Miriam,
You are much more of a reader than I. Time restraints being what they
are, I do a great deal of skimming. Although when some new twist or
concept raises its head, I do slow down. But I don't do many of the
hour plus You Tube presentations, and I skip over several great
internet publications. Looking back I recall that much of my
concentrated reading was between the hours of Ten and Two, hours that
this old man needs to be flat in bed getting up the strength and
courage to face another day. I turn in most nights at ten and wake up
at five. While I dress and shave and stuff like that, I listen to Amy
Goodman. Six finds me making coffee and toast, or some sort of cooked
cereal...unless Cathy does up bacon and eggs. I get on line around
seven and by eight thirty I usually prepare for the days clients. We
hit the road around nine, arriving at our first client's door between
ten and ten thirty. We see only one or two folks in the afternoon,
arriving back home by four or five. As I get older I find that I
can't wait too long to draft a report on the days activities, then
there are the calls to be made, new clients to chat with and schedule,
resources to hunt down, orders to be prepared for the appliances we've
spent the day promising to people. While I wrap up the office stuff,
Cathy stops her work and does a fine dinner...which we promptly
consume.
We mostly eat around seven, watching the mindless Wheel of Fortune and
Jeopardy, or chatting. Then I do a bit of reading on-line, running
off at the fingers, and generally having a good time. We keep a
Talking Book on the headboard and usually we can count on one of us
still being awake after half an hours reading. So, as you can guess,
I'm nowhere near as quick as I was in my younger years. And I expect
that in a couple of years more I will realize that I'm not as fast as
I was at 82.
So this is a long winded round about explanation why I continue to
listen to Richard Wolff. Yes, he does sound a bit pompous, like the
old school master peering down his long aristocratic nose at what he
believes to be slightly dull students. But I do still gain things to
ponder. The same is true of a program I've listened to for several
years. The Media Project. It's a collection of three people, usually
an editor, a professor and the head of the NPR station in Albany.
They discuss the media. It's a laid back chat, but it gives me
another insight. I ran across a rebroadcast from a Seattle station
about 4:00 in the morning. I found it on-line and check in at least a
couple of times each month. If it were an hour program I'd probably
skip it, but I think that a half hour sitting in with some folks that
have given me the feeling that I'm with old friends, is worth it.
The other thing that is troubling to me, since I was trying to pull up
the names of the people on The Media Project, is that I'm struggling
to pull familiar names, dates and events up from wherever they have
been tucked. I avoid public speaking other than presentations about
our services. Since splitting my Braille finger, my ability to read
fast enough to speak from notes, is no longer reliable.
Do these signs of advancing age trouble me? Of course they do. But I
also know that becoming upset will only make life unpleasant for me
and those I love. So I adjust. And I have learned to let go of some
tasks that I held near and dear. For years I edited the WCB Newsline,
and in later years stayed on the state-wide Newsline Committee. I
bowed out of that committee last year. I am no longer on the various
state committees that used to keep me dashing into Olympia or Seattle.
It's been several years since Cathy drove me to the Bainbridge Island
Ferry on the first leg of another trip. Today we ended a three day
visit with our eleven year old grand daughter, taking her to dinner at
the Olive Gardens in Silverdale before taking her home to Gig Harbor.
I do believe that at my age I am learning balance. Balance is the key
to a happy, successful life. As we stayed chatting with our daughter
and her husband, Elizabeth, our four and a half year old grand
daughter wrapped herself around my right leg and shouted up some
little girl noises that her daddy translated for me. "Grampa Jervis,
I want you to come to my birthday party...okay?" Elizabeth and I have
bonded! Just like Cathy and Gracie, the elder sister. "Of course
I'll be at your birthday party. When is it?" I replied with
enthusiasm. "October nineteen", she chirped...October, and already
she's planning? I can see several years ahead of us entertaining
little girls who arrive with their Planners under their arms, chock
full of the things that they and grandma and grandpa are going to do.
And I'm smiling.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/21/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have to admit. I've given up on Richard Wolff. Basically, it's because he
bores me. He has a message, which I've heard, and he keeps repeating it in
different permutations. And he does seem to be talking to his audience as if
we were all rather slow witted. He takes what his guests say, and repeats
much of it in simpler language for his mentally deficient, uneducated
audience who, he is sure, needs everything simplified. So, after several
weeks, I decided that I'd prefer to listen to something else or read a book,
rather than listen to Richard Wolff. Other podcasts have also been
discarded. But I just found a new one, which I find interesting, Citations
Needed. It involves Adam Johnson from FAIR and another guy whose name I
really didn't catch, who talk about how the media presents information.
Counterspin does that and it's a FAIR podcast, but it's beifer and slicker.
This podcast was mentioned on Counterspin and is relatively new. What I'm
realizing is that a lot of the material covered in these podcasts is
familiar to me, but I like podcasts that present the material in an
interesting manner. I've finally figured out that The Dig, the Jacobin
podcast, is, well actually, Jacobin is the magazine of the Social Democrats
of America. At least I think so. The podcasts can be very interesting if the
person being interviewd is interesting. Sometimes, they're very sort of
academic. There's been a series on Latin America, packed with information,
but sometimes, my mind wanders. The podcasts to which I listen, from
different sectors of the left, diverge somewhat in their opinions, and
there's some quarreling among factions about some things. Sometimes, I'm
clear about where I stand. Sometimes, not so much.
Miriame
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2017 2:44 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Dick Gregory
I suspect people's dialect and speech pattern can be offsetting to some
folks ears. I had a bit of that feeling when I began listening to Richard
Wolff. Not only the accent, but how he paced his words and left me with the
feeling that he was talking down a bit. But I totally appreciate his points
of view. He's been on Thom Hartman's TV show several times. Maybe he'll
move Thom a bit more toward the Left.
And speaking of how we talk, Thom Hartman has that bland, all American
voice. It never gets in the way of my listening to what he has to say. But
that does not make him right all the time.
Regarding Dick Gregory, I agree that much of his material was aimed at a
Black audience, and they got the message and the humor. Which was the whole
point of his routine. Bill Cosby's routine was aimed at me, and others like
me, and he was very skilled at it. While I can find the man disgusting, I
still can listen to his routines and chuckle over the pictures they bring
into my head.
It's hard to keep the talent of an individual separate from their actual
selves. People want to know all about the folks who entertain them. Red
Skelton was not a nice man, but to a small boy listening on the radio, he
was very funny. Grandpa McCoy, Walter Brennon, was about as Racist and
White Supremist as they come, but I never confused the delightful characters
he played, with the man. The man who built our house did a grand job. But
it turned out that he was a stogy ultra conservative. While he had bad
political judgement, he built one Hell of a decent house.
So I tip my hat to Dick Gregory, the comic I did not personally find so
funny. The people he reached with his humor needed him far more than I did.
And also there is the fact of this man turning from what could well have
provided him great financial security, to give all of his support to those
people needing him.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/21/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
I just finished listening to Democracy Now. Gregory's humor is very
different from Kosby's, I think, because it wasn't solely humor. At
least in the material I just heard, all of the humor included definite
social messaging, most of it, directed at black audiences. In a way,
it was a kind of preaching. And in he end, he was a social activist
because his humor was scene as disruptive to the social system. Amy
said that he was not allowed any more entertainment platforms because
of his activism. Any messages that Kosby had for black audiences, came
straight from the white man, just as Obama's messages did.
As for Jerry Lewis, I don't remember any discussion about him at all.
Perhaps people in different parts of the country, perceived him very
differently. This reminds me of an interchange with a midwestern guy
from the DB Review list, that I had yesterday. It had to do with a
podcast called, Just The Right Book. The woman who hosts it, was an
attorney doing some sort of financial stuff, but she ended up owning a
bookshop, or maybe it's a small chain of bookshops in Connecticut.
She's really very sophisticated and business savvy, but she's in her
sixties and has a very heavy New York, probably Brooklyn or Bronx
accent, and I'm sure her background is Jewish. My internet friend said
that he listened to the podcast a few times, but he was very put off
by the way Roxanne talks, so he stopped listening. Actually, I also
find her manner of talking rather irritating, but not so much that it
would cause me to stop listening. I'll listen to an episode if I'm
interested in what she's talking about.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2017 11:30 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Dick Gregory
My sense that Dick Gregory was not as entertaining as some of the
later Black Comics, like Bill Cosby, was not meant to detract from his
central role in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies as a Civil Rights
Advocate.
Gregory, in my opinion was far more of an influence through his daily
life than was Bill Cosby, over whom I absolutely fell off my chair
laughing. But Cosby used his enormous talent to satisfy his own
greed, while Gregory used his talent to open doors for all Blacks and
people of Color. Amy Goodman had an hour with clips out of past
interviews with Dick Gregory on this morning. While my respect for
him grew, I still found his humor to be not so funny.
As for Jerry Lewis and my claim that many people saw in him a negative
stereotype of a NYC Jew, That was my recollection of years of hearing
people talk about him. People who "loved" the man, even as they made
cutting remarks.
Maybe I read more into all of that, just because I never, ever liked
anything about Jerry Lewis.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/21/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I wanted to add to this conversation because there was a piece
regarding Dick Gregory on Unauthorized Disclosure that I heard this
morning. I do think that Carl's and Roger's posts have sold him short.
There was an amazing interview with Dick Gregory held in 1964 on a
public radio station in which he responded to the interviewer's
rather naïve questions, with excellent imply phrased explanations of
what it means to be black in America and also, some predictions about
the reactions of white people as they begin to comprehend that they
are a minority of the world's population with less power than they're
accustomed to. There was also an excellent little stand up comedy bit
about what it was like for a black person to order food in a
restaurant in the South. Additionally, Gregory has a history of
working for a variety of causes of which you would approve, starting
in the 70's.
Miriam