Echoes 9.18.22
Follow-up, Footnotes, Past-&-Forward Glimpses
Sunday newShrink greetings, and warm wishes for fine fall-in-the-air days ahead.
As weight and impacts from last week’s stories and themes still reverberate, this is a Notebook-edition variety of what’s been surfacing since.
Some connective themes may be more apparent than others. By late week I had happily scored the new “bivalent” (original+variant-effective) Covid booster. Other than a sore arm I’m not sick. But there may be (even!) more fuzzy thinking or spaciness than usual here. The feeling is a little like evening of a too-long day on the beach.
Depicted in three vertical columns beginning with top-left photo-images, title themes for today’s items discussed below are:
🔷Follow-up from the news,
🔷 Footnote features more lightly touching themes from last week and before, and
🔷Historic and future perspectives in Past-and-Forward Glimpses.
Follow-up
Starting at top left is a recap of the week in headlines and quotes with some comments.
#1. Eulogies from a past local tragedy
Community remembers Jonathan Ferrell 9 years after he was mistakenly shot and killed by CMPD officer (WBTV News)
It’s been almost a decade since Ferrell’s death, but a group of people in Charlotte say they’re committed to making sure his memory lives on
This a good case example for last week’s discussion of value and need for the revisit part of close reading. Here’s a summary of the WBTV story’s recap of facts:
On Sept. 14, 2013, Jonathan Ferrell, a 24-year-old former Florida A&M football player, was in a car accident while giving a coworker a lift home in a suburban residential neighborhood. After having knocked on a door to ask a homeowner to call for help, he was instead confronted under spotlights as a lawbreaker by several arriving police. Video at the scene showed Ferrell bloody, apparently dazed and stumbling toward police when CMPD officer Randall Kerrick shot and killed him. Kerrick said he thought the unarmed Ferrell had tried to break into a house and considered his approach a threat. Kerrick was indicted and tried in the shooting, but set free after a mistrial. In 2015, the City of Charlotte settled $2.25 million with the Ferrell family, but feelings continue to run deep.
Those are the basics. Following the case and story back then in my usual news-junkie, er newShrink, way, I kept noticing, by the end of the trial rather fixated, on a small piece of evidence that seemed major. It has haunted and had me ranting periodically about the case ever since.
I’m reminded of the expression in theater: If there is a gun placed onstage in Act I, it is to go off by Act III. In the Ferrell case, clearly in evidence from pre-trial accounts of the shooting and mentioned by prosecutors at the outset of the trial, the never-fired metaphoric “gun” from Act I for me was Jonathan Ferrell’s pair of shoes. They reportedly remained and were found in the backseat of his wrecked car, where he’d removed and left them after leaving work to drive on that hot September night.
Not only injured and disoriented from an accident in an unfamiliar neighborhood, the man was barefoot. Or at most, and less likely, wearing only socks. This big, supposedly threatening Black former football player wasn’t just unarmed, bleeding and dazed from an accident. On video under glaring police spotlights wearing hot-weather clothes, the suspect we saw stumbling toward the officer was barefoot. This was the same big, Black Ferrell, who had so terrified and menaced the homeowner by knocking on her door for help, that she reported an intruder attempting to kick her door down. (In his bare, or sock, feet.)
Maybe it happened in the courtroom and was never reported in exhaustive coverage. And I don’t recall who prosecuted. But following the trial by TV, radio and in print I kept expecting to hear and read them repeatedly remind the jury, build their best evidence that Ferrell posed no threat and then hammer-home in their closing the significance of those bare feet of this shooting victim. (Over the near-decade since this trial friends, family and pets tend to scatter to escape my pacing-rants about shoes whenever the Ferrell case comes up.)
On the national issue of police-involved killings of Black men, much is routinely and rightly said about the need for appropriate training, mentoring and coaching of police officers. This case reminds that it may sometimes apply to prosecutors as well.
A CMPD officer killed Jonathan Ferrell in 2013. Charlotte hasn’t forgotten. (The illustration at top left is from this Charlotte Observer 2020 commemorative visual and story, Grant Baldwin/Alyssa Holdenfield)
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Given this long-intense interest of mine — completely unrelated to Jonathan Ferrell, his 2013 death or the court cases that followed — there is bitterwseet irony in these anniversary tributes. The timing coincided this week with the death and eulogizing of a long-respected N.C. jurist who happened to share same last name: Former Superior Court Judge and mentor-to-many Forrest Ferrell, whose funeral was Friday. His obituary is here.
Not having seen or even read of Judge Ferrell in at least a couple of decades, for me the recap of this truly exemplary life evoked a couple of indelible memory-images. These are perspectives on a news-source from this then- (much!) younger, quite green, newspaper reporter. I recall Judge Ferrell’s astonishing generosity and patience with his time, attention, knowledge and expertise — even or especially with the many (like me) who lacked his authority and clout. Unusual for those (as for these) times of dominant boys’-club power networks in workplaces, Judge Ferrell had a rare, comfortable-in-his-skin respect and ease relating with both women and men across different ages, experience and roles. His obituary’s many listed contributions, athletic programs and scholarships for advancing girls, women and Democratic causes weren’t surprising. It reminded me that, other than my late dad and maternal grandfather, Forrest Ferrell may have been the most visibly-vocally engaged and delighted dad of daughters I ever met.
The world lost a good one last week.
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#2. Your/our democracy at work…
Here are stories ranging from good to bad to ugly. (You decide which is which!)
Railroad Unions and Companies Reach a Tentative Deal to Avoid a Strike (The New York Times, Staff Photo by Dustin Chambers)
President Biden praised the agreement as a “big win” for workers and the rail companies.
Workers Say Railroads’ Efficiency Push Became Too Much (NYT)
Employees say the inflexibility of scheduling upended their personal lives. The companies say they maintained service while using fewer resources.
Of the president’s role in averting the strike, Florida reader and friend David highlighted and shared this excerpt from The Washington Post:
As the two sides stalemated in recent days, especially over sick days, the president grew animated in private about the lack of scheduling flexibility for workers, expressing confusion and anger that management was refusing to budge on that point…
The Times’ efficiency-push story here explains well various factors on both sides. Examples cited reveal a draconian, never-ending treadmill the industry’s leave and on-call policies has inflicted on many long-dedicated veteran workers in essential job roles. An overview:
Unions complained that to manage a shortfall of employees, the carriers effectively forced their members to remain on call for days and sometimes weeks at a time, partly through the use of strict attendance policies that could lead to disciplinary action or even firing. They said the policies pushed workers to the limits of their physical and mental health.
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Some latest developments on a story and issues highlighted last week…
Dearie named special master to review Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents (The Washington Post)
Judge Aileen Cannon rejected the Justice Department's request to exempt about 100 classified items from the special master review.
Judge Dearie had been one of the Trump legal team’s preferred choices for special master, on whom the DOJ had agreed. However, as of late Friday the DOJ had announced intent to appeal Cannon’s ruling on the 100 classified items the government contends pose unacceptable risks to national security.
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Next, at bottom left… egad.
#3. The week’s scariest story and prospects
Governors of Florida and Texas Intensify Fight Over Immigration (From the NYT, staff photo by Matt Cosby.)
Migrants on Martha's Vineyard flight say they were told they were going to Boston (NPR)
On Martha’s Vineyard, a rush to help migrants, from restaurant owners to Spanish students
Food, coffee, bedding, and warm clothes have been arriving as the island works to meet the needs of more than 40 people flown there without warning.
I’ll limit comment on this for now, for issues around our enormously complex and broken immigration warrant a close reading soon. In my view such discussion needs to begin, from both ends of political spectrum, with a candid close-read on our breathtaking collective and individual hypocrisies on this issue and the human crises it encompasses. Also critical is long lack of policy action at national leadership and congressional levels. (The last comprehensive, ultimately unsuccessful, attempt at needed immigration reform — proposed by George W. Bush late in his presidency —was and remains about the first and only time I unequivocally supported W on most anything.)
On this week’s latest, cruelly cynical political gambit via Martha’s Vineyard airlift, Virginia reader and friend Barbara aptly captures the painful irony of its coming from and resonating with those who most vocally align themselves with New Testament-Christianity :
Matthew 25:35, ESV: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…”
DeSantis 9:15: “Screw ‘em.”
Even so, encouraging developments are emerging too…
On Martha’s Vineyard, a rush to help migrants, from restaurant owners to Spanish students (The Boston Globe. Here’s the gist of story, which may be behind paywall for many.)
Food, coffee, bedding, and warm clothes have been arriving as the island works to meet the needs of more than 40 people flown there without warning.
As word spread on Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday that more than 40 migrants had been flown to the island unannounced, residents sprung into action. Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School dismissed a group of AP Spanish students to help translate. A boutique hotel delivered a bundle of guest amenities. Restaurants supplied mountains of food, free of charge.
In the political fight over immigration and the crisis at the border, the Venezuelan migrants were pawns. Here, they were people, tired, hungry people who needed help.
“If we can help humans, we’re going to help humans. I don’t really care how or why they’re here,” said Jon “JB” Blau, whose Edgartown restaurant, Sharky’s Cantina, planned to send a heap of vegetarian and meat-filled burritos and other items for dinner Thursday. “They were lucky they were sent to a place that has lots of people who care.”
As for those scariest stories of the week honors, the headline-grabber at Martha’s Vineyard is not unrelated…
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The New York Times story out this week presents a clear and understandable assessment of Florida governor Ron DiSantis’ careful strategy of branding himself as both (and neither) the Trump- and/or the un-Trump GOP candidate. This story’s assessment may be a good piece to read and hold for future revisits and reference as the midterm political season morphs toward pre-2024 election campaigns.
Is Ron DeSantis the Future of the Republican Party? (NYT story.) Photographs: Dan Hallman/Invision/Associated Press (Trump); Monica Schnipper/Getty Images (DeSantis).
For years, Democrats have worried about the prospect of a more disciplined heir to Trump. In Florida’s pugilistic governor, that candidate may have arrived.
Meanwhile, the following comprehensive profile of DeSantis in The New Yorker is excellent… AND it has troubled me since its late June publication (as if there haven’t been enough troubling issues since then.) As presidential campaigns take shape, this piece will likely be a source for discussion of DeSantis’ factual resumé and patterns over lifelong action and relationships. In my view, reading the whole piece is well worth the price of a print edition or sharing someone’s access if paywall is an obstacle. (For help or suggestions, email me individually.)
Can Ron DeSantis Displace Donald Trump as the G.O.P.’s Combatant-in-Chief?
A fervent opponent of mask mandates and “woke” ideology, the Florida governor channels the same rage as the former President, but with greater discipline.
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Footnotes
A range of feature items pictured in center column above provide needed shift of focus.
# 4. When the Queen Died, Someone Had to Tell the Bees
A report that the royal beekeeper had informed Queen Elizabeth II’s bees of her death received some mockery, but it has been a tradition for centuries.
This story begins with a bit of that mocking tone, but shifts quickly to interesting expertise about folklore, importance of ritual and some beautiful illustrations. From the standpoint of soul and depth psychology, it tracks with last week’s discussion of how large-scale rituals can help express and contain universal archetypal emotional and psychic energies around enormous events and transtions.
A similar function for the instinctual animal side of our human nature is served by such nature-engaged rituals as telling-the-bees. And as any beekeeper can attest, especially amid today’s environmental assaults, individually and en masse bees retain much mystery regarding energies that move them and how they behave.
“It’s a very old and well-established tradition, but not something that’s very well-known,” said Mark Norman, a folklorist and the author of “Telling the Bees and Other Customs: The Folklore of Rural Crafts...”
The tradition holds that bees, as members of the family, should be informed of major life events in the family, especially births and deaths. Beekeepers would knock on each hive, deliver the news and possibly cover the hive with a black cloth during a mourning period. The practice is more commonly known in Britain but is also found in the United States and other parts of Europe…
In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was believed that neglecting to tell the bees could lead to various misfortunes, including their death or departure, or a failure to make honey. Nowadays, beekeepers may be less likely to believe they risk bad luck, but may continue to follow the tradition as “a mark of respect”
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The dry satire of this next may be a bit inside-baseball, er, yoga (for which I was trained then taught 5 or 6 years in the early aughts.) But if you’ve attended even a couple of classes you may share my view: The best of oh-so-earnest yoga laughs at itself… so we can, too.
# 5. Yoga Flow for America in Retrograde
(Also behind The New Yorker paywall, here’s a brief excerpt. The audio version is great for this one too.)
What’s to be done when America [in astrological] “retrograde” really gets you down? There are plenty of tips and tricks that I’m sure you’ve already heard—sleeping more, lighting candles, saying prayers, free writing, starting riots. All very valid, but you can’t go wrong with a yoga flow to start your day. This sequence was designed specifically with the current season of America retrograde in mind.
Meditation
Begin in a comfortable, seated position. Inhale and exhale to a count of four. Feel your body. Then feel the country around you, but maybe not too much. An opening chant is optional, if it’s a part of your practice. Perhaps in Sanskrit, but, if you’re more comfortable with something in English, may I suggest “Enough is enough” or “Hands off my ovaries.”…
[and so on in similar vein, with Sun Salutation, etc.]
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Still in comic mode, the following ‘70s Saturday Night Live skit with its iconically repeatable lines has nagged at edges of my brain since last week’s edition like a video-version of the lingering earworm from the psyche. It came to mind, though glaringly inappropriate in tone last week, with the close-read discussion of “this AND (not versus) that” thinking rather than “Point/Counterpoint.” In highlighted title and content the SNL skit spoofs TV’s long-time 60 Minutes feature pitting James Kirkpatrick’s “conservative” ideas of the day against Shana Alexander’s “liberal” ones.
In today’s environment, revisit of the skit hits me in paradoxical or contradictory ways. I find it still hilarious, with some different twists. The gender-and-sex-related language shocks the ears in the #metoo era, although it’s clearly drawn as broadly over-the-top for comic effect. For me that works, is still super-funny.
AND yet, assumptions behind the overstated barbs seem a bit subtly shifted. Back then, the overstatement was funny as it said grossly aloud things that were real —but only implicit, not stated or dealt-with. Watching it today, I find the overstatement still captures unmentioned/unmentionable gender dynamics underway around us. But today, not just not-assumed, they’re not even on radar-awareness of what’s possible or to be considered; it’s a perpetual “shocked, shocked!” whenever they do resurface. I am not at all sure that is progress.
I’d love to hear your take on this.
# 6. Point/Counterpoint
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All of which brings up some of last week’s stories about different strong, effective women from Queen Elizabeth to Michelle Obama, a theme depicted in photos at top right.
# 7. “Gutsy”: What’s it look like… why & how does it matter?
For time and space reasons I’ll limit this to mention and broad psychological-standpoint endorsement of the genre and available array of well-done girl-and-woman-uplift-and-empowerment books, TV and podcasts for adults and children of both/all genders. Clinically much research and literature make clear such efforts’ widespread benefits across lifespans and societal concerns from mental health to reduced cross-generational domestic violence.
And from the depth-psychology standpoint there is crucial soul-Self animation and increased resilience when we discover, recognize and identify with elements of our wide human spectrum of universal archetypes through role-model characters and their stories. In this regard such projects as Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s book and new “Gutsy” documentary series on Apple Plus is like a search and tour across the less-familiar pantheon of American myth. In that sense, and with caveats, like Decider.com I say stream-it, don’t skip it.
I’ve only seen three episodes, my favorite the third one about justice, featuring among others Judge/Native American tribal elder Abby. Interesting, to me even shocking with Kim Kardashian, depths surface in these vignette interviews along different topics with characters both known and un-publicized.
My caveats about the series include having to push past cheerleader-ish quality and tone of episode titles and some of the over-jovial banter as mother and daughter move into the stories with those interviewed. Despite her by now well-examined baggage, Hillary’s quick and raucous humor serves well here. Chelsea isn’t a natural on camera. Her several mentions of difficulty with humor after childhood snipes in the public eye evoke compassion but also draw further scrutiny to her (instead of interviews). In interview conversations Chelsea shines more.
This review makes some points about the series - if you ignore the snark, starting with this headline…
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s Docuseries is Hugely Warm if You Ignore the Smugness (Guardian)
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Past-&-Forward Glimpses
This final item, illustrated in center right column above, is for now solely an announcement and preview for a newShrink close read in early October.
# 8. Ken Burns Explores America’s Inaction During the Holocaust (NYT)
“The U.S. and the Holocaust,” coming to PBS Sept. 18, examines the reasons behind the country’s inadequate response to Germany’s persecution of Jews.
Ken Burns interview: Holocaust series on PBS speaks to today's America (Axios)
The U.S. and the Holocaust, A film by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick & Sarah Botstein (KPBS)
This preview-alert allows time for me to watch and reflect on the Holocaust series. Next Sunday’s abbreviated newShrink will be pretty literally a postcard-from-the-field edition. I’ll be en route back from a NYC visit to several related historic sites and other things I’ve written about in newShrink (so posting time may vary.) It’s this year’s pre-birthday-weekend trip — and a first return since Covid shutdowns!
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Speaking of history, today’s close is a charmingly sneaky news-item last weekend pictured at bottom right. It’s from the prolific political-historian-commentator who’s a favorite thinker and resource for so many of us, Heather Cox Richardson. The sequence below is much as she sent it. (Credited photographer Buddy Poland is Richardson’s longtime partner, a Maine lobsterman.)
# 9. A riddle of historic proportions
In case you missed the nuance, or the post altogether, hope this might crack the code — or “spill the tea.” (The latter is an expression I’m told is now likely more “OK, Boomer”-passé than a cool thing the youngsters are still saying. That stuff moves quickly…)
First, last Saturday…
… in Sunday’s wee-hours post…
…and then atop her usual back-to-work full Monday post:
Maybe history’s most pitch-perfectly themed, endearingly-in-character wedding weekend and announcement, ever. Efficient, too.
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And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.
🦋💙 tish
•🌀🔵🔷🦋💙
… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
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The shoes!