Jaquandor Archives - Page 23 of 49

February rambling #2: Which Side Are You On?

City Fines Interracial Couple Who Found Racist Graffiti On Home

WHY FACTS DON’T CHANGE OUR MINDS

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Obamacare and Putin

The Peril of Potemkin Democracy

The Shallow State celebrates its ignorance

Steve Bannon to media: We’re going to make it worse for you every day, then WH bars news outlets from briefing

Bannon Admits Cabinet Nominees Were Selected To Destroy Their Agencies

Private prison company hires former Jeff Sessions aides to lobby in D.C. (Oct 2016); Attorney General Jeff Sessions: U.S. to continue use of private prisons, reversing Obama directive (Feb 2017)

FCC Is Already Canceling Internet Services for Low-Income Customers

Eliminating arts funding programs will save just 0.0625% of budget

Have your papers ready’: Customs agents checking IDs on DOMESTIC flights

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s mom

While Orange scandals mount, Chaffetz decides to investigate … a cartoon character

Gabby Giffords to Louie Gohmert: ‘Have some courage. Face your constituents’

He could make things a little easier for preachers

Dear Evangelicals, I Don’t Think You Realize How You Sound To Everybody Else

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau affirms $50M for physics think-tank in Waterloo, Ont.

Mexico City, Parched and Sinking, Faces a Water Crisis

Human Rights Watch fights to end child marriage in New York

Meet the Math Professor Who’s Fighting Gerrymandering With Geometry

The Only Thing, Historically, That’s Curbed Inequality: Catastrophe

How to Spot Manipulation

What a Silicon Valley liberal learned from supporters of 45

I Was a Muslim in This White House

The Atlantic: Michael K. Williams Asks: Am I Typecast?

The Color of Love: Kim Novak and Sammy Davis Jr.

City Fines Interracial Couple Who Found Racist Graffiti On Home

Breaking the silence: Jason Gough talks about being sexually abused as a child

When Things Go Missing

Understanding Alzheimers in three minutes

Why you should really start talking to old people more

The only library in the world that operates in two countries at once

The Darkest Town In America

Is Verizon’s new unlimited plan worth it?

TED Talk with Norman Lear

Arthur: Not blogging is exhausting

Oscars 2017: What It Was Like Onstage During the Best Picture Mistake; most misspelled nominee: Naomie Harris

Noted actor Bill Paxton dies at 61 – saw him in Apollo 13, Titanic, Spy Kids 2, Million Dollar Arm, and Twister, among other films, plus the video Fish Heads by Barnes & Barnes

Richard Schickel, Movie Critic, Author and Filmmaker, Dies at 84

Coverville’s Brian Ibbott: What happened to manners at movie theaters?

Bertram Forer, American psychologist who described the technique for self-deception familiar to psychics, astrologers and even popular business personality tests

Library Hand, the Fastidiously Neat Penmanship Style Made for Card Catalogs

Dictionary’s latest additions include ‘side-eye,’ ‘humblebrag,’ and ‘ghost’

VHS memories

Major League Baseball: Intentional walks will now be granted to hitters with a signal from the opposing dugout, rather than by having the pitcher throw four obvious balls; BOO! HISS!

On Why Serena Williams Is His Favorite

The NBA G-League? No. No no no no no no no…

Philosophy Jeopardy

Unputdownable: 17 books I read in 24 hours or less (because they were just that good)

Vanna White turns sixty

Twisted, sister

Now I Know: Georgia’s Version of Stonehenge and The Pink Light That Wipes Out Teenagers and How Cows Mooved Through Manhattan and Why Knowing is Half the Battle

Music

The K-Flow Show Episode 1, featuring Rebecca Jade (the niece!)

Pac-Man – Weird Al (to the tune of the Beatles’ Taxman)

Total Praise – Richard Smallwood and Vision

Sam Cooke with “Touch the Hem of His Garment”

Down to the River to Pray – Alison Krauss [Live]

Which Side Are You On? – Ani DiFranco

Simon & Garfunkel take to the stage to perform their iconic hit Sound Of Silence

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

David Bowie’s son shares emotional tribute after his five posthumous Grammy wins

Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr Reunite to Record Together in Studio

Where Should Axl and Slash Go Now?

US: adopt rail transportation

Trains have inspired some of the finest music in the world.

The illustrious bard Jaquandor gripes:

What IS it with this country’s refusal to adopt rail as a serious method of transportation?

There’s a sign, less than two blocks from my house, that commemorates the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad that ran between Albany and Schenectady, one of the first in the nation. It’s clear that the transcontinental railroad created cohesion for the United States.

I’ve made it quite clear that I find passenger rail travel to be the only really civilized form of transportation. So why doesn’t the US embrace it more?

1) Freedom. The freedom of the open road, the myth sold by the car dealers decades ago, and now a part of the fabric of the self-definition of the country. EUROPEANS use trains and the metric system and socialized medicine, but that’s not what WE do. And it IS a big country.

2) Liberals. Most of the greatest concentration of potential train use, because of population patterns, is in the Northeast corridor from Boston to DC, and California. And do you know who lives there? LIBERALS, those arrogant prigs who fuss about energy conservation and don’t REALLY share American values. So screw ’em. We have the fix for the problems of some of the recent rail crashes, but we’re not going to spend money for THAT.

OK, that was exaggerated, but only slightly. There are also pockets of density in the eastern Midwest, and in parts of Texas suitable for rail transportation. Still, fixing the rails, usually shared by freight, and needing to defer to cargo, is considered “subsidizing” Amtrak. Fixing the roads is… oh, never mind, we don’t do that either.

And trains have inspired some of the finest music in the world. Here’s a list of 1000 songs. It’s MISSING at least two songs, both of which I own. One is Northern Bound Train by Pete Droge, which I’ve seen him perform. The other is Ridin’ the Rails by k.d. lang and Take 6, from the soundtrack to the movie Dick Tracy, a movie I’ve never seen.

Here are just a handful of my favorite train songs. Links to all.

500 Miles – Peter, Paul, and Mary
8:05 – Moby Grape
Big Train (from Memphis) – Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins

Casey Jones -Grateful Dead
Chattanooga Choo Choo – Glenn Miller
City of New Orleans – Steve Goodman

Engine Engine #9 – Roger Miller
Friendship Train – The Temptations
Hobo’s Lullabye – Emmylou Harris

Love Train -The O’Jays
Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Knight & The Pips
Northern Bound Train – Pete Droge

Ridin’ the Rails – k.d. lang and Take 6
Rock Island Line – Lead Belly

Writing from marginalized people’s POV

I get nervous about the notion of writing “from the viewpoint of marginalized people.”

Jaquandor informed me:

There’s a lot of discussion in the writing world about the extent to which white people should attempt to write from the viewpoints of marginalized people. Do you have a view on this? Should a white person write, say, a fictional memoir of a slave in Mississippi?

I was unaware of the debate, and I’m rather pleased by it, though diversity should be more than a marketing trend, but a way to get more voices in the marketplace.

This answered is colored (pun intended) by the fact that I lost a friend in 2016 because, in discussions on Facebook and elsewhere, I thought I had understood the specific isolation that someone of a different culture – not white – was experiencing. I was severely upbraided for assuming facts apparently not in evidence. That I was not the only one so rejected was small comfort.

To your question, you COULD write a story about a poor, gay youth in Florida. But it seems to me that someone who had actual knowledge and interest in the topic would be better served to put out something like that.

I do admire the notion that white people recognize sharing the stories that do not get told, such as Rebecca Skloot writing about Henrietta Lacks, is important. Waking Up White, and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving is HER perspective on race in America, not an assumption of someone else’s experience.

But I get nervous about the notion of writing “from the viewpoint of marginalized people.” This is because I think it is difficult to “get inside in the skin” of another. It’s not that I think it’s a bad idea to write about another culture, in the abstract; it’s that I’m afraid it would not have a good outcome. It could be seen as elitist by minorities, and if it were a hit, it would likely be seen as successful BECAUSE of the white face involved. If it were lousy, it would be considered insulting.

In Mary C. Moore’s blog, she writes Diversity vs Marginalized: Writing In Tune With Current Voices:

Part of what makes a great writer, whatever background they have and whatever genre they are writing in, is the ability to capture and reflect on truths in society. To dive beneath the surface of the collective and draw it out in your story. These are the stories that resonate and connect with readers… But an unfortunate result is that “diverse books” is becoming something of a catch phrase. And when something becomes a catch phrase, it loses some of its meaning and the truth we are seeking becomes muddled…

Non-marginalized writers may have the urge to say, “but I want to be a part of this, I want to support and represent diversity.” That is a great attitude to have, but do so with awareness and modesty, not because you are seeking pats-on-the-back. The first step? Know the difference between writing diversity and writing from a marginalized point of view.

For that fictional memoir of a slave in Mississippi, is the writer going to use patois? THAT could be interesting for a white writer using “dese” and “dem” from the mouths of others.

I thought the maxim was to write about what you know. Not that canvas can’t get wider. I could write, not just as a black man, but as a father after 50, or someone with vitiligo, a male librarian in what had been a traditionally female profession, or a reformed comic book reader, or a daily blogger, or progressive Christian, or whatever. One can find diversity in many ways.

You couldn’t relate to the Beatles 10 years ago, but you could now write about being a relative novice in Beatlemania. Or any of the adventures/struggles that are specific to your experience, yet universal in our understanding.

Abolish the Electoral College?

Here’s Arthur with another Ask Roger Anything question:

Where are you at now with the whole “abolish the Electoral College” thing?

Let me back up and address the request by several entities, including my local paper, to deny Prima Donald an Electoral College victory.

I had real ambivalence about it – rather than outright rejection – because a number of people I knew and respected supported it. I didn’t think it would work, but then again, I didn’t think AO would win the electoral vote.

And I wasn’t sure that it SHOULD work because using a maneuver that hadn’t used in two centuries would not go down well with a large swatch of the public. The only thing I wrote, I believe, was that we could deny him an EC victory now or impeach him later, since, like many people, I believe he will be at least subject to impeachment on January 20.

As you know, Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 states that no American officeholder shall, “without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” But that is exactly what Bratman is about to do, without divestment, or a blind trust, which having the kids run the show after being part of the transition does not qualify. He risks endangering American democracy.

It is true that for the second time in five elections, a presidential candidate who won the most popular votes lost the election. Hillary won the popular vote by nearly three million ballots. Still, I’m not so sure that abolition of the Electoral College is the solution.

How do you address Republicans’ belief that if the EC was abolished, big states (California, New York, etc.) would solely choose the winner?

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

It COULD happen in either system. Avoiding that was the reason for the initial design. Instead of concentrating on “swing states”, one could concentrate on large states. Instead of ignoring New York and Texas, one could ignore New Hampshire and New Mexico. People would still fly over Wyoming and Delaware in favor of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

And state borders are so random. So are counties, BTW, which is why you have 62 of them in New York, some large and relatively empty others with great density, and nearly 200 fewer counties there than Texas.

Here’s an interesting article in the New Republic from 2012. I agree that the Electoral College is a terribly difficult system to explain. Yet I do think that the argument that (choke) Mitch McConnell articulated it in 2001 is not necessarily wrong that, absent the EC, we could have had recounts in almost EVERY state, not just Florida, in 2000.

The REAL problem for me with abolishing the Electoral College is that we have the first past the post system, where the person with the plurality, even a small plurality, say 34% in a three-person race, of the vote, rather than the majority, could become President. I’ve become a broken record on this, but we need ranked, Instant Runoff Voting; this would make me more enthused about getting rid of the EC. Otherwise, a candidate could manage to win PLURALITIES in a few large states and win.

Once upon a time, in this blog, I had suggested that all the states should switch to the way Maine and Nebraska do it, with the electoral votes apportioned by Congressional district, and the statewide winner getting the other two electoral votes. But when I realized that, in 2012, more people voted for Democrats for the US House of Representatives, but Republicans won the majority of the seats, I had an epiphany. THAT WON’T WORK unless there is a way to draw Congressional lines in an unbiased, non-partisan way, which, of course, means state legislatures ceding power to a fair third-party entity, since they cannot do it themselves.

So I have no strong feelings on the EC, but I am for IRV being instituted AND having fair Congressional lines being drawn, plus ending voter suppression, which may have made a difference in this election. BTW, Arthur answered the question himself, after he asked me but before I had a chance to post this.

As part of a larger question, which I will deal with later, Jaquandor notes that the election of Darth Hater was-
ultimately abetted by a weird quirk in our electoral system (a quirk that, for all the defense it gets, has not been replicated ANYWHERE on Earth in anybody else’s electoral system)

I can’t say that I know how every country works electorally and am not energized enough to investigate them fully. Wikipedia suggests there ARE other countries with electoral colleges, though the ones for which they give specifics are in no large way anything like our system.

Agent Orange versus my optimism/pessimism

The Trump adult male scions – THEM I need a name for; any ideas?

Arthur could hardly find any questions at all to ask me for Ask Roger Anything:

What the hell should we call the Orange Guy? I personally don’t want to use his surname, title, or anything else that would indicate respect for him that I don’t have. What’s the alternative(s) without being too childish?

I think this is a personal decision. I’ve seen Drumpf (based on the family name) which carries over to the proto-Nazi activities such as vilifying the press, and I briefly used that, but it’s a pain to spell. Others drop the T from the surname and refer to him as Rump because he’s such an ass.

I was quite taken by Hair Furor, but it works better in writing than in spoken word, because it sounds exactly as it’s SUPPOSED to sound.

Currently, I’ve settled on Agent Orange, a defoliant used during the Vietnam war to destroy the enemy’s plant life but which managed to harm or kill innocent civilians and American troops, because I find him toxic. A guy named Michael who I knew for only a short time died from it in the early 1980s. I’m not married to that term, but it’ll do for now.

All things considered—interpret that as you want—are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? If pessimistic, what are a couple things that if they changed might make you more optimistic? And if you’re optimistic, what’s your secret?!

Yes. I mean I’m optimistic because my faith requires it. I don’t mean this in a doctrinaire way, but rather how I take being a Christian. I believe, honestly, that people can change, that we all have a shot at redemption. I’m pessimistic because, despite my faith, that’s what I tend to default to, from painful experience.

Melancholy gets in the way too, and it’s not just me: Americans who voted against AO are feeling unprecedented dread and despair.

I’d be more optimistic if I thought we were all dealing with the same facts. There was this story about the Trump adult male scions – THEM I need a name for; any ideas? – involved in some unsavory pay-for-play scheme, for the second time since the election.

Someone, who I know personally, chimed in and said it was “Fake news. Fake news. Fake news.” And she said, “Research it.” I said, I did. And she said, “Please, check with Trump sources,” by which time the boys were backpedaling, not knowing HOW their names showed up on the invitation.

I wrote, “They realize they’ve been caught doing something egregiously wrong and try to change the narrative, to be kind. You do not seem to understand the definition of ‘fake news,’ which [contains] articles that are false, written to deceive. These are mainstream news sources [TIME, the Wall Street Journal] playing the appropriate role as the fourth estate, ignoring a politician’s spin…”

I also cited Mark Evanier, who noted: “You get the feeling we’re facing four years where the response to every single criticism of the Trump presidency will be that it’s a lie, the evidence is phony and even it were true, we don’t care what anyone says.”

And it went on from there.

John Ziegler, conservative radio host: “Over the years, we’ve effectively brainwashed the core of our audience to distrust anything that they disagree with.” The quote was in a New York Times story about how conservatives are now using the term “fake news” for anything they disagree with. And even educated people are buying into it.

We can’t fight ~~climate change~~GLOBAL WARMING if we can’t agree it’s happening. Plus the nominees for Cabinet positions under Agent Orange are anti-environment, anti-labor, anti-education, et al. How optimistic do you want me to be? Still, we try.

Only slightly off topic: NO one should ever use the phrase “Do your research” on social media without a link to the research THEY are referring to. As a librarian, I need to know WHAT sources someone is quoting that I need to investigate. I’m sure I’ve written that before, but after the aforementioned incident, I feel the need to reiterate it.

Jaquandor asks a similar question:

Is it just wishful thinking that I increasingly see Trump as the somewhat accidental victory of a dying worldview?

I find in AO’s victory, and some right-wingers in Europe, including the Brexit vote, a return to tribalism. When the world is scary, with bombings and shootings and stabbings and trucks being used as weapons, I suspect that there will be a certain desire for a “good old days” that doesn’t exist, that closing the borders ultimately won’t fix.

I would like to think of it as a dying worldview, but I’m not convinced I’m right.

I think things are likely to get pretty cruddy short-term

Now THAT I agree with!

The family saw a production of Camelot at the Capitol Rep in downtown Albany on Christmas Eve afternoon. It was EXTRAORDINARILY good, with knights and ladies and even the leading lady doubling as instrumentalists. But in the end, I was incredibly sad.

That ideal of working things out under the rules of law, and brainpower, lost! War won out. And this was a day or two after Agent Orange called for a nuclear arms race.

…but I remain optimistic long-term. Am I dumb to think that?

Well, no, you’re not dumb. Without hope, what is there?

At our most recent Christmas Eve service, I read aloud Isaiah 11: 4a, 5-9, which contains the familiar, albeit misremembered, passage about the wolf and the lamb. Either it is a prophecy, or it is an entreating that we help make it happen. Either way, I am not without hope.