5/23/12
5/13/12
For Mom: Updated (Reposted)
Happy Mother's Day!
This was originally posted on election eve, the night Obama won. I feel the need to re-post it because mom's words--and mine--were so heartfelt at the time. I have become skeptical, but mom and her new love, Bill (a great guy, a former Chicago organizer, professor, and worthy of her) are still so hopeful--even in their seventies.
And since it's mom's birthday today I thought a little history of her was in order, again...
This was originally posted on election eve, the night Obama won. I feel the need to re-post it because mom's words--and mine--were so heartfelt at the time. I have become skeptical, but mom and her new love, Bill (a great guy, a former Chicago organizer, professor, and worthy of her) are still so hopeful--even in their seventies.
And since it's mom's birthday today I thought a little history of her was in order, again...
She was born in Kansas in 1933--the enlightened daughter of less enlightened parents, younger sister to a less enlightened one. These people are my maternal family. They didn't go to church, they worked hard for whatever they had, and they were tacitly racist. Not my mom.
My mom had dreams. She dreamed of being an actress, a singer, a director, a producer, a mother, a grandmother. She dreamed of the real world where people deserve respect, no matter their container. She fulfilled those dreams, not to the height she may have hoped, but she achieved them all with grace, kindness, thoughtfulness, and hard work.
She still dreams. She is a dreamer. She dreamed her way into my Jewish father's heart, and presto! here I am, 45 years later, her Jewish, atheist, teacher, blogger son.
Mom is a force. She raised 2 sons, and very nearly 2 granddaughters. She fairly recently buried my dad, and too recently, my big brother. She watched as her sister delved deeper into religious intolerance, ignorance, and prejudice. It made mom stronger. She is the strongest person I know.
She was a Hillary supporter until it became apparent that cause was lost. Barack's blackness never made an impression. She's as far from racist as one can be. She looks into your heart to find out who you are. She became an Obama supporter easily.
She spends her time nannying (for money, she ain't rich!) and organizing her community. She hosts dinner-discussions with the neighbors who don't quite understand how this feisty little woman can bring people together so easily, so lovingly, so gently, and with such focus; she invites local legislators to join in on these meetings--and they show up! She IS the neighborhood. Her neighbors tell me so every time I go up to see her. She knows it too. She's focused, purposeful, driven.
Last night, in her newly adopted home in the pacific northwest, she was out with the revelers as Obama became president. She called me around 9pm near the drum circle, much like a child would call out with joy, to share in her feeling of inclusiveness, and wonder, and satisfaction as she participated in her city's eruption of relief and hope.
If there is another mom out there like her, I don't believe it. She wrote this because she had to. She doesn't hold in her feelings, especially when they are feelings of hope and joy (and she has a thing for words):
In a park in downtown Chicago, in November, the night was cool and comfortable. On the stage, accepting the decision from the people of the United States of America to be their 44th president was a tall, slender black man with the voice of an orator. What, in this picture, would you draw an ironic? All of it, right? It would seem that the stars were aligned to make this particular moment in history hopeful and filled with promise. “Yes we can!”, shouted the crowd, “Obama”, on the next go around…tears rolling down cheeks, eyes bright with disbelief looking up at this smiling, Lincolnesque man on the stage, turning and waving, turning and waving, and as we gaze, forgetting all the disappointment and frustration of the last 8 years we gently place on his shoulders the hope that he will perform miracles. “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it”. Abraham Lincoln: February 1850This, dear readers, is the essence of what happened last night. Hope leading to the desire to work hard--real hard--to see that hope realized. My mom knows what's ahead. She'll be working hard, like she always does, to make the world worthy of her, all the while wondering if she is worthy of us. She is. She'll do the all the work she can. Will you? Will I? Hope. Realize the hope!
I have faith! I believe, with all my heart that we citizens of this country have a man, now our president, who will act to restore our respect, heal our wounds, inspire us to new heights, and do no harm. He will carry out his mandate and urge us to sacrifice for the good of what is needed. We can do that…we’ve done it before! He won’t ask us to walk through fire, but whatever he asks, we won’t do it alone. Obama will be right there beside us, our general, with the mud on his shoes and the fatigue on his face, encouraging us, “just a little farther, just a little more, we’re almost there”. I am so proud to be alive at this moment in history. Vive l'Amerique!!
Donald "Duck" Dunn, R.I.P.
duckdunn
As a member of Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Famers Booker T. & The MGs, Donald "Duck" Dunn was house bass player at the legendary Soul/R'n'B label, Stax, where his meaty playing helped define one of the most distinctive and enduring sounds in popular music. Among the timeless recordings Dunn held down the bottom end of, are Respect, Dock Of The Bay and I've Been Loving You Too Long, by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett's In The Midnight Hour, and Hold On I'm Coming by Sam and Dave, not to mention sessions with Neil Young, Eric Clapton and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Dunn kept the classic Stax sound alive and kicking as part of The Blues Brothers Band. Originally hand picked by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd - the Jake and Elwood characters in cult film, The Blues Brothers.
5/8/12
Maurice Sendak, R.I.P.
Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn.NYT
4/27/12
I Am Working On A Project
For the last couple months I have been working on a project that has taken all my time and energy. If it pans out I will be ready to deliver some high-quality early childhood education for some under-served families. I am very excited about it, but it leaves me little time for blogging and activism.I am still here, and still working to end "deform" it's just that I am busy, so less active.
Interjection: My 9th grader son told me this morning that he opted himself out of the test this week. He simply refused to take the test, as The Bartleby Project suggests. He makes me proud, that awesome son of mine.
Also, if the project happens I will be affiliated with a 501c3 so you can all deduct the many donations you will make to the project, and feel good about your donations.
If this project happens --and I think it will-- I will be revealing my true identity as well. I have a couple blogger friends who have done so and it makes life easier. As soon as I am sure of the project reaching fruition I will have no need for anonymity.
So, forgive my absence recently. Press on. I am watching!
Details as they emerge.
4/19/12
Levon Helm, R.I.P. Updated
Woodstock's Levon Helm, who was as much beloved for his salt of the earth integrity as he was for his earthen voice and in-the-pocket drumming, died Thursday afternoon in New York.recordonline.com
Helm was surrounded by friends and family, including his wife Sandy and daughter Amy, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. There will be a memorial service, but details have yet been finalized.
Update: This from Charles Pierce is worth a read:
It was a hot summer night very long ago, when my career in this racket was brand-new and distinctly alternative. I was in a beneath-the-sidewalk joint in Harvard Square called Jonathan Swift's, and I was listening to Levon Helm play with the Cate Brothers, who were formidable players in their own right, and old friends of Levon's from Arkansas. We were all deep into the howl of the evening when it occurred to my friend and I that we were enjoying the show so much that we really ought to buy Levon a beer. So we ordered one up, and the waitress brought it out to the stage and Levon took a long pull, looked down at the two of us, touched his drumstick to his forehead and said, "Thank you, neighbor."
It was what they were all about, Levon and the rest of The Band, in 1968, when the country was coming apart at the seams. Nothing was holding, least of all Mr. Yeats's center. There were tanks in Prague and there was blood on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. The traditional American values of home and family and neighborhood were being fashioned into cheap weapons to use against the people who saw the death and gore as the deepest kind of betrayal of the ideals that made those values worth a damn in the first place. The music was disparate and fragmented; the Beatles were producing masterpieces that they couldn't or wouldn't take on the road. Brian Wilson was long gone, spelunking through the canyons of what was left of his mind. Jim Morrison, that tinpot fraud, was mixing bullshit politics with kindergarten Freudian mumbo-jumbo and his band didn't even have a damn bass player. Elsewhere, there was torpid, silly psychedelia. The British were sort of holding it together, but, in America, even soul was coming apart. Nothing seemed rooted. Nothing abided. Nothing seemed to come from anything else. The whole country was bleeding from wounds nobody could find.h/t Doug Noon
4/18/12
Dick Clark, R.I.P.
Dick Clark, the music industry maverick, longtime TV host and powerhouse producer who changed the way we listened to pop music with "American Bandstand," and whose trademark "Rockin' Eve" became a fixture of New Year's celebrations, died today at the age of 82.ABC
4/14/12
Welcome, Townhall Folks!
Nice to see you here! Let's get going with Kyle Olson's tweets that he thinks you don't need to see over at your right wing rag (read from bottom to top--start at the bottom):
Kyle thinks he gets to choose how his tax dollars are used. And in a way he can, by voting. But he doesn't get to pick and choose on a daily basis or on a whim, that's not how economies of scale work, and that is the purpose of a "tax base" to spread the cost over many payers.
What you folks on the rabid right hate is the left, who you identify as commies, latte drinkers, teachers and other folks who care for others and who, in your simple minds teach your kids to be pussies, or something. We don't. We help them learn to think, unlike their right-wing, indoctrinated, ignorant parents who think the left is a cabal organizing to turn Americans into sniveling pussies, or something. Not really true. Pussies tend not to kill people, and we on the left, who are in control of government right now, seem to kill really well, so relax; we kill too, just like you Nugent folks.
Kyle would like to think he is an adult. As you can see from these lame tweets, he is not; he's sort of juvenile and simple, and frightened of a real discussion on public airwaves. He also thinks Click, Clack, Moo is a subversive union tesxt meant to indoctirnate young children. Yeah, right. Ever been in a classroom with little kids and read to them? They don't think of it that way. They think it's funny cows can type. It's you and Glenn Beck who find subversive nonsense in a cute little children's book.
So silly.
Come on Kyle, do my radio show, or FOX business news with me or Pete. Don't be afraid. We won't make you gay or Jewish. And, given the attention you're giving me, it seems you want to engage with me. Let's go! I am ready! Are you?
Feel free to comment here, folks, since you can't at Kyle's (who's the pussy?).
Kyle thinks he gets to choose how his tax dollars are used. And in a way he can, by voting. But he doesn't get to pick and choose on a daily basis or on a whim, that's not how economies of scale work, and that is the purpose of a "tax base" to spread the cost over many payers.
What you folks on the rabid right hate is the left, who you identify as commies, latte drinkers, teachers and other folks who care for others and who, in your simple minds teach your kids to be pussies, or something. We don't. We help them learn to think, unlike their right-wing, indoctrinated, ignorant parents who think the left is a cabal organizing to turn Americans into sniveling pussies, or something. Not really true. Pussies tend not to kill people, and we on the left, who are in control of government right now, seem to kill really well, so relax; we kill too, just like you Nugent folks.
Kyle would like to think he is an adult. As you can see from these lame tweets, he is not; he's sort of juvenile and simple, and frightened of a real discussion on public airwaves. He also thinks Click, Clack, Moo is a subversive union tesxt meant to indoctirnate young children. Yeah, right. Ever been in a classroom with little kids and read to them? They don't think of it that way. They think it's funny cows can type. It's you and Glenn Beck who find subversive nonsense in a cute little children's book.
So silly.
Come on Kyle, do my radio show, or FOX business news with me or Pete. Don't be afraid. We won't make you gay or Jewish. And, given the attention you're giving me, it seems you want to engage with me. Let's go! I am ready! Are you?
Feel free to comment here, folks, since you can't at Kyle's (who's the pussy?).
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