Ordinary World for Monday 21 January

Ordinary World
Monday 21 January 2019

As always, all linked pieces are for discussion and consideration, not as implied endorsement of the author’s views by Ordinary Times

[OW1] It’s a Rams-Patriots Super Bowl, and an Officiating Nightmare by Albert Breer: “The story this morning should be, would be, Rams coach Sean McVay taking a franchise that had missed the postseason 12 consecutive times to the Super Bowl in just his second year, and going right through the raucous Superdome to do it. The story this morning should be, would be, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s incomparable brilliance in the face of a worthy young challenger at Arrowhead. But that’s not where we are on this Monday morning. As has been the case, to a lesser degree, on other Monday mornings this year, you woke up today to more talk about a bad call in a football game. And you should.”

[OW2] Martin Luther King Jr. lived an extraordinary life. At 33, he was pressing the case of civil rights with President John Kennedy. At 34, he galvanized the nation with his “I Have a Dream” speech. At 35, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. At 39, he was assassinated, but he left a legacy of hope and inspiration that continues today. The Seattle Times created a web page in tribute to Dr. King, collecting the story of his life, photographs of the times in which he lived, and perspectives from politicians, activists, and ordinary citizens on his tremendous legacy.

[OW3] The Media Wildly Mischaracterized That Video of Covington Catholic Students Confronting a Native American Veteran by Robby Soave: “It would be impossible to definitively state that none of the young men did anything wrong, offensive, or problematic, at some point, and maybe the smiling student was attempting to intimidate Phillips. But there’s shockingly little evidence of wrongdoing, unless donning a Trump hat and standing in a group of other people doing the same is now an act of harassment or violence. Phillips’ account, meanwhile, is at best flawed, and arguably deliberately misleading. Unless other information emerges, the school’s best move would be to have a conversation with the boys about the incident, perhaps discuss some strategies for remaining on perfect behavior at highly charged political rallies—where everybody is recording everything on a cell phone—and let that be the end of it.”

[OW4] What It’s Like for Secular, Liberal Pro-lifers at the March for Life by Ashley Fetters: “The inclusion of Ben Shapiro, the founder of the conservative website The Daily Wire and the host of the podcast The Ben Shapiro Show, on the rally’s lineup angered some left-leaning supporters of the pro-life cause; Shapiro is a popular figure among far-right conservatives, and a recent op-ed in The Washington Post warned that Shapiro’s invitation to the main stage of the March for Life would alienate nonconservatives from the event. (Shapiro also made headlines Friday morning when he proclaimed that if he were given the chance to go back in time and kill baby Hitler, because of his pro-life beliefs, he would not.) Some secular pro-lifers I spoke with could see the logic of inviting a popular figure with passionate pro-life views to speak at the rally. But others were less than thrilled about Shapiro’s presence. For one thing, they didn’t love that Shapiro, who recorded an episode of his podcast from the main stage, often referred to supporters of abortion rights as “the left.” Geraghty, Rehumanize’s communications director, referred to himself in conversation as a “leftist”; other pro-life protesters I spoke with described themselves as left-leaning or progressive. But as Josh Stanton, a 23-year-old attending the march who also supports causes such as Black Lives Matter, pointed out, derogatorily conflating “the right” and “the left” with “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” respectively, is pretty common now, “on both sides.”

[OW5] Natural Disasters Worsen Inequality: Two months after the Camp Fire, the recovery in Paradise, California, is harder for some than for others by Annie Lowrey: “Although disasters like the Camp Fire seem to strike indiscriminately, in the aggregate that is not quite the case. Cheaper homes built without strong foundations or storm windows tend to be less safe during tornadoes and hurricanes. Floods hit low-lying neighborhoods the hardest, and low-lying neighborhoods are often low-income neighborhoods. In California, the extremely high cost of housing has encouraged building in and migration to certain fire-prone areas. This is to say: The country’s built landscape means that lower-income families are often the most vulnerable to disasters.”

[OW6] The 2019 Women’s March battled controversy. These women turned out anyway. They’re aware of the anti-Semitism concerns, but still support the movement’s larger goals. By Anna North “In the wake of the allegations, the Democratic National Committee and progressive groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center have distanced themselves from Women’s March, Inc. Meanwhile, other groups, including March On, which focuses on helping progressive candidates win elections, are hosting marches and other actions today that are separate from those organized by Women’s March, Inc. A group called the Women’s March Alliance, which organized the 2017 and 2018 marches in New York, organized a march on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that was separate from the Foley Square rally. “The controversy has people confused about whether or not they should march,” Vanessa Wruble, executive director of March On and a co-founder of the first Women’s March on Washington in 2017, told Vox by phone. But, she said, “everyone should march. Doesn’t matter where you march, just march.””

[OW7] Narratives of the Trump Administration?—?Part I: If you think you’ve read this story before, it’s because you probably have by Varad Mehta: “Since even before he was sworn in, variants of these headlines have appeared in the press with metronomic regularity. They are less headlines than tropes, Homeric epithets whose formulaic repetition transports an entire inventory of psychic and emotional associations. Pluck one at random and you could find yourself in January, 2017 — or January, 2019. But if you didn’t check the date, you wouldn’t know which it was. Its stories like so many rituals, the media has recreated what the historian of religion Mircea Eliade called the “continual present”?—?in which yesterday, today, and tomorrow become one and time no longer exists?—?and installed Trump’s presidency within it.”

[OW8] Why are single women still mistaken for prostitutes? By Flora Drury: “So when Clementine Crawford was reportedly told she could no longer sit at the bar of her favourite Manhattan restaurant, she was confused. As she wrote later, she was even more confused when a man, arriving not long after she had been sat at a table, was allowed to take a seat at that very same bar. It was only, she says, when she pushed for a reason, that she was told “the owner had ordered a crackdown on hookers”. Her years of regular dinners, and her high-flying job, appeared to mean nothing. The implication for all single women was clear.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAv1N059NZ4&w=560&h=315]