Welcome to Morning Feature's Tuesday morning feature, Things We Learned this Week (or, recently, as the case may be). Here we share, discuss, and reflect on things we and others have learned, heard, or discovered in the past few days or weeks.
For example, this interview of John Lewis by Tavis Smiley. I had it saved for weeks, but hadn't listened to it until Thursday afternoon. When I did, I was kicked in the axons. They discussed the recent passing of Senator Ted Kennedy, and Tavis asked him whether he thought Senator Kennedy had learned from the "failings and shortcomings" of his brothers regarding Civil Rights. Congressman Lewis' reply: "I think he became stronger because he knew in his soul, in his heart, that we can do better."
I loved that response.
He was talking about a particular kind of growth that is very appealing to me. The kind of growth that takes time, but is deeply rooted and bears strong fruit.
So that's what this diary is about. My Club for Growth.
Their Club for Growth
Of course, there already is a group that claims the name "The Club for Growth." I've been told they have a website, but I can't confirm or deny it, as I've never seen it. I wouldn't want to give the impression I was basing my club in any way, shape, or form on theirs, so I'm avoiding theirs altogether. I encourage you to do the same. They get enough clicks already. If you'd like to learn more about their club for growth, I recommend Wikipedia.
My Club For Growth
My Club For Growth is rooted in the three squirrelisms:
- People matter more than profits.
- The Earth is our home, not our trashcan.
- We need good government for #1 and #2.
If you can get on board with those three thoughts, you may be prime material for My Club For Growth.
What Growth?
Back to that Tavis Smiley interview. I winced a little bit inside when I heard him refer to the missteps of the Kennedy administration on Civil Rights as "failings and shortcomings." I didn't live through this era (born 1969, here) but I have read about it with avid interest and professional motivation (I've taught it to many people even younger than me) and I wish J. and R. Kennedy could have found it in themselves to lift the heavy weight of social justice without needing to be motivated by bus boycotts or fire hoses or mass jailings or church burnings or race-motivated murders.
Was Kennedy's failure to move more quickly than he did on Civil Rights a...failure? Yes. I believe it was. A shortcoming? Certainly. He and Bobby had their reasons, and I'm among those critical of those reasons.
But, in an interview otherwise subtle and nuanced, that phrasing for some reason struck me as a little garish.
Here, the full transcript of the section:
TS: You were there, with of course, one of the foot soldiers, one of the lieutenants with Dr. King. We know that you were beaten, and almost killed on a number of occasions. We know you were the youngest person to speak at the march on Washington on that day when King gave the I Have A Dream speech so your resume is intact with regard to your duty and your service and sacrifice for all of us on the Civil Rights project. And you know, because you were there, you were in those meetings, that Dr. King wasn’t always happy with John Kennedy. Dr. King wasn’t always happy with Bobby Kennedy. Edward Kennedy seemed to take a different tack. What do you make of that?
JL: Well, we were not always happy with the position that President Kennedy and the position that Robert Kennedy took, but along came brother Teddy Kennedy who literally, as a Senator, threw everything he had, his soul, his heart, his gut, into supporting strong Civil Rights legislation and being a voice. I think he learned from his brothers that we could do better and he wanted the strongest piece of Civil Rights legislation and he wanted the strongest possible Voting Rights Act in 1965.
TS: Let me just get more clarity here, is it your assessment, your belief, that he became stronger, became such a stalwart on these issues because he knew the failings and shortcomings of his brothers on these areas?
JL: I think he became stronger because he knew in his soul, in his heart, that we can do better. You know, he used the term, or the phrase, over and over again, “moral obligation.” It’s the right thing to do. We must do it. It was part of his faith. Part of his upbringing, to be out there and care for the least among us. And he believed that America would never be what it should be until we completed the Civil Rights revolution of the 1960s.
Wasn't it part of the faith and upbringing of his brothers, then, too? I think what's really happening here is a progression, a change over time, a kind of growth. Growth towards the new and better from the older and, well, stuck. Sometimes I would really like that growth to take place more quickly than it does (are we really still waiting for DADT to go b-y-e-b-y-e?) And that's an inspiration to keep working hard(er) to make that happen.
One more quick example...
Archie Bunker
Dave Brubeck is 89 years old. Norman Lear is 87. Both were profiled on CBS' Sunday Morning news show recently, where I learned a few more things about growth over time.
Archie Bunker: And let me tell you something. If your spics and your spades want their rightful share of the American dream, let ‘em get out there and hussle for it just like I did…I didn’t have no million people out there marchin’ and protestin’ to get me my job!
Michael Spivic (son-in-law): [Exasperated facial expression.]
Edith: No, his uncle got it for him.
Somehow, it’s just not quite the same without the swell of laughter rising from the studio audience following Jean Stapleton’s expertly timed delivery.
All In the Family was a tectonic shift in American television. It was one of the most controversial shows on tv during its run, and probably even today, rightwing cable news shows notwithstanding. The scripts flirted with controversial topics at a time when they had not yet had an airing on popular television. Homosexuality, rape, racism, anti-war sentiments, impotence, miscarriage, menopause, and breast cancer all had not only some of their first mentions on television on this show, but robust and nuanced multi-angled representations of them as well.
Richard Dreyfuss read for the part of Meathead Michael. Norman Lear wanted Mickey Rooney to play Archie Bunker, but Rooney declined. The show’s chances for success, he said, were too limited due to foreseeable controversies the show would engender.
But, Rooney was wrong about that. All In the Family aired 8 years, from 1971 to 1979, followed by 4 years of Archie Bunker’s Place. From 1971 to 1976, All In The Family was the #1 rated show in America. Only 2 other shows have done that, staying at #1 for 5 consecutive years. (One of them has done it 6 years running.
Guess which one in comments, if you'd like...!)
Interviewer: What made you think that bigotry could be funny?
NL: It wasn’t bigotry per se, it was the state of the man’s mind. He was afraid of tomorrow, he was afraid of anything new.
Does this make Archie Bunker the proto-teabagger?
And make no mistake, the character’s name was “bunker,” and the theme song was, “Those Were The Days.”
I was 2 years old when Archie Bunker debuted. I was 14 when he signed off. I literally grew up with Archie Bunker. And several other Norman Lear hits, including Good Times, The Jeffersons, and my favorite of the group, Sanford & Son.
Hard to believe that group replaced (or displaced, depending on who you might ask) these shows that left the air the same year that Archie Bunker debuted: The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry R.F.D. (whose debut was the most watched show in tv history), Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction.
That's quite a shift for 1971. From Jethro and Granny to Archie and Edith. CBS had grown from rural to urban in 1971. And so had much of America.
Growing Up
So, where’s my new-generation sitcom exposing the absurdity of tea party activist mentality the way Archie Bunker once did the conservative positions of the 70s? Is Tina Fey today's Norman Lear?
Instead, I get Two and a Half Men, or The Big Bang Theory, or How I Met Your Mother, 3 of the most popular sit-coms of today. Not exactly scintillating social commentary in any one of them.
Looking for a new Lion of the Senate? Be careful you don’t bump into Scott Brown while you’re looking.
But, real growth takes time. And is sometimes painful. It's the pain that often provokes the humor, as in Elaine Stritch's quote below.
It may be time the kind of growth that recognizes that we can do better. That not only recognizes that we can do better, knows in its soul, in its heart, that we can do better.
The kind of growth that has learned from what has gone before.
John Lewis knows that kind of growth...
Norman Lear knows that kind of growth...
And with that knowledge yearns for it.
Hungers for it.
Is not satisfied without it.
Is driven to do something about it. Volunteer. Talk one-on-one with Fred or Fredette. Donate. Make phone calls. Attend a meeting. Maybe even run for an elected office.
Isn't it better to be the butterfly than to be forever rolled up in a cocoon?
But, for now, if we want the kind of growth that is not afraid of the future, that not only embraces new and better solutions, but works to discover and create and at least give them a chance, then it may be time for a new club for growth.
My club for growth. And if not mine, then how about Norman Lear's, or John Lewis'?
Or, maybe, Wikileaks'?
TWLTW
- When so many who claim to be no longer are, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann continue to be worthy of the title "journalist." They are Honorary Emeritus members of My Club For Growth.
- Found this while searching for funny pop culture t-shirts when I should have been working on my research project. For a cool $17.99, you too can walk around with this on your chest:
$DO || ! $DO ; try
try: command not found
- But, I like this one even better.
- Marvel Comics canon includes a superhero named...The Whizzer. Really.
- Disney is making some moves this week with announced live-action renditions of Cinderella and "Maleficent" in the pipeline. Maleficent, btw, is the evil godmother who puts Sleeping Beauty to sleep...to be played by...Angelina Jolie?
- Inception was worth seeing, I just wish I had gone into it with lower expectations.
- 2 from my favorite political cartoonist of all time, Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
and
- The minuend is the number subtracted from, and the subtrahend is the number subtracted. The difference is...the difference! m - s = d Turns out most people call the minuend and the subtrahend "terms." I can understand why.
- Quotes this week:
- "Real humor belongs to people like this. Funny comes from feeling things so deeply that you have to protect yourself." -Elaine Stritch on taking over from Angela Lansbury on their character in A Little Night Music
- "The best way to figure out if you’re running a good company is to figure out if your customers trust your apology." -Jeff Kalmikoff
- "Only in the darkness can you see the stars." -Martin Luther King, Jr.
- "An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it." -Jef Mallett
- I've been looking at design websites and companies a lot lately to get ideas for incorporating design-type thinking into the elementary school I'm working for, and I came across this site, my favorite new example of very clean workmanship that matches the material being represented. If you have a thing for design, of either websites or bicycles, it may be worth a click + 30 seconds.
- Rest In Peace, Daniel Schorr.
“I consider my presence on the enemies list,” he said in a 2009 interview with The Gazette of Montgomery County, Md., “a greater tribute than the Emmys list.”
What Did You Learn This Week?