February songs

It's really all Mel and Tim's fault.

Sometimes after I go through a round of listening, a song that I had not consciously noticed will start coming back to me. In this case, it was their "Backfield in Motion", a football-themed song.

I knew that with the attacks on diversity, it would really be the wrong month to stop celebrating Black history. I knew I wanted to make it last 30 days instead of only 28. I just didn't have a theme.

"Backfield in Motion" coming back to me sent my thoughts in two directions. 

The first was that after going over all of these years of hits, it might not be bad to go back through. I was only choosing ten out of a hundred, and there were always songs that I liked but did not use.

Also, I could have a football-themed song of the day on Super Bowl Sunday.

I decided to focus on Black artists, which was not a problem. It took a little longer to decide on the other parameters.

In January I had just gotten to 1966, working backwards from 1979 (after having worked forward from 1980 through 1999). I decided to look forward, reviewing old ground. That could start from 1967, where I had just been.

It still had to fit within thirty days.

Although I can imagine a really great review of lesser-known R&B from the 80s and 90s, I ended up decided that I would just go forward for ten years, using three songs per year. Unfortunately, that pushed me past 1969 ("Backfield In Motion's year) by Super Bowl Sunday if I was going in order. 

I wanted to go in order. I ended up giving 1968 an extra song and cutting a song from 1971, which I was okay with.

One kind of fun thing about that is it allowed me to fit in both the 1968 (Hugh Masekela) and 1969 (The Friends of Distinction) "Grazing in the Grass".

As I was working on the list, I saw an article about the first television theme song to hit number 1, 1974's "TSOP (The Sound of  Philadelphia)" from Soul Train. I had just happened to place it on the list. I know I would have listened to it before, but I did not know it's significance.

There are some other interesting things going along with it that are more a part of the overall experience, where it may make more sense to write about them later.

For now, the great thing is that there are so many cool and interesting and good and cheesy and emotional and every other type of song out there. 

It's worth finding more.

Daily songs:

1/31 “Soul Man” by Sam & Dave (1967)
2/1 “Sweet Soul Music” by Arthur Conley (1967)
2/2 “Gimme Little Sign” by Brenton Wood (1967)
2/3 “Slip Away” by Clarence Carter (1968)
2/4 “Dance to the Music” by Sly & The Family Stone (1968)
2/5 “Hold Me Tight” by Johnny Nash (1968)
2/6 “Grazing in the Grass” by Hugh Masekela (1968)
2/7 “Grazing in the Grass” by The Friends of Distinction (1969)
2/8 “What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)” by Jr. Walker & The All Stars (1969)
2/9 “Backfield in Motion” by Mel & Tim (1969)
2/10 “Band of Gold” by Freda Payne (1970)
2/11 “Everybody is a Star” by Sly & The Family Stone (1970)
2/12 “Ball Of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today)” by The Temptations (1970)
2/13 “Want Ads” by Honey Cone (1971)
2/14 “Smiling Faces” by The Undisputed Truth (1971)
2/15 “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers (1972)
2/16 “Oh Girl” by The Chi-Lites (1972)
2/17 “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right” by Luther Ingram (1972)
2/18 “Love Train” by The O’Jays (1973)
2/19 “Stir It Up” by Johnny Nash (1973)
2/20 “Drift Away” by Dobie Gray (1973)
2/21 “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)” by MFSB featuring The Three Degrees (1974)
2/22 “Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)” by Aretha Franklin (1974)
2/23 “Show and Tell” by Al Wilson (1974)
2/24 “Fire” by Ohio Players (1975)
2/25 “Walking In Rhythm” by The Blackbyrds (1975)
2/26 “Express” by B.T. Express (1975)
2/27 “Something He Can Feel” by Aretha Franklin (1976)
2/28 “Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker) by Parliament (1976)
3/1 “Walk Away From Love” by David Ruffin (1976)

Going deeper

Last week I wrote about feeling that I needed to write letters to more companies:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/02/check-in-with-yourself.html 

It surprised me. Letting companies know that they had lost my business for political reasons felt morally important, but I doubted that it would be that effective.

I assumed that it would be a way of clarifying my thoughts or maybe reinforcing my assertiveness, which is fine. I didn't expect much beyond that.

As I do it, it seems to be important in two different areas.

One is just a matter of better understanding.

To figure out which additional companies to write to, I took another look at the previous lists. These related to companies contributing to the inauguration and companies going against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

For entities backing down from DEI, some of them are government entities. While it should seem shocking that Public Broadcasting Services and the Smithsonian would back down, they may not really have an choice not to. 

That doesn't necessarily mean not communicating, but is there a different way to do it? Can it be understanding and encouraging?

Also on that list is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There are strong indications that white supremacists have been infiltrating the FBI as well as local police forces, so I don't doubt at all that there are people there who are into all the white supremacy they can get.

They have also investigated white supremacists and sometimes been helpful.

Is there something to say? Would it draw unnecessary surveillance? I don't know, but I will think about it.

Hey look! An article about the FBI investigating white supremacists infiltrating law enforcement on PBS.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fbi-white-supremacists-in-law-enforcement   

It's older, but talk about convergence!

In addition, looking at the donations to Trump's inauguration, the most common amount was $1 million, sometimes $1 million each from the company and from the CEO. However, there are other companies that donated $250,000, where it seems likely that they could have easily donated the full million. Is that a passive aggressive insult? Something resented but that feels necessary to avoid retribution?

I don't know that I can find clear answers, but I am clearly going to need to be doing more searching and trying to understand.

It fits in my wheelhouse.

The other thing is that I have been feeling that I need to post the letters I write. 

Maybe that relates to the article I mentioned Tuesday, about Amazon sales and stocks falling, but them attributing it to shoppers finding lower prices elsewhere. What if it is more boycotting but they don't know? Then more people need to tell them.

Which means I want to try and encourage more people to do so. If capitalism is what we're doing, then corporate decisions have consequences. The people can decide to punish corporations doing bad things.

The way that feels right to do this at this time is posting a letter on Facebook daily until I am done. I will start next week. 

It may give other people ideas. It will probably evolve as I do it more.

That's been the pattern.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/03/perspective.html  

Valuing people

This is a combination of three things, so may be disjointed.

One is that -- of course -- while Republicans are dismantling the government, leftists are criticizing Democrats. The criticism is for only wearing pink and holding signs during Trump's address, even though they were asked to do that and there are people made at them for that too

While it is possible that the people who requested those actions are not the same people criticizing them, the trend of always having more to say about Democrats than Republicans holds. 

(Also, it's weird that Al Green got expelled when Joe Wilson didn't. Almost like there is some kind of double standard.)

I know I say this all the time, but if all you have is criticism and you are directing it in the safest possible direction, I remain unimpressed and uninspired, just irritated.

You can't aggravate people into agreeing with you. Even if that could work, if that resulted in a bunch of people who wanted the same things but did not have any experience in constructing them, that's still not very useful. It's better than glee in wanton destruction, but not enough.

Back to thinking about boycotts, I know I have some writing coming up about withdrawing somewhat from capitalism. Something that makes me remember goes back to the mid-90s, though I don't know that things would be any better today.

One of my coworkers was in this group that was bartering services. She offered house cleaning, and she wanted a massage. There was a masseur in the group, but he thought his service was more valuable than hers. He thought she should clean the house three times for his one massage.

I don't know what current house cleaning rates are. A cleaning might cost more than a massage, but the cleaning almost certainly takes longer. Obviously, you can clean your own house in a way that you cannot give yourself a massage, but given his demands, he obviously was not interested in doing so. That should give it some value right there.

I promise you that while you may not need certification and licensing to clean houses they way you do for massage, it is not unskilled labor, especially if you want your house to actually be clean.

As it is, my mother did clean houses. She charged low rates for many years, and her clients were fine with that. Only one of them ever thought of giving her a raise over a ten year period. They weren't bad people, but they were satisfied with the service they were getting and the rate they were paying; why change? Except that as people who were better off financially they had more power. It also made them far less likely to think about what it was like to not have that power.

Finally, yesterday I read an old conference talk, "Until Seventy Times Seven" by Elder Lynn G, Robbins, April 2018.

He mentioned a physics professor he had at Brigham Young University, Jae Ballif:

After finishing each unit of the course, he would administer an exam. If a student received a C and wanted a better grade, Professor Ballif would allow the student to take a modified exam covering the same material. If the student received a B on the second attempt and was still unsatisfied, he or she could take the test a third time and a fourth, and so on. By allowing me numerous second chances, he helped me excel and finally earn an A in his class.

He wanted to be on the side of the students.

That was very interesting to me for two reasons. 

In my studies now, part of instructional design is seeing what is needed for the students to learn. If the schedule is the same for everyone, but their learning pace is different, you will have students who don't really learn the concepts and just get further and further behind.

(Personally, I went through pre-Calculus, but it did not go through me.)

I think about it more because when you have conservatives trying to take over the school boards, one of the things that really offends them is that students can complete assignments late and re-take tests and still get credit, as if re-taking tests and catching up from behind is not more work.  

While I haven't known most of the candidates personally, I do know one of the voters who was very angered by that. She went to BYU.

It happened at your own school, lady! 

Part of her frustration was that it bothers her that less attention is given to her "gifted" daughter -- like sometimes she gets a good grade but there are no comments to tell her why it is good. Then these kids who aren't even on schedule still get to pass, possibly at a rate that means that they actually learn the content rather than never catching up.

That sounds like a failure of compassion, and it is, but it is also something that is supported by a scarcity mindset. There is competition for resources. If someone is going to lose it has to be these other kids. If they are more likely to come from poorer households, and if by complete coincidence they happen to have darker skin, well... this is a big part of DEI being the current enemy.

I also agree on the importance of positive feedback, but if we do not give teachers endless resources then it may be more important for them to focus on helping the students who are not up to speed yet get there, rather than stroking the ego of the parents of the kids who are at the head of the class.

(I could spend a lot more time on gifted programs, but this is already a long post.)

What I do know is that as long as we prioritize the ability to feel superior and dominate, in our own ways we are not that different from Trump.

Also, as long as I am being repetitive...

DOMINATOR CULTURE! 

Perspective

Much as expected, the economic blackout Friday did not have much impact. In fact, Forbes reports that their sales numbers Friday grew:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kirimasters/2025/03/02/amazon-defies-economic-blackout-as-sales-climb-during-boycott/

Yes, I suspect some MAGA driven people did in fact shop extra that day.

Before you get too discouraged, there is another trend happening:

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-shares-tumble-almost-8-frankfurt-2024-08-02/ 

Overall, Amazon sales are declining. As a result, their stock is losing value.

The article attributes it to consumers choosing lower prices, but I question that. If you do a comparison, Amazon frequently has the lowest prices.

I think there might be more people deciding not to shop at Amazon at all. That's been our household strategy.

The thing that is missing is that I haven't sent that letter yet. If we are boycotting Amazon because of Bezos' manipulation of The Washington Post, they should know that.

If many people are boycotting because of that -- or because of other political machinations or anti-union practices or so many logical reasons -- they should know that.

I know I keep going back to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but it was such a clear example. 

Yes, they stopped riding the buses, and that had an economic impact. However, there was also clear communication with the bus company and clear demands about what would end the boycott.

There was also a civil suit, Browder v. Gayle, that went all the way up to the Supreme Court, ultimately confirming that the law of the land was that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional. 

Often Brown v. Board of Education is seen as the case overturning Plessy v. Ferguson, but that Plessy was related to public transportation. 

(Brown was two years earlier, and the law was relevant, but did not change the transportation practices in many places in the South, clearly.)

Also, fairly frequently now people will mention Claudette Colvin when talking about the boycott and Rosa Parks; what may not get mentioned is that Colvin was one of the plaintiffs in Browder.

The point is that making change requires cooperation and patience and perspective on those needs as work comes from many different directions over time. Something quick and symbolic may briefly give you a good feeling, but is not likely to effect change.

Protests get attention, but they need to be backed with other pressures. 

That being said, there are proclamations being made that are clearly unconstitutional regarding right to protest. If you get arrested for protesting or wearing a mask while doing so, that could create grounds for a court case that could prove valuable as part of the overall effort.

I wish we had a better Supreme Court, but that's just one part of a much larger problem.

If it has not become obvious yet, a lot of these posts are really more about getting your head in the right space than about the specific actions you take. The better your understanding, the easier it should be to have clarity on what you can and should do. 

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/02/right-action.html