The Tribune Online, 58

Irony of the Media...Chapter 10

A few months ago, I wrote this chapter on the subject of the media, http://theroanoketribune.com/rich_text_11.html. I was reminded of it after viewing the film "Network" available from "Netflix" just prior to viewing Super Bowl 45. As you know the "Packers" won. I guess you might say I had a special affinity for the Packers for a number of reasons. Their colors (Green and Gold) are the colors of my high school alma mater. Their gutsy, Italian, champion-oriented, patriarch would always feature that broad Lombardi smile, unless of course they screwed up a "play call" and then you got a glimpse of his "Soprano" side..just kidding.

Nevertheless, he reminded me of this perky, little Italian nun, named Sister Antonietta, who was my biology/chemistry teacher that always maintained a similar broad smile, for she loved to kid with us in class except when I heard while sitting at the back of the class, "Bobby, will you please come up here"! She then would point out how I incorrectly set up a formula, and to return to my desk and get it right. She and Sister Alberta were the youngest of the group of nuns and I guess that's why they related so well. Till this day, I have a profound love for the both of them, not because they were my teachers, nor because they were nuns, but simply because they were good hearted women...that for which a man appreciates upon maturity.

There was also a moment of reflection with my tutoring my grandson during last year's Super Bowl 44. I asked did he know what number President Obama was? He said he didn't. I said he is number 44. I then asked do you know what Super Bowl is coming up that Sunday?...again, he said he didn't know. I said it's number 44. The New Orleans Saints won the game and now my grandson will forever know that President Obama is number 44 because the Saints won #44. 

Psychin' Us Kids Out...

It was during my pre-teen years, growing up in my neighborhood and loving to play street football on Saturdays, being that our street called "Washington Place" was recently paved, whereas, it was covered with oyster shells before, and before then it was just an old dirt road, that got really muddy when it rained. Thus, the remnants of civil progress in black communities in Mobile, AL.

Whenever the winter got severe, it would freeze the pipes in the neighborhood, and a gentleman by the name of Mr. Pugh who lived down the street from us would come and fix them. He was a plumber's helper and due to his being black, he couldn't become a licensed plumber, because of union segregation in the south. Remnants of social and economic progress in Mobile, AL. It didn't have an impact until much later, when we discovered the continued domination of blacks from the remnants of slavery...no matter what the history books may want you to believe otherwise. I still see that trend sometimes in various parts of America.

Returning to the more subtle days of my youth and otherwise naivete...what the hell, plain old ignorance...we kids on the block looked forward to that Saturday morning football game on the street. Being that the street was narrow, we would occasionally run onto our neighbors' lawns, which most didn't object except Mr. Hall, who had this delicate flower bed in his. Sometime, he would get the football if it hit his porch and keep it...for week or two at a time...thus, ending the game.

During the summer months, I had the Saturday's ritual of cutting our grass, and my grandfather insisted that I cut Rev. Bush's grass next door on our side of the house before I could play football in the street. Initially, it was with a pushmower, until he softened up and got me a power one. 

Between our chores, some neighbors urged that we should go down to the new field that had been constructed a few blocks away on Catherine Street. We had done this before shortly after it had been built, but would somehow wind up in a scuffle with the kids from the surrounding blocks...thus, we just continued to play in the "Place" with Mr. Hall grabbing the football every other weekend.

Rev. Bush's wife evidently had a talk with my grandparents and came up with this "scheme" to make us guys more productive on the weekends, when Mrs. Tripp down the street complained that we were stealing the fruit from her apple and pear trees. The scheme was to have us all come over to Rev. Bush's house early after we finished our chores at home, and go around to the homes of the elderly, clean their yards, cut their grass, do some painting, haul trash to the dump on wagons, and any other chore within their purview. We were rewarded with a dollar or two, some fruit we no longer had to steal, or a big pitcher of "red cool aid."

At the end of the day, we were too tired to want to play football. This one Saturday, my grandmother encouraged me to use my dollar to buy an ice cream sandwich and soda pop from Mrs. Bizzell's little store next door, on the other side of our house. Her husband, Rev. Bizzell, died and thus she was a widow just trying to make ends meet with her little "mon and pop" shop. Anyway, I lumbered on over and did as suggested, and Mrs. Bizzell said I could establish an account and get these items during the weekdays, if I just paid my account on Saturdays. I went for it hook, line, and sinker!!

So, during the week I gorged myself on ice cream sandwiches and soda pop, come to find out I was three dollars in the hole and my grandparents held me to account for my debt to her. Consequently, I was forced to be available for those weekend chores in order to get that dollar or two to continue my weekly "sweet tooth jones."

I thought about this when I was on my way to boot camp on a Saturday after enlisting in the Navy..and wondered if my grandparents were getting a "kick back" on me and the other psyched out kids?

Immigration, Education, and a Dose Of Reality

Booker T. Washington said: "For a number of years we have had on our grounds [Tuskegee] a number of students from countries outside of the United States. From year to year we have from 100 to 150 students representing foreign countries and we are anxious that these students be fitted to go back to their homes and render the highest and best service. We shall hope therefore, that during the discussion, we shall get much valuable information as to the actual needs in the countries from which these students come, so that they will be trained to some definite point of usefulness in their communities. We want these students to go back home after they get their education and we want them to prove of service there as a result of what they have learned. I am perfectly aware of the fact, as I am sure many of you are that with all of our faults, we damn the United States a good deal. But as a rule when a fellow once gets into this country, it is pretty hard to get him out. We hope most of you will get out. I note, however, that a good many young men and women come from Africa, and from South American countries, from [Porto Rico] and Cuba and Jamaica and when they first arrive they praise their own country pretty highly, nothing like it. They stay here one month, then two months, then a year in studying at some institution and the first thing you know they have forgotten their country and they never go back home any more. We do not want that to be true of the men and women we train at Tuskegee and I am sure in helping us to give these students that which will serve them best and serve you best, in the communities from which they have come, you can help us immensely during these meetings." (The Tuskegee Student, July 1912)

Death with Dignity 

From Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer:

"The American Society of Clinical Oncology says too often, patients aren't told about options like comfort care or even that their chemo has become futile until the bitter end.

To help families broach the topic, the group developed an easy-to-read booklet about these choices, from standard care to symptom relief, and advice about what to ask to maximize remaining time.

The guidance and booklet as available at http://www.cancer.net marks an unusually strong push for planning end-of-life care, in a profession that earns more from attacking tumors than from lengthy, emotional discussions about when it's time to stop.

It's time to take the lead in curtailing the use of ineffective therapy and ensuring a focus on palliative care and relief of symptoms throughout the course of illness."

Watching Paul Newman...

I had just viewed some documentaries featuring Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and even Charlton Heston along with Harry Belafonte, Sammy Davis, Jr., and James Baldwin standing alongside MLK, Jr. during civil rights' marches.

I also viewed on "you tube" Ronald Reagan being a strong, outspoken proponent of greater benefits for the working man, in face of corporations taking robber-baron-like profits in the capitalists' equation. In the case of Charlton Heston and Ronald Reagan as being the disciples of Barry Goldwater's gospel..."in defense of liberty, extremism is no vice," I can only ask, what happened to these two men that the "right" (NRA and Republicans) wants to promote as shining examples of increased human freedom?

Last night, I watched the film "Blaze" available from "Netflix".  Paul Newman played the role of former Louisiana Governor Earl Long, the brother of Huey Long. The Governor may have been somewhat of a crook, but certainly not a hypocrite as Newman expressed in one of the scenes in the movie, in so many words, "we gotta stop wanting to sleep with niggers at night and wanting to kill 'em during the day."

In the film he's besieged by his political opponents as a "nigger-lovin' socialist" only because he helped to secure employment with better living and education conditions for all of his "Louisianians" in face of the big capitalist corporations. You might even say that this retort is being used by the American right wing tea-party against President Obama,  no matter how many "niggers" they manage to get into "their right-wing beds." 

Where's Andy??

I'm speaking of Andy Rooney, the curmudgeon that appears with the closing caveat at the end of the "60 Minutes" broadcasts. Hasn't been seen on a regular basis, could it be he's making a slow exit or being quietly pushed out the chair? Well, there are only so many topics under the sun, one can comment about before sounding repetitive, either in interest or simply presentation.

It calls to mind the staying power of "Rush Limabutt" but there are more "low brow racists" in America than most would think...thus, his continual market. Then there was Arsenio Hall, an overnight shooting star that seemed to burn out shortly after getting Andrew Dice Clay to weep out of guilt for his misogynistic stand up routine. Arsenio Hall has tried to make a comeback with a few commercial tries on television...but no success. Maybe, he invested his money wisely and living "phat" and happy...somehow, I don't think so. Haven't heard anything about "Dice" since.

This brings me to Tavis Smiley, who seems to be losing steam with the same guests two or three times or more, of which we learned pretty much everything of interest about them the first time around. This genre has a very limited expectation, which maybe why he's gotten into the publishing business?