Hollywood has a sordid history of refusing to have a moral backbone, from racist films such as Birth of a Nation (1915) to the failure to oppose the 1934 Hays Production Code to acceptance of a blacklist to numerous other other things.
Now, this same Hollywood, has created “new inclusion rules” for Oscar consideration.
The standards are requirements for on screen representations 30 percent of smaller roles are played by women, LGBTQ, disabled people, or ethnic minorities.
Also, creative leadership with similar quotas.
Also, industry access. Again these are quotas for “under-represented groups”.
But whose definitions are we using?
There is also an audience development standard.
The late Kirstie Alley responded by saying “Can you imagine telling Picasso what had to be in his paintings.?”
Richard Dreyfuss has also spoken in opposition to these new rules extensively
“It’s an art. No one should be telling me as an artist that I have to give in to the latest, most current idea of what morality is,” he said.
Let me just add that the 2004 version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, with Al Pacino is tremendous. Pacino, it should be noted, is not Jewish.
Guess this should be remade with Woody Allen, Larry David, or Paul Rudd or…….
The program notes from an April 29 Swarthmore College student concert noted that Mozart had written over 50 Symphonies. My previous understanding, from my first attempt at a college education, was that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had written 41 Symphonies, no more and no less! I understood this the same way that I understood our universe had a total of nine planets.
However, prior to sending an angry email to the Chair of the Swarthmore Music Department, it was time to use Duck Duck Go for some independent research.
Neither of these agreed with my understanding of 41 Symphonies. Then again, in August 2006, Pluto was “deplanetized”.
Assuming this is not “wokery”. Could Mars, the planet of war, be next to be removed? Shouldn’t we all support peace?
Seriously, some of what was “social knowledge” of half a century ago, has changed. For one instance, though many of us had a permanently single relative, we may have thought the term “queer” but rarely used it, in my family at least, as that would be “impolite”. Now we acknowledge Gays and Lesbians do exist, and have a right to.
However, social knowledge wise, we still do not “normalize” pedophiles, despite NAMBLA as the general agreement that minors do not have the maturity to make this decision.
This leads to the question of what other commonly accepted social knowledge of 2023 will have been reconsidered in say 2033 and how do we decide what should and shouldn’t be? All responses welcome.
Back to Mozart, Patricia Johnson of Curtis, one of four Musicologists who I contacted, said “it’s unlikely we’ll ever have a definitive answer”. As to the number of symphonies.
Which leads to the question of will there ever be a definitive commonly accepted social knowledge?
You may even start seeing “Joe Biden again, I guess” signs popping up.
But even “woke” Swarthmore can’t sleep on this.
Nikki Haley Campaign signs on Swarthmore lawns that are not No Mow May Lawns
This means that there are active Republicans living in Swarthmore. And we thought we had driven them all underground. Well, they have “come out”
Many see Nikki as an “antidote” to Trumpism and a reply to Bidenism.
Nikki Haley was born as Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, the daughter of (Sikh) Indian Immigrants whose business thrived in South Carolina. She became a Methodist at some point in her journey. She was the first female governor of South Carolina (2011-17). She then became the US Ambassador to the UN (2017-18) under then President Trump, with whom she sometimes agreed. In 1996, she married then US serviceman Michael Haley. At age 51, she is one of the youngest “declared” GOP Candidates.
Among her positions, she backs Congressional Term limits.
On abortion, she says “Let’s find national consensus”, a truly radical position.
Christina Gehrig, the Iron Horse’s Iron-Fisted Mom
By Joe Guzzardi
Lou Gehrig had two women in his life, his mother Christina and his wife Eleanor. Had the two been able to get along, the personal life of the legendary New York Yankees ballplayer and Hall of Famer would have been less stressful.
During Gehrig’s youth, Christina, a first-generation German immigrant, was the family’s backbone. Father Heinrich was mostly unemployed, drank and was frequently ill. Lou was the only one of the Gehrig babies to reach adulthood. Three others died in their infancy. Understandably, Christina became overprotective of Lou and urged him to abandon baseball, which he picked up as a teen playing in neighborhood games. She wanted him to focus on his school books.
When Gehrig enrolled in Manhattan’s Commerce High School, he starred in football and baseball. After Gehrig’s Commerce team beat Chicago’s Lane Tech High in Cubs Park, later Wrigley Field, the 10,000 in attendance knew they had seen a superstar in the making. In an account of Gehrig’s game-winning grand slam, the Chicago Tribune wrote that “his blow would have made any big leaguer proud….”
The Gehrig family was poor. While in high school, Christina worked as a Columbia University housekeeper at Sigma Nu Theta. Lou often went to the fraternity house to help his mother serve dinner and wash dishes. Gehrig also worked part-time jobs in butcher shops and grocery stores to help supplement the household income. A New York Giants scout arranged a 1921 Polo Grounds tryout for Gehrig, but no-nonsense manager John McGraw screamed at his coaches to get him off the field: “I’ve got enough lousy players without another one showing up.” For the balance of his managerial career, McGraw rued his hasty decision.
Lou and Christina
By 1925, Gehrig, age 22, was an established Yankees starter who began to challenge teammate Babe Ruth for homerun titles. The two, despite contrasting personalities – the shy, retiring Gehrig and the bombastic Ruth – became friends, fishing buddies and barnstorming partners, the “Bustin’ Babes vs. the Larrupin’ Lous. Christina, who by this time realized that professional baseball players could earn good paychecks, loved Ruth. The Bambino gifted Christina a puppy which she named Judge, a nickname for Ruth. The extra money Ruth generated was nice too. Lou made $2,000 more on the barnstorming tour than he did during the season.
Ironically, Ruth was at the center of a lifelong feud between Lou and his mother. Christina took a dim view of Lou’s girlfriends, seeing them as threats eager to win away her beloved son. When Chicago socialite Eleanor Grace Twitchell caught Lou’s eye, Christina strongly disapproved. In her autobiography, “My Luke and I,” Eleanor described herself as “young and rather innocent, but I smoked, played poker and drank bathtub gin….” But smoking and drinking weren’t the vices that most bothered Christina.
Mother Gehrig had heard through the grapevine that on a years-ago trip to Chicago, Ruth befriended Eleanor. Christina, and the entire baseball world, knew that Ruth didn’t maintain platonic relationships with women. When Lou and Eleanor married in 1933, friends had to persuade Christina to attend.
As Lou’s career flourished, the women cheered Lou on, albeit from separate vantage points. Christina and Eleanor watched with pride as Lou closed in on the most-consecutive-games-played record, then 2,130. But the rift between Christina and Eleanor never healed. Lou’s physical condition deteriorated – “like a great clock winding down,” wrote Eleanor. A butler, a housekeeper and his mother-in-law who moved into the couple’s two-story home in Riverdale nursed Gehrig, but not Christina.
After Lou passed, tension between the in-laws deepened. The parties disputed how Lou’s estate should have been divided. Heinrich and Christina believed that Eleanor was withholding monthly payments from a $20,000 life insurance policy payable to Lou’s parents. An out-of-court settlement was reached.
Christina and Heinrich faded from the news, and died quietly. Eleanor, however, remained prominent, at least publicly. Married to Lou for only eight years, widowed for 43, Eleanor approved the final draft of “The Pride of the Yankees,” donated Lou’s baseball treasures to the Hall of Fame, left $100,000 to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and another $100,000 to the Rip Van Winkle Fund for ALS research.
Privately, a lonely, friendless and childless Eleanor withdrew, drank excessively and, once, passed out, caught her bed on fire from smoking. At Eleanor’s 1984 funeral, only two attended, her attorney George Pollack and his wife. And so ended the sad Gehrig family saga; Lou gone too soon, and his family unhappily bickering all the way to their graves.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
After long term Pennsylvania 108th District Rep Lynda Schlegal-Culver (12 years) won a special election on Jan. 31 for State Senate District 17, a special election was scheduled to replace her in the 108th.
It will be Tuesday, May 16.
Running are Trevor Finn (D), Michael Stender (R) and Elijah Skretching (L).
The district is In Montour and Northampton counties, including Rockefeller Township. It has been a Republican seat for about 60 years.
For possibly the first time ever in a Pennsylvania State House race, both major Party Candidates are firefighters.
Trevor Finn worked at Finn’s News Agency, the family business. He has been Commissioner of Montour County since 2004. He has been operations chief and facilities commissioner if the Montour County Emergency Management Agency. He has worked as an EMT and volunteer firefighter.
He lives in Danville with his wife, Betsy, a kindergarten teacher. They have two children who became teachers.
Michael Stender is a firefighter and a former emergency room technician.
Stender is a lifelong resident of Sunbury and he and his wife have three daughters. He is a Bloomsburg graduate and has done various volunteer work.
The Libertarian Candidate Elijah Scretching spent five years in the Marines. He lives in Northumberland Borough with his wife and daughter.
In a candidate’s debate, he said “I want the people to have the power, not the government”. He is in favor of having armed guards in the schools because “We have to stop being reactive and start being proactive.”
Incumbents William Morgan and Elizabeth Williams are facing challenges from Tamika M. Gibson and Fred Green in the Chester City Council in the May 16 Democrat Primary.
All participated in the League of Women Voters Forum available on YouTube.
“I hear a lot about plans that are supposed to be coming forward but you had six to eight years to put a plan in place and now because it’s election season, I hear what we’re planning to do,” Ms. Gibson said. “The plan has failed. We need a whole new administration to come forth to implement better plans to change the situation that Chester is in. The plans that you’ve already had don’t work. They haven’t worked. It’s time to get rid of the old and put something new in place so that we can move forward properly.”
There are a number of YouTube videos of Tamika M. Gibson.
Fred Green is vice-president of Chester Upland School District, and has been a Salvation Army Board Member, a community liaison to Mayor and Council. For more information, see the following websites;
Councilman and Deputy Mayor William Morgan has a bachelor of science in communication from the University of Rhode Island. He was appointed to City Council, when Natis Nichols resigned in September 2016. He had worked for TD Bank as a Financial Services Rep.
Councilwoman and Director of Public Property and Recreation Elizabeth Williams has an associates in Early Childhood Education from Delaware County Community College. She has worked in various capacities for numerous insurance companies. She is executive director for the Chester Democratic Party and vice-dhair for the Delaware County Democrats.
Even though the nation is divided about immigration and its consequences, on one point, unanimity must be reached. Immigration, whether legal or illegal, cannot be a vehicle for child labor. And yet, the Department of Labor has uncovered several incidents that involve under-age migrants working in slave labor-like conditions.
A DOL Tweet: “Packers Sanitation Services Inc. has paid $1.5 M after @WHD_DOL investigators found the company employed at least 102 children-aged 13-17 – in hazardous occupations and had them working overnight shifts in 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.” Furthermore, DOL accused PSSI of employing “oppressive child labor in perilous conditions.”
In a series of stories, NBC News provided the horrific details. PSSI, a company contracted to work at slaughterhouses and meatpacking facilities throughout the county, allegedly employed at least 31 kids – one as young as 13 – to work overnight cleaning shifts at three facilities in Nebraska and Minnesota, a Fair Labor Standards Act violation. Additional evidence indicated that the company may also have employed more under-age children in similar perilous conditions at 400 other sites nationwide. Identity theft is rampant and a major facilitator in underage migrant employment.
PSSI is a huge company that employs about 17,000 and has contracts with hundreds of meatpacking facilities. Toiling at PSSI wasn’t an after-school job at the soda parlor. During the graveyard shift and across three slaughter houses, when they should have been home in bed, minors literally slaved away, mopping up bloody floors.
Interviews with the minors, in their native Spanish language, revealed that several children began their slaughterhouse shifts at 11 p.m. and worked until dawn, some for six or seven days a week, and often for periods of up to 15 months. At least three victims suffered chemical burns.
The NBC News story skirted the central factor that abets minor children’s criminal employment – President Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ open border. Don’t be misled. The media’s deceptive language about “unaccompanied minors” (UACs) is intended to deflect the truth – UACs are more accurately described as the victims of child smuggling rings and are tied into the Biden administration’s open borders policy. As the minors mature into adulthood, they become embedded in the permanent labor force. To most of them, any job is a good job. They need incomes to send remittances back home and to pay off their smuggling fees.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show that after President Biden took office in January 2021, he acted immediately to eliminate effective policies, including categorically exempting UACs from Title 42. UAC encounters skyrocketed. Between FY 2020 and FY 2021, total UAC encounters at the Southwest border increased a staggering 342 percent, from 33,239 in FY 2020 to 146,913 in FY 2021. Those encounters increased to 152,057 in FY 2022 and are on pace to be at a similar level in FY 2023.
At a recent Senate hearing, Secretary Mayorkas couldn’t explain the child exploitation surge under his watch, a fact that The New York Times described as “ignored or missed.” Multiple veteran government staffers and outside contractors told the Health and Human Services Department, including in reports which reached Secretary Xavier Becerra, that children could be at risk. Critics had previously brought to Mayorkas’ attention that the DHS Office of Refugee Resettlement routinely releases minors into the custody of unvetted families, many of whom are illegally present, and likely also illegally employed. The Labor Department also issued news releases that noted an increase in child labor. Senior White House aides were shown proof of exploitation, like migrants working with heavy industrial equipment and caustic chemicals. The net result of multiple efforts to shine light on booming child exploitation: nothing.
Multiple felonies are committed on every step of the journey from the border to the slaughterhouse. Corrupt government and private sector employers hold the upper hand. Fines are meaningless. Hard jail time might make a difference. But if Congress can’t pass mandatory E-Verify, it’s unlikely to put its weight behind throwing the donor class behind bars.
Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Child Labor Back In Vogue Child Labor Back In Vogue
The mayor’s race in Upper Darby has had numerous twists and turns. Incumbent Barbarann Keffer was arrested on Jan. 26 and charged with driving under the influence.
Since then, she has spent time in an alcohol rehabilitation program. She believes her drinking problem began during her time at Harvard, where she earned a degree in government.
On Feb. 7, Council President Brian Burke, citing a provision in the Upper Darby Charter, declared himself mayor while Ms. Keffer was undergoing alcoholism treatment.
Burke was not successful in his claim.
Mayor Keffer, a Democrat, had long been battling Burke, also a Democrat, along with councilmembers Matt Silva and Laura Wentz, also Democrats.
The letter also criticized a perceived delay in the dispersion of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money.
It’s penultimate paragraph read: Ensure that Brian Burke, Laura Wentz, and Matt Silva do not hold elected office as Democrats again in Upper Darby Township
On March 2, Burke, a life-long Democrat, became a Republican to run for mayor.
Ms.. Wentz is on the primary ballot as an independent Democrat, battling Edward Brown, the endorsed Democratic candidate. Among her many accomplishments, Ms. Wentz has served as president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW). She graduated cum laude from Rider Univesity in 1993 with a B.A. in theater, and since 2002 has been a member of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local # 8. She is also a founding member of Delco Now.
The endorsed Democratic candidate is Edward Brown, president of the Upper Darby School District Board of Directors. An employee of Lockheed Martin as a Cybersecurity Engineering Manager. His masters degree from Drexel University is in Cybersecurity and Business Administration. He is the father of three children.
Crime is an issue in the race. On April 21, Michael Garr, a 15-year-old, 10th grader at Upper Darby High School, was fatally stabbed in 200 block of Bridge Street.
Before I could vote, the name of the Candidate Kennedy was in everyone’s psyche, some seeing him as a savior, others as a Ssocialistic threat. Sadly, he became the first President to be assassinated since William McKinley.
Almost 60 years later, another Kennedy, the son of the also assassinated brother of John, one Robert Kennedy, has now announced his candidacy.
It’s safe to say he’s the most controversial announced Major Party Candidate, being atttacked from both the left and the right. He’s the author of The Real Anthony Fauci
Which is just one of his over 20 books. He is also the founder of The Children’s Defense Fund
And has also been involved with many environmental causes.
The New York Post has declared the “RFK Jr’s “disgusted” family unlikely to support his bid for the Presidency.
Unlike Hunter and all his family who unilaterally support Uncle Joe’s continued time in office no matter how it profits them.
At the time of this column, 10 percent of Democrats had already said RFK Jr had their vote. MSNBC and others with their ilkitude in the Dem establishment media are refusing to mention his name. Meanwhile, it’s getting up to 15 percent.
“If I run, my top priority will be to end the corrupt merger between state and corporate power that has ruined our economy, shattered the middle class, polluted our landscapes and waters, poisoned our children, and robbed us of our values and freedoms,” Kennedy said.” Together we can restore America’s democracy,”
From coast-to-coast, concerned citizens have formed “Save our Neighborhood” organizations to protect their communities against relentless, all-consuming development. Politicians at the federal, state and local level demand more growth, residents’ wishes be damned.
Consider Colorado. Because of the Centennial State’s environmental bounty, thousands of disgruntled Americans left home to make Colorado their new residence. But Colorado’s appeal is on the wane. Gov. Jared Polis’ bill, SB 23–213, also known as the “More Housing Now” proposal, will keep Colorado sprawling, especially in already overcrowded metropolises like Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Boulder. More Housing Now designated these, and other major cities, as “Tier One,” targeted areas where single-family-only zoning would end, allowing permitting of duplexes, triplexes and add-on housing units. The land-use bill would block established limits on how many unrelated people can live in the same home.
The Polis administration’s dream plan would, over the objections of residents and elected officials, allow more dense housing across Colorado’s increasingly expensive metropolitan and resort areas. Traditionally, local governments in Colorado have had the authority to make their own growth decisions; under SB 23–213, that authority would shift to the governor’s office.
Polis’ power grab will put the governor and state legislature on a collision course with cities and counties. Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, who attended Polis’ State of the State announcement, declared the bill “a pretty scary prospect” for local officials who would lose local land use control, as it’s transferred to the state capitol.
The Colorado Municipal League is also critical. In its statement, the League said that the bill would alter more than 100 years of municipal authority over Colorado’s land use and zoning: “It’s a vote of no confidence in local government and in citizens in having a say in how they would like their own neighborhoods and communities to develop.” Although the few Republicans in the legislature will push back, the stark reality is they’re the minority party and have little influence over which measures pass.
In Colorado, and in other states, building can never catch up to population growth. Developers attempting to match ever-higher population levels to housing starts are on fools’ missions. Colorado has experienced a population boom that has recast the state’s image as a final destination to get away from it all. Since 2010, Colorado’s population grew 15.1 percent to 5.8 million, more than twice the 7.3 percent national average. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that Colorado, over the last four decades, has turned more than 1,250 square miles of open space, natural habitat and agricultural land into housing, shopping malls and streets.
Demographers project that the state’s 5.8 million population will, by 2050, increase by another 1.8 million. Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins, all Tier One cities, will become a single mega-city. When polled about growth, Coloradans are opposed. They want a future that has fewer arriving people. Nearly three of every five voters, 59 percent, prefer either a complete stop or a decline in the state’s population growth. Population stability is a key issuethat few elected, corporate or civic leaders will discuss. To help Colorado reach sustainable population, the state needs manageable immigration, the federal policy that, along with births to immigrants, drives more than 75 percent of all growth.
Coloradans should brace for more housing. Polis is pro-growth, but opposed to immigration limits. During his five terms as a U.S. Representative where his districtincluded the Tier One cities of Boulder and Fort Collins, Polis consistently voted in favor of expanded immigration and less enforcement at the border, as well as in the interior.
Under Polis, Earth Day celebrations will be de rigueur, butmeaningless charades. Other Coloradans, now deceased, like former Gov. Richard Lamm and Professor Al Bartlett, who spoke about protecting the Centennial State’s environment, would be disappointed and dismayed about what lays ahead.
As Professor Bartlett said: “The first law of sustainability is that you cannot sustain population growth; you cannot sustain growth in the rates of consumption of resources. That’s just arithmetic — it is not debatable.”
Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.
