Opinion

2021 began with Trump attacking the Capitol to stop the election verification. Or in the least showing he could get away with murdering police, and physically intimidating Congresspeople.

2021 finished with Covid resurgence and Build Back Better in peril.

The fact that I can figure out easily what is being expressed with “Let’s Go Brandon” but could not really tell you wtf Build Back Better is or if it cares about my existence, I finished with a conclusion:

Someone spent 2021 ruining communication.

I feel like Biden/Harris are like well-intentioned parents whose kids experienced trauma.

In 2020, they watched their kids watch George Floyd murdered broadcasting everywhere. People’s grandparents died from Covid.  Another group of kids decided to riot January 6th.

Someone spent 2021 confusing everything.

Biden/Harris needs break everything down to the simplest:

Showering regularly, wearing a mask prevents Covid, the Flu, strep throat, and Cooties.

It’s winter so Covid cases are going to increase because people are indoors and can spread germs.

Maddening media misconceptions

1.     Can the media, popular culture mavens, and politicians begin to remember yesterday? Or last week, last month, six months, one year, four years, two decades, etc., let alone a significant amount of historical time? They need to remember the Trump Agenda and its damages—economic, health, civic, unemployment, inflation, racism, violence, divisiveness, for example; and cease unsupported comparisons with Ronald Reagan/ism, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, LBJ, FDR, and so on.

2.     Avoid the myth of the “educated American.” Understand today’s failure of American education, especially the dramatic expansion of nonpublic schooling and STEM, decline of history and civics, but still recognize that there was never a golden age to which to return.

There’s been plenty to be grateful for in 2021, but like many things in our American democratic republic, the wheels of progress move slow and 2020 kept its claws dug into the year that followed it. Frankly, we should have known this was going to happen when six days into the new year, the world watched as an insurrection and near-constitutional crisis played out on live TV, all due to the results of the 2020 presidential election. Many of us will never forget where we were on that weirdly historic day. I was flipping back and forth from C-SPAN –– to watch Congress count the Electoral College votes –– to One America News Network, which was the only station airing a peculiar rally (in full!) that President Trump was holding on The Mall. I remember the cameras were only aimed at the stage so I couldn’t see how many people were in the crowd, but slowly the two networks’ coverage merged together and I could see that unlike his inauguration four years before, Trump finally did attract a crowd to D.C.

The Columbus Police Department (CPD) did a sloppy job handling the kidnapping and murder of Imam Mohamed Adam.

The family of the Somali Imam Mohamed Hasan Adam is unable to pay respect for their son and bury his remains properly after he was shot dead last Friday. Holding the remains for more than 24 hours violates the Islamic law of burial as well as the Jewish law of burial. CPD did a lousy job from day one when Imam Mohamad was kidnapped last Wednesday evening. It took an army of volunteer Somali search and rescue teams to locate the Imam. Sadly, he was found dead already. He must have been shot three hours before the Somali search teams located his body inside his car.

Note: area readers are aware that the local “daily newspaper” is no longer either daily or a newspaper. Following USA Today/Gannett, the Columbus Dispatch does not publish on Dec. 24 or 25, 31 or Jan. 1 (as well as Thanksgiving or Labor Day). They do not coordinate with their carriers so subscribers do not receive the everyday New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or Washington Post. The USA Today managed Dispatch website is chaotic and incoherent. It does not replace even the printed Dispatch’s late and low volume of actual news.

All opinion writers—including New York Times’ conservative columnists—must meet basic standards of journalistic practice and ethics. They are responsible not only for presenting clear and logically coherent opinions, but also for adhering to established facts and objective evidence. In other words, alternative narratives and their rhetoric must be constrained by critical if minimal standards.

The result of a vote, on December 14, in the US House of Representatives regarding the combating of Islamophobia, may, possibly, appear to be a positive sign of change, that Washington is finally confronting this socio-political evil. However, conclusions must not be too hasty. 

 Disquietingly, Congress was nearly split on the vote. While 219 voted in favor of the resolution, 212 voted against it. What is so objectionable about the resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Ilhan Omar, that prompted a ‘nay’ vote by such a large number of American representatives?

On Sunday, Dec. 5, dozens of theater lovers gathered at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s Africa Event Center to hear about the strange connection between the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a remote Canadian town and the zoo itself. In a related activity, some of them also gathered outside an animal habitat earlier that afternoon to watch the playful (and often X-rated) antics of the little-known apes known as bonobos.

What brought both humans and apes together was Come From Away, a touring production that will play the Ohio Theatre Feb. 8-13. The Broadway musical tells what happened when the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks halted all air travel and forced 38 planes to make unscheduled landings in Gander, Newfoundland. There, about 7,000 travelers became the guests of the town’s 9,000 residents, who helped to feed and house them until they were allowed to continue on their way several days later. 

“This is about what happens when people take care of other people,” Sue Frost, the show’s producer, told the Dec. 5 crowd. “It is really a tribute to humanity.” 

What’s your story?

We tell stories, which evolve into myths — and myths are what hold us together. They create the collective entity known as the human race.

And myths evolve.

At least, good God, I hope they do.

We’re stuck, right now, in the myth of collective suicide, more generally known as the myth of the conquest of good over evil. And since history is told by the winners of humanity’s wars, those currently in power are always — always! — the good guys.

David Suzuki puts it this way: “As dictators have shown throughout history, collective narratives are often successful when they have a bad guy, someone or something that is ‘other.’”

Haaretz’s investigative report - ‘Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in '48 – and What Israeli Leaders Knew’ - is a must-read. It should be particularly read by any person who considers himself a ‘Zionist’ and also by people who, for whatever reason, support Israel, anywhere in the world.

Quietly, as usual, the undemocratic apparatuses of the City of Columbus make their moves.

On Friday, Dec. 10, the Columbus Dispatch briefly reported “Massive hanging sculpture proposed for Downtown.”

The next day, Dispatch reporter Jim Welker wrote, “City seeks input on reviving Downtown” (print edition). In this case, the City and the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation, a “nonprofit public development corporation,” a contradiction in terms, “are launching a series of [unscheduled] public meetings to help shape a new Downtown Strategic Plan.