Morning Music

It’s beautiful today in Pittsburgh. Going for a hike in the cold air. Will have a post up later about news sources. In the meantime, welcome new readers. We don’t care how you voted. We have to get over that. We need each other now. Our motto here is hold hands, stick together, watch out for one another.

Be back later…

More…

Michael Cohen at the Boston Globe writes that the calm before the storm is already disorienting in America Is Off The Tracks. 

Adam Gopnik writes in The New Yorker that it is essential that we find allies in the conservative side who see beyond party and are determined to protect the Constitution in The Music Donald Trump Cannot Hear. Adam gives us some direction: 

There’s no point in studying history if we do not take some lesson from it. The best way to be sure that 2017 is not 1934 is to act as though it were. We must learn and relearn that age’s necessary lessons: that meek submission is the most short-sighted of policies; that waiting for the other, more vulnerable group to protest first will only increase the isolation of us all. We must refuse to think that if we play nice and don’t make trouble, our group won’t be harmed. Calm but consistent opposition shared by a broad front of committed and constitutionally-minded protesters—it’s easy to say, fiendishly hard to do, and necessary to accomplish if we are to save the beautiful music of American democracy.

I’m not going to lie and say there is nothing to fear. Our fear is very rational. But we can’t let it overwhelm us. 

The Guardian writes about Trump’s attacks on John Lewis, a genuine hero of the civil rights movement, on Martin Luther King Weekend. It’s a well known political ploy to attack your opponent’s strength. Our nation’s strength for several decades has been its determination to overcome racism. This is not the time to be conciliatory towards the man who would be president. We shouldn’t yield a millimeter on civil rights. 

Esquire writes The Trump Administration May Remove the Press from the White House. I have to bite my tongue here because I can’t think of an entity that deserves punishment more than our “extremely careless” media. But this seems like an effective way to begin to undermine the First Amendment. So as much as I blame it for giving us Trump in the first place, this is where I have to take a stand and demand constitutional protection of the press.