Personal Musings category archive

A couple of season ago, the TV show Bones had a Muslim character as an intern in the lab.

In the story line, he masqueraded as an immigrant, affecting an accent, fearing that to reveal that he in fact was a native-born fully Americanized religiously-observant Muslim would be too difficult in the workplace.

Such a masquerade in the face of the virulent bigotry of some against all Muslims because of the actions of a few Muslims seemed unfortunately most plausible. Indeed, given the implausible plots of the Bones series, it was one of the more plausible narratives of that sequence of shows.

Clarence Page writes in the Chicago Tribune (follow the link for the full column):

“Maybe we need a Muslim version of ‘The Cosby Show,'” she (Katie Couric–ed.) said. “I know that sounds crazy. But ‘The Cosby Show’ did so much to change attitudes about African-Americans in this country, and I think sometimes people are afraid of things they don’t understand.”

She’s right. A black TV family like Bill Cosby’s Huxtables — or a Hispanic-American family like, say, George Lopez’s show — might not seem like such a big deal anymore, now that a real-life black family occupies the White House. But back in the 1980s, “The Cosby Show” was the decade’s biggest TV hit and is even credited with changing the way a lot of us black Americans viewed ourselves and our perceptions of opportunity in America’s mainstream.

Some critics still complain that “The Cosby Show” was too good, that it’s well-off family headed by a doctor and a lawyer was too far removed from the lives that most black people lived. But, more important in my view was the larger message: The American Dream is not for whites only.

Imagine the exploding wingnut heads if this were actually to take place.

American Idol is the Gong Show with no sense of humor.

I tend to think that compromise is generally a good thing, so long as there are not clear moral issues on one or the other side. Half a loaf and all that.

But exceptions exist.

Here is an example of a case in which failure to compromise will ultimately benefit the common good and, indeed, all of society:

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC, last in the ratings among the big broadcast networks this season, has been unable to renew its most-popular drama “Desperate Housewives” because of pay demands by three of the show’s stars.

I urge both parties to stand firm and resist conciliation.

Clarence Page discusses the recent silly attempt to bowdlerize Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.

Twain was a man of his time who rose above his Southern heritage to reject the bigotry and prejudice of his upbringing. And even though the Civil War ended outright slavery when Twain was a young man, explicit and outspoken bigotry, prejudice, and racial oppression were accepted in the public discourse long after Twain’s death.

Page comments:

As a black kid who read “Huck” in a mostly white classroom with a white teacher, I know the unsettling startling pain of seeing the N-word used so casually in print. But I also am eternally grateful to our teacher for helping us to talk about it. She helped us to appreciate the book’s genius of language, vision and, most memorable, its quietly subversive satirical cleverness. It skewers the immorality of white supremacy that it so vividly portrays.

Young Huck’s moral compass is warped by his drunken, brutal father and the culture in which Huck was raised, as his casual use of the N-word illustrates. Escaping his father, he unexpectedly teams up with the slave Jim. He feels guilty at first about helping his neighbor’s “property” escape. Yet as he gets to know Jim and his desire to rescue his wife and children, the slave becomes a better father figure than the one Huck left behind. To me, the book is that rare classic that I not only praise but still enjoy reading.

Huckleberry Finn, despite the burlesque humor, is a novel of transcendence, of Huck’s realizing that the beliefs he was brought up with were evil.

The discomfort that Huck Finn causes today says more about the persistance of those same beliefs in our society than it does about Twain’s honest confronting of them, counched as it was in the common speech of his time, in the pages of a book.

Two examples today:

• Rich folks in Philly are trying to shut down a restaurant that has been in operation years longer than the building they occupy has existed.
• Folks in southside Virginia don’t want the Navy to use its airport (which it admittedly hasn’t been using) because they don’t like the sound of planes. Trainees have been flying to Florida to use an airport there (fuel conservation and costs anyone?).

Regarding the former, well, the arrogance of the well-heeled who are such delicate flowers of privilege that they are willing to destroy a popular business and put persons out of work because they are miffed by the sight and sound of the hoi polloi. Words fail me.

Regarding the latter, even though it is true that the military sometimes uses “military necessity” and “training purposes” to excuse lax and improper and even illegal practices (Google “benzene camp lejeune“), but, in this case, I mean, really. It is an airport, for Pete’s sake. It’s there to port air. Grow up.

Aside:

At dinner last night, some of the young whippersnappers revealed that they had never heard a sonic boom. Apparently, there was one in the area about a year ago caused by a natural phenomenon which resulted in a bit of consternation.

Back in the olden days of men of iron and ships of wood titanium, used to hear them all the time.

David Polk finds cell phones scary:

First, the ability to call mom or dad the instant something occurs retards maturation. There is a reason why the age of adulthood is getting older. We are letting our children remain dependent upon their parents for much longer than previous generations.

Second, this obsession is having negative consequences in the workplace. A member of our advisory board for the Center for Professional Excellence tells of interviewing a candidate for a job in his company. During the interview, the candidate’s cell phone rang, and the candidate answered the phone. Upon the completion of the call, the candidate signaled that the interview can continue. Guess who didn’t get the job? Worse, guess who didn’t understand why they didn’t get the job?

I know that persons use cell phones and other gadgets inappropriately and often stupidly. The local rag had an item in their politeness column about some lady who sent texts throughour the evening Christmas service at her church, giving new meaning to “Let your light so shine” (link not available).

But, ya know, it’s not the phones that are being stupid. Let’s not blame the phones.

What the phones (and other iJunk) do is give humans new and creative opportunities to demonstrate human stupid. And human stupid is always with us.

Afterthought:

If I were a hiring manager (or a prospective suitor or otherwise in the market), I would much rather find out that the applicant was a dolt before making the job offer.

It indicates how ridiculously overstuffed the NCAA college football bowl schedule has become that I could not find any noticeable mention of the whachamaycallit Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl (sheesh! who thinks this stuff up?) in the local rag or any of several newspaper websites I visited.

The local rag’s printed “Bowl Roundup” didn’t even refer to it with a “Too late for press time” note.

I finally found the score at the ESPN (Entirely Superfluous Pontification Network) website.

Read more »

Brad West, writing in the Wilmington News-Journal, rips the NCAA, which he refers to as the National Cash Acquisition Association.

He’s got a point, indeed, several points. A nugget:

The Exalted Keepers of the Cash Register threw the book at five Ohio State football players. Strangely, it’s a book they won’t have to open until next season — if ever.

The NCAA ruled that Terrelle Pryor, Daniel “Boom” Herron, DeVier Posey, Mike Adams and Solomon Thomas did some really bad things. They sold things — that belonged to them.

(snip)

But wait — it gets worse. A couple of these guys sold … gasp! … jerseys.

This is the most horrendous of crimes. When I Googled “Ohio State jerseys,” 641,000 listings popped up. For $59.99, just about any sports retailer will sell you an Ohio State jersey.

That’s OK. Because when a retailer sells an Ohio State jersey, the retailer, Ohio State and the NCAA make money.

But when an Ohio State player sells you a jersey, the retailer, Ohio State and the NCAA don’t make money.

With all the money floating around big-time college sports, most of it going to everyone except the persons who put their bodies and their brain concussions on the line on the field, the fiction that NCAA competitions are amateur enterprises founded in snowy pure love of competition and immaculate striving for excellence is becoming somewhat tattered.

Two golfers just went by on the course next door.

I could tell that for them golf is a religious experience by the fervor with which they invoked the deity.

J. R. Labbe in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Proclaiming one’s faith through an uttered “Merry Christmas” — or becoming angry at the restaurant manager who doesn’t — isn’t the way to display our humble faithfulness to the mission our Father gave us — to love our neighbors.

Living out that faith — putting our muscle and minds and money into tackling hunger and poverty and homelessness — is what keeps Christ in Christmas.

She goes on to suggest that, once Christmas became a national, that is, secular holiday, secular influences were inevitable, and suggests renaming the national holiday (Festivus, anyone?) and leaving the religious holiday to the religious.

I congratulate her for a rational view, but I suspect that trying to engineer away the phony war on Christmas would be pointless.

Those who promote it care not for facts, only for faction.

‘Twere better to ignore them.

Some years ago, I was making the rounds of my office saying farewell to my coworkers before leaving for vacation over Christmas.

I said to one fellow, who happened to be jealous, “Merry Christmas!”

The Director (who was one of the worst bosses I ever knew–fortunately, he wasn’t my boss) said, “You can’t say that to S.; he’s Jewish!”

S. got a hurt look on his face and said plaintively, “Aren’t I allowed?”

Jamie Katz writes in the Chicago Tribune (I suggest reading the whole column for context):

I happen to be Jewish. And I’ve lived most of my life in New York City, where, on the whole, contrary to rumor, people of every faith, language and hue do a pretty good job of getting along.

Not once, ever, publicly or privately, have I heard anyone — Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Cherokee, atheist or Aqua Buddhist — say he or she was insulted by a sincere holiday greeting that included the word Christmas.

Of course, if you’re aware that someone celebrates a different tradition, it’s nice to acknowledge that too. And if you have no idea whether he or she prefers Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or Omisoka, you can always say, “Happy Festivus for the rest of us!” or even “Happy holidays!” It’s not that bad.

But just as Americans of every stripe acknowledge English as the common tongue, we all know that a hefty majority of us profess Christianity in one form or another. As long as we are free to do otherwise, where’s the problem? Sane adults understand that a cheerful greeting is not an intolerant decree.

The phony war on Christmas has nothing to do with Christmas.

It is a strategy to foster hate in the name of the God of love, a strategy embraced by those who fear and loathe anyone who they think is different from them.

I just looked at the college football “Bowl Guide” in the local rag.

Of the 35 bowl games listed, I’ve heard of 12, and several of those are under new names this year, like the perennially rebranded Peach Chick-Fil-A Bowl. (My friend was telling me just this noon that she had a bowl of Chick-Fil-A once and never again.)

Aside: Somehow, “Humanitarian” seems to be an inappropriate name for anything as concussive as football.

I’ve noticed that, when an outfit starts talking about “markets” and “branding,” bullshit goes up and value goes down.

In the immortal words of Yoghurt: “It’s merchandising.”

Another reason I’m losing interest in college football.

Meanwhile, Derrick Jackson covers another bowl, one which gets little coverage:

This year, 53 of the 70 teams, a record 76 percent, scored either a “Touchdown’’ or “First Down’’ in the (Graduation) Gap Bowl. That progress is led by the continued excellence of such schools as Boston College, which tied for the third-best African-American player graduation rate behind Notre Dame and Northwestern at 86 percent. Connecticut was 11th on that list at 74 percent.

It is truly amazing how a few colored lights can brighten up a dwelling.

The Republican Party’s fascination with the sex lives of American military personnel is downright creepy.

A bad movie in 3D is a bad movie times three.

I admit that I don’t like organized gambling houses. Part of it is that I spell gamble l-o-s-e (except for that one Exacta I hit at Delaware Park) and part of it is that the odds are stacked.

The house does, indeed, always win.

In short, gambling at the slots and in casinos is a mug’s game, no matter whether you wear a tuxedo or a tutu to do it.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Harvey Bryant announced Monday that a special grand jury has indicted the owners or operators of 10 Internet sweepstakes cafes on criminal charges of illegal gambling.

The defendants face indictments as the result of an investigation that culminated with police raids of the businesses in September.

(snip)

Sweepstakes cafes occupy a murky area of state law. Some commonwealth’s attorneys, such as Bryant, have said they’re illegal, and some have said they’re not. Chesapeake has not taken action against them.

The owners say they don’t meet the legal definition of gambling.

I’ve read descriptions of how these “internet sweepstakes” work.

Whether or not they are legal is one thing, but there is no way they aren’t gambling.

Aside:

I have nothing against the weekly poker game amongst old friends that goes on next door.

A. People lie. Governments are made up of people. Governments lie. Liars don’t like getting caught.

And this surprises you how?

The amount of food that some persons manage to pile on their plates at an all-you-can-eat buffet, where you can go back for seconds and thirds and fourths if you can still walk, is truly astounding.

Were the same ingenuity applied to global warming, the problem would be licked by Tuesday afternoon.

A few days ago, I was unlucky enough to catch about two minutes of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, the scene in which the colonists and the Indians are carrying their foodstuffs to the feast.

What a charming scene.

What is missing from the American myth of the first Thanksgiving. (Which actually took place in Virginia even before the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth Bay, having missed their intended destination, Virginia, by some 800 miles. Probably just as well: in those days, Virginians had little patience with stern absolutists determined to impose their religion on others. These days folks like that get elected attorney-general, but I digress . . . .)

. . . anyhoo, what is missing is any recognition that, for the next three centuries, the colonists and their descendants occupied themselves with assiduously attempting to swindle, pillage, expel, and exterminate American Indians.

Shaun Mullen also seems to have some mixed feelings, not so much about then as about now.