A far less stereotypical hero than Hollywood myths admit.
- Proving that everything is working as intended for the 1%, the stock market continues to boom while consumer finances continue to deteriorate, with retail sales falling to the lowest level in 9 months in March.
- Up to 200,000 homeowners still trying to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy will get a little bit of a helping hand from the government. This week, HUD announced its decision to extend its Hurricane Sandy forbearance program beyond its scheduled April 30 expiration, allowing continued mortgage payment relief on FHA backed mortgages for affected homeowners still struggling to rebuild.
- In what appears to be an effort to avoid the otherwise-inevitable pissing match with the state's Attorney General, the City Council in Bisbee, Arizona has agreed to delay implementation of its history-making ordinance establishing civil unions and revise it in an effort to address concerns not only raised by the Attorney General about pre-emption by Arizona state law, but by "social conservatives" as well. Because nobody can dispute the God-given right of Arizona "social conservatives" to have a say in how community property, inheritance, guardianship and "disposition of remains" following death is handled by gay families they are not a part of.
- With the Administration's support for funding more law enforcement (aka "school resource") officers in schools as a way to reduce the possibility of another Sandy Hook, one has to be at least a little curious about what the track record of law enforcement presence in schools has actually been. Suffice it to say, its primary impact has been to expand the cradle-to-prison pipeline, with Black, Latino and disabled students bearing the brunt nationwide by the hundreds of thousands. Who could have guessed?
- Just when you think anti-Semitism could not take yet another turn the worse, it does—this time under the watchful tutelage of a teacher (who has not been identified, except as a "veteran") who assigned students the task of making a "persuasive case" that Jews were to blame for Nazi Germany. What else can we expect in a world where slavery is seen as a legitimate device to teach arithmetic?
- This week saw the premiere of 42, a biopic that seeks to tell the story of the legendary Jackie Robinson, who will always be honored for breaking the color barrier in major league baseball. As a testament to his legacy and bravery, Major League Baseball retired his number, "42", for all teams in 1997 (and it remains the only number universally retired). The bad news is that, like most Hollywood narratives addressing racism and America's racist past, the movie appears to once again tell a story of a stoic Black person who stares down oppression and bigotry with the patience of Job and nary a moment of public anger or self-defense, becoming beloved by whites all over as a result of his willingness to emulate Jesus Christ instead of a normal human being in his response. The movie spends precious little time chronicling the actual feelings of the stoic Black hero himself and what he learned about America, and America's racism, from his experience. Fortunately, Robinson made sure he told his own story about his own feelings, in his autobiography, I Never Had it Made. Highly recommended.
- Rest in Peace, Annette Funicello and Jonathan Winters. You may have been totally middle-America entertainment, but were still part of many people's day to day sunshine.