Democracy Now!

"Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

I found the Ben Franklin quote in Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!," which covers a gamut of vital movements over the past quarter-century, from climate justice and the LGBTQ revolution to Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.  Goodman wrote: "Independent media is the oxygen of a democracy."  Her phrase "Going to where the silence is" emphasizes that the radio program "Democracy Now!" doesn't shy away from issues that the mainstream media ignores, such as punishment of whistleblowers or the lethal use of drone attacks against our enemies.  In a chapter entitled "The Sword and the Shield" Goodman wrote that people all over the world saw Americans in two ways, as a government that provides weapons to reactionary regimes but as one with concerned citizens who at times can be shield against atrocities.  She described a near-death experience covering a 1991 massacre of peaceful demonstrators in East Timor by Indonesian troops wielding US M16s.  She noted that in 1975 President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger approved a decision by Indonesia dictator Suharto to invade East Timor.  That action resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths that went virtually unreported in American newspapers.  Goodman wrote:
    Compare that to Pol Pot's Cambodia, where the genocide from 1975 to 1979 was proportionally similar.  Hundreds of articled exposing Pol Pot's atrocities appeared in the US media. The difference?  Cambodia was an official enemy of the United States; Indonesia was a close ally.

Goodman was on hand in the capital of Dili when in 2002 East Timor became an independent nation as a result of a UN supervised referendum, as was former president Bill Clinton (above, with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, left) .

A most poignant story in "Democracy Now!" was of Troy Davis (above), executed by the state of Georgia in 2011, 22 years after he was arrested and convicted for the murder of a Savannah policeman even though the only evidence against him was the word of witnesses pressured by police, most of whom later recanted their testimony.  Worldwide appeals for clemency to Governor Nathan Deal had no effect, and the final plea for a stay was referred to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who hailed, Goodman wrote, "from Pin Point, Georgia, a community founded by free slaves that is near Savannah, where Davis had lived."  Thomas denied the appeal.  Goodman noted;
    As I stood on the grounds of the prison, just after Troy Davis was executed, the Georgia department of Corrections threatened to pull the plug on our broadcast.  The show was over.
    I was reminded of what Mahatma Gandhi reportedly answered when asked what he thought of Western civilization: "I think it would be a good idea."

Tabby Thiel, Ashley Moreno, Kennedy Laviolette; Post-Trib photo by Jim Karczewski

Massive Gay Pride parades took place in Chicago, New York City, San Fransisco, and Seattle with moments of silence and tributes to the Pulse dance club victims in Orlando.  Like last year local newspapers interviewed participants waiting to catch the South Shore into the city.  Anne Balay (below, left), ensconced in Greencastle on a writers' retreat, posted: "I am writing, writing, writing, and having adventures.  I'm not sure Bub my barber had ever seen a lesbian before."  Cathi White begged to disagree, replying, "Greencastle is full of gays and lesbians, at least at Depauw."

Bill Dolan of NWI Times reported that George Van Til has been moved to a halfway house.  At age 68 the former Lake County surveyor is ailing, but if someone, perhaps if a defense attorney such as Roy Dominguez hired him as a consultant, it might facilitate his ability to be released.  Nobody knows the ins and outs of local government better than my friend.

Gretchen Pierce gave birth to a kid named Heidi who's a dead ringer for papa Jerry, a former member of IUN's History department who is sorely missed and now teaching in the Penn State system.

Over the weekend our condo was a beehive of activity, as Toni, Angie, Beth, and Becca were putting together favors for Alissa's upcoming bridal shower.  Alissa dropped in Sunday afternoon after spending Saturday in Chicago.

Spencer Cortwright spotted a red-wing blackbird nest just a few feet from the edge of IUN's parking lot.  He reported:  "The blackbirds are using a plant called ironweed for their nest, as it is a very sturdy plant and not likely to get blown over in a storm.  It is in no sense of the word a weed, and in fact is one of our most beautiful native wildflowers that blooms in July/August!"

Poet William Buckley wrote, "Dear Jim, Okay!  It's a deal" as you put it.  I'll keep writing, and you will keep publishing.  Thanks for putting my work in Steel Shavings.  I'm honored."   Buckley wrote about Region legend Diana of the Dunes: "Alice M. Gray, a recluse who lived in the Sauk forests of Northwestern Indiana, c.1915-1925."

 Ghost-Chicagoan who moved to her shores - radical
and took up with a man in sand/ Kobe's Woman of the Dunes
at first blush/  but more like the turtle of Sauk/ unhappy Soul
who returned to earth as an Owl - with an odd Aztec
haircut and male face/  you do embody Midwestern
repressions: sex-fenced-but-expressed-with-happy perversions/

our tattered Ameriko-values in the choke weed
and longing for winds off Lake Michigan - freedom-
Oak-Park-Hemingway and Terre Haute-Dreiser wanted in the brashness
of New York  and our American Night/
                                                            If you had gone
to Big Sur you would've written your Confessions/  yet you left
and lived lone/ studied stars a huntress / sold fish to road
workers on Rt.20 and wandered against the industrial ideal/ 
Your mind now in the junk-art and sack races of a Chesterton Festival/

Summer Lists

"The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you."  Barack Obama

President Obama traveled to Orlando to offer support and condolences for victims of the mass murders at PULSE nightclub and their loved ones and to praise the first responders and medical staff that have been treating the wounded.  What a horrible week for that community, as, to add insult to injury, an alligator snatched a two year-old boy walking in shallow water at Disney World.  A sign warned against swimming but not against alligators.  Eighteen hours later, the boy's body was found intact, the cause of death drowning.  Officials vow to euthanize the killer alligator.

Lorenzo Arredondo blasting Donald Trump with Jose Bustos on left; Post-Trib photo by Jim Karczewski

Lake County Democrats gathered in front of the Immigrant Support and Assistance Center (ISAAC) in East Chicago to castigate Donald Trump for his malicious remarks against California judge Gonzalo Curiel, a native of Indiana Harbor.  ISAAC manager Jose Bustos noted that anxious clients are asking for ways to transfer care of their children to others in the event that Trump becomes President and they are deported.

Responding to Post-Trib columnist Jerry Davich's interest in a summertime to-do checklist, one reader said she wanted to check out a new pizza place every Friday.  Former student Joseph Coates (above), an archivist at Purdue North Central, wrote: "Taking kids on vacation, finishing landscaping, pressure wash and stain the deck, clean the garage, drink beer, apply to graduate school, and get a paper ready for publication."   My wish list includes inviting Dean Mark Hoyert and History Department members to Gino's for Chris Young's July history book club presentation on Andrew Jackson and delivering free Steel Shavings copies to the Remarkable Book Shop in Merrillville.  Long range, I hope to take Toni to Ireland and conduct at least a hundred more oral histories pertaining to my adopted hometown in Gary, Indiana.

Celebrating his 57th birthday birthday, Washington Nationals manager Dusty Baker savored a 12-inning comeback win over the Cubs, who nevertheless finished a nine-game road trip 5-4.  Baker comes from a long line of Cubs managers unjustly blamed for the team's century-long World Series drought.  I talked baseball with old friend Paul Turk, who lives in the DC area but is a diehard Cleveland Indians fan.  When he heard about the ceremony for Midge and my dad's gravesite, he said he'd have attended had he known about it.  In 1965 he drove from Ohio through a snowstorm to attend Toni and my wedding.

Samuel A. Love posted two photos of Miller Woods, one taken following a March brush fire and the other a contemporary shot on his 39th birthday, showing how much greener the forest affected by the fire is than the adjacent area.

Miller Woods photos by Samuel A. Love

Phil sought advice on suitable attire for his daughter Alissa's wedding.  I suggested something practical rather than a tuxedo "monkey suit."  When hippie-leaning  Ivan Jasper got married during the 1970s, guys in the wedding party wore denim outfits.  On the other hand, at a "lefty" friend's nuptials where I expected blue-collar outfits, guys wore tuxedos.  Both receptions were at Marquette Park pavilion where Dave and Angie was held.  Nephew Beamer's family will be visiting the weekend of Alissa's bridal shower, so wife Kim can go with Toni to Grand Rapids while the guys engage in board games.  Two summers ago Beamer loved attending Wade Game Weekend.

I'm reading Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!  Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America" (2016), which Phil gave me.  The Grand Valley PBS station where he works is one of over 1,400 carrying Goodman's hour-long daily program.  When "Democracy Now!" aired commentary by death row inmate and convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal two decades ago, pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police caused Temple University to halt its airing on the campus radio station.  In 1999 Goodman reported on protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization that niece Andrea Okomski participated in.

On Facebook Missy Brush (above with Marianne) wrote: "This was one of the greatest nights of my life!!!!  We finally got to see our favorite bucket list band, The Cure. They sounded unbelievable."

A new eight-hour documentary on O.J. Simpson revealed that his father was gay and that the then-married celebrity forced his future wife Nicole to have sex with him on their first date.  The irony is that while Simpson tried not to think of himself as a black man, in the end that's what got the jury to find him not guilty, given the tawdry history of the LAPD's treatment of minorities.

The ordering of my new Apple computer has been delayed while Ryan Vega in Tech Services figures out how to make a substitute request for a wired keyboard.  My last computer came with a miniature wireless device that I hated, so I continued to used an old keyboard that now sticks on certain letters, making capitalization difficult.  Meanwhile, I'm making do on a MAC located on the first floor of the library.

Ron Cohen just told me that Lotte and Seymour Meyerson died on the same day at an assisted living facility in Asheville, North Carolina.  Married in 1943 when she was 20 and he 26, they lived in Gary for 45 years beginning in 1952.  Lotte was President of the Gary League of Women Voters and head of the Northwest Indiana Open Housing Center.  Toni worked with her at the Center and on the 1972 MCGovern for President campaign.  A chemist, Seymour had worked on the Manhattan Project and then for Standard Oil.  They loved folk dancing and once had us and several other couples over for food, conversation, and dancing.  Lotte was active in Temple Israel and both were ACLU members.  They were good friends and role models.