“I became convinced that noncooperation with
evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” Martin Luther
King, Jr.
At a sentencing
hearing before Judge Jesse Villalpando the “Whiting 41,” who were arrested last
May for protesting at the BP Refinery and calling for a switch from fossil
fuels to renewable energy, accepted an agreement where they’d each pay a fine
of $110 and their cases would be dismissed in six months on the condition that they
didn’t commit any new offenses. Post-Trib reporter Becky Jacobs wrote:
Five at a time they appeared before Judge Jesse Villalpando to accept
the agreement, which Villalpando called “outstanding”
and “wonderful,” as he commended the
defendants for their “good spirit” and
jovial atmosphere in the courtroom.
“The vibe in the courtroom
could not be better,” Villalpando said.
Attorney Roy
Dominguez, representing most of the defendants, told a crowd outside the
courthouse afterwards, “I’m honored to be
No. 42." Demonstrators marched down
Hohman Avenue to Hammond’s Federal Plaza, where they delivered a message to
Senator Joe Donnelly, calling on him to oppose Donald Trump’s cabinet choices of
Exxon Mobil’s Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and Texas Governor Rick Perry
for Energy Secretary. Leading chants of “You
can’t drink oil,” Hobart attorney Joe Hiestand said, “I’m so glad to see small-town America doing this. We can’t leave it to the cities as
progressives. We have to do this kind of thing in small-town America.” Jacobs wrote:
In front of
the federal building, with people inside peeking out the windows at the scene,
the group performed a “spill drill.” People held blue pieces of fabric to represent
water, as people holding a pipeline circled the group. The group put on black garbage bags to
represent the oil spilling into the water, representing situations like the
March 2014 processing error that dumped gallons of oil into Lake Michigan.
Over the long
weekend Toni and I ate at LongHorn Steakhouse before playing bridge at the
Hagelbergs with our monthly group. I watched magician Aaron Rodgers guide Green
Bay to a 34-31 victory over the hated Dallas Cowboys. We saw “Hidden Figures,” based on a true story about three women who in the
early 1960s provided NASA with key mathematical data prior to John Glenn’s
orbiting the earth. Forced to use
separate bathrooms and coffee pots, and forbidden to check out books from the
white section of a Virginia public library, the women persevered against great
odds with dignity. It is unconscionable that their talents were undervalued
and almost forgotten until Margot Lee Shetterly wrote the book upon which the
film is based. Toni is very well-read on
the NASA space program but had never heard of Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy
Vaughan or Mary Jackson. I also found on
HBO the Coen Brothers’ satire “A
Serious Man” (2009), about a Jewish professor beset with one problem after
another. Richard Kind, so good as Larry David’s cousin Andy in “Curb Your
Enthusiasm,” plays the pathetic Uncle Arthur.
Richard Kind
Rep. John Lewis
MSNBC carried 76 year-old civil rights veteran John Lewis’ Martin Luther King Day speech in Miami sponsored by My Brother’s
Keeper, Inc. Beforehand, Republican Senator Marco Rubio said of the Georgia Congressman, “We
throw the word ‘courage’ around these days very lightly. You are sitting in the presence of a true
American hero.” Miami Herald reporter Patricia Mazzei
wrote:
“Never, ever hate,” Lewis implored the young men of the 5000 Role
Models of Excellence Project, the mentoring and scholarship program that hosted
the breakfast. “The way of love is a
better way. The way of peace is a better way.”
Lewis covered the span of his life as a poor
son of an Alabama sharecropper: picking cotton, raising chickens and dreaming
of being a minister. His local college wouldn’t accept him because he was
black, so he went to school in Nashville, writing to King along the way, who
urged him to fight for admission — although he warned that it might cost his
family their hard-earned 110 acres. “My mother was so afraid, my father was so afraid,
that we could lose the land, our home could be burned or bombed,” Lewis said. “So I
continued to study in Nashville.”
“When you see something that is not right, not
fair, not just, we have a moral obligation to do something, to say something
and not be quiet,” he said. “You must have courage. You must be bold and never,
ever give up! When you know that you’re right, be brave.”
above, Cornell West; below, Faisal Kutty
On Martin Luther
Day King Cornell West spoke at a Valparaiso University convocation, calling the
civil rights leader “a prisoner of hope.”
Also honored for their contributions to diversity were History professor
Heath Carter and Muslim law professor Faisal Kutty. West told NWI Times reporter Jon Scheibel:
I think it's
always important to talk about love and justice, no matter what context, no
matter what generation. There's no doubt now we're in the moment of Donald
Trump. We need more truth telling, and we need more witness bearing when it
comes to justice. We needed it under Obama, we needed it under Bush, we needed
it under Reagan. We need it each and every generation. That's how timeless the
message of Martin King is, how timeless his life remains.
With three days to
go until the Trump inauguration, in an essay titled “The Leopard cannot change
its spots” Ray Smock wrote:
All through the campaign the word was pivot. When would Trump
pivot from being a mad dog and start acting presidential. The pivot never came.
Then once he won the election everyone waited for him to move from campaign
mode to that of the leader of the free world, the symbolic and real head of
state, the commander in chief, the unifier of the nation. He held a press
conference that pissed off the entire nation and most members of his own party
and frightened our allies around the world.
He refuses to believe he is not popular. Today he attacked the polls
showing him to be the least popular newly elected president in the last half
century. He says the polls are rigged. John Lewis, an American icon, says Trump
is an illegitimate president and Trump blasts Lewis for his run down district,
which includes the wealthiest and most diverse parts of Atlanta, including
Emory University. Trump's attack on Lewis unleashed a torrent of Klan tongues
including an elected official in Lewis's state of Georgia, who called Lewis "a racist pig" and his word
for Democrats was "Demonrats."
This official apparently can't wait for Trump to get into office so
he can put on his brown shirt and jackboots.
And everyone is now holding their breath looking for a statesman-like
inaugural address that will be filled with vision, humanity, strength, and
magnanimity. Is there something wrong with me to think we are expecting too
much? Why do I think the speech will be about Him and how HE is misunderstood.
Or why to I think He won't lash out at critics? Why do I think his best idea
and his boldest vision might be to return Americans to the moon, because that
idea worked for Kennedy and seemed really bold more than a half century ago. I
am sure he will say somewhere that he plans to make America great again. He
could start that process by resigning from office before he does decades of major
damage. But that won't happen. He knows he is in over his head but he probably
still believes he is right about everything. Eisenhower once said that "only Americans can hurt America."
Which is another way of saying what Pogo said, We have met the enemy
and it is us. We are in for Darth Vader America, not Luke Skywalker's version.
We will be at war with ourselves again. It has already started. How long can it
stay rhetorical, political, and cultural, without turning to actual war?
I spoke to Steve
McShane’s students about their oral history assignment to interview someone who
lived in Northwest Indiana during the 1990s. I went over some dos and don’ts,
mentioning mistakes I had made in the past, from pushing the wrong button on my
recording device to not getting my interviewee to turn off his television. I gave everyone copies of Steel Shavings,
volume 45, and told them my intention on publishing their articles in a future
issue.
At duplicate bridge
Charlie Halberstadt told me that Helen Boothe, who plays in our group and must
be well into her eighties, is planning to take part in Saturday’s Women’s March. He assumed she was planning to go to
Washington, D.C., like Alissa and some of her friends, but there is a rally scheduled
for Valparaiso, which Toni will attend, and my guess is that is where Helen
will be. Either way, hat’s off to her.
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