Yes, it’s that day again – 60 years ago now. I was thinking about that recently in connection with an article on whether we shoould require the release of medical records by all candidates for President (along with tax records.) Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? But I have very mixed feelings about it.
In any case, before it’s too late, I want to share this cautionary article for anyone who might be honored by being invited to a Black Thanksgiving dinner but not know much about Black food culture in particular. It gave me some chuckles, a couple of gag reflexes, and a few surprises.
#4 – Green Bean Casseerole. Amongst the several polls I sent out requesting ideas for this list, this abomination was at the top. The only acceptable form of green beans is with smoked turkey neck and potatoes. Why is it a trend to make this a casserole?
#6 – Potato Salad with Raisins
Matter fact, keep anything you got with raisins in it. Keep ya potato salad, ya pasta salad, macaroni salad and the criminal attempt at a pan of macaroni and cheese if it has raisins. You must do time over this.
15 – Gelatin-Based Oddities
We’re wayyy past that odd 1980s moment when everything edible was put in gelatin. Leave it alone, babes..unless it’s Jell-O shots. Those are always welcome.
Yes, there are more. And pictures. I hope you get some laughs too.
Personal Update: I have had one contractor here and have a contract for that service – which kind of has to be, maybe not done, but at least under weigh before I can do much else. At least I am getting more confident getting around the house, and that’s a good thing.
Yesterday, the mass shooting in Maine reached some other news outlets, including Wonkette. I heard about it a couple of days ago from Joyce Vance. I wanted more detail before passing it on, but her take did inspire me to make today’s cartoon, and bump a different one (which I hadn’t finished anyway). Also, I received the email that my ballot has been counted. I can now display the “I voted” sticker, which was thoughtfully included in the envelope with the blank ballot. And I came across today’s Food for Thought, which is clearly a Public Service Announcement, so by all means pass it on.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Wonkette (Substack) – Search Continues For Whichever Antifa Biden Lib Forced Maine Shooter To Pretend To Be A Right-Winger
Quote – America is picking its way through the aftermath of yet another mass shooting, this time in Lewiston, Maine, where at least 18 people died and at least 13 others were wounded … when another previously law abiding gun owner stopped abiding the law and shot up a bowling alley and a restaurant. The reported casualty numbers … have varied widely, and may well rise. The suspected shooter is still at large as we write this, as law enforcement from all over join in searching for the shooter or perhaps his body and cable news fills time with expert opinion. People in the area have been told to shelter in place until the shooter is found. Businesses and schools are closed in Lewiston and several other locations around the state. Click through for details – not that they aren’t much like every other details from every other mass shooting ever. Only the names and the numbers seem to change.
The Root – Freddie Krueger Who? Karen is the Real Face of Terror For Black America
Quote – In a world where law enforcement violence against Black Americans is far too common, where stereotypes still abound, the true face of terror is not Chucky or the Nun. It’s Karen…. Doesn’t matter if the Black person in question is a man or a woman. Doesn’t matter if they are strong or weak. Doesn’t matter if they are an adult or a child. Karen can get them. She can still drag them to hell. Click through for story. Heaven knows people of any hue can find Karens annoying. But white people tend not to think of them as weapons of war. We need to look harder – and deeper. This goes back at leeast to the antebellum south and the character of “Miss Ann.” And it has been, and still can be, deadly.
Yesterday, I was reminded that crazy isn’t always a bad thing. Sure, there’s crazy like Republcans – and that is always bad. But there’s also crazy like your batty old Hungarian vampire Granny, which is – delightful (and especially to raise money for a good cause.) I never tire of good crazy. Is everyone ready for Hallowe’en? I hope everyone will have a lot of fun. Everything doesn’t always have to be fun – but like with no fun at all really isn’t worth living.
Also yesterdayI got the email telling me my ballot has been received. About d*** time. If I hadn’t received that today, i was going to look into a replacement ballot – since it was mailed more than a week ago.
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Robert Reich – The real reason Biden isn’t getting credit
Quote – One theory is that Trump and Fox News have poisoned their minds…. Which brings me to the second theory about why Biden isn’t getting credit: Biden is terrible at “messaging.”… His speeches aren’t electrifying, to be sure. But he says what needs to be said. He’s truthful. He doesn’t exaggerate. He’s compassionate…. This raises a third theory: Biden doesn’t communicate in ways that today’s media and much of the public are able to hear. I think there’s a lot to this. Click through for full opinion. Biden probably cannot, and certainly should not, attempt to change his own style, IMO. But his “surrogates” – withpoout pressuring rational people to adopt an emotional style, it’s probably possible to bring on some “surrogate” who already have an emotional style, who are not afraid to use it, and who can send an emotional message. (In this connection, today is the day I’m sharing the last version of the emotional cartoon I’ve been working on, and I hope to get feedback on which packs the biggest punch (or whether combining elements from more than one would pack a bigger one.)
The Good in Us – The Quiet One
Quote – Also, because there is literally no such thing as a moderate Republican in Congress, it would have to be either be an extremist or an ultra-extremist. Once Republicans made it clear that having voted to certify the 2020 election was disqualifying (Tom Emmer, we hardly knew you), it would have to be the latter. Besides, Johnson looks and acts the part—he’s a bespectacled, suit-jacketed, quiet, and respectful back-bencher who, according to The New York Times, has a “gentle style.”… And suddenly having a Speaker of the House feels infinitely worse and more dangerous than not having one. Click through for details. Mary Trump has done the deep dive into Mike Johnson so that you and I don’t have to. Unfortunately, it isn’t pretty.
Yesterday, I saw Virgil (who returns all greetings, spoken and unspoken.) We played Scrabble, getting very liberal, even multilingual, especially the last game. But it’s all in fun. After I got home and posted my safe note, I was listening to tha radio and heard something I certainly never dreaned it was possible, and I’m not 100% positive how it was done. I heard four snare drum rolls (2 sets of 2) played by a classical guitarist, on the classical guitar. It was in an orchestral piece, transcribed for guitar, which starts with a little fanfare of two drum roll and then repeats it later. It was a piece I’m familiar with, so though they didn’t sound exactly like drum rolls, I recognized immediately what they were meant for. No transcription ever sounds exactly like the orchestral piece anyway, so I thought they were pretty darned good. My best guess is that he knocked or slapped the guitar through the open strings – but that’s quite a feat , since the parts of the strings that are directly over the sound box of the guitar are mostly over the sound hole.
I apologize for not making a graphic for Indigenoua People’s Day. The reason was that – there are so many tribes – all over the Americas – and every single one of them has rich cultural traditions and images – and every single tribe also survived over 2000 years by living sustainably. Even just in my corner of the United States there are multiple tribes with multiple traditions. And I didn’t want to leave anyone out, nor did I want to fall back on stereotypes, many of which are not even respectful. So I’ll just wish you a happy indigenous people’s day and leave it at that.
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TeenVogue – The Supreme Court Must Protect Domestic Violence Survivors By Overturning the Rahimi Decision
Quote – When I was a young girl living in South Carolina, my mother, Patricia Ann, was shot and killed by an abusive dating partner. He murdered her in front of my three younger sisters — who were 10, 11, and 12 at the time — with an sawed-off shotgun. He was a convicted felon who should never have had access to the firearm he used to take our mother away from us forever. My sisters and I are grown now, but we still feel her absence every single day…. The Fifth Circuit’s decision in Rahimi is putting domestic violence survivors living in the Fifth Circuit in danger right now. I know firsthand that this is not an abstract exercise. If the decision is not reversed, domestic violence survivors face the prospect that their abusers can arm themselves immediately. This ruling is a potential death sentence for countless women and families. Click through for article. If you had the idea that TeenVogue was a shallow, ditsy publication all about clothes, makeup, and maybe a little sex, hold that thought – for when you are around MAGAts. For the sake of democracy, never let them find out how woke it is. It is stepping in where schools and scared parents fear to tread – has actually been doing so for some time.
Colorado Public Radio – Colorado’s Black history — and future — go on display in a new unlikely center of Black culture: Boulder
Quote – [A] new exhibit at the Museum of Boulder, called “Proclaiming Colorado’s Black History,” gives the community and the state another chance to reflect on the past, celebrate the accomplishments of those who have persevered, and create joy for the future. The exhibit opened Sept. 29, and the museum plans to have it on display for two years. It comes shortly after a documentary released in 2022 called “This Is [Not] Who We Are,” which explores “the gap between Boulder’s progressive self-image and the lived experiences of its Black citizens,” and the opening of the university’s new Center for African and African-American Studies, which is meant in part to help build community…. Adrian Miller, the lead curator of the new Museum of Boulder exhibit… is conscious of the specific cultural moment when this exhibit is opening, three years after massive protests for racial justice, and amidst a celebration of Black culture in Boulder centered around the football coach. Click through for story and some pictures. CPR calls Boulder “unlikely” on the basis that Boulder is like 90% white and only 1% black. But the thing is, the main University of Colorado is there. And one of the things Republicans hate about education, especially higher education, is that academics tend not to shy away from research, from finding out truth, and then from sharing that truth. My only issue with this being in Boulder is hoping that fact doesn’t turn out to limit access.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I don’t think much about scalping, not even in the colloquial sense of demanding exorbitant prices, and getting them because the goods in question are not available elsewhere. So I suspect that most people don’t think much about scalping either. But, since tomorrow is Indigenous Peoples Day, and scalping is associaed with indegenous people in the Americas, I thought it a good opportunity to bring up some real, unsanitized history in hope of helping to set the record straight.
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Indigenous Peoples Day offers a reminder of Native American history − including the scalping they endured at the hands of Colonists
The first encounters between European settlers and Native Americans are captured on a wood engraving in this 1888 image. DigitalVision Vectors
I am a scholar of Colonial-Indigenous relations and think that officially recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day – and, more broadly, Native Americans’ history and survival – is important.
Yet, Indigenous Peoples Day and Columbus Day should also serve as a reminder of the violent past endured by Indigenous communities in North America.
This past – complete with settlers’ brutal tactics of violence – is often ignored in the U.S.
My research on New England examines the important role that settlers’ wars against Native Americans played in their colonization of the region.
This warfare often targeted Native American women and children and was often encouraged through scalp bounties – meaning people or local governments offering money in exchange for a Native American’s scalp.
Understanding scalping
Scalping describes the forceful removal of the human scalp with hair attached. The violent act is usually performed with a knife, but it can also be done by other means. Someone can scalp victims who are already dead, but there are also examples of people being scalped while they are still alive.
In several Indigenous cultures in North America, scalping was part of human trophy taking, which involves claiming human body parts as a war trophy. Scalps were taken during warfare as displays of military prowess or for ceremonial purposes. But just because scalping was practiced by some Native American societies, it does not mean that it was practiced by all.
Eyewitness accounts, histories and even art and popular films about the American West have perpetuated the false idea that scalping is a uniquely indigenous practice.
White settlers’ wide use of scalping against Indigenous peoples is far less acknowledged and understood. In fact, Colonists’ use of scalping against Native American people likely accelerated this practice.
Various European American colonizers also scalped Native American people from at least the 17th through the 19th centuries. It was a way to provide proof that someone killed a Native American person. Several North American colonial powers, from the British to the Spanish empires, paid bounties to people who turned in scalps of killed Native Americans.
Scalp bounties in New England and California
Colonies, territories and states in what is now the U.S. used scalp bounties widely from the 17th through the 19th centuries.
Colonial governments in New England issued over 60 scalp bounties from the 1680s through the 1750s, typically during various conflicts between Colonists and Native Americans.
Massachusetts made the widest use of scalp bounties among the New England Colonies in the 1700s.
Massachusetts’ lieutenant governor issued one of the most notorious scalp bounty declarations in 1775. This declaration, called the Spencer Phips Proclamation of 1755, provides a glimpse into how this brutal system worked.
“For every scalp of such Female Indian or male Indian under the Age of Twelve Years, that shall be killed and brought in as Evidence of their being killed …, Twenty Pounds,” the declaration reads.
This reward was a large amount of money for Colonists, equivalent to more than 5,000 pounds, or US$12,000 in today’s currency. The scalp of a male Native American could fetch two and a half times this amount.
In the Colonial era, such violence was normalized by anti-Native American sentiment and a sense of racial superiority among Colonists.
And the violent trend was long-standing. As several historians point out, violence against and scalping of Native Americans also played a significant role in the conquest of California in 1846.
One historian has called California “the murder state” in the 1800s, as the scalping and massacres of Native Americans accompanied white settlers’ taking Native American land. State and federal officials, as well as several businesses, supported this genocide by paying bounties to scalp hunters.
From a contemporary perspective, the United Nations would consider the targeted killing of Indigenous women and children to be genocide.
The Spencer Phips Proclamation offered a bounty for Native Americans’ scalps in 1755. The town of Spencer, Mass., is named after this Spencer Phips, the former lieutenant governor of the colony. Journal of the American Revolution
Memory and violence
Centuries later, California and Massachusetts have had different responses to their role in these sordid histories.
California has acknowledged “historic wrongdoings” and the violence committed against the Indigenous people who live in the state. In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom set up a a Truth and Healing Councilto discuss and examine the state’s historical relationship with Native Americans.
In Massachusetts, state officials have largely been silent on this issue. This places Massachusetts more in line with much of the United States.
This is true even as Massachusetts, under the leadership of then-Gov. Charlie Baker, put a special emphasis on genocide education in the school curriculum.
Legacies of scalping
The legacies of violence and scalping are deeply rooted and can be observed in numerous parts of U.S. society today.
For instance, various communities, including Lovewell, Maine, and Spencer, Massachusetts, are named after scalp bounty hunters. Locals are often not aware of the history behind these names. Such town names, and the history of violence connected to them, often hide in plain sight.
But if you look closely, from the writings of early Euro-American colonizers and American literature to popular sport mascots and state and town seals, the brutality wrought upon Indigenous people remains at the forefront of U.S. culture more than five centuries after it began.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, let’s do what we can to dissociate scalping from being associted only with “savages” (or maybe stop thinking of savages as different population groups from our own and instead defining it on the basis of actions only.)
Incidentally, tomorrow is also still Columbus Day too. So in tomorrow’s video thread I’ll share a video (an old one from 2019) made for Full Frontal and featuring Deb Haaland.
Yesterday, the radio opera was “La Fanciulla Del West” by Giacomo Puccini. If you have ever seen “The Girl of the Golden WEst in any other incarnation (there was a movie with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, for instance) You’ll know the story, complete with the blood dripping through the ceiling. (Estlin Usher got a pic of the set for that scene, but before the blood started dripping. He also got two of the bar and one of the final scene – no horse – but they look like they were taken from the very last row.) Minnie is one of the few Puccini heroines who survives the opera, but though the lovers are together, their future is far from certain as they ride off into the sunset. We can hope – and most if not all do – that it all works out. This is the last production from Beijing this season (and it was recorded in 2019); the rest of the schedule is in place, and I’m excited about it. There are some 21st century operas and some rarities from traditional composers – a lot will be new to me to hear, even if I have read about some of the operas. It will take us into December. And the Met’s radio schedule, which will pick up where this leaves off, is also out, and I am excited about it too. But that can wait. Also yesterday, the Carters showed up at the Plains Peanut Festival parade (in a vehicle). That choked me up. Finally, yesterday I had to bring out the space heater. Sigh. Now, off to see Virgil.
Cartoon – 24 new Jay + yom kippur (both loaded)
Short Takes –
HuffPost – The UAW Strike Poses The Biggest Test — And Opportunity — For Joe Biden’s Economic Agenda
Quote – Since taking office, Biden cast his domestic economic agenda as a repudiation of the free-market economic policies that have dominated since President Ronald Reagan won election in 1980. Reaganomics, with its “trickle-down” upper-income tax cuts, corporate deregulation and anti-labor actions, “failed the middle class, it failed America,” Biden said in a June speech. More than any other single event, how Biden handles the UAW strike could determine the political and policy success of his grand agenda. Click through for explanation. HuffPost is talking about siding with the strikers. And my second take suggests that is exactly what he is doing – maybe not exactly the way that HuffPost suggests, but maybe even more strongly.
Axios – Biden to join UAW strike and picket with auto workers
Quote – President Biden said he’ll picket alongside the United Auto Workers in Michigan next week — in a rare act of a president visibly joining a labor movement…. Biden, who has previously called himself the “most pro-union president ever,” had urged U.S. automakers last week to share more of their “record profits” with the workers on strike. Biden’s visit is set for the day before former President Trump is expected to appear in Michigan instead of attending the second GOP primary debate. Click through for details. HuffPost was not expecting this. But they also carry the story so if you like, you can compare the coverages.
Yesterday, I caught up on some sleep, but upon arising, my body seemed determined to annoy me. I took care of the hip and the shoulder with the TENS unit, but my pretibial myxedema wasn’t so simple. Myxedema is a skin codition where fluid – I’m pretty sure lymphatic fluid – builds up under, not all the layers of skin, but under about the top two, which over time begin to look and feel like rice papre (but don’t hide what looks like bruising underneath.) It’s not painful and it doesn’t even itch -but if those two top skin layers breach, it starts leaking like crazy, If you don’t cover it with something, it can soak that whole part of a bed one’s legs are in. And a 3″x4″ “bandaid” doesn’t do the job, the fluid just leaks out under it (Although it can reduce the amount that gets all the way out.) Instead it requires something like a cotton leg warmer or a knee-high sock, cotton being best, but polyester works if it’s brushed and fluffy enough. So I had to deal with that – for about the fourth straight day – and I have no idea when the leaking will stop. It could be another week or two. At least no pain – just annoyance. Also, I have been knitting, and also trying to get more stuff ready for pickup. As a result I have not had time (and don’t see time coming) to read this article closely, and therefore I have no opinion on it. I do have an opinion that the deaths of JFK, MLK, and RFK were way to convienient for – I guess at that time it was mostly millionaires, but all too soon it will be trillionaires if we don’t do something. But I have no firm opinion on the details of how that worked out. I’ll just provide the link and let y’all look at it.
Also, in a comment on Nameless’s RoshHashanah post, I mentioned the radio special with Itzhak Perlman. KCME dot org will repeat it at 8 pm Thursday the 21st and 8 am Sunday the 24th. KCME is all over the world, but they also use their own player and it’s a little different. I’m thinking WFMT, WQXR, and WGBH are also likely to air it and quite possibly KVOD (CPR,org) on their own time schedules. The full name of the program is “Music for the High Holidays with Itzhak Perlman”. (There will be inforaition about food. Perlman likes to say that the definition of a Jewish holiday is “They tried to kill us. They did not succeed. Let’s eat.”)
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HuffPost – Here’s The Political Conversation We Overlooked This Week
Quote – We’ve spent a lot of time this week talking about Hunter Biden and impeachment, which is fair enough. I just wish we’d found more time to discuss another story[.]… I’m talking about the annual U.S. Census Bureau report on income and health insurance, which came out Tuesday and which my colleague Jonathan Nicholson summarized for HuffPost. The report found that the country’s poverty rate jumped from 7.8% in 2021 to 12.4% last year ― and that the poverty rate among children, specifically, rose even more dramatically, from 5.2% to 12.4%. To put it another way, last year more than 1 in 8 American kids were living in a household struggling to pay for food, shelter, transportation and other essentials. Just a year before, fewer than half as many kids were in that position. Click through for reasons, background, who’s on which side, and what can be done.
Orlando (FL) Sentinel – Florida leaders silent after senator confronts staffer at women’s shelter
Quote – Senate leaders have been silent about an angry confrontation between Republican Sen. Tom Wright and a female staffer at a Daytona Beach shelter for battered and abused women and their children over the Labor Day weekend. According to police reports, Wright yelled, lunged at, and placed his hand on the shoulder of a staff member who stopped Wright from getting on a bus full of the shelter’s residents out of concern for protecting their identities. Video footage provided by the Daytona Beach Police Department shows Wright’s tense encounter with a much shorter female staffer, who ran up to him to get him off the bus. Another employee stepped between them, and Wright, 71, turned to walk away, only to confront the worker a couple of more times before leaving. “For a political leader to come there and aggress on an employee in front of a busload of women and children who are making the courageous decision to protect themselves from violence is one of the most disgusting behaviors I have ever seen,” said Angie Pye, the former CEO of the Beacon Center, where the incident occurred. Click through for details – which are very different and even more sinister than the details of Lauren Boebert’s little spree – but the trashiness is much the same.
