Another Day in American Life: Domestic Terror against Religious Minorities & Gun-based Mass Murder

Posted: August 5, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , | 28 Comments

By now, you’ve probably heard about the death of 7 people in a Sikh Gurdwara in Wisconsin. The FBI will be investigating this as an act of domestic terrorism.  There are three gun shot victims in critical condition in the hospital.  One is a police officer who was responding to the 911 call and was ambushed by the shooter.

Gun violence in the United States claims so many victims that events like these seem every day.  How many people need to die before we can challenge the NRA and its stranglehold on our elected officials?

I can only imagine what horrible details are going to come out about this shooter who was shot dead by the injured police officer’s partner.  The crime scene and the perpetrator will be investigated over night.

Today, we should remember these victims and all the victims of senseless gun crimes enabled by a society with a gun fetish masquerading as an appreciation of a constitutional right.

Please share your thoughts and links with us.

Om Shanti Om.

Open Thread: Gabby Douglas Wins Gold Medal in “Women’s Gymnastics All Round”

Posted: August 2, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , | 8 Comments

Here’s a feel-good story for you. LA Times:

LONDON — Gabrielle Douglas, a 16-year-old from Virginia Beach, took the women’s gymnastics all-around lead on her first event, the vault, and never let it go Thursday.

Douglas earned her second Olympic gold medal and became the first African-American Olympics all-around gold medalist by performing with ferocious power, high-flying aerial tricks on the uneven bars, a smartly cautious balance beam display and, finally, a joyfully exuberant tumbling romp on the floor exercise mat.

The silver medal went to Russia’s Victoria Komova, who wept in disappointment.

Aly Raisman of Needham, Massachusetts came in fourth.

From the Washington Post Olympic live blog:

Thursday’s triumph was the realization of a dream Douglas has had for years — a dream so powerful that it persuaded her to leave her family in Virginia Beach and move to West Des Moines, Iowa, at age 14 so she could train with Liang Chow, who had coached Iowa native Shawn Johnson to an Olympic gold and silver medal in 2008.

Douglas and her mother, Natalie Hawkins, explained to Chow that they wanted him to turn her into Olympic-caliber material — a tall order, the coach told them, in such a short time.
But Douglas packs staggering power on her 94-pound frame, uncanny flexibility and a determination that can’t quite be measured.

All of that was evident Thursday, as Douglas opened with the world’s most difficult vault, performed gracefully on the uneven bars and beam, and closed with a rousing, fun-loving floor routine that flaunted her full range of athletic skill and considerable charisma.

Congratulations, Gabby!!!!

Good Bye Mr. Vidal!

Posted: August 1, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , | 11 Comments

“Gore Vidal dies; imperious gadfly and prolific, graceful writer was 86”

Gore Vidal, 86, a celebrated writer, cultural gadfly and occasional political candidate, died of pneumonia Tuesday at his Hollywood Hills home, according to a nephew. Known for his urbanity and wit — “Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little” — Vidal’s literary career spanned more than 60 years, and he once said that he hoped to be remembered as “the person who wrote the best sentences of his time.”

He was an astonishingly versatile man of letters and nearly the last major writer of the modern era to have served in World War II. Having resolved at age 20 to live by his pen, Vidal produced plays for television and Broadway, including the classic political drama “The Best Man”; helped script such movies as “Ben-Hur,” the 1959 epic starring Charlton Heston; and gained notoriety for the campy novel “Myra Breckinridge,” about a transsexual film enthusiast.

Vidal also won plaudits from scholars, critics and ordinary readers for historical novels such as the best-selling “Julian,” “Burr” and “Lincoln,” and English critic Jonathan Keates called him “the 20th century’s finest essayist.” “United States,” which gathers Vidal’s essays on art, politics and himself, received the 1993 National Book Award. In print or on television — he was a frequent talk-show guest — the worldly Vidal provoked controversy with his laissez-faire attitude toward every sort of sexuality, his well-reasoned disgust with American imperialism and his sophisticated cynicism about love, religion, patriotism and other sacred cows.

The Atlantic had a conversation with Gore Vidal three years ago.

You  said earlier this month that you now wish you had supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries instead of Barack Obama. You said that she would make a better president.

Well, I was in a thoughtful mood.

Do you really wish you had supported Mrs. Clinton?

She would have been a wonderful president. As for my support for Obama, remember that I was brought up in Washington. It was an all-black city when I was a kid. And I’ve always been very pro-African-American – or whatever phrase we now use. I was curious to see what would happen when their time came. I was delighted when Obama appeared on the scene. But now it seems as though our original objection to him – that experience mattered – was well-founded.

Barack Obama’s books seemed to persuade many people to support him. Have you read them?

No. Does one ever read a politician’s books?

Well, Obama actually wrote them himself.

I’m sure he did. He’s highly educated – and rather better than a country like this deserves. Put that in red letters.

The President is having some difficulty getting his health care program through.

Well, if I were he, I would just give up. He should say to the country, “The Republicans will not allow these things to come to a vote without a filibuster. We can’t get anything through. So, good luck. Take two aspirin – and you’ll all die of the next epidemic.”

I first developed  deep admiration for him when he took on Bill Buckley and Norman Mailer back in the day.  He took on Dubya.  Do listen to the interview up top in the video.  It’s time worth spent.

Breaking News: Sally Ride Slips the Surly bonds of Earth

Posted: July 23, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , | 11 Comments

Sally Ride, first U.S. woman in space, dies at 61

Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman to travel into space, died on Monday after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, according to her organization, Sally Ride Science. She was 61.

Ride broke new ground for American women in 1983 when at the age of 32 she and four crewmates blasted off aboard space shuttle Challenger. She returned to space for a second mission a year later.

“Sally Ride broke barriers with grace and professionalism – and literally changed the face of America’s space program,” NASA administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, said in a statement.

“She will be missed, but her star will always shine brightly,” Bolden said.

Ride grew up in Los Angeles and attended Stanford University, where she earned degrees in physics and English. She joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 1978.

She was assigned to a third shuttle flight, but training for the mission was cut off after the fatal 1986 Challenger accident that claimed the lives of six colleagues and a schoolteacher.

Ride served as a member of the presidential commission that investigated the accident, then assisted the agency as an administrator with long-range and strategic planning.

She left NASA in 1989 and joined Stanford as a professor. Ride’s interest in education extended to younger students, particularly women whom she targeted with her science education startup Sally Ride Science in San Diego.

The company creates science programs and publications for elementary and middle school students and educators.

Ride also authored five science books for children and served on dozens of NASA, space and technology advisory panels, including the board that investigated the second fatal space shuttle accident in 2003.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Late Night: Woody Guthrie Centennial

Posted: July 15, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 12 Comments

Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger at one of his last concerts, Lennox, MA, July 1950

Above is one of a group of photos featured by NPR yesterday on what would have been Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday, had he lived.

After the dust of the Dust Bowl settled down, American folksinger Woody Guthrie moved to New York City and played more for the leftist East Coast intelligentsia than for migrant workers. Among these performances, one of the better documented was an informal concert in a remarkable carriage house in Lenox, Mass.

Neighbors to Tanglewood and the other arts institutions in the Berkshires, Philip and Stephanie Barber ran the Music Inn as a retreat for New York City intellectuals. Over the course of 30 years, they would hold informal folk and jazz concerts, roundtable discussions and other salon-style cultural events in the carriage house of the former summer estate of the Countess de Heredia.

The first concert was in July 1950. Alan Lomax, a friend of the Barbers, hosted a concert featuring Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Rev. Gary Davis. Among those in attendance was Dan Burley, a piano player and journalist for the Amsterdam News and other African-American newspapers.

CNN posted more gorgeous photos of Woody Guthrie in New York in 1943.

Guthrie’s mother had Huntington’s Disease, which is transmitted through a dominant gene. Woody was diagnosed with the disease in 1952, but had probably shown symptoms earlier than that. Huntington’s usually strikes in middle age, when it may have already been passed on to the next generation. I found this site, which tracks Woody’s knowledge of his family history of the disease and his gradual development of symptoms. Woody died on October 3, 1967.

NPR ran a couple of good programs about Woody Guthrie last week–a lengthy one on Fresh Air and a shorter report that highlights the Woody Guthrie archive on All Things Considered.

Woody’s father Charles Guthrie was a businessman and politician and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He apparently participated in the lynching of Laura and Lawrence Nelson in 1911. On Friday the LA Weekly published a article by Jonny Whiteside that calls Woody Guthrie “a big ol’ racist.” Whiteside also suggests that Guthrie was a fraud in that he lied about the source of his music.

You can read the article to assess these claims. I found the story interesting. I think that every great artist has negative aspects to his or her character, and that can be added to the overall picture. But I think it’s possible to evaluate the work itself separate from the character of the artist. Every human being is a complex mixture of light and shadow, as Jung would say.

I never fail to get chills when I hear “This Land is Your Land,” the radical anthem that Guthrie wrote in response to the song “God Bless America.”

This Land Is Your Land
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

© Copyright 1956 (renewed), 1958 (renewed), 1970 and 1972 by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)


Here are a few more Woody Guthrie songs:

All You Fascists Bound to Lose

Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad

So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You

This one was performed by a number of artists at the Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration: This Train is Bound for Glory.

What’s your favorite Woody Guthrie tune?

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