Category Archives: Politics

Politics, Writing

Rich Boss Cries Crocodile Tears Over Fate Of Worker He Fired After Twenty-Five Years

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Cartoonist Rob Rogers was fired from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. This is his website.
A cartoon to get fired over

This was his publisher:

“He’s just become too angry for his health or for his own good,” John Block, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, told POLITICO in his first interview since the firing earlier this week.

How thoughtful!

“I wanted clever and funny instead of angry and mean,” he said in an interview in Lakeville, Connecticut, at a reunion of his boarding school Hotchkiss.

So the rich boss is a Hotchkiss man. How appropriate! Was he angry when he fired cartoonist Rob Rogers? Or was he just mean? Because if he was just mean, and not angry, he’s not a hypocrite. He’s still mean, though, still rich and powerful, willing and able to hurt people.

How able?

Rogers said that when he was hired in 1993 the Post-Gazette was a liberal paper, largely reflecting the Democratic leanings of its city. Then as now, John Robinson Block was its publisher. He has been photographed shaking hands with Hillary Clinton and beaming beside Trump on his private jet.

How willing?

In January of this year, the editorial board ran a piece defending Trump’s use of the term “shithole countries” when referring to African nations as well as Haiti and El Salvador. The editorial, titled “Reason as racism,” sparked outrage among current and former employees at the newspaper, including Rogers who described it as “blatantly racist.”

I realize many of my friends have faith in wealthy people and their market ventures, to make wise decisions that lead to more for everyone. I have a similar faith. I believe wealthy people make wise decisions that lead to more for themselves.

The markets are rising for a reason: Wealthy people of all persuasions can see profit on the horizon. They will not save you.

Politics

Hubris Watch for June 16, 2018

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Democratic leaders have repeatedly declared that African American women are “the backbone” of the party. But when some of those same women run and win their primary bids for Congress, they haven’t had so much as a phone call from establishment leaders. In interviews with The Atlantic, five black women candidates who won their primaries said they still haven’t heard from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the body that works to elect Democrats to the House. “It’s the height of hypocrisy,” Lake told me. “We bring millions of votes into these campaigns, and we’re gettin’ no love.”

Personal, Politics, Unitarian Universalism

Kim Kardashian Shines A Light

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Not Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette: Melania or Ivanka? Neither, says Slate’s Matthew Dessem: It’s Kim Kardashian. It’s a slick piece of understandably sharp mockery. As Dessem asks, “In the long term, has anyone ever been glad they lent their celebrity to Donald Trump?”

That’s a fair question, and I’ll answer it: Kim Kardashian is glad, because Alice Johnson now has a better chance of being pardoned.

Dessem doesn’t quite get the “optics”–and is there a more cold clinical hateful way to describe the care with which a human being presents herself in search of justice for another?–of Kim Kardashian asking Donald Trump to show mercy to Alice Johnson.

There’s a lot to be said for representation and empowerment stories, whether fantastic or realistic, but when someone has spent twenty years behind bars on a bullshit charge, denying those bars’ existence doesn’t get a body out of jail.

This is a very different kind of story, in a very long tradition of those on bottom appealing to those on top for mercy. It doesn’t cast Kim Kardashian in the leading role. She has a piece of paper in her mind. She’s going to see the warden, going to free her friend.

I don’t know what was on Kim Kardashian’s piece of paper. I don’t know if it was a bail receipt, a poll result, a Kanye tweet, a well-timed insult, a Tennessee bondsman’s guarantee, a letter of recommendation, a role for Melania on TV, a gratuitous link to Formation. I expect she said whatever she had to say, just like going there to ask was what she had to do.

If you can look down on her for that, then you’re a better man than I.

Politics, Unitarian Universalism, Writing

One Good Thing About the Rise of Authoritarianism

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If you’ve read a lot of inside stuff about Unitarian Universalism the last few years, you’ve noticed ministers (and others, but a lot of ministers) decrying the “antiauthoritarianism” of rank-and-file Unitarian Universalists.

Equating “antiauthoritarianism” with “antiauthority” is just as dishonest as the people who try to equate “spirituality” and “spiritualism”, and in just the same word-warping manner.

So here’s the good news: I haven’t seen one such use of “anti-authoritarian” since the last election. As Samuel Johnson said, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Looking authoritarianism in the eye reminds the weary and forgetful of the virtues of standing firm and saying no, middle finger and all.

It’s a small blessing, but I’m not in a position to turn anything down!

Arkansaw, Personal, Politics, Unitarian Universalism

Why I’m Not Thanking Black Women For Electing Doug Jones

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The black folks who showed up to vote against Evil certainly have my thanks, as does everyone who shows up against Evil. I don’t think that’s how people think about it, though. I doubt anyone woke up in Alabama Tuesday and thought, “I’m going to go save the world.” No. They thought, “I have a chance to elect a senator who will protect and advance my interests.” And they voted, and I’m glad, because I share their interests.

But who deserves the most thanks? James Luther Adams used to talk about the “immaculate conception of virtue” and why that was a silly idea. So let’s apply that insight here: What got people to the polls that day? Local organizers. People who consciously act beyond their own interests to make a better world.

And here’s the big thing: It costs money, lots of money, to put boots on the ground.

So if you want to offer thanks, go right ahead. I think you’re better off finding out who was effective in turning out voters and giving them your thanks in the form of cash.

Personal, Politics, Unitarian Universalism

Shame Can Do What Guilt Cannot

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I learned something about people this week: When you call someone a fascist or a Nazi or a racist, they shrug it off. When you tell them they are bad and should be better people, they take offense. The labels as guilt don’t carry much weight to people who are skeptical of them. Failing as a human being, though, needing to be better, that gets through.

Shame can do what guilt cannot.

Personal, Politics, Unitarian Universalism

Donald Jr. and Eric on SNL: The Smothers Brothers of Our Time?

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This sketch is funnier every time I watch it:

It reminds me of an even more exaggerated version of the Smothers Brothers, as though Dick Smothers were playing Donald Jr. and Tommy Smothers were playing Eric. Except that Eric is innocent where Tommy was petulant. Except Donald Jr. cares more about his brother, is more patient with him, than Dick is with his brother.

It’s an odd, oddly sweet dynamic. This sort of probably shouldn’t work at any level but pointed, mean-spirited satire. I’m not much in the mood lately for seeing the human side of the inhumane. But this is still very funny and just a little touching–but mostly funny, especially the physical comedy Alex Moffatt brings to Eric halfway through the sketch. Mikey Day is very good as Donald Jr., slick and a little sleazy but still trying with his brother, but watching Moffatt do his thing while Day tries to talk, that there is paydirt.