VARIETY . SPICE . LIFE

My Most Personal Post So Far

Posted on March 23, 2016 | Leave a comment

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Feeling more than a bit something or other — off my game. In the past three years:
1. Post-Boston Marathon shootout, lockdown, house-to-house search, capture here in my small town.
2. Adult son C. in Paris when Charlie Hebdo massacre takes place. He joins in the protest demonstration.
3. C. back in Paris (he spends a fair amount of time there) and looking forward to concert by San Fran acquaintances at Bataclan. Avoids massacre there because of totally random sudden change of plans. His local cafe was one of those shot up.
4. Last weekend, adult son D. is in Turkey on a business trip when suicide bomber blows himself up a couple of blocks from his Istanbul hotel — he won’t tell us how close it actually was.

All 2nd or 3rd hand and we are all safe and sound. In the face of so much death and destruction it feels awkward, almost voyeuristic, to complain about feeling shaken. And yet, there is some sort of cumulative effect.

Among other things, I am almost at a loss to weigh the logic of my ideas and opinions about Brussels. I don’t like being my own guinea pig as I veer between reason and emotion; between, at the extremes, what motivates followers of Bernie and followers of Trump.

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Posted in Paris, Istanbul, Brussels

Tagged Brussels, Istanbul, Paris

“Save Your Confederate Money, Boys…”

Posted on February 24, 2016 | Leave a comment

“According to P.P.P., 70 percent of Mr. Trump’s voters in South Carolina wish the Confederate battle flag were still flying on their statehouse grounds. (It was removed last summer less than a month after a mass shooting at a black church in Charleston.) The polling firm says that 38 percent of them wish the South had won the Civil War. Only a quarter of Mr. Rubio’s supporters share that wish, and even fewer of Mr. Kasich’s and Mr. Carson’s do.

Nationally, the YouGov data show a similar trend: Nearly 20 percent of Mr. Trump’s voters disagreed with the freeing of slaves in Southern states after the Civil War. Only 5 percent of Mr. Rubio’s voters share this view.

Mr. Trump’s popularity with white, working-class voters who are more likely than other Republicans to believe that whites are a supreme race and who long for the Confederacy may make him unpopular among leaders in his party. But it’s worth noting that he isn’t persuading voters to hold these beliefs. The beliefs were there — and have been for some time…”

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Posted in Civil War, Slavery, Trump

Tagged Confederate flag, Racism, Slavery, Trump

Edward M. Bannister’s Providence, RI, Home

Posted on February 20, 2016 | 1 comment

This is the house where the 19th-century black painter Edward Mitchell Bannister and his wife, Christianna Carteaux Bannister, lived in Providence, RI. It was long left derelict and was in danger of being demolished. It’s a long story, but this is a happy outcome.

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Posted in 19th century, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Christiana Carteaux Bannister, Providence, Rhode Island, Black Artist

Tagged Black Artist, Christiana Carteaux Bannister, Edward Mitchell Bannister, Providence Rhode Island

Ronald E. McNair, Challenger Astronaut

Posted on January 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

The Ronald E. McNair Building at MIT with a group of students in a program named for him. We commemorate a day of the loss of so much talent and promise. A catastrophe that was the result of hubris.

“6 months prior to the launch, the following memo was sent by Roger Boisjoly — an engineer working at Morton Thiokol, the manufacturers of the solid rocket boosters — to the company’s Vice President, in which he predicted the problem and warned of a potential “catastrophe of the highest order.”

Boisjoly’s warning went unheeded; he then attempted to halt the launch, unsuccessfully. Boisjoly later revealed this memo to the presidential commission investigating the disaster…” [Link below]

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/result-would-be-catastrophe.html?m=1

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Posted in Ronald E. McNair, Challenger Astronaut, Hubris,

Tagged Challenger Astronaut, Hubris, Ronald E. McNair

Judith Resnick, Challenger Astronaut

Posted on January 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

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AS we mark the years since this terrible event, don’t lose sight of Judith Resnick’s remarkable career and achievement.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/resnik-judith

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Posted in Judith Resnick, Female Astronaut, Jewish Astronaut, Challenger

Tagged Challenger Explosion, Jewish Astronaut, Judith Resnick

Walking To Denmark

Posted on January 27, 2016 | Leave a comment

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The Danish decision to strip arriving refugees of all valuables except wedding rings in order to help finance their presence in Denmark is cruel and grotesque. What exactly do they plan to do with grandma’s coin silver spoons and aunt Laila’s antique watch? Melt them down? Hold yard sales?

The situation in Denmark and elsewhere is indeed a crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people WALKING across continents in 2016 is a crisis. The arrival of hundreds a week from North Africa to Italy is a crisis. The hellish encampment at Calais is a crisis.

Germany made a decent attempt to think ahead, but they had no E.U. support or any other comprehensive help in attempting to plan and work things through. Why are no regional responses being developed? Temporary housing, food, medical care, social services. Instead, there is a rise of the finger-pointing, alarmist right. I’m not naïve, there are no simple fixes, but it is possible to avoid devolving into chaos.

All those big-wigs who just finished meeting in Davos could gather the financing, expertise, logistical problem-solving in a month-long emergency meeting and develop workable plans. Hell, Silicon Valley could do it. Horrible that the humane and political motivation is just not there. Denmark-and-refugees-2015