I’m looking forward to this new holiday. Well, new for most of us. My employer has given us the afternoon off. It’s a start.
I’d love to participate in celebrations but I’m still social distancing due to my recent health issues. (I’m fine. Just not taking chances). I got an email from Move On about joining an event. Ok, no offense, Move On, but you guys need to observe this year.
Here’s a handy guide from Seventeen on how Juneteenth has been celebrated by Americans whose families were historically impacted the most by it. For example, Juneteenth doesn’t fall on the date of the Emancipation Proclamation. It falls on the date when Texas slaves were emancipated in 1865. It wasn’t until after the war was over that Union troops forced Texas slave owners to set their slaves free. That’s why the Juneteenth flag features the Texas Lone Star in the center.
There were two other union states that waited until the passage of the 13th amendment to follow suit. If I’m not mistaken, one of them was Kentucky. Governor Andy Beshear signed a proclamation yesterday where Kentucky officially recognized Juneteenth. Someone tell Mitch.
Next year, Juneteenth will fall on a Saturday. I see lots of barbecues in our future as we celebrate freedom from slavery and freedom from the throwback presidency we are living under this year.
Happy Juneteenth!
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According to the publisher owner of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Pittsburgh is a West Berlin of decadent liberalism compared to the counties that surround us. He said with a sneer.
Take that in for a second.
Welcome to West Berlin! Please air drop Trader Joe’s care packages and emergency alcohol rations!
There are other news sources in Pittsburgh. But I feel sorry for the journalists, including Pulitzer Prize winners, who are being held hostage by their extremist employer who it appears has no respect for the integrity of the press. It means we in Pittsburgh get a somewhat truncated view of protests and the change in public sentiment. (It appears to be more West Berlin than East Berlin).
I can guarantee that West Berlin Pittsburgh will not be swayed by the publisher who thinks reason and racism are roughly equivalent. I predict a landslide for Biden this year like the one for Hillary in 2016. The counties that surround us are sparsely populated, which must be a source of frustration.
And now, for all of us, Leonard Bernstein conducts an international orchestra in Berlin, December 1989 in celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany 45 years after the end of WWII. I watched this concert live with German and Italian ex-pats who were adolescents during WWII and I still get chills watching it. The significance of the American born son of Ukrainian Jews leading musicians from both Berlins, London, Paris and Stalingrad in a celebration of union and freedom was deeply moving.
It should be noted that Germany now has some of the most aggressive laws against empowering fascist and extreme right wing ideologies. It never goes away but it can be held in check. If Germany can overcome the racism and political ideology that lead to the slaughter of people guilty of nothing but their “race”, so can we.
For the 1989 concert in Berlin, the fourth movement of Beethoven’s ninth was renamed from Ode to Joy to Ode to Freedom.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
*sigh* Can we all please warn people when we’re linking to sites which offer only a limited number of free views, or none at all? I, for one, do not always think to look at the tiny little address in the lower left corner of the screen, and I can’t afford subscriptions to any site. 🙄
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So the publisher sympathizes with the prevailing sentiments of people in the areas surrounding his metaphorical “West Berlin”? Taking his metaphor and running with it, I assume that he means he sympathizes with metaphorical “Communism”–that is, one-party authoritarianism–over democracy. He rather committed a Freudian slip there, n’est-ce pas? He revealed the true mentality of the average Trump Chump.
Lololol!! Yes, he identifies with the authoritarian 2A wingers.
Regrettably, for him and us, Allegheny county and Pittsburgh in particular is mega BLUE.
He’s doing a bit of a Don Quixote here- without the chivalric good deeds.
An inverse Don Quixote, if you will.
Sorry about the WaPo paywall thingy. It’s definitely worth the subscription if you can swing it.
Ascended Madoka forbid Jeff Bezos should be deprived of any chance to make money. Why, the poor man barely makes enough to buy enough food to hold his body and soul together! 🙄
Here’s the Vesper Lynn quote:
“But the ascent of Trump, who regularly bashes the media, has made the Blocks’ politics a source of national curiosity. Allan Block has made numerous contributions to Republicans in recent years. John has not, but he did acknowledge voting for President Trump in 2016. “In fact, so did much of Pennsylvania,” he told Pittsburgh Quarterly in 2018, comparing his city, where voters favored Hillary Clinton, to West Berlin. “It’s an island surrounded by people who are different and think differently than the city dwellers. And I am concerned about geographical inequity.”
This is silly and may be factually inaccurate. Trump “won” PA by about 40,000 votes. That’s in a state that in 2016 had e voting machines with no paper trail and no voter ID. When you vote here for the first time, you show your ID and sign the book so the signatures match. Every year after that, you only have to sign. This year we will be able to vote by mail in the general.
But in 2016, let’s just say that the system was wiiiide open for tinkering. Given how Trump said he wouldn’t accept the results in PA if he didn’t win, and said it repeatedly before the election, I have my suspicions that the vote was tampered with.
The truth will come out someday. There are a lot of Trumplicans in the rural areas. But those counties are sparsely populated. If Block is complaining that there are too many Democrats in densely populated cities, he’s really got a problem with reality. If anything, the bulk of the population should drive the outcome of the region which is what we see here.
Reminder: Beaker Street, the legendary rock music program that was alternative before alternative existed, can be found again, Friday nights 9 PM – 12 AM Central at arkansasrocks.com.
http://arkansasrocks.com/