My parents, my nation

A curiously symbolic day.

Today, I closed down the two remaining bank accounts that had been in my parents’ name. There wasn’t much in them, actually. We had transferred the bulk of the funds long before. But we had to keep those accounts open to deal with a few outstanding expenses, and a few incoming checks, that were in their names.

I realized that...well, this is hard to explain...but somehow, it was the final act for them. It was the last of their business. It was the moment that they were genuinely gone. They exist no longer now even as a legal fiction...as names on pre-printed checks.

It makes me sad, of course. Though, also, it is fitting, for they were of the “greatest generation.” They were not old enough to fight in World War II, but they participated in it on the home front. And, afterwards, my father served on shipboard during the Korean conflict. Then, both of them were involved in that great labor which made America the wealthiest nation in the world.

And now they’re gone.

Gone on the very same day the Electoral College confirmed Donald Trump in his presidency. Gone, indeed, on the same day that Liberalism died in America, and the New  Deal was finally euthanized by billionaires and plutocrats. Gone on the day that so many of the things which they valued and fought for...came to an end.

And I think it is in fact an end. A transition. Today, we ended our great experiment with the Enlightenment tradition. Perhaps, forever. Or, if we are lucky, then maybe we, as a culture and a nation, may some day return to democracy, and reason, and science, and compassion. But I very much fear it will not be as the same nation we were before...not the United States we knew.

And I fear, too, that that future nation, that coming America, whatever it is called, ...will not be quite so great nor entirely so wise as the one constructed by people like my parents...built by their labors...and then abandoned with such ease and eagerness...by  those who are truly, and fundamentally unworthy...

To be their heirs.

In memoriam...Mom and Dad.

Nancy Pelosi...if only you were joking

Okay, is it just me, or is this really scary?

Apparently, newly returned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was on Face The Nation the other day. And, also apparently, she indicated that she saw no reason for the Democratic Party to do anything differently. She is quoted, at least in the transcript, as saying, “Well, I don’t think that people want a new direction.”

In a word, whoa.

We are sitting here after one of the greatest defeats in our history as a party and a movement, with an out-and-out fascist about to take over the government, with a solidly red House and Senate, with a Supreme Court that is certain to be packed with hyperconservative fanatics...and she doesn’t feel some sense of urgency? Some sense of a need for change?

And, about those people who “don’t want a new direction.” She says this after millions of voters supported Bernie Sanders. Voters who are still fuming about what they saw as a rigged primary? She doesn’t include such people in her calculations? She chooses to ignore them? So, she saying, in other words, that those “people who don’t want a new direction,” are the people she knows, and who therefore matter.  The rest of us...we don’t.

I am at a loss to explain this remarkable, almost chilling quote of hers. But a friend of mine, Rick, may have come up with the proper interpretation of her position. I posted an article about Pelosi’s quote to Facebook with the despairing comment, “Oh, F*cking H*ll.” And Rick replied with something sage. He quoted Harry Reid, a man of considerable wisdom, and then noted that Pelosi, and the scores of DNC mandarins like her, have no particular reason to want change...or to see or hear those who do.

After all, Rick went on, they... Pelosi and her tribe...will not lose their jobs. They will not lose their health care. They will be warm in winter and air conditioned in summer. They will remain members of the American power elite. Even under Trump.

And so, he concluded, they really don’t have much motivation to do anything different. Or even, particularly, to oppose Trump.

Is my friend right? Well, it would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?

Which is a terrifying thing, indeed.

The Professor Who Wasn’t There

 A brief meditation on a professor who really wasn't there at all.

https://vimeo.com/169623455

My videos

So I haven't been here in a while. Just haven't had the time.

But...I guess I should start up again. Over the new few days, I'll be posting links to all my most recent video experiments.

Stay tuned :-)

What a nightmare!

Haven't been here in a bit. But I felt the need to be so now...

This election?

What a nightmare.

The Smartest Kid In School

A brief meditation on a young and gifted academic who was, alas, so obsessed with being the most intelligent person in any room that she became, in the end, very much the fool.

The Sad Professor

Submitted for your approval, a professor who was in agony...because of his own narcissism.

The future belongs to her

A little meditation on a extremely annoying theorist I once met in passing...who was very sure that the future belonged to her.

Note To The 1%: The Alternative

Note to the rich and powerful, here are your options...

Choose carefully.

On The Morning Of The Coronation

I woke up this morning to find that Hillary Clinton had won not only the primary in California but also in several other states, including the one in which I live, New Mexico. As a good Bernie supporter, this disappointed me. But I can live with it, so long as there is not a Trump presidency in November.

What does disappoint me, however, and genuinely concerns me, is the media coverage so far. I don’t just mean the failure of the major news networks to notice the Sanders campaign for, like, ever. We’ve known all along that was happening—the vast crowds at Bernie rallies that somehow didn’t get televised, the primary victories that somehow were reported as defeats, and on and on and on.

What I do mean is that reading and watching the news this morning I was struck by the extraordinary uniformity of tone in the reportage. Commentator after commentator, news outlet after outlet, proclaimed that Clinton’s victory was total, and more, and that we should all be terribly proud of her, for it was “historic”—the first time a female candidate had gotten this close to the White House.

And if there was any notice at all paid to the Sanders campaign, it was to chide the man himself, and his supporters, for not doing the graceful thing and bowing out now. In fact, in several pieces I saw on the web, Sanders was portrayed as a rather mean old man, too stubborn to know that it was all over. And his followers? Infantile, entitled, and maybe even potentially violent. Oh, and via the marvelously effective but vaguely defined term, “Bernie Bros,” doubtlessly sexist as well.

Now, I’m going to skip over the issue of whether or not these interpretations of events are correct. I think they’re not. I think, in fact, that they’re so wrong as to be laughable. I want to focus instead on the reporting itself. It is stunning, genuinely stunning, to note just how universal these attitudes are in the media. Except on the odd fringe outlet, like the marvelous “Young Turks” Web-news service, you simply don’t see an alternative to this particular narrative.

It is so consistent, indeed, that it seems…let’s be blunt… a bit scripted.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m not saying that everyone in the national media is in on a secret plot to throttle the Sanders campaign and install Hillary in the White House. But, still this whole thing just feels creepy. There is something odd about so many people in positions of authority being on the same page at the same time, and reading in exactly the same tone of voice.

At the very least you have to suspect there is some groupthink going on here—that the pundits are talking way too much to one another, and not nearly enough to us unwashed masses outside the Beltway, Manhattan, and L.A.

And at the very most…well, there are only six major communications corporations in the country right now. Time Warner, News Corporation, Bertelsmann, Viacom, and General Electric (NBC) own pretty much everything. I believe the term is “oligopoly,” which sounds distressingly close to “oligarchy.”

Either way, groupthink or worse, I’m worried. A democracy does not work without the free flow of information…and without a news media that actually reports something like news.

Though, there is a small bright spot in all this. To wit, this has been an instructive day for me. And maybe for us all.

Specifically, if this primary has proved one thing, it is that our electoral system is in deep trouble, and has strayed far from the basic principles of democracy.

And an excellent first step to fixing that would be to break up the media oligopoly that controls the news…and with that oligopoly, the insularity of media people it has bred.

Because the alternative would be rather horrible, with the great Fourth Estate transformed into…nothing. Merely the outlet of whatever shared conception (real or illusion) which the Great Powers have decreed to be, in spite of all evidence…

The Truth.

Judged

I am not exactly innocent, but there is a reasonable doubt of guilt.

Conjectural Demons

In which I meditate on the uselessness of many fears and most worries...

Revenge

A brief meditation on the fact that revenge may be sweet...but it is often (alas) not cost effective.

A word of explanation to the Republican National Committee

So, the other day, I read that the Republican National Committee, and the Republican establishment in general, just couldn't understand why Trump...a radical populist demagogue who openly employs quasi-fascist rhetoric...could possibly have become their party's front runner.

Shocked, they were, they said, just shocked...and utterly mystified.

I therefore did this little video to, shall we shall, explain things to them.

https://vimeo.com/166115668

A meditation on something dread-full...but meaningless

Today I saw an interesting thing. There was an article on the web…actually a personal essay. It was written by an extremely earnest young individual and published (as I recall) by a left of center website.

But what intrigued me was the topic. The author was a white woman, intensely opposed to the patriarchy and the system As It Is. Which is quite understandable and, indeed, in my opinion, praiseworthy. Even as a white, middle-class, middle-aged male, I can see that.

But, where the story gets complicated is in her topic. She had written what amounted to a mea culpa…because of her hair.

She had, it seemed, dreads—dreadlocks, I mean. She had adopted this style as a means of advertising her opposition to the white patriarchy in all its manifestations.

Okay, fine. I’m not particular fond of dreads on us white people. I think they look kind of ridiculous. But it absolutely none of my business how people want to their wear their own hair.

But, the woman wrote…and wrote with what I think was real anguish...she realized that her adoption of the hair style was “cultural appropriation,” that it signified her own white privilege, and that she should be truly ashamed of herself. As an act of contrition, she then promptly snipped off her un-curly locks.
I came away from the story just a bit astonished. Because, well, bluntly, it is beyond what good or bad was done here.

I mean, honestly, exactly what real, honest-to-God, actual harm did her dreads do anyone or anything? Did they increase the probability of a young black man getting shot at random traffic stop? No, probably not. Those odds are pretty damn high as it is.  Okay, so did they cause more young women of color or otherwise to be raped and killed in their own neighborhoods? Again, no. That happens all too often, neither in spite nor because of anyone’s haircut.  So…let’s cut to the chase. Did her dreads mean that there were more drone strikes in Iraq, more innocent people blown to shreds in the Middle East, more people of color beaten to death in the backs of police vans…more wars or destruction or death or oppression?

Answer? No, no, no, and, for a change, no.

Okay, let’s play it back the other way. The author cut her hair. Did that do any good? I mean, real, material, physical good that you could see, feel, or measure? Did it reduce poverty in America? Did it feed hungry children in the streets? Did it put any serial killers, sadists, thugs, child abusers, terrorists, KKK members…or International Bankers…in jail?

Uh…no.

Very, very honestly, I am not sure that anything did happen here. I feel that it is complete non-event. Maybe it made the author feel better, which is fine. Maybe a few of acquaintances were no longer offended by her act of cultural appropriation…which is a good thing, I suppose. But, again, it seems a little irrelevant to the world at large.

Yet, clearly, this was an issue…for the author, and perhaps for the acquaintances I mentioned. And that concerns me.

The reason? If you really want something to be concerned about, if you want an issue, open your newspaper. Or turn on the computer. There’s lots to pick from, much of it perfectly horrible. In my own city paper, this morning, the headline article refers to a child, a Native American girl of just 11 years, who was abducted and killed by a stranger. They found her body on the mesa. The good news, if there can possibly be any, is that think they’ve caught the man who did it. (He won’t last long in prison, I suspect.)

Or, if that’s not to your taste, look over to the right side of the paper. We have news of Donald Trump’s more or less total victory in the GOP primaries. It is now pretty certain that he will be the candidate. That is a terrifying thing. I am one of those who believe that a Trump presidency could spell the end of the nation as we know it. But, then, none of the other Republicans were much less of a threat. (Can you genuinely envision a Ted Cruz in the White House? Or any of the puppets of the Koch Brothers?)

Still not enough? Okay, let’s flip open the paper. On the next few pages we have shootings and killings; stories on the increasingly bloody wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan; refugees turned back or beaten in Europe, or drowned off its shores; a feature on increasingly severe weather events, and the global warming which may make parts of the Middle East and North Africa uninhabitable before the end of the century; job losses and factories closing everywhere as the Neoliberal, Neo-Managerial, Post-Industrial Economy completes its disembowelment of the world…

There is, in short, not a place on the planet where you couldn’t find something…something real, something tangible, a genuine threat to life, limb, and liberty…to be concerned about.

In comparison to that, hair…or “cultural appropriation,” whatever the hell that really means…simply doesn’t cut it. No pun intended. It is, at best, irrelevant. At worst, it is a distraction from the real problems that we face as a civilization…from, in fact, the things which could result in our demise as a species.

That’s why this story of the author and her hair worries me. I don’t mean to focus on this one woman, or her essay. I don’t mean to personally rebuke her or discount her concerns. But, I have seen too much of this kind of thinking among the intellectuals, academics, activists, and others who should be at the cutting edge of social change, who should be the ones leading the charge, who should be fighting for inclusion, liberation, the end of oppression in all its myriad forms…

Yet, instead, they have focused on symbols rather than facts, on the abstract rather than the actual. Which means, in material terms, in terms of measurable good or bad, they might as well have never existed at all.

So, I beg you… all of you…idealists and activists and intellectuals…

For God’s sake, forget the hair, forget the “cultural appropriation,” forget the relentless hunt for slightest ideological imperfections in yourself and others… even, yes, for now (if not forever), forgive and forget the occasional “micro-aggressions” and insensitivities of even clueless white males like myself (well-meaning, but so dreadfully unaware of our privilege)…

And see the world as it really is…where they are much greater, much more dangerous dragons to oppose… far more deadly than dreads… even more perilous than men like me. Because dreads can be cut. I can be ignored.

But the deaths of children, of hope, of life…

Such things are horribly, terribly, unforgivably eternal.

The Most Moral Among Us

So, here’s something I’ve talked about before, but I’ll revisit it in light of the current election…

Certain figures in American politics (mostly on the Right) tell me, quite forcefully, that they represent the best in us. They say they are principled, strong, wise, and, for lack of a better term, genuinely American and truly Christian.

Which may be so…but…well…

I am a middle class, middle-aged chap who lives in the suburbs. I pay my bills on time. I don’t deal in drugs or steal cars or snatch purses. I have never cheated on my wife and don’t intend to. I don’t molest children. I even go to church on a regular basis.

And yet…

I just can’t escape the feeling that if those figures in politics, with all their self-professed morality, should come to power…

I might find myself in a very difficult position. I might find my, shall we say? position in society…terminated.

With extreme prejudice.

Taking Hate Seriously

Here’s an interesting piece of history. Until quite late, as late as 1940, a surprisingly large number of well-informed people thought that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was more show than real. It was, some people thought, merely a way of stirring up the masses, and would dissipate soon enough.

It made sense, really. Hitler was an Austrian, and an admirer of Karl Lueger, the mayor of Vienna who preached but did not practice anti-Semitism.

Only afterwards, did people realized that Hitler had been, all along, entirely ...and terribly...in earnest.

Why do I bring this up? Well, the amazing thing is how often in history we encounter exactly this sort of situation. A monster comes along and tells us precisely what he...or she...is going to do. But nobody believes him...or her. It is all put down as rhetorical flourish.

And then...and then...too late, we learn the truth.

Which is why I bring it all up now. It seems like we’ve got a few people making similar statements today...calling for violence...or making excuses for violence.

We do see it on the Left. Let’s be honest. It’s there. Seek and you shall find.

But, at least here in America, what I find most disturbing is its presence on the Right... in the statements of certain candidates.

And sometimes I fear that we are, once more, making an error...that we are discounting these remarks, a little too easily...

Because, history seems to show that when someone talks about expulsions, concentration camps, carpet bombing, targeted killings...we need to take them at their word. For they may well mean it.

Or even if they do not mean it, well, soon enough, there may well appear, some dreadful literalist, with no subtlety and no sense of humor, who shall make horribly real what his...or her...mentor considered merely abstract speculation.

And from that, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we might never recover.

This is the first of a series of short videos which I shall do about my father. And my mother. Their lives. And their deaths.

The videos will accompany a book which I’m also writing about them. When it’s done I’ll post links to where you can find it.

Why am I doing this? Well, as an homage to them. As a way of dealing with my feelings toward them. And, because we all go through this eventually, as a way of stating my affinity with the world.

With, that is, you.

mjt

My latest video...this one a little postmodern in that it talks about art and artist in an age of intelligent creations ...

Yet another experiment

So now I'm trying something else new. I have been posting my videos to Youtube, but then it dawned on me...why not just post them to Google drive (or wherever) and then provide a link to them?

Let's see if it works.

My father's obit...

Another little experimental video. I think this is a little more successful than the previous one, and I learned a great deal while making it (notably getting a better handle on having a picture in a picture).

Still, I think it didn’t quite work out as well as I’d hoped. The idea of a conversation between present, past, and future is an interesting one. But I’m not sure I completely pulled it off here. The meaning of the “future” framework around the major part of the story (my vide0) is just too obscure.

Still, it was interesting to make. (And yes, I really did have this talk with a friend.)

This may be the last of the purely experimental ones for a while. So, stay tuned for the next project...

Just a little meditation on the joys of being an obscure non-entity

Dedicated, with real affection, to those futurists who attempt to predict coming events to the best of their ability, regardless of who their prophecies might offend. And, with perhaps less affection, to those consultants who tell their clients only what they want to hear.

Plus, maybe, a little speculation on the capacity of ideology to blind us to peril.

And, finally, perhaps, some thoughts on the long term effects of the automation of white collar professions.

And part 4 of the Pucket Saga

And here, finally, is part of the Plucket saga :-)

cheers
mjt

And part 3 of the Magnificence of Rudolf O. Plucket!

I'll be interested in seeing how people respond to these. They are my very first attempt at story telling with limited animation. Clearly, I need a lot more practice before I get to the level of high-, middle-, or even low art. But, it is a fascinating experiment for me.

The Magnificence of Rudolf O. Plucket - Part II

My second attempt at telling a fiction as a multiple part, limited animation video. This is Part 2 of a four episode series.

Keep in mind, this is only an experiment...

mjt

The Magnificence of Rudolf O. Plucket - Part 1

Here's something quite new...

This is my first experiment at telling a fiction as a multiple-part, limited animation video.

This is part one. Parts two through four will follow.

Maybe not as close to the bone as my confessional pieces, but I’m learning a lot by doing them.

See what you think.

mjt

Once again, I've been stupid. And done an animation about it.

Like it says, I've been stupid and done a video about it.

The good news is that this is an interesting experiment, combining animation with live video.

Ode To Consumption

Just a little protest written when I was temporarily overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity of holiday shopping. Plus a few terrors about whether or not our society can survive in its present form.

But, don’t worry, I promise, in a week or so I’ll be back to normal and salivating over sports cars like a normal person.

On why the universe doesn't give a d*mn about your morality...

Like it says...