Racism, The Crown, More

 CONSORTIUM TAKEAWAY:  Ellen Kennedy, World Without Genocide, said “terrible things are happening here…legal systems needed to protect vulnerable from harm with the  rollback of LGBT rights in US and murders of transgender people here.  We need to get involved.  Upper Midwest Consortium for Holocaust and Genocide Education and Research held this webinar Tuesday: The Holocaust: An Introduction From 4 Perspectives. http://worldwithoutgenocide.org/

 MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY, GRANITO:  Suggested by Paula Cuellar Cuellar in my U of Minn. OLLI class on human rights in Central America and available on DVD.   Where do US foreign aid checks go?  Under Reagan, the Guatemalan militay junta received USA tax dollars and practiced genocide against Mayan indigenous people in Guatemala.  A trial in Spain convicted several in the military of genocide.  The elites confiscated the Mayan farmers’ land.  Fearing that the Mayans would act to reclaim their property, the military murdered the natives.

Boston University humanities professor Ibram X. Kendi writes:  “If racism is eliminated, many White people in the top economic and political brackets fear that it would eliminate one of the most effective tools they have at their disposal to conquer and control and exploit not only non-Whites, but also both low-income and middle-income White people.”

Plan to read National Book Award winner “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive Hisotry of Racist Ideas in America.”https://www.ibramxkendi.com/stamped

In the Netflix movie “Fruitvale Station” a Black man is ordered off a train in the Bay Area and then is shot by a cop.  No white people were asked to leave the train.  What would you have done if you were standing next to the deceased man?  To get a perspective, read George Yancy’s book, “Backlash: what happens when you talk honestly about racism in America.”  Take away:  we can’t continue to hide behind “white privilege.”http://georgeyancy.com/

MOMMIE DEAREST.  In the fourth season of  The Crown, all four of the royal adult children are summoned to the palace for separate audiences with the Queen who is sobered by their anger and frustration.  With three million British working class people jobless, the Queen is not in a charitable mood to entertain Prime Minister Thatcher when she comes to call.  Furthermore, Charles temperament regarding Princess Diana makes him a dubious choice for king and crown.https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/margaret-thatcher-queen-elizabeth-face-190357479.html

Sam G. Obit; Nightcrawler Review, Trump Call

IN WHICH WE SERVE.  Sam was a spry 96-year-old twice widowed World War Two veteran working out daily on his rowing machine, resurfacing the garage floor of his suburban home and tending the garden with the help of handyman Adrian.

Sam signed up as a teenager and served in the Pacific with the USN Construction Batallion (Seabees) where on a small island he would rendezvous with his cousins and fellow servicemen Louie Agranoff (Marine Corps) and my late uncle, Morrie Zarkin, a USN cook on a mine sweeper.

On the GI Bill he attended a business school where he graduated in accounting and worked for Minneapolis employers. The son of Russian immigrants, his mother and father were brother and sister to my father’s parents who moved from Minneapolis to Spokane, Wash., in the 1930s.  

Sam’s family remained in Minneapolis where he grew up in a Franklin Avenue neighborhood.

I first met Sam, his second wife Shirley and his two youngest children, Merryl and Arthur, in September 1969 when I arrived from Idaho and bunked with them for about three days before moving to a dorm at the University of Minnesota for graduate studies.  Sam and the kids gave me a tour of the Foshay Tower and Nicollet Mall and I went canoeing on Lake Harriet with Arthur on a perfect Indian summer’s day.

About five years ago I was reunited with Sam and Shirley for monthly dinners at nearby restaurants and then after Shirley passed away Sam and I lunched at the Jewish Community Center and Park Tavern.  I last saw him for lunch this past February and he called me most every Friday to wish me well for several months during the pandemic.

Words to live by from Sam:  Keep a step ahead of the grim reaper.  And he was successful doing that for 96 years. DAZ (Sam was my link to Uncle Morrie and the Greatest Generation and how the war influenced their lives.)

POWER. Get perspective on Trumpism,  See the 2014 film noir Nightcrawler wherein a sleazy photographer mouthing corporate jargon gains power in an LA TV newsroom by selling sensational crime news footage that can be marketed as suburban middle class families being victimized by inner city drug gangs, a distortion of the truth.   Viewership ratings that dictate news content are the catalyst to insure success for the this creepy photographer character played with conviction by Jake Gyllenhaal.   Well-schooled news gatekeepers who can see through his crude extortion attempts play his game, his way.  A nod to ethics and morality is given by a newsroom editor.  Hair-raising chase scenes in a red 2014 Dodge Challenger SRT are reminiscent of Steve McQueen in the “Bullet” Mustang.  

TRUMP CALL.  A rather hysterical Trump paced a robocall to me at 4:15 pm Tuesday with garbage about Biden and then a voice said if I wanted to make a donation, press 3 so I did.  I engaged the donation guy in idle chatter.  He said he was calling from DC, but not the White House.  He hung up on me when I offered to “donate to the defense fund for the tax evasion charge.”  Charles Koch’s group is supposed to know my voting record and social media leanings so Trump Inc. must be desperate.  I should have offered to send Stormy Daniels a check.

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has made global warming climate -change a taboo topic for Republicans because of the Koch network’s funding of candidates who favor fossil fuel industries.  Read more about this issue in Sen. Sheldon Wintehouse’s book, “Captured.”  Support Move to Amend to overturn Citizens United.