And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh"
The Beatles, A Day in the Life, 1967
Let's take a break.
Sometimes, as the Top 40 DJs used to say, "The hits just keep on coming."
I heard about the mass shooting in Buffalo..
I got a fundraising letter supporting a boycott of Disney. Turning Point USA says Disney grooms children for their obvious gay agenda to destroy liberty. "Disney has spent nearly a century infiltrating the minds of children."
I read that COVID numbers are spiking. Friends who attend indoor events tell me they caught COVID.
Ukraine. Abortion. Inflation. Baby formula. Drug overdoses.
The hits pile up.
Every few months I re-watch something that makes me happy. It is brief video of a moment of thoughtful leadership and compassion. Maurice Cheeks, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, saw a problem and stepped up. He was able to fix it The young girl got through it. She has grown up. She still sings the Star Spangled Banner publicly, and does just fine.
Click:
 |
| https://youtu.be/q4880PJnO2E |
7 comments:
Maurice Cheeks that is. Mo Brooks is a Trump loving representative from Alabama.
That being said this was a great moment. Maurice Cheeks was so awesome for stepping up in that moment and helping that young lady.
I heard about the mass shooting in Buffalo too – I wish the hatemongers would take a break.
We have a continuum of racial attitudes: At one extreme are the “woke,” whose pursuit of social justice some Whites find offensive; at the other extreme are the far-right domestic terrorists, whose hate crimes include murder. Racism may be America’s undoing. We fought a civil war over it that some racists are still waging. At the time, slave-holding states insisted that it wasn’t slavery tearing the country apart, but the efforts of abolitionists.
Eventually, Blacks were freed, rights granted, and overt racism fell into disrepute – at least until Trump made it great again. But centuries of oppression left a legacy of prejudice and racial inequities. Defenders of the status quo now insist that it isn’t racism tearing the country apart, but the policies intended to deal with it.
Republicans don’t even want Black history taught in schools, claiming it creates “discomfort.” They’ve distorted “woke” and “CRT” into racist buzzwords that inflame their white nationalist base. They’re afraid our changing demographics might erode their white privilege. We can only hope. We’d all be better off if white supremacists would take their Great Replacement Theory and slither back into the hole they crawled out of.
Thas to the six people who corrected my identification of the "good guy" in the video.
I have made too many "political" figures top of mind and I made a ridiculous substitution.
I get by with a little help from my friends.
Peter Sage
A Kurt Vonnegut quote that I like:
“If you’re going to make up stories, make up stories that make you happy.“
Thanks, I had forgotten about that moment. It was in 2003.
It's not uncommon for a performer to forget the words to a song, even one they have performed many times. Usually it's the first line. I remember empathizing with the singer knowing exactly how she felt. When it happens it totally blindsides you. Believe me, in that moment there isn't any chance at all that the words will come to you. The first impulse is panic and you can see it in her face. Mo Cheeks instinctively did what you would expect from a great coach, or in this case a lifeguard.
Here is an entire wonderful Malcomb Gladwell podcast about the one song whose words Elvis could never get straight! Hint: it's the monologue in the middle of the song, "Only fools rush in." It takes Gladwell a couple minutes to set the context but then, you're in for quite a treat! https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/analysis-parapraxis-elvis/
Peter S., thanks for this nice refreshing look at a few glorious moments when an adult came to the aid of an adolescent.
Oops! The sond I meant to cite, and that Gladwell discusses in his podcast, is "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" Not the one I mentioned above.
Post a Comment