Dave Badtke’s Blog

This is a picture of Luke and Kaori’s home-office in Tokyo. (Luke, our older son, and Kaori, our daughter-in-law, own Knee High Media in Japan.) The mural was painted recently by HITOTZUKI, a collaboration of two of their friends, Kami and Sasu, who have painted murals throughout Japan and also in Europe.

The forms that Kami paints are inspired by his passion for skateboarding. Luke told me that when they were painting his house, Kami, in creating the design, would move his body as he might when skateboarding. It’s intriguing the way the light and dark curved paths, with Sasu’s flower-like designs drawing attention away from the path, soften and enhance the rectangular rigidity of the building, organically changing the structure into a painted sculpture.

John Hope Franklin died on Wednesday at age 94. In today’s NY Times Brent Staples writes about an unfinished conversation he had with Franklin, who, on December 7, 1941, was on a long automobile trip with his wife, Aurelia, north from South to North Carolina, but didn’t hear about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor until they arrived home because they didn’t dare stop:

Clearly, the car had no radio. But wouldn’t they have heard the news when they stopped to gas up and get something eat? No, he said; I had misunderstood the period. Black families motoring through the Jim Crow South packed box lunches to avoid the humiliation of being turned away from restaurants. They relieved themselves in roadside ditches because service-station restrooms were often closed to them. They worried incessantly about breakdowns and flat tires that could leave them stranded at the mercy of bigots who demeaned and wished them ill.

“You took your life into your hands every time you went out on the road,” he said. It was, of course, a relief to come upon a black-owned service station. But he said that you could drive from Charleston quite nearly to Baltimore before finding one.

Read Brent Staples’ column by following this link.

N.B.: The above photo of John Hope Franklin is from the Boston Globe. It gnawed on John Hope Franklin that racial segregation was replaced by class stratification in underfunded public schools. (Derrick Z. Jackson/Globe Staff).

In this link there is some introductory material on the civil rights movement followed by Maya Angelou commenting on Obama’s victory.

Links to the inaugural address:

Obama taking the oath and delivering his inaugural address. During the oath Obama started off too soon, so he and Chief Justice Roberts got off on the wrong foot, and then Roberts munged the words just a tad — faithfully was the problem– but Obama smiled and remained cool, and today Roberts dropped by the White House to re-administer the oath just so everything was on the up and up, don’t you know, between these two Constitutional scholars.

• Steven Pinker suggests in today’s NYTimes that the issue is split infinitives. Roberts is a grammar tyrant, even changing quotations in his written decisions to match his sense of grammatical rightness, which makes sense since he seems to be doing the same with the Constitution, though how he sleeps given the grammatical problems presented by the Second Amendment I don’t know. Some have suggested that Obama did the right thing by following Roberts’ bungled lead. But Pinker hopes that Obama will be more forceful in the future, leading us in a new direction even when it comes to grammar. Of course Obama’s smart and seems to know how to pick his fights, grammar being important, I would imagine, only when it’s a question of life and death, not just because the world is watching.

Text of Obama’s inaugural address.

Links to Elizabeth Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama’s Inauguration”:

The YouTube video of her reading the poem.

Text of her poem.

Links to Dr. Joseph Lowery’s benediction:

The YouTube video.

Text of his benediction.

Link to performance of John Williams’ “Air and Simple Gifts” by Yo-Yo Ma on cello, Itzhak Perlman on violin, Gabriela Montero on piano and Anthony McGill on clarinet:

The YouTube video.

And a few laughs.

My daughter-in-law Mina recently sent me a copy of Jonathan Raban’s article in the Wall Street Journal “All the Presidents’ Literature” (WSJ 1/10-11/2009), in which Raban suggests that Obama is that rare politician who seems to formulate his thinking and actions by reading and writing. As E. M. Forster wrote, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?”

Raban mocks those critics of  Obama’s literary achievement who should know better since Dreams from My Father has been received, he claims,  by “the literary profession as if it were the Comstock Lode: He wrote it himself! Every sentence has its own graceful cadence! He could as easily be novelist as a politician!” But the fault of those who interpret Obama does not extend to the president himself:

In politics, “realism” is usually just another term for pragmatism, or Realpolitik. But Dreams From My Father suggests that for Obama the word is rooted less in a political than in a literary tradition, where it has a far richer meaning. It signifies the watchful eye and patiently attentive ear; a proper humility in the face of the multiplex character of human society; and, most of all, a belief in the power of the writer’s imagination to comprehend and ultimately reconcile the manifold contradictions in his teeming world. It’s not much to go on, but, so far, naming his cabinet and organizing his inauguration, incorporating into the narrative characters and voices quite different from his own (like Hillary Clinton’s or Rick Warren’s), Obama has demonstrated an impressive consistency between his instincts as a writer and his performance as president-elect. He reminds us that novelists, no less than apprentice politicians, are in the business of community organizing.

Joan Didion seems mindful of Raban’s concern in the December 18th New York Review of Books where she avoids exclamatory support herself by claiming that Obama’s dreams, his ability to give us what we seem to want, have pushed many, pushed many of those who support him, into an irony-free zone:

Again and again, perfectly sentient adults cited the clinching arguments made on the candidate’s behalf by their children. Again and again we were told that this was a generational thing, we couldn’t understand. In a flash, we were back in high school, and we couldn’t sit with the popular kids, we didn’t get it. The Style section of The New York Times, on the Sunday after the election, mentioned the Obama T-shirt that “makes irony look old.”

Irony was now out.

Naiveté, translated into “hope,” was now in.

Innocence, even when it looked like ignorance, was now prized.

Partisanship could now be appropriately expressed by consumerism. . .

While the media has been sensitive to the thought that they were drinking Obama’s “Kool-Aid,” the phrase Didion uses and a fear I heard expressed more than once during CNN commentary, I’m appreciative — finally! — that we now have a president of the United States who will make science a cornerstone of our government and who in Dreams from My Father, which I’ll be teaching this semester in my English 1 class, can write the following about his African father whom he only knew for one month:

There was so much to tell in that single month, so much explaining to do; and yet when I reach back into my memory for the words of my father, the small interactions or conversations we might have had, they seem irretrievably lost. Perhaps they’re imprinted too deeply, his voice the seed of all sorts of tangled arguments that I carry on with myself, as impenetrable now as the pattern of my genes, so that all I can perceive is the worn-out shell. My wife offers a simpler explanation — that boys and their father don’t always have much to say to each other unless and until they trust — and this may come closer to the mark, for I often felt mute before him, and he never pushed me to speak (Dreams 66).

This will fit nicely with my class’s exploration of identity formation, which tends to founder in distrust as Michelle Obama suggests, like Sherman Alexie’s character Victor Joseph in Smoke Signals, until understanding and forgiveness lead to something like trust between father and son even when the father is no longer present.

On the topic of mother-daughter and father-daughter relations, Dreams is so far mute, but we’ll now have the opportunity to watch these develop during Obama’s presidency. Should Obama be president for eight years, Melia will be 18, Sasha 16 when he leaves office.

It’s sobering to realize that I haven’t written in this blog since August of 2007 at the end of the summer before the fall 2007 semester. As we get older, time flashes by, and so much can happen in what seems like an incredibly short time.

While the war in Iraq isn’t killing as many Americans, though more than 4,200 have died in Iraq and Afghanistan,  I don’t have a good feel for what this means for Iraqis when even one violent death corrupts the living. How many thousands or hundreds of thousands have died? How many more have been injured?

And the economy is getting so bad that in the back of the plane one flight attendant on my return trip from New York City to see Joe and Mina couldn’t stop talking to the other attendants about contract disputes and retirement. I was flying economy, of course. First class didn’t hear the sometimes panicky, other times angry tone of their concerns that didn’t extend to passengers who could hear everything at a distance even over the roar of jet engines. After all of the greed and corruption and collusion and self-serving rationalizations, we’re all worried about our jobs and money.

But hope returned again with the election of Barack Hussein Obama, the child of a white woman from Kansas and an African man from Kenya, who will become our 44th president in one week, a reality after a magical campaign that I would have attributed to a Hollywood happy ending if it weren’t actually happening. Now intelligent discourse will return to our lives. Now science will play a prominent role again in solving our problems. And maybe war will decline, health will increase (because of health care, not my exercise plan no matter how hard I commit to change), and education will gain a new ascendancy because Obama, as is clear from the books he has written — I’ll be using Dreams from My Father in my English 1 class — knows how to think critically in a way I haven’t experienced in a president since JFK.

It should be quite a year.

My wife and I were laughing helplessly last night watching this video. But you have to watch it without worrying about what’s happening to the cats or babies, who catch a pretty hard time. But then cats and babies are quite resilient, and in most cases, though not always in this video, they’re close to the ground.

Gail Collins of the New York Times has moved from editor of the editorial page on the left to the opinion page on the right, which is most welcome and has nothing at all to do with her political leanings. She’s just a really good writer and thinker.

See in particular her recent column on Mitt Romney who used to strap his dog in his crate on top of the family car when driving for summer vacations from Boston to Ontario, a distance of perhaps as much a 1,000 miles or more going who-knows-how-fast through an area of the country that can have some pretty nasty weather even in the summer.

Seamus, in case you missed the story, was the Romneys’ Irish setter back in the early 1980s. Mitt used to drive the family from Boston to Ontario every summer for a vacation, with the dog strapped to the roof in a crate.

As The Boston Globe reported this summer, Romney had the entire trip planned so rigidly that every gas station stop was predetermined before departure. During the fatal trip of ’83, Seamus apparently needed one more than the schedule allowed. When evidence of the setter’s incontinence came running down the back windshield, Romney abandoned his itinerary and drove to the closest gas station, where he got a hose and sprayed both dog and station wagon clean.

“It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management,” The Globe said.

The question raised is what ugly snippets like this reveal about character. From Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, we could probably conclude that these little embarrassing moments — not little from Seamus the dog’s POV, certainly — are the most telling of all.

From Look, No Hands by reporter Sena Christian in the Benicia Herald.

It’s that time again: time to roast documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, and nit-pick and debunk the most minute details in his latest film “Sicko,” burning him all the way to hell.

“Sicko” came out about two weeks ago. I saw it on the Fourth of July, doing my patriotic duty. I don’t know the last time I cried so much during a movie.

The film takes on the health care system in the United States, criticizing the nation for being the only industrialized country in the Western world without universal health care.

I should fall in line with the mainstream media and riot talk about our broken health care system or commend the film for bringing the subject of socialized health cate to the forefront of public discourse.

This column should absolutely not be about the nearly 50 million Americans — nine million of those children — uninsured.

I don’t want to talk about employers who fail to provide health benefits. I am one of the lucky ones. I signed up for Kaiser’s worst plan, (high co-pay and deductible), paying
the lowest monthly rate for the least coverage with the sole purpose of not going bankrupt in case of a medical emergency.

No, I won’t talk about that stuff. Instead, I should probably talk about how Moore is not a likable human. He’s disheveled-looking, a bit overweight and kind of rude. I don’t like the eyeglasses he wears and he interrupts CNN interviewers too much. All of this is of the
utmost importance.

You know, Moore blatantly misled the American public with “Sicko.” He told us that Cuba’s health spending per capita is $251. According to CNN, this number is actually
$229 per person.

When Dr. Sanjay Gupta, senior medical correspondent for CNN, broke this news, I was shocked. I no longer see Moore’s films as a journalistic look at the human condition and as passion-driven, personalized attempts to create a better world.

OK, so, I’m being sarcastic. I like Moore and wish we were friends. I agree, he is incredibly antagonistic, but so what? The best hell-raisers often are. I don’t understand
why we have become a society that values personality and looks over ideas and compassion.

When Al Gore was running for president, we said he was too stiff. But look what this boring politician who couldn’t tell a joke to save his life has done for raising awareness about the climate crisis, and for educating us about sustainability and clean technology.

There were those who said Gee Dubya had charm and look where that got us.

Moore’s abrasive nature came out full force this week on CNN’s “Situation Room,” during which he tore into the network for its failure to tell the American public the truth. He showed his contempt for corporate media: “I don’t talk in sound bites,” he said.

Host Wolf Blitzer was sent from the powers that be to drill Moore about inaccuracies
in “Sicko.” But one of the first things Blitzer said is reporting is a “business.” According to the Idealistic and Pure Journalism textbooks they gave me in journalism
school, this is not true. Journalism is supposed to be a profession, not a business.

Blitzer questioned Moore about rumors that the federal government plans on investigating him for breaking the law by taking three U.S. citizens — 9/11 relief workers
– to Cuba for medical care, leaving it up to Moore to point out that Americans are allowed to visit the country for journalistic purposes.

And in lovely irony, the next day CNN aired the second part of the interview, at the beginning of which Blitzer said the first part was filmed the day before. Actually, Moore clarified, the second segment was being filmed that same day.

For the sake of accuracy.

I honestly don’t know which parts of Moore’s film are inaccurate or inconsistent. Maybe he did only show the positive side of other countries’ health care systems as many contend (he said to contrast and highlight our own inadequacies) and not the whole picture.

When Moore put Canada’s system up on a pedestal, people slithered out of the woodwork to complain about the long waits to see a doctor there and talked about’the Canada Health Act, which makes it illegal to obtain or supply private health care thus proving the discontent Canadians have for their health care system.

As one native Canadian now living in the U.S. commented on an alternative news site, the American health care system is far better than that of his homeland With one minor exception: “If you’re uneducated and unemployed then you’d be better off in Canada,” he wrote.

Well OK then.

As long as Mr. and Mrs. Ivy League, with their five bedroom house, three television
sets and Lexus are alright with their health care, then everything in the Land of the Free is great!

I try to be a good journalist. I understand the importance of accuracy in reporting,
but I can’t help but wonder why we get so up in arms whenever Moore comes out with a new film, and accuse him of cherry-picking statistics and when that doesn’t work, go off about his unpleasant demeanor.

Maybe it’s because Moore threatens the status quo. He breaks into our comfort zone, and forces politicians and business leaders to answer tough questions.

Moore didn’t make “Sicko” for himself. He’s rich. I’m guessing he has pretty reliable health insurance. Maybe he made the film for another reason.

Maybe he believes the sentiment expressed in “Sicko” that when it comes to health care, access to education, affordable childcare or anything else, we should widen our visino and not look out just for ourselves, but for on another.

Sena Christian is a reporter for the Benicia Herald

Reading Joan Didion this summer should mean The Year of Magical Thinking. But I’m not up to dealing with her dealing with her husband’s death and the illness that would eventually kill her daughter, so I’m reading instead the Everyman’s Library compilation of her seven books of nonfiction written between 1968 and 2003: We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live. The title is from the opening of The White Album, published in 1979:

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be “interesting” to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest’s clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the “ideas” with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.

During the fall semester I’ll assign Didion’s “On Keeping a Journal,” found in most anthologies, because my students will need to keep journals that I’ll read and grade. I’ll encourage them to look carefully and record without worrying about reasons or consequences. Some will, but most won’t because it’s an alien concept, the metonymic truth that lies in detailed, seemingly syncretic observations. . . and inimitable prose.