Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

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Select Shorts podcast – Against All Odds

I am absolutely in love with this show, Select Shorts and generally listen to the podcast every week. Their description of the show is as follows:

“Its story time for adults with PRI’s award-winning series of short fiction read by the stars of stage and screen. Recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in NYC and on tour. A co-production of Symphony Space and WNYC Radio.”

This week’s show was especially good. The first reading by Amy Ryan was of Lauren Groff’s , At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners, a tale of a sensitive boy growing up in a house full of snakes. Her imagery was as delicious as the story was captivating.

The second reading which starts about 33:30 was intense, and of more than general interest as I spent 3 years in Jackson, MS. I recognized many of the landmarks he referenced. It is a coming of age story in the racist South by writer Kiese Laymon. The essay, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, is read by Brandon J. Dirden. I found it very intense, and emotional. It is an essay that lingers as you maul over injustices in our nation.

Against All Odds NPR podcast

 

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The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin

The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle_1005Charles Darwin is one of the greatest intellects that mankind has produced. He is also a great  communicator and writer. This book was well received by a populist audience in its time. It is still an immensely accessible book. It is at times even poetic.

“Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature:—no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.”

The book is first, and foremost a travelogue. The HMS Beagle left England just at the end of 1831 for a planned 2 year expedition. The voyage stretched out to almost five years, and circumnavigated the globe. The actual time Darwin spent on the Beagle was Continue reading “The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin”

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“Honey, is there something you need to tell me?”

A friend of ours made a remark to her daughter (from another period of her life) that she going to buy a Subaru as that is what lesbians drove… 2015-subaru-outback_100471641_lSubarus. Her daughter was visiting with us and telling us this story about her mother. We recently bought a new Subaru Outback for Robin.

I turn to Robin and say, “Honey, is there something you need to tell me?”

Fortunately I was able to duck her slowing swung swat directed my way.

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Fortunately I Ducked Quickly

Robin wanted to get out the house on this snowy day, and recruited me to drive with her to Whole Foods. As we are driving we were discussing our upcoming week and what each of us had planned. I reminded her that I had a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday.

She asked, “Is that with the skin doctor?”

“No,” I replied, “it is with the dermatologist.”

Fortunately I was able to duck her slowing swung swat directed my way.

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Charles Darwin on Slavery

The following excerpt is from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin.  While slavery is not the issue it was in 1836, racism still is.  It is Slave-shackles-Does-the-Bible-condone-slaveryinteresting to read one of mankind’s greatest intellects take on the practice.

“On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil. I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, Continue reading “Charles Darwin on Slavery”

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Unions Are About Fairness

unionNicholas Kristof recently wrote an editorial, The Cost of a Decline in Unions

On the whole I believe unions to be a necessary component of our capitalistic system. The individual worker has very little power in dealing with large businesses or large government entities. When they do have power it is when there is a tight labor market, but those seldom seem to last very long.

It is always dangerous to generalize from one’s personal experience to make points about larger issues, but here I go. I have seen union membership be required when the union did little for the worker. They were in place, gathered their dues, and that was about it. At the other end I have seen unions so intent on justifying their existence that they frequently went to the extremes. They did not realize that sometimes good is good enough. There is, of course, a MLK holiday. The union for the outfit I worked for in Memphis managed to wrangle another holiday, the day of MLK’s assassination. It always struck me that they filed all too many grievances, and generally tried to maintain an attitude of the union versus management. Frequently what seems to happen with unions in place is an overly structured workplace.   The company and the worker lose some ability to do the work creatively. In the past the union managed to create jobs that were perhaps unnecessary. I had a roommate in Rhode Island who was a union fireman. His workday consisted of going in at 11 p.m., Continue reading “Unions Are About Fairness”

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I Saw Racism Received Like a Body Blow Today

If you grow up in America it is hard not to incorporate some racist attitudes into your being. Sadly, it is just part of the DNA of an American. When I could just barely read I remember seeing signs that read, “Whites Only”, and being perplexed by it. While I could read, I had not assimilated the cultural norm that some people are better than others based solely on the color of their skin. I believe that as a nation we have been working very hard to move away from this paradigm. I believe Dr. King’s dream will be fully actualized someday.

Prejudice and bigotry is something I have thought about a bit over the last few years for a couple personal reasons. One being that when I lived in Jackson, Mississippi I became good friends with a black man a few years older than myself. We remain the best of friends to this day despite the change in my geographical location. He grew up in an area of town not too far from the street now named Medgar Evers Blvd. He has told me stories of the Civil Rights era in that town that left me less than proud to be white.  When we first started hanging around together we had a series of discussions about race. It is just something that has to happen in this society in a “mixed” relationship.

The other reason is that a few years ago I started dating a Jewish woman, and eventually married her. Continue reading “I Saw Racism Received Like a Body Blow Today”