Disappearing Americans, DeSantis' Dystopia: FL Doctors May Now Deny Treating Anyone, Couple Attacked Over Bud Light, Senator Okays White Supremacists, Censoring Racism in Kids Books, Miles Davis Plays
Disappearing Americans, DeSantis' Dystopia: FL Doctors May Now Deny Treating Anyone, Couple Attacked Over Bud Light, Senator Okays White Supremacists, Censoring Racism in Kids Books, Miles Davis Plays
kareem.substack.com
My take on news, pop culture, sports, and whatever else interests me.
In a fair world, Kid Rock, Ron DeSantis and Tommy ("I can't beat Bama") Tuberville would all be invisible and that little girl and her dog would play "So What".
Your description of So What is beautiful. The introduction to that piece still sends shivers up my spine. One of the most compelling aspects of the album is that all of the soloists are such fluid conversationalists, all with something different to say, and yet all able to blend together to form a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
WOW is all I can say after grooving to So What for my morning stretches. Takes me right back to the Village in the 60’s. Thank you, Kareem, for dusting off my record collection. We may have been too cool back them to do more than snap and nod, but now I can express a full throated holler! A 77-year-old woman may not be able to produce a seventh child for someone (nor want to), but in terms of satisfaction, practice makes perfect. And such good times. No marginalized elderly, I say.
I don’t know, Kareem. I enjoy reading your sub stack but it has become my weekly “dose of downer.” I am pretty much in complete agreement with your commentary and I suffer to read the paper every day. The problem is I am at a loss as to how we change the course of this ship heading toward the falls while preaching to the choir. Voting is the obvious answer but enlisting enough people who give a damn is the problem. Perhaps your sub stack is a “give-a-damn” device.
When you refer to the millions of Americans who support the insanity of Trump or, worse still, De Santis, and wonder how they can live with themselves as this democracy is ground into high fat hamburger, I have to wonder if there exists an argument to effect change.
My take (sorry, that was not a steal) is that among a large swath of Americans— misinformed and uneducated— they are simply fed up. They look at the last 20 years and all they see are consequences, not causes. And so. they just want someone who can look good in a suit, hasn’t been in Washington while the “country went to hell,” and promises offers up a potion— snake oil— to make it “all better again.” There is no rational thought because there is no intellectual foundation. If you really and truly believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy or— especially— the Boogey Man, there is no rational argument or plea to offer. It doesn’t matter how many times you have them look in the closet or under the bed— heck they don’t even need to have a fireplace— they still believe. And so this population can over look all manner of “little issues” like marginalization, women’s rights, voting rights, etc., just as long as they can can go back to how they think it used to be, consequences be damned.
So the key is the vote. And in the meantime, people need to realize that ridicule, forehead slapping disbelief, and demeaning comments about this demographic only makes them retreat, arm up (figuratively and literally) and circle the wagons.
We need to realize that saving this country is solely up to us. Let’s try to focus on our battle plan, one which does not include violence or exclusion but rather draws on the power of numbers. And in spite of their best efforts to the contrary, let’s get out the vote.
I had the privilege of traveling outside the U.S. for a while recently, simply to look at art and experience a country different from ours. I checked in on the news from home briefly every day on this long-planned trip - sometimes against my better judgment. From a distance, our country seemed sometimes unreal - almost dystopian; the crazed daily drumbeat of shootings and clear evidence of the bold, right-wing political direction would leave me near despair for our future. Like you, Kareem, I had always assumed we would move forward as a society - to become more just and more equitable and more open and more fair. Progress. Now, in my seventh decade, I see the hopes of half a century+ ago being trashed. Yet, at the airport, when I put my bag on the belt to be scanned, the young immigrant worker, seeing my passport, beamed: “America! Good!” I wanted to hug him for reminding me that there’s still a reason to believe - for those who do.
Kareem, I love how you introduce us to new TV shows and music each week, well, sometimes music from the past that I should know better. :-) I’ve only subscribed to you within the last year, so I’m not sure if you have ever covered the HBO television show, the new version of Perry Mason? The music by Terence Blanchard on that show is so addicting, it seems like it would be right up your alley. Plus personally I love the show. Just throwing it out there as a suggestion if you have not covered it, since season two just wrapped up. Love your column as always!
Tommy Tuberville is a U.S. Senator only because he was able to successfully recruit talented African American high school football players to come play for him. Had these youngsters had a clue that Tuberville thought white nationalists were just patriotic Americans, they certainly would have enrolled at another university with a less bigoted coach.
Kareem...how bout developing a short list of questions to help recruited athletes avoid playing for men like Tommy Tuberville?
As someone with cancer who has had to deal with being denied coverage by my insurance company, the new Florida bill is terrifying to me. The New Republic article mentions that there is no definition of moral or ethical in the bill. Could an insurance company deny coverage because they are opposed to spending money?
There are enough issues with healthcare in our country without Desantis creating more barriers for people.
I’m so glad about the nominations and you totally deserve them. You have influenced me by helping me make my writing, more careful although as you know from a couple of days ago’s post, I still talk into the microphone and I should edit . I think I mentioned to you that I cleaned up one of my first postings about my mom and dad and my community being really supportive of protesting against racism. This was for the local Community Alliance newspaper,, which is part of the stop the hate campaign which involves federal agencies and local communities by holding Town halls and writing articles about ways to stop the hate. I will also clean up the one I wrote about how the state of California have decades of scientific statistically correct literature on the relationship between mental illness and crime, and homelessness, and the community. I am encouraged to clean up my writing and to continue to publish, and to also start speaking, and I actually will be speaking in Albuquerque in June at the Alanon convention. I have applied to speak at the California psychological Association meeting in September, but that is hard to be selected for. Anyway, you encourage me to speak out and sometimes I will get to and sometimes I won’t get to but I’m sure going to try. Thank you for being influential and for being thoughtful. Alexia.
And I always thought tommy tuberville was a cartoon character. Turns out he is. I do often wonder how much of the action is real & how much is contrived. Remember I said that all of the wrong wingers seem to have been "educated" at the same institution. It must be the Dystopia Yuniversity. They only know how to pitch their hate, their perverse ideas of whiteness as enlightenment & privilege, & their embarrassing over the top addiction to guns. No real learning. So many graduates appear to be illiterate, which is the preferred status of the book-burning crowd of idiots. They cannot read, so they must not allow the unwashed plebians beneath them to acquire knowledge. Ring a bell? My true wishes for this crowd are unfit to be written or read. May they all burn in the kingdom of Cruz's twin
brother Lucifer.
So What! Miles has always been my favorite jazz artist. The first one I really listened to and have for many years since. The many hours of playing the LPs over & over. Thank you for this selection. My favorite album.
Love your writing style & your word-smithery. Your sharp wit makes me smile, wondering if you laugh out loud when some of those ideas creep into your mind.
My thoughts about the people who want to take over our lives & freedom are that they should all be rounded up like sheep & cattle, placed in specific holding pens separated by sex, ideology, eye color, skin tones, religion, etc. Then we should hold the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. Bring back Spencer Tracy from the dead
No no. Jerry Garcia from the Dead. 🤣 And hold them all responsible, guilty as charged. And then the rest of their miserable stupid lives their only nourishment will be Bud Light. Yeah. That's it!!
I sometimes sit and ponder how the people who moved to Florida for the tax deal feel about the way their governor won't let them see what their tax dollars are going toward.
Dear Kareem- you have such a fabulous perspective and gift for reporting in a purposeful, thoughtful, and woven fashion to highlight the depth of the issues. That said- with everything seemingly dissolving into increased hate and a dystopian future ahead- I would love to hear some thoughts on how individuals can reverse this trend. Voting doesn’t seem to be enough.
Elementary school kids not able to process the concept of racism and intolerance? When I was 7 years old, I came home from school and repeated to my mother a racial epithet that I heard on the playground. Although she grew in a small midwestern town during the first quarter of the twentieth century, she immediately read me the riot act about judging anyone by the color of their skin. That was seventy-five years ago on the south side of Chicago.
In a fair world, Kid Rock, Ron DeSantis and Tommy ("I can't beat Bama") Tuberville would all be invisible and that little girl and her dog would play "So What".
Your description of So What is beautiful. The introduction to that piece still sends shivers up my spine. One of the most compelling aspects of the album is that all of the soloists are such fluid conversationalists, all with something different to say, and yet all able to blend together to form a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
WOW is all I can say after grooving to So What for my morning stretches. Takes me right back to the Village in the 60’s. Thank you, Kareem, for dusting off my record collection. We may have been too cool back them to do more than snap and nod, but now I can express a full throated holler! A 77-year-old woman may not be able to produce a seventh child for someone (nor want to), but in terms of satisfaction, practice makes perfect. And such good times. No marginalized elderly, I say.
I don’t know, Kareem. I enjoy reading your sub stack but it has become my weekly “dose of downer.” I am pretty much in complete agreement with your commentary and I suffer to read the paper every day. The problem is I am at a loss as to how we change the course of this ship heading toward the falls while preaching to the choir. Voting is the obvious answer but enlisting enough people who give a damn is the problem. Perhaps your sub stack is a “give-a-damn” device.
When you refer to the millions of Americans who support the insanity of Trump or, worse still, De Santis, and wonder how they can live with themselves as this democracy is ground into high fat hamburger, I have to wonder if there exists an argument to effect change.
My take (sorry, that was not a steal) is that among a large swath of Americans— misinformed and uneducated— they are simply fed up. They look at the last 20 years and all they see are consequences, not causes. And so. they just want someone who can look good in a suit, hasn’t been in Washington while the “country went to hell,” and promises offers up a potion— snake oil— to make it “all better again.” There is no rational thought because there is no intellectual foundation. If you really and truly believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy or— especially— the Boogey Man, there is no rational argument or plea to offer. It doesn’t matter how many times you have them look in the closet or under the bed— heck they don’t even need to have a fireplace— they still believe. And so this population can over look all manner of “little issues” like marginalization, women’s rights, voting rights, etc., just as long as they can can go back to how they think it used to be, consequences be damned.
So the key is the vote. And in the meantime, people need to realize that ridicule, forehead slapping disbelief, and demeaning comments about this demographic only makes them retreat, arm up (figuratively and literally) and circle the wagons.
We need to realize that saving this country is solely up to us. Let’s try to focus on our battle plan, one which does not include violence or exclusion but rather draws on the power of numbers. And in spite of their best efforts to the contrary, let’s get out the vote.
I had the privilege of traveling outside the U.S. for a while recently, simply to look at art and experience a country different from ours. I checked in on the news from home briefly every day on this long-planned trip - sometimes against my better judgment. From a distance, our country seemed sometimes unreal - almost dystopian; the crazed daily drumbeat of shootings and clear evidence of the bold, right-wing political direction would leave me near despair for our future. Like you, Kareem, I had always assumed we would move forward as a society - to become more just and more equitable and more open and more fair. Progress. Now, in my seventh decade, I see the hopes of half a century+ ago being trashed. Yet, at the airport, when I put my bag on the belt to be scanned, the young immigrant worker, seeing my passport, beamed: “America! Good!” I wanted to hug him for reminding me that there’s still a reason to believe - for those who do.
Miles is one of the greatest jazz players ever. You see his greatness not only in his playing, but his incredible sidemen. He always picked the best.
I met Miles in SF at the Both/And. He was a total asshole.
Kareem, I love how you introduce us to new TV shows and music each week, well, sometimes music from the past that I should know better. :-) I’ve only subscribed to you within the last year, so I’m not sure if you have ever covered the HBO television show, the new version of Perry Mason? The music by Terence Blanchard on that show is so addicting, it seems like it would be right up your alley. Plus personally I love the show. Just throwing it out there as a suggestion if you have not covered it, since season two just wrapped up. Love your column as always!
Tommy Tuberville is a U.S. Senator only because he was able to successfully recruit talented African American high school football players to come play for him. Had these youngsters had a clue that Tuberville thought white nationalists were just patriotic Americans, they certainly would have enrolled at another university with a less bigoted coach.
Kareem...how bout developing a short list of questions to help recruited athletes avoid playing for men like Tommy Tuberville?
As someone with cancer who has had to deal with being denied coverage by my insurance company, the new Florida bill is terrifying to me. The New Republic article mentions that there is no definition of moral or ethical in the bill. Could an insurance company deny coverage because they are opposed to spending money?
There are enough issues with healthcare in our country without Desantis creating more barriers for people.
I’m so glad about the nominations and you totally deserve them. You have influenced me by helping me make my writing, more careful although as you know from a couple of days ago’s post, I still talk into the microphone and I should edit . I think I mentioned to you that I cleaned up one of my first postings about my mom and dad and my community being really supportive of protesting against racism. This was for the local Community Alliance newspaper,, which is part of the stop the hate campaign which involves federal agencies and local communities by holding Town halls and writing articles about ways to stop the hate. I will also clean up the one I wrote about how the state of California have decades of scientific statistically correct literature on the relationship between mental illness and crime, and homelessness, and the community. I am encouraged to clean up my writing and to continue to publish, and to also start speaking, and I actually will be speaking in Albuquerque in June at the Alanon convention. I have applied to speak at the California psychological Association meeting in September, but that is hard to be selected for. Anyway, you encourage me to speak out and sometimes I will get to and sometimes I won’t get to but I’m sure going to try. Thank you for being influential and for being thoughtful. Alexia.
And I always thought tommy tuberville was a cartoon character. Turns out he is. I do often wonder how much of the action is real & how much is contrived. Remember I said that all of the wrong wingers seem to have been "educated" at the same institution. It must be the Dystopia Yuniversity. They only know how to pitch their hate, their perverse ideas of whiteness as enlightenment & privilege, & their embarrassing over the top addiction to guns. No real learning. So many graduates appear to be illiterate, which is the preferred status of the book-burning crowd of idiots. They cannot read, so they must not allow the unwashed plebians beneath them to acquire knowledge. Ring a bell? My true wishes for this crowd are unfit to be written or read. May they all burn in the kingdom of Cruz's twin
brother Lucifer.
So What! Miles has always been my favorite jazz artist. The first one I really listened to and have for many years since. The many hours of playing the LPs over & over. Thank you for this selection. My favorite album.
Love your writing style & your word-smithery. Your sharp wit makes me smile, wondering if you laugh out loud when some of those ideas creep into your mind.
My thoughts about the people who want to take over our lives & freedom are that they should all be rounded up like sheep & cattle, placed in specific holding pens separated by sex, ideology, eye color, skin tones, religion, etc. Then we should hold the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. Bring back Spencer Tracy from the dead
No no. Jerry Garcia from the Dead. 🤣 And hold them all responsible, guilty as charged. And then the rest of their miserable stupid lives their only nourishment will be Bud Light. Yeah. That's it!!
Happy Monday.
Disappearing Americans is a brilliant essay, from a brilliant mind. Thank you!
I sometimes sit and ponder how the people who moved to Florida for the tax deal feel about the way their governor won't let them see what their tax dollars are going toward.
Dear Kareem- you have such a fabulous perspective and gift for reporting in a purposeful, thoughtful, and woven fashion to highlight the depth of the issues. That said- with everything seemingly dissolving into increased hate and a dystopian future ahead- I would love to hear some thoughts on how individuals can reverse this trend. Voting doesn’t seem to be enough.
Elementary school kids not able to process the concept of racism and intolerance? When I was 7 years old, I came home from school and repeated to my mother a racial epithet that I heard on the playground. Although she grew in a small midwestern town during the first quarter of the twentieth century, she immediately read me the riot act about judging anyone by the color of their skin. That was seventy-five years ago on the south side of Chicago.
No one disappears on our watch.