Bill's Big Diamond Blog

Notes From the Meltdown: My Father's Memories

I’ve been too busy, and frankly, a little too worried, to pen much political prose lately.  It hasn’t been because there’s no need.  God knows we need more political ideas now, not less.  It’s just that as a small business owner, I’ve been more focused on keeping my business and its two employees on track to survive the current hard times.

 We’re documentary makers and we also produce a variety of corporate, news, multicamera, and live event projects for media.  It’s a rough time for our clients and our funders, and hence, a challenging time for us too.  But we’re making a go of it.  It’s just taking more of my time than usual, so I hope readers who wonder why the posts are fewer lately will understand.

 But this morning I want to take a couple of minutes to recall a little about the stories my father told me about his childhood during the Great Depression.   There were always lots of anecdotes about helping his family and about having little.  They made everything, cooked everything from scratch.  He would talk about how many people in his old neighborhood had lost their jobs, and what it did to their families.  I recall only a few of the specific tales, taking away a more general picture of those distant hard times, which I didn’t then relate to.  You know, the stories about long paper delivery routes and a child getting up before dawn to pedal his bike around town ... it was stuff my sisters and I exaggerated for effect, having been well provided for and needing only to get up in time to catch the bus to school, with lunch in hand.

My dad has never forgotten them, however.  I recall how much it affected him when his own children would waste the resources we had.  He was not up against it by the time we were growing up, having gotten a good education on the GI Bill.  He was able to become an accountant after coming home from Japan and the post-WWII occupation there.  He was the first in his family to move up into the middle class.  But he remembered what it was like as a child to need everything his family had to get by.  He also took into adulthood a belief in political service to his community, a legacy of growing up under FDR.

 My dad is older now and not in as good health as he used to be before a heart attack robbed him of his short-term memory a few years back.  But he still remembers what the Depression was like and he still believes in being frugal with what he’s got.  It’s a trait I hope I gleaned enough of from him to help me in the coming year—or years— of these times ahead. 

 Documentary production has always been an endeavor delivering not much of a paycheck, but now I think its also become work that’s more critical to do.  We need to tell the stories of those who otherwise wouldn’t make it onto our big and little screens, so I’m digging in and we’re going to keep at it.  We’ll be making a lot of other kinds of media as well, I’m sure, but that’s a good thing … as long as it helps us to grow creatively and allows us the means to focus on our main mission.

 Like my father was as a younger man, I’ll also be grateful for a government that helps make it possible for us to survive these times.  I hope we’ll do it with decent healthcare for all and public jobs that build up our infrastructure, our educational system, and our conversion to a greener economy.  More importantly, I hope our politics brings us together to realize that our fates are intertwined, that what makes my neighbor stronger also makes it possible for me to get by a little more easily.

 All right, enough for now.  I gotta get to work.

Go Gainesville State!

Rick Reilly’s ESPN column, “Life of Reilly,” is a real beaut.  Thanks to Susie Madrak for calling attention to it.

 We could all spare a little more of this kind of understanding and love for our fellow man.  When you see it on a Texas football field, it feels all the better…  

..."Imagine if you didn't have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you."  

Rick Warren to Deliver Obama's Invocation? Very Disappointing...

So I was over at Pam’s House Blend this morning and noticed this clip from Pastor Rick Warren about Proposition 8.  He’s got a right to be a bigot, I guess.  It’s a free country.  But if President Johnson had asked a preacher who had just recently told all his minions to get out and fight against the Civil Rights Act to give the invocation at his inaugural in 1964, I guess we’d a' thought he was nuts.  What’s more, we’d think he wasn’t too serious in his support for civil rights.

 So I’m thinking that President-elect Obama needs to get a grip on this Rick Warren friendship of his.  First, Warren’s selection is a real slap in the face to gay Americans and to those of us who love our gay family members and friends.  He’s an out-and-out bigot, who’s running around recording pleas for others to be bigoted.  Not acceptable as a choice to begin your Presidency, Mr. Obama.

 But second, Mr. President-elect, Rick Warren isn’t your friend.  I watched that Saddleback Forum debate he sponsored.  Time after time, he couched the terms of the debate in such a way that you were at a real disadvantage.  He clearly set it up for McCain to walk away the winner.  (As Pam puts it, he sandbagged you, man.)  It wasn’t just about gay marriage, which, of course, you aren’t really standing up for anyway, unfortunately.  The guy obviously just tolerates you; he doesn’t embrace you.  So why piss off all of us — and set a homophobic tone— to have him bless your Presidency?

 Why?

 Rick Warren just oozes sanctimoniousness.  I play this clip below because the sanctimony and the lying just flows out of it.  First, when he says that five thousand years of Christianity tells us that marriage is an unchanging sacred thing, he’s sanctimonious—and wrong.  For quite some time, Christians were urged not to marry.  It was giving in to the carnal urge.  Celibacy was a virtue.  Then, marriage was accepted because Christianity became mainstream.  Cultures change religious traditions as they evolve.  Come on, aren’t you the religious leader?

 Second, when he says that two percent of the country are homosexuals (don’t say ‘gay’ fella, that would be just too respectful, right?), he’s just lying.  Even government surveys, which understate the number of gay people in the population, double that number and most researchers would put a more accurate figure at closer to ten percent of the population.  He knows that, but his construction is designed to make gay people seem freaky and odd (not like ‘us.’). 

 Lastly (the clip was recorded before the election), when he says he’s not endorsing a candidate, remember, he’s already sandbagged Obama at his forum repeatedly.  So, again, the sanctimoniousness…  Please, don’t let this selection be a harbinger of self-flagellation to come in this Presidency.  The man is not your friend.  You gotta be a friend to have a friend.

 Don’t even get me started about the way he treats the court system in this little ditty…  go ahead, watch it yourself.

The Difference a Financial Collapse Makes...

What a Thanksgiving! 

Standing over the stove, my sister’s partner, always the most conservative member of our clan, asked me how business was doing.  I didn’t want to be a damper on the festivities, but I thought I could say something general, so I mumbled, “Well, with the economy being the way it is…”

He interrupted me, saying, “It’s not the economy—“

Both of us picked up, in unison “It’s the financial system!”

Then, I almost fell over as he revealed, “I’ll tell you something,. I don’t think I’m a capitalist anymore.  I think we need a seriously regulated economy, so this will never, ever, be allowed to happen again.  It wasn’t the failure of a few… I mean, everyone’s looking for a perpwalk, for somebody to blame, but it’s the whole system that caused this to happen.”

This Thanksgiving was the holiday when I stopped being known as the family party pooper.  

Unfortunately, it’s taken a lot of pain—and lots more to come—for the lure of easy, unregulated financial deals and no government taxation on their profits to become apparent for what it has always been— a shell game for the advantaged to steal from common folk.

After a conversation about the path to ruin we’ve all just traveled, it was me, for a change, who ended up cutting us short. “Let’s move on to more pleasant topics.  We don’t want to put a damper on the day.”

If you live long enough, you get to experience-and do- a lot of things you never imagined.

Herbert on Kennedy: "Hang in there, Ted"

Today’s column by Bob Herbert about Ted Kennedy, his own father, Chester Herbert, about the 1960’s, when we all hoped for a better America, and his wish that Ted will hang in there put me in mind of hope we still hold.

Leave it to Herbert to write openly about hope in the most unlikely way, by remembering his father’s throat cancer diagnosis. It’s a loving and poignant piece.

We’ll listen tomorrow to Kennedy’s surrogate at Wesleyan University’s commencement, Barack Obama. It should be a good moment for some more thoughts about Massachusetts' lion of progressive politics from his endorsee for the Presidency.

Ted Kennedy is a fighter, who has made a legacy after hope, great losses, failures— who's made progressive change happen, and often held back the tide, with hard work and commitment. It's fitting that Obama should be standing in for him—with great hope.

Randy Pausch- Last Lecture

Here’s a video that’s not about politics or film or journalism (or is it?), but I watched it when a friend who has survived cancer sent it to me. I think it’s worth eleven or twelve minutes…

A Ray of Sunshine in the Lower Ninth Ward

Gorbachev in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans:

"If things haven't changed by our next visit, we may have to announce a revolution," the former head of the Soviet Union mused as he walked the streets of the devastated neighborhood recently.

One of the continuing stories we follow on this site is the avoidable, continuing, and constantly compounding tragedy of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While the entire Gulf Coast was shellacked by the huge storm in 2005— and while many areas of Mississippi and Louisiana have also been woefully underserved and forgotten by the Federal government in its wake (see Don and Leslie Wilson’s fine film, Mississippi Son), the most inundated and affected area was and continues to be the City of New Orleans.

The canal break and levee toppings there were the product not just of a hurricane, but of government neglect and under-funding, neglect continued in spite of dire warnings of the potential consequences of leaving the canals and levees in the condition Hurricane Katrina found them. The immediate aftermath of the Hurricane is still all-too-familiar to most of us— and is certainly one of the most shameful episodes in the annals of the Bush Administration. The way New Orleans’ residents were left to fend for themselves—even blamed by some in the media and on the Right for their own tragic misfortune— left much of the world wondering how such a thing could occur in the planet’s most powerful country.

The flood has been followed not just by a huge recovery project, but by over two years of bureaucratic mismanagement and callousness, broken promises, and implicitly racist dismissals of the ability of New Orleans’ largely African American population to pull itself out of the post-disaster devastation, if properly supported with aid programs. Some pundits have even thrown out the idea that New Orleans wasn’t worth rebuilding. Imagine if major media personalities had floated such an idea about New York after 9/11.

One of the many Lower Ninth Ward families working hard to rebuild after Katrina has recently had it even harder than their neighbors. As readers here know, we’ve been highlighting the story of the Kellie Joseph household’s plight. We’re taking part in an effort to focus attention and internet fundraising strength on their Herculean task of rebuilding one NOLA home yet again, for a family that saw all their hard work literally go up in flames last month.

Here’s the Good News:

We’re pleased to report that the first $10,000 has already been successfully raised to start the reconstruction of the Josephs’ home after a fire that burned down their 80%-finished structure in September. It’s been only just a few weeks since some intrepid medical students at Tulane University, NOLA area officials, local journalists, and lately, a small but growing cadre of progressive bloggers have taken up the cause of the Joseph Family. Please pass the word through your blogs and visit the website of the Rebuilding Fund. Send your own donation and your personal greetings to Kellie and her family. Let them know we won’t ignore them.

Together, we can make a big difference for one family. It won’t change the big picture in the Lower Ninth Ward by itself, but the world is a funny place. Sometimes, you put some love, some pennies, and some courage on the table—and bigger things come of it.

Update on the Joseph Family from NOLA

Timothy Park, one of the Tulane med students who are working so hard to help the Joseph family re-rebuild their home in the Lower Ninth Ward, sent the following update to me last night. I thought readers might be interested to hear his perspective on what's going on down there— and how the campaign is going to raise funds to make the Josephs' homecoming possible.

If you aren't aware of the Kellie Joseph Rebuilding fund and what's behind it, you should read yesterday's post before this one. Otherwise, continue:

As a student advocate for the Joseph family, and
the one responsible for updating this website, I
wanted to express personal thanks to scoutprime
from the blog First-Draft. Without the hard work
and sacrifice that she has made over the past
week, the online donations initiative would most
likely be where it had been at that time (at $545).
The result of her hard work has been the posting
of the story at numerous high-profile blogs, and the
raising of approximately $7600 over the course of
the past week. This result truly goes to show the
power had in the care of many.

While I have been focused on maintaining this
website, my colleagues have been out and about
within the Holy Cross district of the Ninth Ward in
New Orleans trying to feel out the community, and
have gotten the chance to meet many an
interesting individual. We have all been startled by
how lively and vibrant the constituents of this
community are. Every Thursday a quaint little
church is filled to the brim with residents of the
area as they discuss the issues of their community
in a neighborhood meeting. There also seems to
always be someone in the audience that is from
another region of the country visiting to see how
they might help this underserved area.

This past week, an architect with group from
Kansas that I believe was termed the "Green
House Project" offered a little hope to the Joseph
family's cause. He stated that they were looking for
a house to use in their design project, and there is
somewhat of a possibilty that their house could be
chosen. It's probably a long shot, but it is
encouraging just the same. I mention this with the
hope that perhaps someone reading this will have
an idea along these lines that could help connect
the family to an organization that might be able to
assist in the rebuild of their home.

On a somewhat related note, the Brad Pitt-related
organization has been picking up a lot of steam
lately as could be seen by the area being visited by
former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev. We've
been trying to help connect the family to this
organization as it seems to be an ideal balance of
understanding the financial circumstance of the
residents of the Ninth Ward, and helping them to
help themselves. We haven't been able initiate a
dialogue with them yet, so please keep this in your
thoughts.

Until next time, take care of yourselves; and don't
hesitate to drop a line at:
[email protected]

Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day weekend, visiting my parents, one thing I thought my Dad might like would be to go to the parade. So, we took a drive up to the town common, walked over to a bench, and Dad greeted a woman his age whom he knows, pulled up his side of the bench, and settled down to watch the ceremonies. They compared notes on joints that ached and on how long it had been since they'd seen each other.

The local vets set the memorial agenda and interspersed anthems, speeches, and multiple flag ceremonies, as kids from the community sang and dropped roses onto the helmeted rifles of the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. I didn’t see an Iraq-era helmet. Maybe my hometown hasn’t lost a soldier there yet. I was surprised by a few things. The crowd was a lot smaller than I remembered it being in my childhood and the number of vets who marched behind the high school band numbered only about a dozen, followed by a few Boy Scouts and the Massachusetts State Troopers who formed the honor guard. The occasion wasn't the shared community experience it had been to us as kids; it was now more of a meeting of military families and local pols.

Being there yesterday made me think about how isolated the military families of today are probably feeling, bearing the brunt of the war without the country as a whole knowing their pain and loneliness, their worry, and the long stints apart. Since we’ve all been told that the war can be waged without a draft, without special taxes to pay for the war, and that the enlistees and National Guard members who do all the fighting and dying can continue to have their tours extended endlessly, there’s not much that most of us know of the life of military families.

The commitment made by a country and the price a nation pays for that commitment ought to be shared at large. The soldiers who are deployed overseas too often feel that their experience is not only not shared by us, but not cared about by Americans, the people for whom they serve.

Whether one opposes the continued occupation of Iraq or supports it, we owe it to the soldiers who carry out our nation’s policies and to their families to be involved in their struggle, in our struggle as a nation. They carry out their mission and their families support them. Our respect for what they give ought to extend at least as far as an active involvement in their fate and ours. When a country loses sight of what happens to our defenders, we risk more than their lives. We risk our future and our security.

Remember Mother's Day

For years I participated in the Mother’s Day traditions of calling Mom and of encouraging my daughter to do the same for her Mom. I bought Hallmark cards and sent flowers. It was a nice thing, no? While I sometimes got the feeling that I was more a drone for the greeting card and floral industries than a faithful son, I never unpacked the history of the holiday. I assumed someone once thanked his or her mother for her loving care over the years and it just, well, caught on.

Today, Katrina vanden Heuvel and the Nation Magazine ripped that gauzy sentiment away from me; they sent out an email about the real Mother’s Day and its original meaning. Turns out that the famous abolitionist, Julia Ward Howe, the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” proclaimed the first Mother’s Day in 1870. She did so in the wake of the carnage of the Civil War, which had then so recently robbed almost every American family of loved ones and relatives. Her proclamation began with the following words:

"Arise then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears!"

The intent of the commemoration was to bring together mothers from around the world to condemn and dispose of the practice of allowing male-dominated governments to resolve conflicts by engaging in war.

"Say firmly: 'We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience….'"

Robert Greenwald and Code Pink put together a video that talks about the origins and intent of that first Mother’s Day. The day was a beginning, intended to find a way for mothers to band together across national boundaries. It was a plea to free their children from the oppression of war and violence. The video today about Mother’s Day is the subject of Ms. vanden Heuvel’s Nation message— and it’s worth playing for anyone’s mother, son, or daughter to remind us that we can come together again as people to end a war, cease an occupation, stop carnage, refuse to fund violence, and clean up after our leaders as free people.

Happy Mother’s Day. Stop the war. Do something for every mother whose son or daughter didn’t make it back home to call Mom here— or make it home from the market to break bread with their family in Iraq.