They’re from Rhode Island and make rounds just over the border, but every now and then they cross two state lines to play in my stomping grounds.
David Tessier’s All Star Stars–a name chosen for its acronym–might be categorized as classic rock, but its selections include many less-remembered tracks that, as Tessier quipped, “people tell us after the show, ‘Yes, that was my favorite song!'”
Fans of particular bands call these “chestnuts,” and when ASS launched into the Beatles’ “If I Needed Someone,” I wondered if they were playing it for me, one of the few geezers in the audience who could recall the song in real time.
The delivery was so crisp and clear that I was back in the Sixties–not my own sixties, but the 1960s. That’s as true of the band’s iconic selections such as “The Weight,” well-known standards ranging from The Doors’ “Touch Me” to the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” zingers such as Chicago’s “Make Me Smile,” and songs from the 1980s when my music memory was already filled to capacity.
All of it is high energy, and back in the Sixties we had a litmus test for that. Every rock-and-roll concert included a drum solo, and drummer Nate Goncalo had as many parents bouncing in their seats as there were children bouncing in an open space before the stage all through the show. The test is how powerfully the rest of the band re-enters the song.
ASS kicked it. They kicked all night. Tessier on lead guitar, Jon Brennan on keyboard, Paulo “Zeus” Sousa on bass, and Justin Grankewicz adding either rhythm guitar or percussion. At least four shared lead vocals, with the recently engaged Grankewicz crooning a torch song much to Tessier’s amusement. (I might say all five, but Zeus was often out of my line of sight.)
As impressive as their musicianship, their high energy, their clarity, their off-the-beaten path selections, is their stamp. Songs such as Yes’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and the Association’s “Along Comes Mary” are not simply served up but are laced with what Tessier and his friends each do best. Back in the late Seventies I wondered how many times I could stand hearing Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light.” Last night while listening to Tessier’s riffs, I wondered if I ever heard it once.
Such were the effects of Brennan’s occasional embellishments of a few notes here and there while Tessier and Zeus engaged in probing conversations that Goncalo and Grankewicz kept moving right along.
Tessier writes his own songs, some of which may have been played after my bedtime, and which are likely more present in ASS’ shows in Rhode Island where the band has “a legit fan base,” according to the Johnston Sunrise.
With titles such as “Under the Desk,” that’s a show I’d like to see. And I’ll cross state lines to do it.
Those of you under the age of fifty may be surprised to learn that, until about fifty years ago, license plates on cars were nothing more than numbers and letters of one color on a solid background of a contrasting color.
If the backdrop was light, the lettering was sure to be dark, and vice-versa.
Long-distance hitchhikers could easily identify an approaching vehicle and know how far the ride might take them. This was especially helpful to me back when I stood at the intersection of interstates in Portland, Oregon, with two signs: “San Fran” and “Chicago.” Ya, my life was like that back then. A vagabond too long, I was in a hurry to land somewhere where someone knew me.
License plates are like flags. The whole point is to make something immediately clear.
Through the 70s and into the 80s, states gradually made the transition from unadorned plates to colorful works of art. New York featured the Statue of Liberty. Illinois showed Lincoln. Colorado outlined a mountain range, and Wyoming a busting bronco. New Hampshire had the Old Man in the Mountain. Massachusetts was late to the party before it offered us the choice of having a blue whale’s fluke going under.
Today, every state has them, and some states have more than one. Pennsylvania and Florida seem to be in a contest for having the most, and both have plates on which some of the numbers blend in with a multi-colored background. You’ll have an easier time counting the teeth in the mouth of Pennsylvania’s Nittany Lion than you will reading the plate’s number on its back.
Two states with claims to the Wright Brothers show early aircraft. Ohio declares itself “Birthplace of Aviation,” while North Carolina alliterates “First in Flight.” They might yet fight!
I had–I still have–two plates involved in an unlikely controversy:
My unadorned plate on my even less adorned Ford Falcon in the late-70s. They didn’t even spell out the word North!My plate in the early 80s. No doubt it won the award after judges saw one unused or as a sketch, unaware that a screw would be drilled right into Tom Jefferson’s throat.
In the mid-80s, no doubt egged-on by South Dakota’s award-winning Mt. Rushmore plates–or “tags” as they are called out West–North Dakota’s governor assembled a committee to design one. This included representatives from the state’s Chamber of Commerce, its tourism bureau, its Lakota (Sioux) and Ojibwa (Chippewa) and Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara reservations, its universities, its arts council, its newspapers, its this, its that, and so on.
As you might guess, each one wanted to depict his or her thing, and the solution they arrived at was to morph them all into about six that they “included.”
The result may have been fine for a poster on a wall or a page in a book, but for a 6″ x 12″ attachment to moving vehicles, it was so ridiculous that my friend, Randy Bradbury, a reporter for the Bismarck Tribune at the time, told me that it became a heated issue in state-wide elections and cost the governor re-election.
“So hideous, so confused, so incoherent, so bad,” he wrote, that “many people refuse to put it on their cars.” When North Dakotans kept driving with old plates after the announced expiration, the controversy was so hot that not one was stopped and ticketed. Call it a white flag of a tag.
I was visiting there in the summer of ’89, and there were very few “committee tags,” as they were ridiculed, to be seen. Most cars still had the same unadorned plates I had when I lived there in ’78 and ’79. To see what was on the new ones, you had to stand fairly close to a hodge-podge of (if memory serves): Sacagawea, a wagon train, a farmstead, the state capitol, Badlands, and Teddy Roosevelt. (Wasn’t he from New York?)
Honestly can’t tell if that’s a wagon train or the cavalry, or if it’s Sacagawea or some guy who stumbled across the border from Manitoba, a Canadian province with which North Dakota shares a large and very attractive park called the “International Peace Garden.” Also, I think I recall a tractor in there. Or was it Lawrence Welk’s accordion? If you have a magnifying glass handy, let me know.
As Bradbury noted, the largest image was that of a highway, “giving the impression that the only thing to do here is to get the hell out!”
Ah, the memories!
All of them stoked by a flag that has dotted the landscape, including in front of Newburyport City Hall, during “Pride Month.” At a glace it appears to be the Gay Pride Flag that we have seen for years.
But then we notice more: Five more colors angling in from the left in a sideways triangle atop the six primary and secondary colors of the rainbow.
The original Gay Pride Flag, or the Rainbow Flag was simple, straightforward (pun or not), easy to identify and identify with since we all know rainbows and the metaphor is easy to grasp. The new version is called the Progress Pride Flag, and you can find websites that explain what each of the now eleven colors represent.
One reason I hesitate to list them is that there is already a version newer than what is flying in front of City Hall. Inside the white triangle is now a yellow triangle with a purple circle. Hard not to anticipate that, before long, a counter triangle will enter from the right with yet more shades to represent the Cross, the Crescent and Star, the Star of David, Buddha, Zen, and whatever Sitting Bull held in his hand when Custer died for our sins.
At what point does the push for inclusion become confusion? Or intrusion?
Let me be clear: I fully support gay rights, marriage equality, and adoption by gay couples. If I avoid using terms such as non-binary, cis, intersectional community, aromantic, and LGBTQ (Or is it LGBTQA now, and is there a plus-sign at the end of it?), it’s for the same reason I avoid words such as appropriate, whatever, utilize, and you guys–and will never use plural pronouns for one person. To me, these are matters of language, not prejudice–what I practice, not what I prefer.
You’ve heard the phrase “tin ear”? The Progress Flag is for people with tin eyes. For the rest of us, clutter does not flutter.
The Rainbow Flag–including bumper stickers and clothing–has always been a welcome sight. Tasteful. Classy. Clear. Like a national flag, it offers a unified overview of whom and what it represents–leaving all the details for the documents it represents.
As all good flags do–and as all rainbows do–it sings E Pluribus Unum. The Progress Flag babbles E Pluribus Pluribus.
You might as well fly a printout of the Constitution in place of the Stars and Stripes. I may call it an eyesore, but, if he’s still with us, there’s a former governor of North Dakota who might like it.
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What a difference a new governor makes! As Bradbury told me, the new gov easily fulfilled a campaign promise to commission one of the state’s well-known artists to create something unified and distinctive.
At times I wondered if she was outlining a script for an American version of The Madness of King George.
But it was no joke. Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony was as convincing as it was damning.
Now that we’ve heard it, any expression of support for Donald Trump–from the bumper-stickers to the flags, and from the social media posts to the cheers at his rallies–is an admission of one of three things:
1) Willful ignorance. It’s not just that these folks don’t pay attention. It’s that they don’t want to pay attention. For many of them, ignorance is bliss. The Constitution is flawless, racism has been solved, the anthem tells us that we are free and we are brave. Let’s wave our flags, put our hands over our hearts, and have a blast this weekend!
2) Hopeless stupidity. Sounds harsh, I admit, but to me the word includes gullibility. As one wag put it, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times, and what am I? Susan F—ing Collins?”
3)A desire for fascism. A hallmark of authoritarians is that they satisfy a need many have to feel superior to others. Brown Shirts, Proud Boys.
While the first two categories are straightforward and easy to define, understanding this third group requires a psychological dive.
There’s some truth to the observation made by a few cable news pundits that Trump’s campaign in 2016 allowed racists, bigots, misogynists, and other cranks to be open with their fears and paranoia. Some noted this same dynamic in the candidacy of Sarah Palin eight years earlier.
Our mistake is thinking that this preference for authoritarian government that allows for a grab-all-you-can-and-to-hell-with-the-consequences economy is a recent and possibly–hopefully–passing development. That’s because most all unflattering events in American history–especially those that show business in a bad light or show racial oppression at all–are effectively banned from school texts and curricula.
If you think it began with the Tea Party in 2009, or the “Contract with (really on) America” in 1994, or Reagan’s demonization of government in 1980, here’s a quick dive in time that skims the surface of what we face Now:
From Lyndon Johnson, circa 1963:
If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.
From Eleanor Roosevelt, circa 1936:
Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.
From Herman Melville’s Omoo, 1847, referring to sailors’ “regard” for natives of South Pacific islands:
They hardly consider them human. But it is a curious fact, that the more ignorant and degraded men are, the more contemptuously they look upon those whom they deem their inferiors.
And all the way back to 1797, when the Territory of Kentucky voted on whether to enter the Union as a free or slave state, there’s the example of a very young lawyer named Henry Clay. He and his upstart friends travelled the length of the soon-to-be Bluegrass State talking with everyone they could find to convince them of the economic benefits of a free state.
As David and Jeanne Heidler describe it in their 2010 biography, everyone told Clay and his friends that they were convinced. A free state meant more opportunity for more people; slave state meant an accumulation of wealth for plantation owners while most everyone else, white or not, struggled.
After the vote made Kentucky a slave state, Clay was so stunned that he made the rounds again just to ask what happened. Over and again he was told that, yes they knew that free was better for most, but owning slaves was “a badge of honor” which they thought they might someday attain. No matter the odds against them, they did not want the chance of having that “honor” disappear.
This could serve as a description of “Joe the Plumber” who famously confronted Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Just as accurately, it described Trump supporters five years before he rode down the escalator.
It also describes a desire for fascism, or at least a willingness to tolerate it for the sake of some perceived advantage. Following the testimony we heard today from Cassidy Hutchinson, I’d say it describes as many if not more of Trump supporters than the other two possibilities combined.
Pat Bashford, who graced Newburyport for the last 20 years of her long and varied life, was remembered yesterday at the Unitarian Universalist Church downtown. Pat and her fine long-time companion Ann Kemp, who passed in 2014, were active in an assortment of community groups ranging from books to horticulture, from the Firehouse to the Unitarian Church.
Except for a few recoveries from what her son called her “penchant for breaking limbs,” Pat never stopped until her passing last November.
A video of yesterday’s memorial–from the introspective intro, “Something to Live For,” to the energetic, joyous outro of Pachelbel’s “Aria Tertia,” played by pianist/organist Justin Murphy-Mancini–will be available on-line before long, and Pat’s sons, who welcome all interest in their mother, will be glad to share the link.
The event includes reflections of Pat from friends, some who knew her reaching back to her 25 years in Reading, Mass. where she acted in and directed local plays, and from her sons, Rob and Ron, and from her daughter-in-law, Charya, who offered a Khmer Prayer. Rev. Rebecca Bryan added blessings, one of which ended with the most insightful joke of the day, the first question from Pat when Rev. Bryan first arrived in Newburyport.
I’ll leave that for the video, as I will all else, except to mention a song, about halfway in. If the video can come anywhere near the impact of a live performance, there’s a rendition of “What a Wonderful World” that may leave you shaking–as I am one day later.
It’s song we all know, at least in snippets used in TV ads, first recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1967, a time of deep turmoil and division in the USA. Accordingly, its lyrics well capture Pat’s spirit, who paid close attention to the wonderful world at large. What I wonder is if Meg Rayne–with her voice, her gestures, her expressions–knew she was channeling Pat Bashford.
We typically use the word “singer” or “vocalist,” but yesterday we saw and heard an interpreter. Comparisons? Let’s start with Roger Daltrey in the role of Tommy, Stan Rogers on board the “Mary Ellen Carter,” Linda Ronstadt longing for her “Blue Bayou.” Accompanied by pianist John Hyde and with harmonizing from Kristine Malpica of Image Studios in Amesbury, Meg brought the song to life right before our eyes
Had people who never met Pat wandered in when the song started, they might have thought Meg was channeling old Satchmo himself.
He would be a kindred spirit to the woman who was honored in Newburyport yesterday.
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Portrait by Marilu Norden, most of whose work is of the American Southwest (which may explain the earrings): https://marilunorden.com/paintings/
We’ve been saying that abortion is now the first Constitutional right to be taken away, but it comes a full month after a Supreme Court ruling that has effectively nullified the Sixth Amendment.
Before we get to that, not everyone thinks that reproductive rights have been lost. Here, in paraphrase, is how Sean Hannity ended his show on Fox Noise on the night of the ruling:
If you meet anyone this weekend who complains that the Supreme Court “has taken away a right,” tell them, no! The court has returned that decision to the states where it belongs. It’s in the Constitution!
The station then cut to Laura Ingraham who started her show “on this triumphant night” with two words huge on the graphic behind her:
Answered Prayers.
Before I could switch the channel back to the Red Sox game, she used the phrase “unhinged left” twice while labelling protests across the country as a “night of rage.”
Next day, there were no reports of violent protests anywhere. Footage of teargas came from Arizona, sprayed at a peaceful assembly, to use the First Amendment’s phrase, but on Fox it was a menacing visual to justify the label that they had already planned to use well in advance of the decision.
Yes, it’s bad, and it’s about to get worse.
Could happen before the 4th that the Supreme Court will decide West Virginia v. The Environmental Protection Agency.
If we go by the decision that just erased Roe v. Wade, then Joe Manchin’s coal industry donors will get the EPA off their backs. As with Roe, the pretext will be states’ rights.
And just as Roe‘s demise will serve as a precedent to reverse, as Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion, the right to contraception and same-sex relationships, EPA’s demise will serve a much larger goal.
Like the first domino in a long line, it will knock down as many regulatory agencies as corporate donors require of their Republican servants. As they have been saying since the advent of Ronald Reagan, they will finish what has been a gradual erasure of FDR’s New Deal.
The decision to nullify Roe and the expected ruling on the EPA echo their 6-3 decision last month in Shinn v. MartinezRamirez. In it, Thomas, writing for the majority, held that the federal government had no say in guaranteeing that competent counsel be provided to citizens charged with crimes. Back to the state of Arizona it went.
Of all places! Arizona was where Miranda Rights were born in 1966, the right to remain silent, a friendly amendment to the Fifth Amendment to guard against self-recrimination. In yet another decision last week, somewhere between rulings to strike down gun safety measures and reproductive rights, the Supreme Court nailed Miranda in Vega v. Tekoh, again by 6-3.
Elena Kagan offered what the ACLU called “an excellent dissent” in favor of Miranda. How could she fail? The majority’s logic could not be any more berserk: Yes, you have rights, but no, police are not obliged to state them upon arrest.
A month later, Sonia Sotomayor penned a scathing dissent in defense of reproductive rights, but the most damning counter to that majority opinion might be the Sixth Amendment all by itself:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Notice the last line in which James Madison, writing America’s original laws, enumerated the very right that Thomas denied had federal jurisdiction. We thought reproductive rights were first to go? The right to a fair trial was already gone.
Anyone following this with standard concepts of language and logic may be confused. If the Supreme Court is so intent on turning everything back to the states, then how did it justify striking down gun regulation in New York State last week?
One snarky answer is that the Tenth Amendment applies only to those states that send Republicans to DC and their own state capitals. Another is that the second half of the Second Amendment trumps all else, and pay no attention to that bothersome first half. Yet another is that “states’ rights,” which was a euphemism for slavery in the 19th Century, is now a euphemism for “corporate rights.”
The obvious, honest, straight answer is that Republican donors care far more about getting rid of regulation than getting rid of abortion. But the full story is far from that simple.
Before Hannity ended his show, he attributed the repeal of Roe to 10A, which reads in full:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
And then, as if it was an afterthought, he added, “And to some extent the Ninth Amendment,” also a single sentence:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Notice Hannity’s finesse: Ten addresses “powers,” Nine protects “rights.” Also, the 10th mentions states and people, while the word “states” is absent from the 9th which is entirely intended for people.
Is abortion a power or a right? Yes, a rhetorical question with an answer that puts it in the jurisdiction of 9A and nowhere near 10A.
For at least forty years, as historian Elie Mystal points out, Republicans, while always trumpeting the Tenth Amendment’s call for “rights reserved to the states,” do not want us to know of the Ninth Amendment’s “unenumerated” rights for individuals.
No afterthought. All pre-scripted. Hannity, anticipating objections based on 9A, deliberately blurs the line between the two amendments, between “powers” and “rights.” This is something like what Bill Barr did with the Mueller Report.
Barr issued his whitewash before the report, giving the absurd impression of “total exoneration.” By saying it first, any quoting of the report’s damning conclusions (plural) sounded like whining and requests for do-overs. As far as many were concerned, exoneration was in the report.
Hannity misrepresents and morphs two amendments to justify the anti-Choice position as soon as the Supreme Court ruled, giving the impression that no harm is done. Should there be any objection, Hannity was thoughtful enough to tell his viewers how to dismiss it: “It’s in the Constitution!”
In effect, the Supreme Court, now an arm of the Republican Party, aided by Fox, the voice of the Republican Party, has just erased the Ninth Amendment.
Why not? In the past five weeks, they have ditched key provisions of the Fifth and Sixth, and few of us noticed.
Just home from an hour-plus-long protest called on Facebook last night. Over 300 people, maybe 400, quite big for Newburyport on about 18-hour notice.
A clear majority of cars going by had windows down and thumbs up with honking horns in support. Just two SUVs offered flipped birds & f-bombs. It was a very loud hour and perhaps 15 minutes.
As in Boston and elsewhere, they–more about that preferred pronoun below–blocked High St., N-port’s main drag and always busy on weekends, for 19 minutes, 20 seconds, a reference to the 19th Amendment ratified in 1920, women’s suffrage.
Since the organizers had a permit and city support, police blocked and re-routed traffic on one side, but cars had to stop on the other. Drivers & passengers in at least the first two cars, killed their engines, got out, and joined the demonstration.
They drew cheers so long and loud that you might have wondered if Ruth Bader Ginsburg had descended from heaven upon hearing one of the several chants:
Ruth sent us!
Rev. Rebecca Bryan of the First Religious Society Unitarian Universalist Church, and Paula Esty of the PEG Center for Art and Activism based in her downtown gallery, briefly addressed the crowd, emphasizing that there would be more actions in the coming months, most importantly aimed at getting out the vote in this year’s primaries and in November.
Several women led chants that at times were in call and response across the street:
Whose bodies? Our bodies!
What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like!
Most were accompanied by Kristine Malpica, Executive Director of Imagine Studios in Amesbury, who drummed a bongo so suited to the mood and intent of the gathering that some folks were bouncing to her rhythm even when she paused.
While I make no pretense of objectivity and my pro-choice leanings are well-known to readers of the Newburyport Daily News, I still honor the journalistic tenet not to wear it on my sleeve at a public event on the chance that I may write about it. Though they all want the Red Sox to win, local reporters in the press box at Fenway Park never cheer out loud.
That’s why I say “they” instead of “we.” It’s also why I never joined in the chants and declined to hold a sign–though many extras were made available, and I was asked if I wanted one.
I did have an odd encounter–or non-encounter–with a young woman who was strolling by with her dog behind the gathering on the Bartlet Mall side. An old man needing a break, I spotted a bench in the shade facing away from the street, and so I may have been the only one there who noticed her.
With her big smile and behind her stylish shades, she was pumping the V-sign in the air as she chanted along with the crowd. Not a peace sign, but a victory sign. Not the crowd’s chant, but her own:
We won!
Apparently she walked over to scan the demonstration, get an idea of how many were there, because she returned no more than 15 minutes later before I was back on my feet.
This time I kept my eyes on her, shades off, hoping to catch hers. I wasn’t going to initiate anything, but I hoped she would. If she did, I would have asked her name and told her immediately that I wrote for a newspaper and anything she said would be on the record.
No such luck. But I came close, as she spotted me and did a double-take. Her smile was gone and her chant was paused. I grinned as if to say, “Make my day!” But she didn’t take the bait, and I lost yet another chance to ask just who is meant when they say “we.”
This morning was very reassuring. Good to be reminded that Newburyport is a place where religious beliefs are not forced on us and that most folks here want it to stay that way.
Polls show that this is true across the country regarding reproductive rights. What we face, however, is a Constitution so “vaguely written,” as most agree, that it has been finessed to allow for minority rule. That includes the grossly disproportionate composition of the Senate, the Electoral College, and the process for Supreme Court appointments.
Add the filibuster, and a stylish young lass walking a dog can ridicule a few hundred citizens as they peaceably assemble for a redress of grievances by claiming, with one-hundred percent accuracy: “We won!”
But who is that “we”? And just what have they won?
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Several friends are changing their profile pics these past few days. Several show coat-hangers and as many are stills from The Handmaid’s Tale. This is posted by Ellen in Las Vegas. Linda in Santa Rosa posted no graphic but made a compelling point after I worried that the word “abortion” was used too much and should be replaced as often as practical by “reproductive rights,” as a matter of emphasis. She replied that the whole “narrative needs to be changed.” Instead of emphasizing the procedure, emphasize the “right of all children to be wanted.” That could be said of kids already being raised by moms unable to afford or risk another birth.
This syndicated cartoon could serve as a summary of what Bryan and Esty had to say.
Like the assassination of John Lennon, the fall of Roe v. Wade has occasioned long distance phone calls to and from friends who have known each other these past fifty years.
Like many others posting on social media as I write, they express anger, frustration, and despair. Fort Myers, who shared a ride in a DC police wagon with me during an antiwar demonstration in 1971, answered my call with this:
Shoot me! Just shoot me and don’t miss!
Should have reminded her that she’s a grandparent. As grandparents, we have no choice but to remain optimistic.
Whether you’re a grandparent concerned about a baby’s future or a high-schooler suddenly alarmed about your own, there is good reason to be optimistic.
Today’s decision can galvanize most Americans from here to November to vote en masse. All Democrats, every level, state as well as federal.
No Republicans, not even the few who might say they are on our side and have cast a few votes to prove it.
Why? Because if, after the election, there are more Rs than Ds in either House or Senate, all committees will be chaired by Republicans who will shut down all attempts to restore reproductive rights–as well as voting rights, as well as restrictions on assault rifles, as well as clean air & water regulations, as well as labor rights and occupational safety, as well as consumer rights, as well as most all else we care about.
On the other hand, if Democrats keep the US House and gain US Senate seats, all of that gets done. This is also how it works in every state, including Nebraska with its single legislative body.
Most of the federal bills have already passed the House but are stuck in the Senate due to the filibuster–an arcane, anti-Constitutional procedure designed as an effective gag order on slavery before the Civil War.
Given a few more Senate seats this November, Democrats will kill the filibuster as their first order of business.
To get there, they will need massive turnouts at rallies, at town hall meetings, and especially at voting booths in primary and general elections.
We also need to watch our language. Shows of support tend to snowball, as we saw in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. Demonstrations grew in size as they spread across the country. Many of us were predicting a “Blue Wave” in November. Until…
Defund the Police!
Yes, I’m aware of the good intent and careful details, but for most of the American public, it was just three words–a call for anarchy that Republicans pounced on. They still use it, just as they used the word “malaise” against all Democrats long after Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan.
Forty years later, Republicans could not save their whack-job grifter in the Oval Office, but that ill-advised slogan let them actually gain House seats and keep the Senate filibuster-proof.
Here’s hoping the lesson isn’t lost on us. The more we use the phrase “reproductive rights,” and the less we say “abortion,” the better we will do.
The more we say, as commentators on Boston Public Radio keep doing, that women have “enjoyed the right to an abortion,” the more we might as well, as Beatle John put it, “be carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.”
As I write, a social media post offers another solution:
We need 13 justices!
Given enough success in November, Democrats may have the numbers for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas based on the 1/6 investigation–and possibly of Brett Kavanaugh based on evidence withheld during his confirmation.
Another glaring reason to change the Supreme Court: Just yesterday, it struck down New York State’s modest gun control regulations. Hence, the present SC is telling states, no, you can’t control guns, but yes, you can control women’s bodies.
Whether or not any change is in the cards remains to be seen. All we can do is make sure all the cards are on the table come November.
Another post asks simply:
So what do we do now?
Well, Fort Myers tells me that she and her daughters and her granddaughter are on their way to a pride rally set for this weekend.
My hunch is that it will be as much a rally for reproductive rights, all of it snowballing into November.
And another, from a Newburyporter, just as I’m about to close:
Tomorrow, 10:00 AM!
Gather with us to make our voices heard. We have had ENOUGH!
The right to make our own healthcare decisions and have bodily autonomy will not be relinquished to the political arm of the Federalist Society, aka the 1950’s redux Supreme Court.
Essex County Superior Courthouse at the Bartlet Mall
145 High St, Newburyport, MA 01950
Call it E Pluribus Unum.
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During the Civil War, U.S. Army regulations set forth that an infantry unit would carry two flags. These included a national colors, meaning the Stars & Stripes, and a regimental colors, also referred to as a federal standard. This second flag, when issued by the federal government, displayed a federal eagle with a shield upon its breast, bearing the typical arrows and olive branches gripped in its talons, set upon a dark blue ground, with an arch of stars above. https://jeffbridgman.com/inventory/index.php?page=out&id=2535
When Amesbury High School invited suggestions for its new mascot and a name for its sports teams, I didn’t hesitate to offer two:
The Buggies. The Cartwrights.
Amesbury, after all, calls itself “Carriagetown” based on it history of manufacturing the most comfortable mode of overland transportation before trains and cars literally ran them off the road.
The Traps? In Amesbury City Hall’s auditorium, an 1909 Canopy Beach Wagon sits at he back of the stage, a style popularized by the Oscar Hammerstein song “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top.”
The Surreys? Well, there is one on the city’s official seal:
Giving it more thought and a bit of research on the website of the Amesbury Carriage Museum (link below), I have a third suggestion.
Those who held the reins and drove the horses were formerly called “Coachmen.” That, of course, would never do for a reason that, whether we like it or not, is too obvious to state. Furthermore, the more inclusive “Coachpeople” would be as ridiculous on a football jersey as a dunce-cap in place of a helmet.
However, there was a slang term for them that referred to what carriage drivers held in their hands. That item gained attention in the 1991 film, Other People’s Money, thanks to a single striking mention delivered by actor Danny DeVito in the role of a Wall Street raider. So striking that it is used to this day as a metaphor both in jest and in serious warnings and complaints.
The item is the buggy whip. The slang name that I propose for high school teams across the Merrimack:
The Amesbury Whips.
Not only does it refer to Amesbury’s history, it serves as a double entendre, standing for both the instrument and the person using it. For a triple entendre, the word “whip” is often a verb for what the best teams do to their opponents. For a quadruple entendre, it is a public official responsible for party discipline in a legislature.
Another advantage to the name–also true of Buggies and Cartwrights–is that it would be as unique to Amesbury as many minor league baseball team names are to their cities: The Akron RubberDucks, the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Amarillo Sod Poodles, the Augusta Green Jackets, going, going, going on and on.
The logo could be either the whip by itself, which would command and hold attention, or the driver holding it–a whip with a whip–which would add color and detail. Or just a hand holding the whip, which would do both.
Another name referring to those who drove carriages is “teamster.” But history has man-handled this name down to us, and its association with unions is too much baggage for a high school carriage to carry.
Speaking of baggage, Amesbury’s need for a new name is necessitated by the city’s decision to drop “Indians” as many school and professional teams have done in recent years.
Most notably the pro baseball team in Cleveland went just this year from “Indians” to “Guardians.” A strong case can be made for Amesbury to follow that lead.
Recent mass shootings in schools make it a safe bet that armed guardians will be stationed in more and more American elementary and high schools from coast to coast. School guardians may already be at the top of the list of expanding fields of employment.
Many team names are chosen to represent an occupation that defines a city: Seattle Mariners, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers–even San Diego Padres and San Francisco 49ers might qualify. Why not school teams named for occupations within schools?
There’s no question that student athletes would never want to be called Teachers, Counsellors, or Principals, but this new presence–“a good guy with a gun”–may have some appeal.
Call it a choice between a city’s history and a school’s present: Whips or Guardians?
Based on any educator’s hope for the future, I’d crack the Whips.
Understatement may enhance works of art, but in journalism it is dereliction of duty.
While we can applaud the January 6th hearings and their many revelations to date, and while the use of video and live testimony has been artfully crafted, the House members are understating one crucial point.
So, too, nearly every pundit I have heard on cable news and NPR. With the exceptions of Katy Tur of MSNBC and Margery Egan of Boston Public Radio, all of them keep reminding us that Trump was sowing doubt about the election “as early as” the spring of 2020 for months ahead of the election, and that he kept repeating the groundless claims into November.
Well, yes, and thanks for the video clips to prove it. Problem is that he was doing it in the spring of 2016, months ahead of his Electoral College victory over a candidate who gained nearly three million more votes.
Like most everyone else, with the exception of filmmaker Michael Moore, Trump did not expect to win in 2016. His goal was to entice and titillate (adding to his Apprentice following), incite and insinuate, sow doubt, stoke anger, and then cash in by starting a cable TV station catering to what would come to be known as the MAGA crowd.
He’d likely have named it as he did Trump Airlines, Trump Tower, Trump University, Trump Steaks: TrumpTV. Much of it would have been Fox-styled talk shows that would keep demonizing Democrats and moderate Republicans, all aimed at satisfying Fox’s foam-at-the-mouth audience.
To steal and expand that audience would have been shows that appeal to the apolitical folks who never bothered to vote until Trump took the political stage: Extreme sports, wrestling (with a lot of folding chairs slammed over heads), monster trucks and cars, demolition derbies, “reality” shows, tours of mansions and estates owned by the ultra-rich, gambling and casino life, soft-porn such as Girls Gone Wild, and a series based on his book, The Art of the Deal.
If that sounds like I’m piling on, let me remind you that, before he came down the escalator, Trump was involved in all of the above.
All of that flim-flam and fraud are lost if the House Committee and the media keep reinforcing the notion that the run-up to January 6 began in the spring of 2020 rather than the spring of 2016.
Also lost are the identical claims of Republican candidates in Florida and Georgia during the 2018 midterms, each of whom won thanks to the purging of voter rolls in both states since the 2010 Census. Georgia and Florida were already doing what many other Republican controlled states are doing now.
Their advance claims of rigged elections were right from the Trump playbook of 2016, something that the January 6 Committee allows to go unnoticed by citing the spring of 2020 as the time when the “seeds of doubt” were first sown.
For that matter, the claim of rigged elections came from a most successful playbook used by an Austrian immigrant in Germany ninety years ago, but no one wants to talk about that. If we did talk about it, we’d quickly realize the advantage that Team Trump has had over all who have opposed them since 2016:
Democrats have to prove things. Trumpublicans need only create doubt, chaos, confusion. This is why Tucker Carlson phrases much of what he says as questions. He doesn’t report, he doesn’t have to. He insinuates. A pre-disposed audience takes it from there.
Which brings us right back to the problem of understatement. The same pundits who fret that the public may not be paying due attention are themselves afraid or are unwilling to offer the context that would command that attention.
The first seeds were not sown in the spring of 2020, nor did the harvest end on January 6, 2021. Doubt is being sown as we speak, and the harvests loom large in November this year and in 2024.
To talk and think about this as having a beginning, middle, and end that fit into a period no longer that that between conception and birth is to ignore what has already been born–and is still being conceived.
For all of its good work, the January 6th Committee’s understatement, reinforced by the media, is doing more harm than good.
If you are looking for “something completely different,” a phrase used by a few Screening Room patrons last night, there’s a new, quirky British “dramedy,” to borrow Rotten Tomatoes’ portmanteau, now playing at independent art houses near and far from you.
Using a phrase associated with Monty Python is a good start to describe Brian and Charles, but other comments I heard proved as true:
They thought of everything!
So sweet, I didn’t want it to end!
I was laughing and crying all through it!
For an idea of the film’s vibe, it may help to know that both The Turtles’ “Happy Together” and Fairport Convention’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” serve as soundtracks for transitional scenes–all before Charles, in his robotic voice, raps a summary of what becomes of him when the film and the credits end.
Add to that scenes from the Welsh countryside, and the cinematography is as much a treat as all you hear.
Characters? There are many comparable films, from Rainman to CODA, but it may be more to the point to think of this as Straw Dogs with hope in lieu of cynicism, or The Shape of Water with far more humor. It’s also a nice follow-up for those of us who recently enjoyed The Duke.
Brian and Charles echoes many stories with characters put together in workshops that come to life. Consider them as a spectrum with Frankenstein and Pinocchio on opposite ends, and Charles would split the difference while reminding anyone of my generation of Tommy Smothers.
Brian, an eccentric inventor, could easily be in Monty Python’s troupe. A recluse when we meet him who can barely talk to Hazel no matter how longingly they eye each other, he comes to life as much as Charles when the pressure is on.
At Charles’ invitation, Hazel helps Brian by echoing his own advice: Use your imagination. His rebirth is realized following a horrifying scene that resonates in a time and place where a candidate for president can openly mock a man with multiple sclerosis and still win the election.
That comparison comes in the form of the town bully, his bullish wife, and their two pit-bull teenage daughters. And so we have a story of peril added to an understated love story that makes Brian and Charles as satisfying a “sweet” story as I can recall.
All while being out-loud hilarious. The climactic scene has many surprises which I’d rather leave as surprises, except for one to whet your appetite: Brian’s “super shover.” Yes, it saves the day–along with Charles shooting Brian’s “cabbage cannon”–but it’s in Hazel’s way when they want to embrace.
The image? Well, let’s just say they thought of everything.
Mouth of the River 