one of her friends came back to where I was seated. She specifically pointed to my hand, pointing out the variated skin tone. “See, he’s darker there. He just has this skin condition.”

As I’ve noted before, the condition is called vitiligo. Incidentally, Chuck linked to Why you don’t say what you shouldn’t say to people who look “different”, including those with vitiligo far more severe than mine. Also see vitiligo queen and Artist Creates Dolls With Vitiligo.

When I was diagnosed with it, I was extremely cautious about going outside, so paranoid about developing skin cancer. I was much paler than I am now. In fact, there were black and white pictures of me from 2010-2015 and I do not recognize myself.

My forehead is somewhat darker, but, as you may be able to see, the top of my head is still lighter, and thus much more vulnerable to sunburn or worse.

I got interested in the issue of skin color – well, always. My mom was very fair, my father much darker, and her family was not pleased when they were courting, I’ve been told. Colorism does exist in many cultures.

And when Roseanne Barr made an offensive tweet about former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, Barr’s defense was that she didn’t know Jarrett was black. Her racial identification was well-reported, but also obvious to my eye.

Of course, race in America has been complicated in what is now the United States only for about four centuries. This is interesting to me: They considered themselves white, but DNA tests told a more complex story.

For ABC Wednesday

April rambling: Silent Scream

It is brutal, damaging and untrue

Condolences to Dustbury on the loss of his brother James, his last sibling

Thousands of internal documents that help explain how the Islamic State stayed in power so long

The root of all cruelty?

Travel is fatal to prejudice

Why does the Right hate victims?

50 years after the Wahine Disaster (New Zealand)

Corruption, Not Russia, Is His Greatest Political Liability

His long-term effect on American democracy: How worried should we be?

The Crime-Fraud Exception in the Michael Cohen Case

What Will Our Society Look Like When Artificial Intelligence is Everywhere?

Ten Things That Have Zero Effect on What the Truth Is

Daniel Van Riper’s Albany Weblog: They Want To Fill In The Ravine In Lincoln Park

The Real Story of the Hawaiian Missile Crisis

The REAL Consumer Price Index?

Congress, Not Amazon, Messed Up the Post Office

the beautiful human gumbo

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOUR

Steven Bochco, RIP; a retrospective – I loved many of these shows

Remembering Winnie Mandela

Living the beam onstage with William Shatner

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Oprah’s Full Chat from SUPER SOUL SUNDAY

From the nifty historical fiction Silent Scream #1
Kickstarter: THE TRUST BOOK ONE: SILENT SCREAM ISSUE 2 – Dennis Webster, Bill Anderson, Gabriel Rearte and Laurie E. Smith

Mark Waid tells a new Captain America story with original artwork from Jack Kirby!

Top 37 Parks To Visit Before You Die

After 40 years, Wendy and Richard Pini finish ‘Elfquest,’ the ‘first American manga,’ and go on fanquest

SNL: Black Jeopardy with Chadwick Boseman

Seth Meyers’ great “desk story”

A Weird and Beautiful Sports Story

150th anniversary of Little Women

vlogbrothers: On Punctuality (John) v. How to Stop Being Late Forever (Hank)

Now I Know: How Overdue Parking Tickets Took Over an Innocent Person’s Life and The Therapeutic Value of a Not-Quite-Flying Pig and The Race to Determine the Fastest Man Alive and Why You Can’t Steal First Base and Why You Shouldn’t Eat Those “Do Not Eat” Packets and The Elevator Light That’s a Total Gas

How he is transforming himself into the greatest president ever

MUSIC

Found Tonight – Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt

Listen to the Music – Playing for Change

Catch Me If You Can -John Williams score

She’s A Rockin’ Machine – Archie and the Bunkers

Coverville 1212: Cover Stories for Jimmy Cliff and Pharrell Williams

Oriental Rhapsody – Alexander Glazunov

Stephen Hawking Picks the Music (and One Novel) He’d Spend Eternity With: Stream the Playlist Online

‘The Weakness in Me’: Notes on Joan Armatrading

Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – Sonny Vande Putte

Never tell someone they can’t sing – it is brutal, damaging and untrue

R is for Red

Modern surveys show red is the color most commonly associated with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love and joy.

red.svgRed, as Wikipedia notes, is “the color at the end of the spectrum of visible light next to orange and opposite violet.”

It’s also both one of the “additive primary colors of visible light, along with green and blue”… AND “one of the subtractive primary colors, along with yellow and blue, of the.. traditional color wheel used by painters and artists.

“Since red is the color of blood, it has historically been associated with sacrifice, danger, and courage.

“Modern surveys in the United States and Europe show red is also the color most commonly associated with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love, and joy.

“In China and many other Asian countries, it is the color of happiness.”

Of course, most STOP lights and stop signs are red. This means that RED is a contradiction. Action and stopping. Anger and joy.

I thought I’d list some RED songs. The links to the titles are descriptions of the songs; the links to the artists are the recordings. The chart action refers to the Billboard (US) pop charts.

Red and Blue
Dave Clark Five (#89 in 1967)

Red Red Wine
Neil Diamond (#62 in 1968)
UB40 (#34 in 1984, #1 in 1988)

Red Roses for a Blue Lady
Vic Dana (#10 in 1965)
Dean Martin

Red Rubber Ball
Cyrkle (#2 in 1966)
Seekers

Red Sails in the Sunset
Bing Crosby (1935)
Nat King Cole (#24 in 1951)
Tab Hunter (#57 in 1957)
Platters (#36 in 1960)
Fats Domino (#35 – and #24 soul – in 1963)

abc18
ABC Wednesday – Round 18

May rambling #2: Leterman, and Vivaldi’s Pond

James Taylor interview by Howard Stern on May 12

Mother Teresa.quote
You might want to bookmark this because it’s updated regularly: Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)? Most recently, it’s former New York governor George Pataki, who’s been out of office since 2006.

Obama To Posthumously Award “Harlem Hellfighter” With Medal Of Honor For Heroism on June 2, 2015. That would be Sgt. Henry Johnson, who I wrote about HERE.

On July 28th, 1917: Between 8,000 and 10,000 African-Americans marched against lynching and anti-black violence in a protest known as The Silent Parade.

“Playing the Race Card”: A Transatlantic Perspective.

The Milwaukee Experiment. How to stop mass incarceration.

The Mystery of Screven County by Ken Screven.

From SSRN: Bruce Bartlett on How Fox News Changed American Media and Political Dynamics.

Does Color Even Exist? “What you see is only what you see.”

The linguistic failure of “comparing with a Nazi.”

Vivaldi’s Pond by Chuck Miller.

Arthur is dictating the future, albeit imperfectly. Plus AT&T did a good job predicting the future.

Woody Allen On ‘Irrational Man’, His Movies & Hollywood’s Perilous Path – Cannes Q&A.

The Tony Awards for Broadway air on CBS-TV on Sunday, June 7. Some nifty theater links. Listen to songs from Something Rotten.

Lead Belly, Alan Lomax and the Relevance of a Renewed Interest in American Vernacular Music.

Trailer of the movie Love & Mercy, about Brian Wilson.

James Taylor interview by Howard Stern on May 12, in anticipation of Taylor’s new album release on June 16th, listen to HERE or HERE. A friend said, “it was Howard at his best. James forthright, thoughtful and plain honest.”

Why Arthur likes Uma Thurman by Fall Out Boy, besides the Munsters theme.

SamuraiFrog ranks Weird Al: 70-61.

For Beatlemaniacs: Spirit of the Song by Andrew Lind Nath.

The Day That Never Happened and Let’s Drop Beavers from Airplanes and Tater tots and termites.

Apparently Disney Used To Recycle Animation Scenes.

Muppets: Rowlf ads.

Of course, there’s a lot of David Letterman stuff. Here’s How Harvey Pekar became one of his greatest recurring guests. Articles by National Memo and Jaquandor. Or one could just go to Evanier’s page and search for Letterman.

EXCLUSIVE Preview: HOUSE OF HEM #1, a collection of Marvel comics stories written and drawn by my friend Fred Hembeck.

I love Rube Goldbergesque experiments.

BBKING

GOOGLE ALERTS (me)

The Ranting Chef’s Two-Timing Number One.

I made SamuraiFrog’s This Week in Neat-O, which is kind of…neat. And Dustbury shared the same piece.

Dustbury on Procol Harum.

I suppose I should complain, but it’s so weird. Twice now in the past month, someone has taken a blogpost I’ve written and put it on their Facebook page. The person has kept a citation to my original post, which I imagine could be stripped as it gets passed along. But I’m so fascinated someone would even bother to do so that I haven’t commented – yet.

GOOGLE ALERT (not me)

Roger Green, Art Green’s grandfather, “was born and bred in Rangitikei, and ran the family farm, Mangahoe Land Company, during the 1960s until they put a manager on it in 1967.” (Arthur Green is in New Zealand’s version of The Bachelor.)

Seeing it another way

I didn’t “get” the “what color is this dress” thing.

colorI read this joke recently. I’d seen it before:

As a man was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife’s voice urgently warning him, “Frank, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on the Interstate. Please be careful!”
“It’s not just ONE car,” said Frank. “It’s HUNDREDS of them!”

It doesn’t ALWAYS happen, but I do TRY to see things from other people’s perspectives. Sometimes, I get a compelling narrative that butts up against my own.
***
For whatever reason, I never warmed to the Oscar Best Picture-winning movie Birdman. One of my oldest friends came out of a screening of the film the same day I saw another film, and she had exactly the same reaction as I did.

Yet, in my visit to one of the ABC Wednesday folks, Anita from India, wrote: Five Lessons from Birdman film. Among the observations: not resting on your laurels, and dealing with your inner voice. The piece is a wonderful contemplation, and I liked it much more than the film it touted.
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I didn’t “get” the “what color is this dress” thing. Fortunately, my colleague sent me this story from Wired, which describes the science.

Another colleague noted, regarding the picture above: “Put your finger in the middle – Both panels are same color. It is the fact that the angle and highlighting make you believe the top is in the light and must be darker and the bottom is in the shadow and must be lighter.”
***
As a result of our conversation at church about white privilege in January, led by two of our members who are, not incidentally, white, one of my white church friends decided to engage his work colleagues about the topic; the result of this is that they looked at him as though he had three heads. Perhaps another reason why our white friends don’t talk about race.
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The article in Salon with the provocative title Why the right hates American history has some really interesting notations about the change in in the American English language, which were instructive:

Living in the 18th Century, the Founders never would have actually used the word “privacy” out loud or in writing… The reason is simple: “privacy” in 1776 was a code word for toilet functions…
Instead, the word of the day was “security,” and in many ways it meant what we today mean when we say “privacy…”
Similarly, “liberty” was also understood, in one of its dimensions, to mean something close to what today we’d call “privacy.”

***
I’m still not going to read the book, thanks to SamuraiFrog’s painful and detailed review. But Jaquandor applauds EL James’s writing process for 50 Shades of Grey. Here’s a defense of its grammar.
***
As a business librarian, I am somewhat concerned that Tougher ozone standards could snuff out the recovery, businesses warn. Yet as a human being, I’m very concerned that weaker ozone standards could snuff out life as we know it, scientists warn. What to do, what to do?
***
Saturday Night Live had its 40th anniversary special last month. Haven’t watched more than seven minutes of the three-and-a-half-hour program, and I probably won’t. Didn’t watch the weekly show much in the past decade.

Yet I found myself reading several stories ABOUT the special, e.g., ‘Saturday Night Live’: 20 Personal, Funny Tales. Not only is former cast member Gary Kroeger’s observations interesting, so is the rest of his blog; he MAY run for Congress as a Democrat from California.

I enjoyed Norm MacDonald’s tweets; my, he did not fare well in the ranking of all 141 cast members.
***
Dustbury cannot decide whether he’s impressed or depressed by the number of YouTube scenes he recognized.
***
A favorite quote of the week, from Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock Taught Us Acceptance Is Highly Logical:
“As a young black man and science fiction fan, I strongly identified with Spock’s struggles to fit in with his human coworkers as I struggled to fit in at mostly-white schools and workplaces. And I wouldn’t be surprised if other fans struggling to fit into their communities for different reasons felt the same bond.”

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