Eclectique|916

First this…
“As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us. It’s like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It’s like, ‘Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?’ … I’m telling you, it’s sad.”
Torii Hunter, LA Angels
Source: Huffington Post

Then this…
“What I meant was they’re not black players; they’re Latin American players. There is a difference culturally. But on the field, we’re all brothers, no matter where we come from, and that’s something I’ve always taken pride in: treating everybody the same, whether he’s a superstar or a young kid breaking into the game. Where he was born and raised makes no difference.”

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

LA Angels center fielder Torii Hunter proves my point that everyone, including African Americans, can use some diversity training. And yes, culture can be complicated. “Negrito” means dear one. Literally it’s “little black thing.” I don’t always get an A+ either. There are differences culturally, regionally, class, education, etc. Treating someone “the same” is, in my opinion, basically saying “I don’t see you.” Avitar moment? Treating someone with respect and recognizing their inherent worth for who they are is close to the place I’d like to be. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

Please forward Mr. Hunter the following YouTube videos produced by the Afro@Latin Forum based in NYC. They are asking Latinos of African descent to check two boxes on the U.S. Census. Look up Afro-Latino. Some embrace it; some don’t. Latin America has race issues too. Maybe this effort to stand up and be counted is, like most identity movements, a way to be seen and heard.

As for Torii, if you’re brothers on the field, what happens after the game?

I haven’t said anything about the Oscars, and nothing much (definitely very little positive) about “Precious.” I had issues with the movie in the context of story, subject, society, vision, community. But I certainly respected Mo’Nique’s performance. She owned it, and I wished more of her interpretation of the role was included in the context of the script/story. But that’s another show or another post. Abdul Ali gave “Precious” some perspective.

Yeah, Mo’Nique, I got all the Hattie McDaniel references in your Oscar dress and the gardenia on the red carpet. I also know McDaniel is the subject of a film project Mo’Nique’s developing. It may not be about the politics, but it’s definitely about the promotion. Now that Mo’Nique’s got the little man, light goes green…perhaps. Your first task may be to find Hattie’s 1940 Oscar (for Best Supporting Actress in “Gone With the Wind”) which is reported to have disappeared after she willed it to Howard University following her death in 1952. Efforts have been made to have another statue reissued to Hattie McDaniel. Going missing doesn’t cut it with the Academy. But did Hattie really get one? Statues weren’t issued for supporting roles in those days. Perhaps the biggest mystery is why the Academy told a San Diego reporter that they have no record of McDaniel ever receiving the honor.

Put Mo’Nique on the case. But it might take some politiking to get the job done.

Complete list of 2010 Academy Award winners available here.

Today’s the day I hustle my taxes off to the accountant, but int he meantime here are a few things that are happening this week:

The Alexandria African American Museum in Alexandria, VA is hosting the National Endowment for the Humanities traveling exhibit ““>Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art.” The “Grass Roots” are the sweet grass baskets made by African Americans in the Lowcountry (outside Charleston) of South Carolina. These coiled baskets are made using the same techniques of the enslaved Africans along the southeastern Atlantic coast of the U.S. They used to sell for about $60 - $100 over 20 years ago; they now sell for $300 - $400 and more today. Did I neglect to mention that this is a dying art? The exhibit runs through March 11 and then it’s back on the road. There’s a $2 admission at the door.
Alexandria Black History Museum
902 Wythe Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Phone: 703-746-4356
Open Tuesday through Saturday 10 am - 4 pm

Kudos to NEH for packaging such a fantastic feast for the eyes and soul. Here’s a prayer published in the brochure credited as Prayer of titled men from Anambra State, Nigeria, August 1966:

And who is going to remember
To Coninue in the tradition
Of the elders?
In those days,
When things were shared out in common,
In this town,
What belonged to my village,
By right
Used to fill up a big basket.

I say “Amen” to that.

ART AND LIFE - NOT FORGOTTEN
A few years ago I was trying to develop a character for a musical who was an actress and a member of Marcus Garvey’s UNIA organization in the 1920s. Well, that wasn’t just my imagination. That real person is Henrietta Vinton Davis, a Shakespearean actor, elocutionist, dramatic reader and activist.

Clayton LeBouef has been organizing and working to recognize Davis’s legacy. He will present his play “The Shero’s Journey: A Livication for Henrietta Vinton Davis” at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library Sunday, March 14 at 2 PM.

“The Shero’s Journey…” will be followed by a reception for the opening of an exhibt on Miss Davis and a book signing by Professor William Seraile, Ph.D. of his book Bruce Grit: The Black Nationalist Writings of John Edward Bruce.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library is located at 901 G Street, NW. For information, call phone:202-727-1222.

For more information about the Henrietta Vinton Davis Memorial Foundation fund, visit this site.

March 10 - 13. Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness invites poets, writers, artists, activists, dreamers, and all concerned world citizens to Washington, DC, for poetry, community building, and creative transformation as our country continues to grapple with two wars, a crippling economic crisis, and other social and environmental ills. The festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism –- opportunities to imagine a way forward, hone our activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change.

That’s Split This Rock Poetry Festival which kicks off Wednesday giving voice to an activism vision. The festival began in 2008 as a creative protest against the Iraq war. Wow, it’s been two years already???

Featured poets are Chris Abani, Lillian Allen, Sinan Antoon, Francisco Aragón, Jan Beatty, Martha Collins, Cornelius Eady, Martín Espada, Andrea Gibson, Allison Hedge Coke, Natalie Illum, Fady Joudah, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Richard McCann, Jeffrey McDaniel, Lenelle Moïse, Nancy Morejón, Mark Nowak, Wang Ping, Patricia Smith, Arthur Sze, Quincy Troupe, and Bruce Weigl.

Visit splitthisrock.org for registration information and schedules.

Last night Bill Moyers hosted two compelling perspectives on the health care reform bill now in play in the Congress on his weekly PBS program. One perspective was a thumbs up (Wendell Potter); the other thumbs down (Dr. Marcia Angell). I’m more of “If not now, when?” The only way I see prices coming down and staying at a sane level is to make health care a not-for-profit enterprise. Are the insurance companies willing to give up their mega profits this year or even next? I don’t think so. Even if insurers can’t deny you for pre-existing conditions (and that includes pregnancy, aging, being overweight), will they make the premiums so insanely high that no one in these categories or others can afford them? (A backhanded denial or kick out the door.)

Michael Kieschnick, President and CEO of CREDO Action (the long distance company with a social entrepreneurial model) sent this out to CREDO customers:

..On Tuesday, March 9, the big insurance industry CEOs and their lobbyists are gathering in D.C. These are the same CEOs who are so confident they can stop the public option and real health care reform that they brazenly raised our insurance rates even while the debate over health care rages in Congress.

It’s time to fight back with a public shaming of these CEOs. I hope you can join me on Tuesday. There should be a great crowd of like-minded folks who have had enough. Why should the Tea Party crazies have all the fun?

A small number of us will be attempting a citizens’ arrest of major insurance lobbyists and CEOs. More than 45,000 people die each year because they can’t get the health care they need and deserve. We assume the D.C. police will not allow me to do this and in turn I will be arrested for this act of civil disobedience.

I am going to get arrested (so you don’t have to), but I need you and all of your friends to join us as we surround the Ritz Carlton.

Where: Gather in Dupont Circle for a march to the Ritz-Carlton where CEOs are plotting (about 0.5 mile)
When: 11:00 A.M., Tuesday, March 9

As I said, if not now, when?

I’m in the middle of my tax preparations, but as I was saying….

President Obama visited Mrs. Wilkes’ in Savannah, Georgia March 2nd. That fried chicken looks good too. Here’s the menu.

Hey, Mrs. Wilkes has a cookbook!

2,836,576 metric tons of food entered the United States through the Port of Los Angeles last year. The largest import: fruit. The best-represented exporting country, Chile.
Source: Saveur March 2010

When I read this I couldn’t help but wonder what impact will the earthquake have on Chile’s infrastructure, not to mention the country’s people - especially working people. Chile’s ports were badly damaged by the earthquake and the tsunami. Summer is almost over and school starts in March in Chile and much of Latin America. The harvest season is done; and it’s too soon to tell what impact the earthquake has had on the future of the country’s agricultural exports.

Is there a connection between fruit for sale and the desperation of people taking food from grocery shelves in the city of Concepción, the second largest city and the one most affected by the earthquake? Can those ships out at sea turn back with its cargo of blueberries and raspberries? I never buy fruit that isn’t in season in the U.S. anyway. Tsunamis are now wiping out coastal cities. I see more indigenous Chileans sleeping outdoors.

The quake has also exposed the fact, experts say, that although Chile is one of the most developed countries in the region, it is also one of the most unequal, with huge pockets of urban and rural poor, who suffered most in the quake.
Source: The New York Times (March 2, 2010)

What would Neruda say?

I awakened when dreamland gave way beneath
my bed.
-Pablo Neruda, “Earthquakes,” Canto General

I purchased a copy of Canto General in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Ernesto Guevara (aka Che) always carried a copy of Neruda’s poems with him. Chile was the first leg of Ernesto’s journey as a young med student which was recorded in his “Motorcycle Diaries.” What are homeless Chileans carrying to their tents?

Chile has a 9/11 too.

Saturday’s Chile earthquake was so powerful that it likely shifted an Earth axis and shortened the length of a day, NASA announced Monday.
Source: National Geographic News

Talk about last days kind of events. Are we getting older faster or just faster?

It seems we’re all in this together.

The Red Cross has set up a relief fund for Chile. You can find out more here.

The President appears to be doing a victory lap of sorts from the Health Care Summit. Kicking off his weekly message with a congratulatory message to the Winter Olympians, Obama raises their accomplishments as examples for the Congress:

…if we want to compete on the world stage as well as we’ve competed in the world’s games, we need to find common ground. We need to move past the bickering and the game-playing that holds us back and blocks progress for the American people.

The Health Care Summit seemed to verify that the “process” can use strong mediation. Perhaps the President should be more involved in the framing of key issues that are beneficial to the country and will in time define his/her own presidency.

Pundits described the summit as either an exercise with benefits for the President, or a huge waste of time for the Republicans. Both, and, perhaps. But for some critics, they had special affection for describing the event as “Kabuki Theater.” I guess they like the syncopated rhythm on the tip of their tongue like a precocious child who’s learned their first three syllable word.

I’ve seen The Grand Kabuki here the in the United States. Kabuki evolved from the ground up. It was the theater of the merchant class in Japan. Though the early Kabuki (around the 17th century) was more music and dance in the beginning, audiences craved something more. Kabuki dramas focus on justice, duty, revenge, and moral conflicts. Perhaps our aristocratic pundits would rather not to associate with the classes that enjoy Kabuki Theater. In fact, I wonder whose side are any and all television pundits are on as they chuckle and lean back in their chairs while passing the ball on whether health care reform will pass, the public option is dead or on life support, and the front runners of the 2012 Presidential election cycle less than 18 months into a new administration. There are times when I think these pundits could use some Kabuki drama.

After the Health Care Summit, President Obama had one more item on his plate: the presentation of the National Medals of the Arts and Humanities at the White House. The recipients were selected in 2009 and received their medals yesterday (February 25). This ceremony was postponed due to the shooting at Fort Hunt. The National Medal is the highest national honor an individual can receive in their field. There were 20 recipients for 2009:

For the Arts
Bob Dylan (composer/musician)
Clint Eastwood (actor/director)
Frank Stella (artist)
Jessye Norman (soprano)
Maya Lin (architect)
Milton Glaser (architect)
Joseph P. Riley, Jr. (Mayor, Charleston, SC)
Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor)
John Williams (composer/conductor)
Rita Moreno (actress/dancer)

For the Humanities
Elie Wiesel (Nobel Laureate, writer)
Robert A. Caro (”The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, Means of Ascent and Master of the Senate”)
Annette Gordon-Reed (”The Hemingses of Monticello”)
David Levering Lewis (”W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963″)
William H. McNeill (”Plagues and Peoples”)
Theodore Sorensen (speechwriter and lawer)
Philippe de Montebello (former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Albert H. Small (philanthropist)

Two deserving institutions were honored:
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music (I think I know how this got on the list)
The School of American Ballet

Read the recap by Jackie Trescott on the WashingtonPost.com. Or just go to the video.

The Health Care Summit at Blair House (across from the White House) is now in session. I’m listening on C-Span Radio. The WH video feed has a 2-3 second delay. C-Span on-line is 2-3 seconds ahead of the their radio feed. Since I have work to do at the desktop, I’ll take the audio.

The Hummer has been banished to Retro-World. And the kingdom rejoiced. Government supported General Motors is shelving the Hummer after a failure to land a sale with heavy equipment maker Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Co. in China. What does China know that we don’t?

Hummer sales reached their peak in 2003 with over 30,000 sold, then steadily dropped off after 2005. In 2009 they sold under 2,000. The Hummer site is still up and running with 2009 models for sale. Word was this was the most inefficient, gas guzzler on the road - 7 miles to the gallon. It was a symbol of American ego to have money to burn in your gas tank. A Hybrid version was proposed a few years ago, but I guess that’s shelved too.

For me Hummer’s were the most obnoxious vehicles on the road especially in cities. Sure, they fit in lanes in LA and maybe Houston, but they took up 1 1/4 lanes in more dense urban terrain. There was never that much room in them to be a family vehicle. And I always wondered if they were covers for other inadequacies. Hummers were based on the Humvee military vehicles from the Gulf War. Legend has it that action movie star (now Cali governor) Arnold Schwartzenegger suggested the consumer version in 1992. Jeep made a successful transition from military (World War II) to civilian use (1950s) even though the shocks can sometimes make you think you’re on some kind of crazy amusement park ride. But I suppose that has been the charm of the Jeep, especially when it came to climbing over things.

I never saw any charm in the Hummer. Case in point - the first big DC snow ball fight at 14th & U.

Could this be the final narrative of the Hummer. Or will it be “size mattered”?