Columns
SMITHEREENS: Reflections on Bits & Pieces
The Week's Best Names in the News
Here are some plop-dazed name-faves that made it into print this week: A weightlifter from Tonga, a 70-year-old lady astronaut, a Tour de France cyclist, a SF Symphony conductor, a basket-ball-juggling Spelling Bee champ and her father. In that order: Kuinini "Nini" Manumua, Wally Funk, Sepp Kuss, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Zaila Avant-garde, and Jawara Spacetime.
Oddest Phone Message of the Month
Someone left a recorded message on my phone that simply announced: "There is no one here to take your call."
False Acronyms
BART is a true acronym. ICYMI is not an acronym.
A true acronym forms a pronounceable word. If it can't be pronounced as a word, it's not an acronym.
There's not a word for this in the English language. So let's create one.
Henceforth, an inaccurately named acronym shall be called an "inacronym."
Telecom Giant Living in Terror of Electronic Radiation?
AT&T, one of the biggest players in the TeleCom gameplan to roll out millions of 5G microwave transmitters across the US, apparently has a double standard when it comes to exposing citizens to unregulated electromagnetic radiation. Visitors to the AT&T office at 1612 Solano Avenue will discover an array of warning signs plastered over the front entrance.
One sign warns: "ATTN: Turn Off All Cellular Phones, P.C.'s and Two Way Radios Before Entering The Building."
A second sign seems to be at odds with the first. It reads: "Access to this building is monitored electronically. • Entry requires a valid access card • Visitors must arrange access with local management • For deliveries please use the phone."
Another reads: "WARNING. Entering this area can expose you to lead from lead acid batteries. Lead is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov."
The Adventitious Advance of TV Ads
Watching the televised evening news these days, a TV viewer can see news content atrophy in real time. CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and ABC World News Tonight all begin with a good serving of uninterrupted all-news reports but that starts to change a bit past the half-way mark.
On a typical evening, David Muir presides over ABC News for 19 uninterrupted minutes until the first commercial break (consisting of five concurrent ads). Muir returns to deliver two short news items—in less than a minute—(followed by a commercial break with seven back-to-back ads) and reappears to share a single news item that lasts less than a minute (followed by another spate of seven ads) before ending with a final "good news" spot that lasts a bit more than a minute.
It's a lot like watching a news anchor getting slowly swallowed in quicksand.
A Follow-up Note from Jeffrey Blankfort
Last week, we posted photographer Jeffrey Blankfort's backgrounder on the rediscovery of a rare satirical short filmed by The Committee. Here's a postscript from Blankfort with some enticing links.
"What your fans may find intriguing is that the woman walking down the Lombard St. stairs at the end of the film (and who I should have mentioned was Cathy Casamo) would, years later, become known as Stark Naked in Tom Wolf's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as Neil Cassady's lover. I have a page of photos of her and a link to more info on her on my website." Well worth a lingering look.
Capitalism Declining into Kaput-alism
Thanks to Laurence of Berkeley for this commentary from the June 25 issue of New York Magazine: "Not only do 51% of US citizens from 18 to 35 approve of 'socialism,' but also 60% of Black Americans. [I put "socialism" in quotes because it has so many different meanings.] And 55 percent of the entire population support Medicare for All. Also, as of last August, more Democrats approved of socialism than of capitalism—56% to 53%."
All we need now is some energy (and a real democracy) to make it happen
Give Him a Pass, Man
ICYMI (which I did, even though I was a co-conspirator in the underground "Whereas Campaign"), the City of Berkeley officially declared June 15 to be "Arnie Passman Day." As the official proclamation notes, Arnold "AP" Passman has spent more than six decades as a local wit, writer, poet, satirist, songwriter and activist.
T'was my pleasure to ramble with Arnie during our long stint with the Berkeley Barb and later to find amusement in the one-off staged performances of his subversive plays and the extended playtime that was AP's downtown House of Cards—a long-running, ad-hoc cabaret on University Avenue.
Besides chronicling the roots of rad-radio in his 1971 book, "The Deejays," Arnie has been an impresario (accent on the "imp") and host of varied celebrations including: the "Peace Symbol's Birthday" (February 21), "Midsummer Day/Peace Day" (August 6), and "Gandhi's Birthday" (October 2), which featured late-afternoon, live poetry readings around the Gandhi statue on SF's Pier 39.
The City Proclamation lists many of Arnie's odd-and-even-odder accomplishments but my favorite plaudit was lofted by Carol Denney whose tribute was crafted into the City's salute to AP as a madcap mensch who "this year turned 85 years old, all the while speaking puns to power."
Footnote: It was AP who, to the best of my knowledge, coined the word: "Kaput-alism."
Hey, Let's Make a Bundle by Selling Our Roads to Wall Street!
The Daily Kos is waving a warning flag. "Because Republicans refuse to make the rich or corporations pay higher taxes, the group of Democratic and Republican senators working on the bipartisan infrastructure package have come up with a dangerous new way to pay for their $579 billion proposal: privatize public assets.
"Privatizing infrastructure has not been a good deal for the government, or the public. In 2009, the city of Chicago sold 36,000 parking meters to a Wall Street firm. While that brought the city a little over $1 billion in revenue, Chicago drivers will now pay an additional $11 billion in parking rates [to the Wall Streeters] through the 75-year life of the agreement."
Bad policy.
Privatizing public works to finance social needs is like selling a family member to pay the rent.
“US Imperialism Is the Greatest Danger to World Peace”
On July 8, Belgian Parliament Member Raoul Hedebow (who represents the Workers' Party of Belgium) delivered one of the greatest anti-imperialist speeches of the year. The video was posted "unlisted" meaning "whoever uploaded it set it up that way so only those who know the link can view it." Well, it's time more people know about it!During his scathing 18-minute tutorial, Hedebouw easily switches between French and Flemish—a rare rhetorical touch designed to reach out both to politicians and workers.
A Transcriber's Footnote
The only posted translation of Hedebouw's presentation was in French. It was displayed in a sequence of hundreds of 4-second clips separated by time-code notations (i.e. 10:04). Removing more than 280 time codes produced a pile of French verbiage that, when run through an online translation service produced une grande montagne of nonsense—like the following:
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Needless to say, it took a good bit of time to reconstruct the English translation from the subtitles that flashed on the screen in the recorded video. Time well spent, I believe.
Thanks for the hard work on Building Back Better — the best social program package since the New Deal! Now let's retire the filibuster and make some real progress.
But PLEASE don't destroy our hopes by following a foreign policy based on American dominance!!!
The planet is at risk. All nations, all people, need to stop COMPETING and start COOPERATING in order to survive.
Don't risk nuclear extinction. Fighting to save the American Empire will take us down a dead-end street. Literally.
And those US airstrikes inside Syria? Those were not "self-defense." If you want to "protect" US troops, don't turn them into targets by ordering them to deploy halfway around the world. In someone else's country. Without an invitation.
Write Your Reps, then Right Your Reps
Contacting our senators and representatives has become a simple matter thanks to the Internet. We can hop online and respond to a grassroot petition posted by an activist group and directed at specific politicians. Responding to these petitions requires that we first select our preferred "Prefix" and then scroll down each politician's line-up of "Topics." Easy-Peasy.
But there are two obstacles in the way. Let's look at a typical Daily Kos petition.
First: selecting the perfect prefix. Our political leaders all seem to have agreed to 24 options (including Mr. Mrs. and Miss). But more than half of listed choices are military ranks—from Corporal to Commander. (If you ever worried about the "undue influence" of the military in forging US policies, this could be a matter of some concern.) The Christian Church also gets a special dispensation: Two of the prefixes are religious in nature—"Father" and "Sister" (but there is no "Brother" or "Friar" option).
The next hurdle (selecting a Topic) can be even more daunting.
Congressmember Barbara Lee offers 32 options, Senator Dianne Feinstein's page lists 29 choices, and Sen. Alex Padilla displays 38 possible selections.
There are the 13 topics that all three Golden State solons agree are fundamental to their work: Agriculture, Animal Rights, Education, Energy, Environment, Healthcare, Housing, Immigration, Labor, Science/Technology, Social Issues/Social Security, Taxes, and Transportation.
Unlike her senatorial comrades, Rep. Lee's list does not include the following topics: Banking, Budget, Guns, Homeland Security, Trade, or Veterans. She is, however, the only one listing the topics of Crime and Civil Rights. (Note: Lee's website displays a different set of priorities that includes Gun Violence, Global Peace & Security, Seniors, HIV/AIDS, Immigration, Reproductive Justice, and Caribbean, Haiti, and Cuba.)
Sen. Padilla is the only rep with categories for Appropriations, Campaign/Election Reform, Consumer Protection, Children, Insurance Problems, Nutrition, Seniors, and Women and Children (which is half-redundant). Surprisingly, Padilla is the only one lacking a comment line for "LGBTQ" or "Native Americans."
Don't be surprised if you can't find your particular topic in the preselected list. For some reason, these modern-day tools of communicating with our elected reps don't include the one simple measure that could solve this dilemma: the addition of one blank line labeled "OTHER."
One other suggestion. How about if every member of the House and Senate added the following two concerns to their standard list of critical topics: "Voting" and "Democracy"?
A nationwide June study by Navigation Research invited a thousand Americans — White, Black Asian, Latinix, Democrat and Republican — to check off what they thought were the nation's "Top Crises."
There were 14 choices. The top two concerns were no surprise: "Violent Crime" and "The Coronavirus Pandemic." Number three was an outlier: "The spread of misinformation." Rounding out the Top Five were "The situation at the US-Mexico border" and "China's role as a global superpower."
Climate Change came in at #6 — but only among Democrats and African-Americans.
GOPers ranked "voter fraud" as three-times as worrisome as "climate change."
A lot of potential crises categories were missing. Among them: nuclear weapons, NATO military provocations, corporate corruption, economic inequality, oligarchy, billionaires who pay no taxes….
Trump Tells the Truth: Admits He Lies
On July 11, during a semi-coherent, jabbering ramble from the podium of the CPAC Convention in Dallas, the Twice-Impeached Peach-colored Prince of Prejudice, actually confessed that he is a self-serving, lying, son of an itch. Speaking of a poll to determine which candidate CPAC would back in the next election, TIPPP boldly blathered this explanation of his modus operandi: "If it's bad ideas, I say it's fake. If it's good, I say that's the most accurate poll perhaps ever."
Barbara Lee's Olympic Pot Petition
Just days ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, the US Anti-Doping Agency bounced sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson from competing after she tested positive for cannabis use. Congresswoman Barbara Lee sprang to the sprinter's defense.
"I’ve said it before — cannabis should be legalized. That goes for medical and recreational use, including for athletes in their private lives."
Lee noted that pot is legal for medical and recreational use in Oregon, where the Olympic trials were held. Besides "cannabis lacks any scientific evidence as a performance-enhancing substance or competitive advantage."
Rep. Lee has posted the following petition. "If you agree that the USADA should stop including cannabis as a prohibited substance and allow athletes like Sha’Carri to compete, sign your name onto my petition."
And, if you agree that "Barbara Lee Speaks for Me," our progressive champion will be celebrating her birthday on Saturday, July 24, at multiple least Bay locations. $20 donations "suggested but not required." RSVP at bit.LY/BLEEBDAY, contact SudipKDutta@Gmail.com, or call (510) 850.5283.
Do You Feel a Song Coming On?
The talented folks at the satirical-rock workshop known as Founders Sing have posted the following invitation:
"We could really use your HELP on something!
"It’s been a total thrill for us have your support as we’ve created 42 political parodies and original songs over the past year. We’ve addressed subjects like Trump, Congress, Trump, racial injustice, Trump, election integrity, Trump, etc. And of course there are more hair-raising issues on the horizon we’ll be tackling. At this turning point in our nation’s history, we would love to get YOUR thoughts on what we’re planning to do creatively going forward.
"We feel that there’s a strong unmet need for songs that address the experiences relevant to people of our generation. For example aging, spiritual seeking, loss, and big questions like “Why the hell are we even here?!”
"If YOU, our loyal viewers, have emotionally resonant subjects that you feel we’d be able to address with original songs, we’re ALL EARS. We look forward to creating the Playlist of our Lives.
"Thank you SO MUCH. We look forward to hearing from you in the comments!"
