Credit someone

This week is really about avoiding becoming a Trumper. (Or possibly a disgruntled Leftist. There are similarities.)

You have probably noticed the ignorance and malice. There are some other, less obvious factors, like the refusal to acknowledge that someone on the other side might have a conscience or be right about something.

You can love someone and know when they are wrong. You can find someone really annoying but know that they are right (that could be part of what made them so annoying).

In times like these, the other side is so cartoonishly awful that it becomes harder to see their full humanity. It is still very important.

In what I believe will be the only good thing that I will ever have the ability to say about Trump, I think eliminating pennies and even nickels can be fine.

https://www.thenewstribune.com/money/get-rid-of-pennies/

I want to add all of these caveats, like that idea came from someone else, but it is actually practical; credit where credit is due.

I don't think that one is going to come up much, but there are others that are more important.

One thing that is painful about my father is that when I try and find good memories, I keep finding things that happened because of him, but for which he wasn't present, or where he didn't play a strong role, or where it was something that wasn't even that bad but there were hints of problems that would come.

It is frustrating for someone that I love and who played such a large role in my life.

Perhaps it is more helpful that I can also see reasons why it was easy for him to be that way. I can find compassion for him.

There is a lot of emotion involved for family, and there is a lot of everything with this administration; it may be easier to start with smaller issues.

Maybe there was a coworker whom you didn't really like, but they were a good worker. 

Maybe there was a teacher who gave you a hard time, but they also showed you what you could do.

Maybe there was a really grumpy basketball coach who also really cared.

Maybe there was a governor who did not govern well, but the prior work he did previously on health plans was really valuable.

Maybe a president who was terrible nonetheless met a crisis with soberness and dignity, which you would think is the least anyone could do, but we have seen someone do less now.

This is not in any way suggesting a tolerance for abuse; you can love someone and distance yourself too.

The point is that when you are looking at a policy or idea or conversation, your analysis is not determined by your feelings for the person.

• I like you, but this is a terrible plan.
• I do not like you, but you are right.  
• Many points between and betwixt and scattered all over the map.

The point of it is to not be hopelessly stuck in a partisan battle, but there are other advantages too.

Love that requires not admitting the other person's weakness is a fragile love. When you know a person's flaws and still love them, it is stronger.

Plus, you will of course have your own flaws and times when you are wrong.

Potential action item: Locate and acknowledge a good quality of someone you find difficult.

Learn something

I have been posting the potential action items on Facebook and Twitter, separately from the blog. Not everyone reads that blog, but they might still like ideas for things to do.

Most of them haven't drawn a lot of attention, but I did get a few negative commenters on the suggestion to get and wear KN95 masks.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/02/im-not-swearing-at-you-this-time-but.html

There was positive feedback too, but there were some anti-maskers. They started out asking questions that could have seemed reasonable, but it wasn't long before there were things that were clearly MAGA talking points, that I am also pretty sure they sincerely believed.

I know there is a lot of misinformation out there, and I can't recommend any one news source as consistently fair and reliable. 

There are a few things that do seem to help.

Specialized knowledge helps. 

If you know things like how various institutions function or how radios wave or diseases transmit or how hot jet fuel burns... any of those could be the thing that makes you say, "That's not how that works. That's not how any of that works."

I wish everyone had a good understanding of civics and hygiene and disease prevention,  but there are all sorts of things that are interesting and good to know, and there are lots of ways to get to know them.

My opening browser page pulls from Pocket:

https://getpocket.com/home

That means that there is a frequently updated mix of articles from magazines like Smithsonian, Psychology Today, Shape, Popular Science, and many others.

Some of them are ads; if it's something about the best meal kit or what the best investors know, I am probably not interested. Regardless, I find interesting things from a variety of areas and I appreciate that.

One great thing about Wikipedia is that the articles have sources listed. If you are not sure about something, you can find the article or book or interview that the claim comes from.

There are libraries full of books.

Currently I am going through some music books in the for Dummies series. It may not be the greatest title, but I am going in without a lot of background knowledge and with this series I do not need it.

Learning things will often lead to more learning; that is a beautiful progression.

It really is an interesting and amazing world, even though humans have set a lot of it on fire.

Potential action item: Pick something you find interesting and learn more about it.  

 

Movies about journalism

Last week I wrote about the movie Spotlight.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-movie-spotlight.html 

Watching it came from a desire to see examples of journalistic courage; so much of what we have seen lately in journalism seems more related to cowardice and greed. 

The list started with thinking about Spotlight (2015) and The Post (2017), then quickly grew to add Frost/Nixon (2008) and All the President's Men (1976). 

I then decided to add Network (1976), though I expected it to be about cynicism, not courage.

Without it being intentional, I believe I watched them in reverse release order. 

Spotlight was the one that affected me the most, which is a big part of why I wrote about it separately.

Coincidentally, all of the others were tied to Nixon. He was not the only president who was relevant to the story of the Pentagon Papers, but he was the one in office when the story broke. 

He was also the scariest one, as Bruce Greenwood as Robert McNamara makes clear in The Post.

Even in Network, the jaded cynicism, the fascination with terrorists, and the reported assassination attempts on Ford all feel like something that is the natural result of Nixon's presidency and the revelations that led to his resignation.

Of the movies, I really only recommend Spotlight and Frost/Nixon. 

The Post is not bad, but it doesn't feel as real and urgent as the other two modern ones. The concerns about going public, and the need for that, and how it might tie their hands should feel relevant now, but we seem to be more at the point where it's just quaint that they did care.

For the two films from 1976, I know they are both regarded as classics, but I can't say I enjoyed them. 

Of course, I was not actually watching for enjoyment, but I am not sure that I would recommend them either.

For Network, I have read some things about it, but maybe I read the wrong things. I was not prepared for how frail and vulnerable Peter Finch's Howard Beale was. I was expecting him to be angry and bitter, but what I saw was someone who had a breakdown and was ruthlessly exploited by people whose ambition and greed made them fine with murder. It hit much harder than I was expecting.

My more immediate frustration with the All the President's Men was the abrupt ending. They find out that Haldeman was not implicated during the Grand Jury proceedings because no questions were asked about him, which seems like a big deal, but then they just keep working on it and you know that various people get sentenced or resign through the end titles.

That indicates either that while the reporters were right, it was not their work that brought about the results, or that their work from that point on wasn't very interesting. It's kind of a letdown.

Maybe for people watching in 1976 it was easier to fill in the blanks.

The other thing that bothered me was the pushiness of the reporters, especially Bernstein, pushing and pushing on scared people who were saying "no". 

I understood that it was an important story. I also suspected that my feelings about Hoffman as an abusive person were probably coloring the performance. However, I had also seen examples of very caring, empathetic reporters on a very difficult story in Spotlight, so that also had an impact.

Maybe the issue with recent journalism hasn't been so much their lack of courage but their lack of caring and integrity.

Maybe it's the press we deserve if we keep accepting their shoddy, sensationalism that enables evil in the name of balance.

It was important that the Spotlight staff saw the humanity in the victims, and even at times in the abusers.

It is valuable to me that Frost saw Nixon's humanity, even though it was Nixon, and he also still nailed him.

It didn't give me any optimism about the state of journalism, but I saw two really good movies.

I'm not swearing at you this time, but...

This is a really great time to start masking if you haven't been already.

Yesterday's post led me to writing this, with the part about learning sign language, so thinking about inclusion and accessibility.

We have been failing people with compromised immune systems and the elderly by so completely rejecting COVID prevention.

Making it all more timely, I post this on the day that RFK Jr. is confirmed as Health and Human Services Secretary.

If only it were all a sick joke.

In truth, masking is not sufficient, because we are not just talking about COVID anymore.

We have flu spreading, with flu deaths rising over various age groups, including children.

We have Avian flu spreading, which is getting more attention for its effect on egg prices, but does not only matter for that.

We have Norovirus outbreaks. Measles cases are rising in the US and Canada. Polio is showing up here and there, with cases in Pakistan, Singapore, and Europe, but air travel can get things anywhere.

We have tuberculosis in Kansas City.

In addition, different diseases spread in different ways.

You may have heard references to aerosols, droplets, and fomites. There is some explanation here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/07/06/887919633/aerosols-droplets-fomites-what-we-know-about-transmission-of-covid-19 

You may notice that they don't sound that different. It essentially comes down to whether you are more likely to breathe it in or pick it up from a surface and how long it will be a threat that way (will it linger in the air or do you have to have heard and felt the sneeze?).

While all of this is happening, this administration is actively fighting-- in multiple ways -- against a healthy and informed public.

Resist that.

That does not only mean masking, but also vaccines, washing hands, cleaning surfaces, social distancing and isolation, especially in case of illness.

Masking is the most visible, and the most unpopular, but what does it say?

It says that you accept science.

It says that you reject Trump.

It says that you care about allowing cancer patients and people with immune-system problems and many other health conditions to participate in the world.

It says you care about Black and brown people.

It says you will not spread disease. You have made a choice to care about others.

We need you now. Right away.

My travel blog updates have been including COVID and accessibility information for a while. I think they show that there are a lot of things that you can do pretty safely. 

It does take that extra step.

At work. In the store. On public transportation. In museums. In lines that are outdoors but where people are close together.

Potential action item: Obtain and wear KN95 masks. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/12/wear-damn-mask.html

Disobey as quickly as possible

In writing to Google, I suppose the most disappointing thing is how much their quality sunk after they tossed not being evil as a value. 

I mean, it sounds like a bad thing anyway, but in an early job I was constantly checking out new search engines and comparing how they did. Different engines worked best in different situations, requiring some search repetition at times. 

Google was so vastly superior that it did away with all of that. Now you get ads and AI and "the Gulf of America". 

There is so much more information out there now that having a good means of searching it would be really valuable. It is a huge loss, even without them changing a name that has been standard usage for over two hundred years on the bluster of that petty, vicious buffoon.

I will still always call it the Gulf of Mexico. We do not have to obey.

We have been seeing too much of that obeying in advance.

The push back is that they just did not have the specifics of what compliance meant:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/national-cryptologic-museum-covers-nsa-displays-dei_n_67a36924e4b0eeea940d825f?10e 

https://apnews.com/article/air-force-dei-tuskegee-women-wwii-pilots-ecdeac68dc7696535d093c7690ab73bc 

Look, if you work for the government in any way, your opportunity here is to drag your feet, obstruct, leak... anything you can to get in the way.

If you don't work for them, that's all the more reason to not comply.

I am posting a lot of Black history stories this month. I am also finding a lot of other people's posts to share, so I know I am not the only one.

Good! I will do the same thing for Women's History Month next month.

Is that major resistance? Not really. Me finding stories from history is kind of my thing.

However, the guiding force of this party is white supremacy and oppression of others. 

Whether they have called their enemy "political correctness", "multiculturalism", "critical race theory", "woke", or "DEI", what they really mean is that they will not respect or give credit to anyone not approved by them, regardless of truth or morality or anything else that is good.

Some little things strike at the heart of that, and keep our own hearts in the right place.

I know I keep saying how easy it is to go from despising them to becoming them, but I guess I don't feel believed.

Our resistance needs to be grounded in love and caring or it won't actually help.

It is also certain that any oppression this regime wants to try out will start against more marginalized people as a test. It will always spread.

For example, you might see something about ID needing to match your birth certificate, otherwise there will be issues with passports and voting. Transphobes will think "Ha!", but then married women who took their husband's name may find that it affects them. They might then find a lot of men going "Ha!"

Hate will keep spreading, but love can do that too. 

Make a good choice.

Apparently there is not clarity about whether sign language interpreters have been eliminated or not, but it certainly seems like something that fascists would do.

Potential action item: Learn sign language.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/11/affect-access-and-acceptance.html 

Corporate communications

As important as expressing your feelings to elected officials can be, businesses can be even more important. They hate losing money.

They also need to know why they are losing money.

I believe that the avid Trumpers are not the majority. Voter suppression and the determination of progressives to be spiteful played a role in the election results. He has too many fans but I still don't think they actually outnumber us.

They are obnoxiously loud, and could easily make a majority of the noise, giving businesses a distorted view.

We need to speak up to.

I found some good advice at Americans of Conscience:

https://americansofconscience.com/how-to-boycott/

Political organizations say that phone contact is the most noticed with elected officials; that is not necessarily the case for companies. It might work with a smaller company, but for a large corporation the most effective thing may be a letter to the corporate office.

Tell them you will not be patronizing them anymore and tell them why.

See, I stopped buying from Amazon after Bezos prevented The Washington Post from endorsing Harris. What I haven't done is announce it.

The page gives information on what kind of information to include, like where you will be shopping instead, and how much you tend to spend. That would be to make it hurt more.

The other thing they recommend is notes of gratitude if there is a change made. I agree with that, but also, if there are companies you appreciate, tell them now.

I am writing breakup letters to Amazon and Google, but also a note of thanks to Costco.

How do you decide? 

There are a few things to look at. I will never frequent Chik-fil-A or Hobby Lobby, but since I haven't been, that's not really a threat. I could lie, but dishonesty is a big part of how we got into this mess.

I have never been a big Target shopper, but one of my sisters has loved them, and she has stopped going. 

She should write to them.

(Also Target is now dealing with a shareholder lawsuit and that is beautiful: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2025/02/04/target-hit-with-shareholder-lawsuit-claiming-investors-were-defrauded-about-dei-risks/)

If you have shares or are a VIP customer of some kind, or if you just spend a lot, that might be a company that will pay more attention to you.

All of my previously mentioned companies are ones I was aware of anyway. To see if I was missing anything, subjects I have searched under include "Trump supporters", "donors to inauguration", and "abandoning DEI". That gives us...

https://www.newsweek.com/american-businesses-supporting-donating-donald-trump-list-2027957

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/trumps-inauguration-donors-big-oil-big-pharma-big-tech-crypto-and-more/ar-AA1ybzl5?ocid=BingNewsSerp

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/02/08/gm-pepsi-amazon-appear-to-remove-some-references-to-dei-from-annual-reports-here-are-all-the-companies-rolling-back-dei/

I am not giving up everyone in the results.

To be fair, I have always known Wal-Mart is evil, but was directed there for cheap insulin when I had no health coverage, and I have a great pharmacist there. I am currently insured through Medicaid, so I don't know how long I will have insurance. Maybe it's just fear, but I am sticking with them.

I have remained on Twitter and Facebook, even though I despise their owners. 

Musk has said protesting users will be banned, so I could end up gone anyway. For now, there are people I stay for. 

You can express disappointment even without declaring a boycott.

There are some that are mixed. I think the NFL was cowardly to remove "End Racism" from the end zones when the racist-in-chief was going to be there, but they have expressed commitment to DEI.

You could write a letter expressing what you support.

There will be posts coming up that will be more about stepping back from capitalism, so some of these may matter less anyway.

For now, you have a voice and you can use it.

Potential action item: Write to a company you use about their policies. 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/11/boycotting.html 

The movie Spotlight

"If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one." -- Mitchell Garabedian in Spotlight

I don't think I have blogged about it, but I had mentioned on Facebook my intent to watch some movies about courage in journalism, hoping to remember a time when the press did not so badly let us down.

I will write about the others, but the movie that blew me away the most was Spotlight. 

The 2015 film is about the Boston Globe's coverage of the Catholic sex abuse scandal.

If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It is really well-done, from the performance of the actors in what is very much an ensemble cast to the way it lays out and makes a logical order of something fairly complex.

I recommend it, knowing that there are people for whom the issue will hit very close.

What has stayed with me is the process of overcoming resistance.

A new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), arrives at a time when there is a sex abuse case against one priest. He encourages the Spotlight team -- a team that does in-depth reporting over longer time periods -- to look into that. Assistant Managing Editor Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) attempts to discourage it, apparently concerned that the public won't appreciate the coverage.

Boston's deep Catholicism is a major influence, with most of the staff and readers being Catholic, even if not especially devout.

Various characters face various levels of reluctance, but what changes that is the ever-increasing scope as they talk to more people. First they think there might be 4 or 5 abusive priests, then 11. Talking to a psychiatrist who has worked on the issue, with 1500 priests in Boston and a 6% average, they calculate that it should be about 90.

As they figure out a new method for using the church directories to identify priests who were reassigned or undergoing therapy, they come up with 87 or 88.

(I did not take notes. I would like to read more about it.)

At that point Bradlee is fully on board, and shocked to find out that investigator Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton) buried a story in Metro a few years back. Robby didn't even remember it, but had it thrown in his face when he got mad at lawyer Eric Macleish (Billy Crudup) for going with the quiet settlements and being so successful with that. 

Macleish had seemed to be the stark contrast to Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), quoted above, but there was a time when he was trying harder, and differently, but not getting any traction.

It took a village.

People were horrified by the scope, and wanted to do something then, but they could have known the scope if they had been willing to face it openly, even if it had only been one priest and one child. One child would be worth the effort.

I had read recently that the only reason that the massive rape ring led by Dominque Pelicot was discovered was that he had also been taking upskirt photos in stores. One man noticed and let one of the women know, and she filed a complaint. Once they started looking, they found footage showing much worse things.

https://news.sky.com/story/victim-of-dominique-pelicot-on-how-her-report-led-to-france-mass-rape-trial-13218243

However, the context in which I found that out was someone saying that usually upskirting in France is not pursued. 

I don't know a lot about French law, but I am very familiar with the American tendency to decide it's not that big a deal, and certainly not worth ruining someone's life over this one thing. 

There are two problems with that:

1. One person's life has already been affected -- one can hope not ruined, but it can be very hard -- and that is worth something, even if it is only one person.
2. It never seems to be just one once you start looking.

Of course, the real issue may be who gets to be a person worthy of protection. 

Does this woman matter as much as this man?

Is this child as important as this priest?

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/11/boycotting.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-frustrating-consistency-of-new-york.html