Me and Willie Mays & Why Americans are Abandoning Both Political Parties
Trust in US Institutions at an All-Time Low, Death Cafes are a Good Idea, Backlash about Closing Splash Mountain, Jane Kristen Marczewski Sings “It’s OK”
What I’m Discussing Today:
Why Willie Mays Was My Hero: The wonderful night I spent being Willie’s ball boy.
Kareem’s Daily Quote: A brief meditation on the source of happiness.
Americans Are Leaving Both Parties. This Colorado City Shows Why.: People are frustrated, but will that lead to any meaningful change?
Trust in US institutions has ‘never been lower’–here’s why that matters: There is some good news about this report.
Kareem’s Video Break: Some of the fastest feet I’ve ever seen in tap dancing. I’m pretty sure I could do it if I just watched the video one more time.
Modern death cafes are very much alive in L.A. Inside the radical movement: This may sound morbid at first, but it’s actually a good idea.
Social Media Erupts Over Disney Closing Splash Mountain Ride: Some people are upset that Disney decided against continuing to promote harmful Black stereotypes.
Jane Kristen Marczewski Sings “It’s OK”: I don’t usually feature this kind of music video, but her song is that good.
Special Message from Kareem about Willie Mays:
When I was a kid, baseball was my first love and Willie Mays was the reason for that. He made impossible catches and lightning-fast plays that made me believe he could walk on water if he really tried. The true testament to his greatness for me as a kid was that I deeply admired him even though I was a Dodgers fan and he played for the rival Giants. To me, Willie was a one-man game. Later, when I played basketball, I would recall amazing plays that he made and that inspired me to push myself to be more like him. I didn’t just want to be great, I wanted to be Willie-Mays great!
In 2005, I attended a dinner honoring the Negro League umpires. For two hours I sat next to Willie and basked in his charm and positive personality. Throughout the dinner, people would come up to our table and ask him to sign a baseball for them. He politely asked them to leave the balls and he would sign them later. He proceeded to eat, stopping every once in a while to sign a couple of balls, pointing out the owners at their tables, and asking me to run the balls over to them. This went on until all the balls were signed. I couldn’t have been happier being his ball boy that evening.
I’m at a point in my life where I want to spend less time mourning the deaths of my friends and heroes and more time celebrating their lives. As one of the first Black professional baseball players, Willie Mays endured unimaginable hardships. Because of him, I was able to pursue my own sports career and live a better life. Every Black athlete owes him a debt of gratitude. We walked an easier path because he cleared it for us. Even in passing, Willie has left me with so many wonderful and joyous memories that I can’t help but smile and be grateful.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but of how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German philosopher
Kant’s 800-page, densely written Critique of Pure Reason is the Babadook to college philosophy students. I could never get through it. But I did appreciate Kant’s belief that reason was the foundation of morality. The rest I’ll figure out when it’s made into a musical or a Marvel movie.
What I love about this quote is that it appears as if he’s talking about two separate things: First, the process of making ourselves happy. Second, the process of becoming worthy of happiness. However, they are actually intertwined because—and here’s the tricky part—each person has to determine for themselves what makes them worthy of happiness.
Much of contemporary self-help preaches that all people are deserving of happiness, which I agree with. But we each bring some mighty heavy baggage with us that makes us self-sabotage our happiness. Many parents bind their children’s personal happiness to achievements. Get good grades. Obey authority. Please us. Get married. Raise your kind. But the hard lesson is how to be happy without treating it as a reward for pleasing others’ expectations. To not be a trained pet. Just. Be. Happy.
By making ourselves worthy—in our own eyes—we become happy. Once we remove the expectations of others from the equation, we are free to choose happiness as a way of life rather than a consequence of a to-do list established by parents, culture, society, tradition, religion, etc. That does not mean happiness is found in being completely selfish and compassionless. It definitely isn’t. That’s fool’s gold.
It’s simple: To show love is to receive love, whether it’s love from the other person based on gratitude—or love from yourself for doing what you consider right. Being the person you want to be is the root of all happiness. Knowing who the person is that you want to be is the root of all knowledge.
Americans Are Leaving Both Parties. This Colorado City Shows Why. (Politico)
SUMMARY: …In the last two decades, party affiliation nationwide has been on a downward trajectory, and the percentage of Americans who consider themselves political independents has been on the rise. The proportion of Americans who identify as independent now registers at about 43 percent, according to Gallup, while only about 27 percent of Americans identify as Republican and another 27 percent as Democratic.
…For all the attention that third parties are drawing nationally this election cycle, some people don’t see the rise of political independents as a threat to the country’s dominant political parties. One reason is that research has long suggested most independent voters lean toward one of the two major parties. But partisan lean and partisan affiliation are two very different things — and what is happening in Colorado Springs suggests to even longtime political operatives in Colorado that the party system as they know it may be starting to fall apart.
It’s not so much that voters’ values are changing. It’s that here and around the country, they are removing themselves from the party-led political process. And we’re only beginning to understand the ramifications. It’s one reason that the two parties may be increasingly beholden to fringe figures and less responsive to what voters say are their actual concerns.
MY TAKE: As a high school student, I was very concerned with the problems of national elections and the stranglehold of having two parties. At the time, I came up with a plan that would divide the country into five sections with an equal balance of Democrats and Republicans to avoid the gerrymandering effect. Each section would nominate a candidate for president. I also proposed that the government would give each candidate an equal amount of money to spend on their campaign with no more being allowed. This would get rid of special interests trying to buy an election. Every candidate would be required to release a detailed plan stating their positions on each major issue, with each being publicly evaluated by professional logicians to reveal the flaws, including lack of logic, lack of evidence supporting their claims, misinformation, etc. All substance, no b.s. Yes, it was all very naive and needed a lot of work, but it was my frustration with politics that inspired me. That’s what we’re seeing on a massive scale right now.
The article digs deep into a specific Colorado location as an omen of what’s to come, but the bigger point is that whatever is coming may change the American political landscape forever.
The villain in American politics isn’t the political party system, it’s the segment of the population determined to remain uninformed and misinformed so they can cling to their biased and illogical opinions. They are the easily manipulated mob and the politicians feeding them disinformation are mobsters. Right now, that role has been embraced by Republicans, though the Democrats have a sordid history of doing the same. Often people who seek great power, regardless of initial pure motivations, generally become addicted to the power and have to spend their lives justifying their corruption to themselves. “Politics is a dirty game and if you want something done, you have to play dirty,” they say and anyone who disagrees is naive and a dreamer. That is the politicians’ greatest lie. Just because something is corrupt, it doesn’t have to stay that way.
Adding more parties is not an answer because that just means coalitions have to be formed which means compromises that may be bad for the people. What would work is to raise educated critical thinkers whose vote would be based on facts, not personal biases. It would be helpful to hold our politicians accountable for any instances of deliberate lying and misinformation. We need to have the courage to live by the ideal of hope for a better future rather than fear of change.
Trust in US institutions has ‘never been lower’–here’s why that matters (The Guardian)
SUMMARY: Americans don’t have much faith in America right now. Or at least not in its institutions.
In 2022, a Gallup poll found that Americans had experienced “significant declines” in trust in 11 of 16 major US institutions. The supreme court and the presidency saw the largest drops in public confidence – by 11% and 15%, respectively. Trust also fell in the medical system, banks, police, public schools and newspapers.
Things didn’t improve in 2023: a follow-up poll found that levels of trust remained low, with none of the scores “worsening or improving meaningfully”.
Public confidence waxes and wanes, but these numbers are notably bleak. Trust in institutions has “never been lower”, confirms Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor of the Gallup poll and the author of the 2022 report.
This mistrust is not a one-time blip, a rough patch in an otherwise happy relationship between a country and its people. According to polling experts, it is partly the result of a decades-long effort by political leaders to erode public confidence in institutions such as science, media and government. And the consequences are serious. Not trusting the forces that govern their lives is detrimental to the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities, and makes the country less prepared to face a major crisis.
“Trust is the grease that oils the gears and makes things work,” says Dr Marc Hetherington, professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Without it, everything is more difficult.”
MY TAKE: The issue isn’t about trust in institutions, it’s about trust in the people running the institutions. We have been raised and continue to raise our children to believe that people who become part of the foundational institutions of our country and society do so with a sacred duty to uphold certain ethical standards. We believed that, even when there are basic disagreements about policies, those involved will make judgments based on logic and a love of the U.S. Constitution.
Corruption is when people deliberately circumvent that sacred duty in favor of their greed while wearing the mask of righteous indignation. We have a candidate running for president who is a convicted felon and a rapist, we have Supreme Court judges accepting bribes, we have cops across the country who are actively racist and excessively violent, we have school boards banning books while crying about cancel culture, and so on.
Part of the problem is people are judging institutions based on misinformation. Conservative news media like Fox and The New York Post have deliberately distorted their reporting to produce biased results to cater to their consumers. They are part of the campaign by conservatives to tear down faith in institutions—like the election process because Trump wasn’t elected and the judicial system for convicting Trump—then claiming only they can fix what they broke in the first place. First, they poison us then they want us to praise them for selling us the antidote.
But there’s a bright side to these findings. Another part of our mistrust in institutions is that people are more informed and therefore able to judge performance more critically. Rather than blind faith in institutions, we demand they be held to the ethical standards they pretend to be serving. We’ve matured as a nation and no longer need to treat the government as beneficent parents with our best interests at heart. It’s healthier for the country if we’re skeptical and if we demand proof, evidence, and receipts. People no longer just accept what a doctor says, they research, they prepare questions, and they get second and third opinions. That isn’t about mistrust, it’s just being smart. We have the means to be smart about our institutions, now we just need the will.
Kareem’s Video Break
You know I like tap dancing. But these guys’ feet move at a speed I’ve never seen before. I can only imagine what it feels like to move like that.
Modern death cafes are very much alive in L.A. Inside the radical movement (Los Angeles Times)
SUMMARY: In a second-story room in Los Feliz’s Philosophical Research Society, about a dozen people sit in a circle. Many of them are here for the first time and not entirely sure what to expect. The sandwich board sign in the courtyard below offers only a cryptic hint: “Welcome! Death cafe meeting upstairs.”
As the group settles in on this Thursday afternoon in May, organizer Elizabeth Gill Lui lays out the only two directives: “have tea and cake, and talk about death.”
Lui, a 73-year-old artist who wears chunky jewelry and bold glasses, starts by reading a passage from the musician Nick Cave’s recent memoir. It’s about how, in the face of staggering grief, speaking and listening can be a form of healing — which is ultimately what Lui hopes will transpire over the next couple of hours, in this room decorated with patterned carpets and tall bookcases.
…To initiate the exchange, she instructs the group to “go around in a circle and say what brought you to death cafe.” It’s a simple enough question, but one that elicits complex, deeply personal responses. Some attendees say they’ve come because they’re struggling with how to care for aging parents, or because they lost a loved one during the pandemic. Others have recently been through a life transition — a move back home, a college graduation, recovery from an illness. Or they’re wrestling with anxieties about their mortality. No matter the reason, everyone seems to be seeking some form of comfort, connection and community.
“The tradition in Southern California has long been about the journey. Making the most of the journey creatively, playfully, intellectually,” Lui tells me in the Philosophical Research Society’s regal library. “That’s what I also like about the death cafe. It has this edge of humor to it. If you’re at a dinner party and it’s boring, you can just say, ‘Have I told you about the death cafe I go to?’ and everybody just laughs. It’s such a great entree to the conversation.”
MY TAKE: Thanatophobia is the anxiety people experience when thinking about their death. For some, this anxiety can become overwhelming and darken their daily lives.
After turning 65, I began thinking more often about my death. In the past month, two dear friends have passed—Bill Walton and Jerry West—as well as my childhood hero Willie Mays. Now, at 77, I’m thinking even more about my death and anticipating the inevitable news of yet another of my friends dying. There is some relief when I get together with others my age and we joke about death. The more I think about, write about it, and talk about death, the less I fear it. Just as it was in basketball, preparation is everything.
Hope for an afterlife does not really come into my thoughts. I’m not looking for overtime minutes—I want to live my fullest while I’m here. Ben Franklin said, “Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75.” That hasn’t been me so far and I don’t think I should stop actively engaging with life just because there’s less of it to look forward to.
That’s why I think cafes like this are good for people. They keep them from self-obsessing over death as if it’s a shameful secret. The more we share, the less we fear.
Kareem’s Kvetching Korner
New name for a feature where I kvetch (Yiddish for complain) about minor things that bug me but aren’t worth getting outraged about. This is where I can indulge my pettiness.
Social Media Erupts Over Disney Closing Splash Mountain Ride (The Daily Beast)
SUMMARY: Thousands of angry fans have lashed out against Walt Disney Studios for caving to “woke” culture as the company’s theme parks have transitioned the iconic—but racially controversial—ride Splash Mountain into a new adventure from The Princess and the Frog.
The Splash Mountain ride was based off a movie called Song of the South, which featured Disney’s first Black character, and to date is the only Disney movie to be retired from the studio’s catalog due to criticisms about the depiction of Black Americans in the post-slavery era.
The movie is a culmination of books about a character called Uncle Remus telling African American folktales and based off books written by Joel Chandler Harris, a white author, in the 19th century. (Harris’ stories were so popular at the time that he became friends with Mark Twain and was invited to the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt). Harris admitted being inspired by the stories told by enslaved Black people he encountered while working as a printer’s apprentice on a plantation in Georgia.
In the place of Splash Mountain will be an attraction called Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which will open to the public on June 28 in Orlando, Florida, and at a later undisclosed date at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. (Visitors to Tokyo Disneyland will still be able to enjoy the famed ride though with no plans yet to tear it down).
Disney earned praise upon making the decision to close the ride after a conversation was sparked about its appropriateness following the racial reckoning of 2020 with the murder of George Floyd.
MY TAKE: No one likes having a favorite neighborhood store close or a TV show canceled. Our initial reaction is to lash out because we take it as a personal attack on our sacred comfort zone. But sometimes our comfort zone isn’t as important as the reason for the change. What always gets me is the backlash from people who need to express their vehemence without bothering to think things through. They believe they’re expressing justified outrage when they’re really just displaying a lack of thought. Here are some examples, with my comments in bold and brackets:
In a public Facebook group boasting nearly 28,000 enthusiasts of Splash Mountain, members of the group have not shied away about their feelings at the ride being transformed into an attraction inspired by the Disney film The Princess and the Frog.
“Now… why again did Disney erase the Splash Mountain ride??” a member of the group wrote. [If you have to ask, you either don’t know the answer or don’t understand it. If you don’t understand that 13% of the country’s population (48 million Americans) find it insulting to their heritage and community, then you probably shouldn’t comment on anything.]
“Because a bunch of people raised on Disney became all in their feelings and offended by everything. [So, your feelings are hurt and you’re offended by what they’re doing, but accusing them of doing the same thing?] And Disney not only accepted it but encouraged it,” [Perhaps they accepted it because it was justified. The fact that it took this long for Disney to make the change doesn’t suggest that they were bullied into the decision. Also, nowhere in these backlash statements is there any acknowledgment by the angry authors that the stereotypes portrayed are insulting or harmful.] another member of the group chimed in. “So splash mountain [sic] was canceled along with aunt Jemima, uncle Ben and the cream of wheat guy. What an accomplishment that group of people have made! Erasing black history in the name of anti-racism.” [My teeth ache at the ignorance here. Black history isn’t being erased by the removal of stereotypes that reduce an entire culture to a few offensive images. What’s being removed is White people’s simplistic and demeaning interpretation of Black history. FYI: Aunt Jemima was based on a Jim Crow-era stereotype of the Black Mammy, based on a vaudeville parody.]
One member of the group made a rallying cry for others to financially boycott Disney. [You want to boycott the company for removing racist caricatures that insult a group of Americans because your nostalgia is more important than the cultural integrity of 48 million people? Explain the logic of boycotting a company for doing the right thing.]
“They’re not going to admit it, but the Disney company succumbed to a very loud minority of people claiming the film the attraction was based on was rac*st. What they didn’t understand was that Walt made Song of the South partially to help mend race relations,” a group member wrote without providing details as to how they concluded the movie’s purpose was allegedly to fix race relations. “Some people may perceive insensitive racial elements in the film, but there is absolutely nothing wrong at all with Uncle Remus fables themselves.” [Even if Walt Disney did this with the best of intentions to further race relations, that doesn’t mean that (1) this is an effective way to do that or (2) that what was socially acceptable in 1946 is still acceptable today. During the forties, fifties, and early sixties, coffee and shirt magazine ads featured men putting their wives over their knees and spanking them. Some people may perceive insensitive domestic abuse, but what does the author of that comment perceive?]
We all have to come to grips with the fact that things we thought were okay at different points in our lives aren’t okay anymore. And that things we think are so cutting edge politically correct today will seem wrong in a few years. We have to accept the evolution of society when its motivation is to be just and inclusive and not waste time justifying our past insensitivities. We’re all guilty of past mistakes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them.
Kareem’s Jukebox Playlist
Jane Kristen Marczewski: “It’s OK”
I usually confine any overt sentimentality to my video breaks. Also, I avoid featuring America’s Got Talent even though they often feature some amazing acts because the comments from the judges are often annoying—smugly critical or pandering sentimentality. But I’m making an exception in this case for a song that a reader introduced me to. Brace yourself, because there will be emotions.
Jane Kristen Marczewski appeared on the show in 2021 to sing an original song, “It’s OK.” Usually, original songs on the show are not very good, so I was apprehensive. Also, on stage Marczewski described her fight against cancer. While sympathetic to her health dilemma, that also often meant that the song would be maudlin without much artistic skill. However, when she sang, I was surprised to find the song to be very poetic, insightful, and sung with a folky-pop voice reminiscent of Taylor Swift.
Marczewski got a golden ticket for her performance but had to drop out due to her declining health. She died eight months later. For me, it’s a tribute to her talent that had I not known anything about her struggle and just heard the song on the radio, I would have turned up the volume to enjoy it better.
Gee Kareem - I am sorry to hear that you have lost another friend/idol. This has been a bad trot but I hope you are bearing up well? I am sure I am not alone in wishing you the best.
The Maori people of New Zealand have a saying:
Kua hinga he totara i te wao nui a Tane.
A totara has fallen in the forest of Tane.
A totara is a huge native tree that grows for hundreds of years in New Zealand. For one of them to fall is a great tragedy. This proverb is said when someone of importance passes away. Just as we value our great trees, we must value our great leaders
Your stories this week were very emotional and also inspiring.
I too was a huge Willie Mays fan. I’ve had Dodgers season tickets for 45 years, but in the 60’s I wore a Giants hat because of Willie.
One time when I was 12 year old kid, my mom let me ditch school to take a 25 cent bus ride down Sunset Boulevard to see the Giants play at Dodger Stadium.
I was chided on the bus ride for wearing the wrong hat, but I didn’t care.
I got there early, got a bleacher ticket in left field for a buck and a half and moved down to the front near centerfield to be close to Willie who was warming up.
I was hollering and waving to Willie and he looked to stands and saw me with my Giants cap on and he waved back. He then took a pen out of his back pocket and signed a baseball and threw it up to me.
It was one of the early highlights of my life and I will never forget that day. On the bus ride home anyone who said anything about my Giants hat, I would just show them my baseball and they would just say ‘wow’!
As far as that performance by Miss Jane on AGT, it got to me as well. I lost both of my parents to lung cancer and I remember my mom always being cheerful to the end.
Always reminding me to take good care of that baseball that Willie signed for me.
I did, I still have it today, right next to my Giants hat!!
Thanks Kareem!!