Yelp review of The Seattle Times (10-29-13)

Yelp review of 10/29/2013

Yesterday morning, a man is robbed and beaten/kicked to the point that he is in critical condition- with serious head injuries.  

This happened right in downtown Seattle early Saturday morning, October 26.  The victim refused to hand over his backpack to his attackers.

This should be of concern to every Seattleite.  Not just robbery, but the kind of physical violence that is life-traumatizing.

And the Seattle Times does not even consider this worthy of coverage.

I guess this is what the editors and publisher consider "being responsible to the local community."

A man teetering on the brink of death is worth mentioning.

Citizens have a right to know.  And the primary purpose of  a newspaper is to inform them.

Newspapers have no right to withhold news from the public.*

* * * * *

And the Times wants people to subscribe to its online edition.

Don't go for it.

Go to http://kirotv.com instead for local news, as the Seattle Times won't provide it.
http://www.kirotv.com/ne…

I won't wade into what I consider the politically reactionary views expressed by the publisher on the editorial page over the past decade.

* To be fair to the Seattle Times, The Stranger, in its crusade to include incidents of white-on-black violence (as as gay-bashing) across the 50 states and to promote African-American culture, of course, did not consider this much more-closer-to-home news as worthy of coverage, either.  

The policy of The Stranger, even more than at the Times, is to not report black-on-white or black-on-Asian violence, only white-on-black (police "brutality").

I am curious (Do you feel the love, too?)

I am curious.

I am curious as to why the writers and editors of hip newspapers like our local The Stranger feel the need to hard-sell African-Americans and African-American culture.

Week after week, the pages of The Stranger are filled week after week with black people featured in advertisements and in full-length cover stories and columns as well as in plays, films, and music by and about African-Americans (for instance, this week in the film section there were reviews of a documentary on Mohamed Ali and the full-feature "12 Years as a Slave," this on the heels of this year's mega-hits, "The Butler" and "Django Unchained).

Not to forget coverage of sports in this city.

One would think that Seattle were a city of 50% white, 33% black (with the rest a scattering of Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Muslims, etc.).

What's there not to like about the swagger, assertiveness, self-pride ("You're pathetic"), humor, machismo  ("I'm The Man"), heroic self-pity, ,
truculent defiance, sex appeal ("Me Tarzan, You Jane"), and proud-to-be-loud belly-ache of some African-Americans?

The Stranger is preaching to the choir, so to speak.   Or flogging a dead horse, to use another metaphor.

Or is all the effort meant to be directed to an imagined group of racist white homophobic fascist hillbillies  ("white trash") and a coterie of rich white people in Medina?

Oh, unless The Stranger means that if you don't just love African-Americans as it does, you are very suspect.*

Any hold-outs?



* In the spirit of equality, I wonder to myself how many people would feel obligated to love white people just because they are white, Asians just because they are Asian, Jews because they are Jews (and what happened to the Jewish people during the Holocaust) just because many people do and also strongly believe that others should do as well?

Even Forbes magazine (the rag of the proletariat) cannot justify Comcast's bait-and-switch

Comcast's Pricing Shell Game

Timothy B. Lee

About three hours after I wrote this post, I received a call from a nice woman at Comcast’s corporate office, who struggled to explain to me Comcast’s convoluted pricing scheme.

A bit of background: way back in 2009, I signed up for broadband service at an introductory rate of $38 (including modem rental). In March 2010, the rate increased to $50, which I assumed was the expiration of the introductory offer. Then in October 2010 it increased to $65. So I called, pretended to cancel, and was rewarded with an upgrade to their faster “Blast” service (which is apparently 25 Mbps rather than the standard 15) and a lower rate of $45. This rose to $47 in March 2011 and $52 in May 2011. I again pretended to cancel to get the price back down to $47. The price increased to $52 in December, and to $80 this month.

Comcast’s story is that $80/month is the “real” rate for “Blast” service, and I’ve been getting a $25 to $35 discount for the last 18 months. However, they have a new policy that “agents cannot extend back-to-back deals”—though, confusing, the original agent I talked to did give me a $10 off deal.

“Our customers have gotten so used to back-to-back promotions,” Comcast’s corporate rep told me, that it’s been a hard transition to the new, higher-price regime.

She told me that if I wanted to downgrade to the regular non-”Blast” service, that would cost $49, and she could apply the already-granted $10 discount on top of that. Then she told me I should feel lucky because I’m not taking television service and the real price for standalone, non-Blast Internet service is $63.

She also suggested that I was only eligible for an extra-special discounted rate because (presumably due to my original Forbes post) my case had been elevated to Comcast’s central office. Ordinary customer service reps, she said “have to follow procedure”—which apparently means no back-to-back discounts. However, in the corporate office, “we can bend the rules a bit.”

She gave me her direct telephone number in case I had any further problems.

About an hour later, she called back again and told me that due to some computer problem, she had been unable to give me the regular-service-for-$39 deal she’d offered me. Instead, she was giving me “Blast” service for $48 per month with a 12-month contract. We’ll see what my bill says next month.

I assume they called me in an effort at damage control, but I don’t think this makes them look any better. The official story seems to be that there’s a “standard” rate, and that I’ve just been enjoying a variety of discounts over the last three years, which for unspecified reasons had suddenly become (mostly) not available. But given that in the course of a single phone call she quoted me two different “standard” rates—$63 without cable service, or $49 with cable service (but which I’m somehow eligible for despite not being a cable subscriber)—and that she offered me several different promotional packages despite their supposed policy of not giving back-to-back discounts, the whole thing looks like an elaborate shell game.

Moreover, I’m bothered by the implication that ordinary Comcast customers have to live with one set of rules, but that the corporate office will “bend the rules a bit” for people like me who are able to catch their attention. If they’re going to offer me a better deal, they should offer the same deal to all of their customers. Of course, a fair and transparent pricing scheme might not be as profitable.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2012/06/06/comcasts-pricing-shell-game/

On appearance in American culture

Recently, I was told by my yoga teacher that I was concentrating too much on (external) appearance, and that the "form" ought to be sensed from the inside.  This was definitely something to be concerned with and reflect on.

As one has not shopped in a department store (and rarely ever in downtown Seattle, unless if I absolutely have to), I wondered if this could be true (and to what extent).

True, often I believe that Americans--including myself--are obsessed with appearance. Not just concerned with it.  And we have exported it, "the, American way of life," around the world to the great detriment of the planet.

"They want our way of life," we gush in self-admiring content.  "Our democracy.  Our freedom.  Our affluence."

After World War II, "the American way of life" gained the ascendancy, with the great consumerist society and its accompanying technological leaps the envy of the rest of the world.

We have to keep stoking the fires of Madison Avenue advertising, shopping on-line and off-, 5G networks. Throwing money at Comcast, Verizon...

And keep up with Seattle "cool":   coffee-shops, clubs, stores, buses, airports, gyms, churches, and museums where we can let everyone know how interesting (or uninteresting) our lives are and how cool we are (and uncool others can be).   If we're alone in a crowd, we can always use our our Iphones and smartphones to announce to the world, or at least anyone within 50 meters of us, our importance.  Even if others don't really want to know

And as for physical appearance...

Hollywood movie stars, especially women, rarely have careers after the age of 40 or so. Unlike women like Judi Dench or Vanessa Redgrave--whose beauty as they age radiates from an inner sense, American women are not allowed to age gracefully (gay men, take note:  I think you've learned the wrong lessons from the experience of straight women) and continue to be held in esteem and given decent roles.   Hence, botox, face-lifts, and the like...

We'll see if Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, or Jennifer Lawrence are ever able or willing to (try to) take on roles that are not varying shades of themselves, the contemporary all-American woman.   Lady Macbeth, Mary Tyrone, Blanche Dubois, Hedda Gabler (at least Jane Fonda in her time dared).

Ditto for their male American counterparts, most of whom could not act themselves out of a box even if they had to.

* * * * *

Appearance is a major concern of a good part of the world, and certainly of all Western countries.  It is an inescapable fact of life.  It would appear that China is more materialistic than even the most capitalistic countries on the face of the planet.

But the fact also is that the United States is the foremost defender of the capitalistic system with its emphasis on the profit motive to the exclusion of all other values.   The U.S. also is the world's largest single economy (although the GDP of the European Union is larger) and military power par excellence.

* * * * *

If it makes me look good, I will feel good.  Ergo, my happiness and well-being depend on my looking good (botox, SUV, going out to the coolest clubs...).  And to some extent, looking good will give one a rush, a temporary feeling of well-being but not an inner peace or happiness.   Maybe that is what a spiritual life is supposed to nurture.

* * * * *

from The New York Times (October 20, 2013),

"Lessons From Living in London"

The natives’ reticence, and the prevalence of small buildings instead of high-rise apartment complexes, promote a feeling of self-containment, even isolation. In New York you live in one another’s pockets and in one another’s faces; your business is their business. In London, people keep themselves to themselves, as the expression goes, and this can feel either liberating or lonely.

I could stroll the paths at Kensington Gardens, or jog past the statue of Prince Albert all the way to Hyde Park, and have only the most glancing interaction with another human being, even though those places were full of them. So I spent a lot of time lost in thought. It was freeing to feel so anonymous, so unfettered — but sometimes it made the heart feel a little empty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/travel/lessons-from-living-in-london.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

I wonder if the London of my youth is still the same, despite the American invasion of Europe of the past decades.  Will the preference for understatement, irony, and civility have given way to loudness, extroversion, exaggeration, narcissism, and unabashed exhibitionism?  

Will the supposed "cold-fish" have given way to a smiling, chirpy ersatz American talking non-stop without nary a pause for breath except at the very end to say "good-bye"?

* * * * *

The emperor has no clothes:   most of American life is concerned only with transactions (buying/selling) of surface appearances.

  

On that there is a social consensus, the driving force of most lives.   ("Keep up the appearances, of 'normality,' and do like everyone else").


One who dares to think differently and who speaks and acts from some other basis is considered "weird."
That person may, in fact, be more "alive" than others. External appearance may be less important than "seeing," "hearing," "touching"...  
  

The inner life ("core") for many if not most people is only incidentally (or coincidentally) touched over a lifetime. 

"evening star" of franz von stuck, in the museum villa von stuck, on loan to the frye art museum, seattle, nov. 1, 2013-feb. 2,2014

* * * * *



It is true:   I don't have much of a spiritual life and I occupy myself much as others in keeping myself distracted.


* * * * *

The dreams one has at night may actually be more important than what one does during one's waking hours, at least from a psychic point of view.

Why I think the Ivy League is over-rated

+

Pomona College in Claremont, California   ranked #2 in Forbes Magazine's Annual Best Colleges

I am mystified that the Ivy League universities are considered the pinnacle of U.S. higher education by some.   It was an organization found as athletic conference in the early part of the last century.  Most Americans can name the Big Ten, not the Ivy League.

The fact is that there are other universities with at least comparable reputations (Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Duke, Johns Hopkins, etc.), as well as the far smaller smaller liberal arts colleges which offer often a better education.

The New York Times does a lot of trumpeting about the Ivy League schools (Who really can name all eight institutions?  Is Amherst one of the eight?  Is Dartmouth?  William and Mary?), which speaks to the particular obsession with elite, ivy-covered institutions that is to be found in the Northeast.

In fact, seven liberal arts colleges have a higher endowment per student than all but the Big Three of the Ivy League (Harvard, Princeton, Yale), which means they have more financial resources to spend on their undergraduates.

The often lower nominal student-to-faculty ratio at the Ivy League can be explained by the fact that they include graduate instruction, where classes are by necessity smaller.  The truth is that there are classes with students in the hundreds at Harvard (as in first-year chemistry, economics, etc.).

I'm not sure why anyone would want to attend college in upper Harlem or in one of the worst parts of Philadelphia or anywhere in New Haven except if one is addicted--as the young today often are--to shots of urban excitement, no pun intended.  Furthermore, it would be all to easy to skip classes and do the zillions of things kids like to do in "the big city."

Despite the fame of the faculty "stars" residing at the universities, the attention, in fact, goes to graduate education and to supporting research carried out by those faculty, and hardly to lowly undergraduates, a dime a dozen even at HYP.  In fact, many courses will be taught by graduate students, certainly not the big-name.

It would be hard for me to believe that Harvard cares as much about the personal growth and "moral character" of its undergraduates than, let's say, Haverford.

Narrow professionalism and single-minded, cut-throat competition to get into grad school to me are not exactly conducive to a quality college education.

Whatever undergraduate institution one attends will be largely displaced by the graduate school one attends, if any.  And even among graduate and professional schools, it is often Berkeley, Chicago, Michigan, etc. that will be higher ranked than any of the Ivy League.

The value of a college education resides in what one actually learns--including outside of class, rather than simply the name or perceived prestige of a particular institution.

In a more pragmatic vein, it is better to have aced one's coursework wherever one attends rather than to be in the bottom half of one's class at Princeton. And it is more important to find a place one actually flourishes, rather than where the parents of a college-age student would like their son or daughter to go, based on what is considered either more popular or more prestigious an institution.

Besides, yapping about having gone to an Ivy League college is usually more about inflating a wobbly sense of ego, rather like Americans who speak with a British (Received Pronunciation) accent.   It is also strongly regional:  Only in the Northeast does it matter so much.

(In an affront to the Ivy League, Forbes magazine this year named Stanford University and Pomona College, both in California, as the top two undergraduate institutions of higher learning in the country, over all eight Ivies).

Bottom line:   One can fail as a human being, no matter what one's alma mater is or how many degrees one has.

Endowment per Student at Selected Colleges (2012)

A school's endowment is its most significant source of financial aid.

	Endowment ($million)	# of Students	Endowment/Student ($000)
Princeton	16,954	7,567	2,241
Yale	19,345	11,593	1,669
Harvard	30,435	21,225	1,434
Stanford	17,036	15,870	1,073
Pomona	1,680	1,586	1,059
Swarthmore	1,499	1,545	970
MIT	10,150	10,894	932
Amherst	1,641	1,817	903
Williams	1,799	2,188	822
Grinnell	1,384	1,688	820
Cal Tech	1,747	2,231	783
Wellesley	1,445	2,300	628
Washington & Lee	1,262	2,203	573
Dartmouth                                                                                                                               institutions in boldface italic are liberal arts institutions http://www.reachhighscholars.org/college_endowments.html

How can the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc. continue to buy products made of the horns of rhinoceri?

After seeing a recent Franco-German documentary on a small equipe of veterinarians in Assam (in India), I saw images that brought tears to my eyes.  My chest seemed to want to cave in.

What I saw a rhinoceros whose horns had been lopped by poachers, down to the roots, to the nasal cavity.  The animal was just crouching, profusely bleeding, in a mute state of shock.

The Indian vets gave him injections or morphine for the pain and also I recall Vitamin B in hopes of saving his life.  But he was already dying.

The poachers are sometimes caught but not the leaders of the ring, who take the horns and sell them to traders in East Asia, where the horn is considered to have medicinal and/or aphrodisiac qualities.

My question is why in East Asia (China, Korea, Japan...) in the 21st century the populations still believe in this kind of folk medicine.   If they could really see the video images of the rhinoceros hemorrhaging, tortured for his horns, dying in a silent state of shock and pain, would they continue to buy medicines containing the ground up powder of the horn?

Granted I don't understand the mentalities of Asians, particularly as regards animals, who may simply not be considered worthy of concern (I just don't know).*

Cruelty to these innocent animals, already on the endangered species list, is unforgivable. It sickens one and makes one detest the human race for all that it has inflicted on the other living beings on this planet, a veritable genocide.

Let's not get into detail on how human overpopulation and the accompanying pressure has caused directly the loss of natural habitat of elephants in India (and elsewhere), driving the latter into villages because they are famished, this in turn causing the villagers to beat and chase the animals away.

Or why the governments of these countries don't crack down on the production of such medicines.


* * * * *

sur TV5monde (Comcast channel 252 in Seattle)

360° - GÉO   Arte/Reportage

"L'Inde, la clinique des tigres"

Dans l'unique centre de réadaptation à la vie sauvage du sous-continent indien, un couple de vétérinaires s'occupe de tigres, de panthères, de rhinocéros et de toutes sortes d'animaux qui semblent directement sortis du « Livre de la jungle ». Nous les suivons dans les villages qui bordent le Brahmapoutre.
Réalisation : Heiko de Groot (Allemagne / France, 2009)

année : 2013

Durée : 45'

* Actually after doing a little research, I have come to the conclusion that Asians in general do not respect and value animals such as cats and dogs as is the case in the U.S.   Some impossibly cruel acts of torture--that I can't even go into detail here--in Taiwan, for instance, carry only a maximum of one year in imprisonment.

"Paris c'est un museum dore" (Andre Glucksmann) and "It is the Parisians who leave dog excrement on the sidewalks" (Stephen Erlanger, New York Times)

Tour Montparnasse:  It would make Seattle proud and fit in great in Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Honolulu, Dubai, Shanghai, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Berlin, Hong Kong, Sydney...

Tourist-y or not, it does,make the Space Needle look pretty-ugly.

"Paris is the most beautiful city in the world; to me, only Prague comes close. But Paris is also filthy. While tourists regard Paris with awe and respect, for the most part many Parisians treat it with studied indifference, a high virtue here, or with contempt.

It is the Parisians who leave dog excrement on the sidewalks, who ignore the trash containers. With smoking now supposedly banned inside restaurants, the terraces of cafes become more crowded. But the streets have become ashtrays..."


http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/travel/reflections-on-a-paris-left-behind.html?ref=stevenerlanger&_r=0

http://seattletimes.com/html/travel/2022074228_parisfranceescapesxml.html#.UmKVlKRY6SI.facebook

Review of Comcast Xfinity

Heidi Fleiss could have said this of Comcast:   "These guys are really sleazy.  I mean, top-drawer sleazy."

"High-tier services for corporate clients?   I'll get you right away to the supervisor."

"Our XXXfinity services will knock their socks off."

"Our line-up is so much better (than theirs)."

A rotten apple by any other name would smell as bad.

My thoughts about Xfinity Comcast?   Worse than Comcast.  Xfinitely worse.  Don't get their Blast Plus package.  They'll play bait-and-switch on you.

Comcast rolls out all the time new gimmicks designed to entice people to buy more stuff they don't need and also to justify across the board  price hikes.  Defective Comcast equipment, which you're paying for, anyway, and their professional incompetence and mistakes--simply gives Comcast another opportunity to do a soft sell.  Hard sell comes later.

Comcast recently wrapped its octopus arms around Universal Pictures and MSNBC.  This is robber-baron capitalism, 21st-century-style, all under the watch of Obama:  the concentration of the entertainment industry, news media, cable television, and Internet all cohabiting under one prosperous roof.

Unlike Fleiss, of course, Comcast is willing to cast its net wide and far for clients of any income level in anticipation that the latter will fork out eventually $100, etc. for more channels, higher Internet speed, "service calls," etc.

I wonder how many millions Comcast execs individually make off the backs of the unsuspecting American public and why Congress doesn't investigate the company.  Or how it persuades its thousands of employees to lie to and mislead customers.  It's very likely they get bonuses for tacking on as many fees and charges as possible.

If it can make J.P. Morgan cough up billions...

For example:

For the past week, my digital cable box had been misbehaving and after two long telephone calls, I was promised a new cable box that would arrive by UPS in 3 days.

The next day I discovered that I had been "enrolled" in an Xfinity Bundled Service (Blast Plus!).  The rep had told me simply that along with a new cable box, I would get a six-months rebate on my limited Basic Cable plus a three-month rebate on my International Premium Channel.   (Too good to be true.  I should asked "Why?").

(Most of the reps speak English as a second-language, so even though they may be friendly, communication is not straight-forward).

* He mistakenly arranged for a technician to come out the next day to unblock equipment.  (A wasted trip, according to him).

* He also mistakenly cancelled my International Premium Channel.   (The only reason I subscribe to cable).

* He didn't tell me that I was getting Blast Plus.  He never mentioned this to me.

So in total I spent 2-1/2  hours talking to five (5) different people just to get a new cable box, which will arrive in 3 to 5 business days.

Nowhere on the Comcast website is there any mention, much less explanation, of Blast Plus, so there are no guarantees (written) of anything.

After six months, the Blast Plus will jump by $20 and in a year another $10.  Installation fee $15 (someone at Comcast has to press a button to "activate").  And who knows what else.

But I still have to get a tech to come out to be able to restore my International Premium Channel.

When he does arrive, it takes him 15 seconds to fix things, explains that someone at Comcast screwed up when they set up Blast Plus.  On the way out he leaves me a bill for $32 ("kit installation)."

I'm sure Comcast is counting on customers to not remember.  Meanwhile, every few months it hikes its prices on all cable-related services, hoping that subscribers won't notice or protest.

* * * * *

To install the new cable box, I spent at least three hours fiddling around with the box and remote control as well as trying to activate my service online. And they charge you a "video installation fee" when you do it all by yourself with no help from them!  Totally bogus.


Something else I discovered with the new cable box was that even though it had outputs for component cables, which would give a better quality picture, Comcast intentionally prevents non-HD customers from connecting those cables (red/blue/green) to their HDTV's or A/V receivers.  Even though you are renting it from them.   In fact, I'm not even sure if Comcast would allow its customers to NOT rent the cable box from them, i.e., buy one outright.

Because Comcast is the #1 ISP in the U.S., it has millions of customers.  Even what seems like a modest sum ($4.99 monthly) for its "service protection plan" (only 99 cents two years ago) can generate tens of millions of dollars each month for the company, especially its executives and shareholders.   (Hence, its policy of before a technician comes out to already bill you for a service that may actually be a result of faulty equipment.  The tech hands you the work order without giving you time to do much more than give it a glance.  If something is "off," well, you have to call Comcast, which is about as pleasurable as getting a toothache.

After the self-installation of the cable cable, to my considerable consternation, I still could not watch the one premium channel that I have been watching for the past ten years.   So I have to wait another three days for a technician to come out.

Also, my Internet speed has not changed, and I am still getting limited Basic, with no new channels.  I should never have agreed to the "rebates."

* * * * *

About this same time my monthly Comcast bill was due.   I checked online and discovered that the automatic payment which I had set up several weeks earlier still had not kicked in.  Because I had been slapped with a $25 or $30 "late fee" in the past,* I called Comcast to ascertain whether I should "manually" pay the current and pending bill.  I was told that automatic payments would begin during the next billing cycle and that I should pay the current bill. 

This is what I immediately did.   Four days later, I discovered that Comcast had debited my credit card twice for approximately the same amount.  I am guessing automatic payment DID begin the last cycle, but I have no way of knowing, and I don't trust Comcast representatives to either know or to tell me something  closely resembling to the actual situation.

In fact, there is no way of knowing when push comes to shove whether I will be charged the Blast Plus monthly charge I was repeatedly told I would be paying because the summary of billing statement/account is impossible to decipher.  I have only the word of Comcast employees, including the one who told me in the beginning that I was getting one six-month and one three-month rebate plus a new cable box via UPS (and no new plan).  

Bait-and-switch?

* The circumstances were the same then, except that I assumed that once I set up automatic payment three weeks in advance of the payment due date that it would begin in that billing cycle.   After I was slapped with the fee, I phoned Comcast and was told that automatic payment would take up to two months to begin and that I should have known that I needed to pay the upcoming bill manually.

* * * * *

Where on the website can one find a statement of the fee schedule Comcast charges for its services?

What happened to Comcast's "satisfaction guarantee"?

What about a lawsuit against Comcast for false and deceptive advertising?  What about rebates to all its customers of the past 10 years for shameless profit gouging, the kind that the record companies were forced to pay?

* * * * *

Beware of Comcast's bait-and-switch tentacles, now Xfinite and self-propagating.

http://forums.comcast.co…

WHAT ABOUT MAKING THE CITY OF SEATTLE GET SOME BA--- SO IT WILL TAX COMCAST'S NET PROFITS  AT 35%?

http://www.yelp.com/review_share/H1cnBfqbRW8_-sCnAIfMPw/review/CoSLq-YDLOSC18mrR1Buyw?fsid=R0zkPdgPSHvoc2McpxdQCA

Some people confuse popularity with quality. -Lily H.

In the desire to be liked, some people forget what they like.

I do.

* * * * *

One is missing a lot, a whole lot, if one sees, hears, feels, touches---in short, is immersed and steeped in--nothing but Western popular culture day in and day out.

...as in missing the greatest works of Western art, literature, music, philosophy...from Dante to Schumann and...Corot...Rousseau...Keats...

Sometimes I think the genius of American culture has been to bring superficiality, conformity, and hollowness to a new apex and then to deliver it to the rest of the world

Someday, perhaps, Americans will realize that their allegiance to technology (i-phones, 6G networks, Facebook, guns, decibel-crushing music, football, botox, television commercials, walking the dog, fast cars, Mcmansions...) has displaced any sense of the deeper meaning in life.

Mass popular culture is designed to please the greatest number of people ("the bandwagon effect" is particularly effective) and has nothing to do with the individual.   It could care less about you.

* * * * *

"Life is tons of hard work, loads of 4D entertainment...it's about dare-devil thrills, getting to the top (and staying there), family.  And plenty of rah-rah flag-waving + God sprinkled on top.

We sell it, we buy it.

'You're looking good, baby, you bet.'"

Who would disagree?

A minority view: America too Euro-centric? Or too African-centric?

I hear often, from whites especially, that the United States is too "Euro-centric."   Though puzzled, I have always kept my silence.

But then I have reflected on this assertion of ostensible fact.

Since the United States for the more than two centuries since its independence has been overwhelmingly European, I am not sure how this could not been true.

Should it have been for the past 230 years Asian-centric?    African-centric?   Hispanic-centric?

I think the last census still points to a United States 70% Caucasian (especially if one counts Hispanic whites and Middle Eastern peoples).

Would it be better if the United States were Afro-centric?   (African-Americans 12%-13% of the population).

* * * * *

With the election of Obama, it might be better to ask if the U.S. is Afro-centric.  Now that we have Oprah, an African-American attorney general, Supreme Court justice, a phalanx of African-American movie superstars (Denzel, Jamie, Chris Fox, Will, Morgan Freeman, Samuel Jackson, Halle Berry, Beyonce) and music superstars (you know their names better than I do), and probably a majority of big name sports heroes, it is obvious that African-Americans are disproportional influential in culture, if not in politics (I'm not sure how one weighs the race of a president against Congress).

Jimmy Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Prince, Michael Jackson...everybody's heard of them but has anyone but a few heard of Rene Fleming, Gerard Souzay, Maria Callas, Arthur Rubenstein...?

I'm sure William Faulkner, Henry James, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates would take a beating in a head-on contest with Toni Morrison.

Or look at advertising.  How many faces of African-Americans does one see despite the fact that they barely represent one in 10 Americans?   Compare that to Hispanics, Asian-Americans, still considered "foreigners" (in their own country).

I wonder how Gerard Depardieu, Marion Cotillard, Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Craig, Rachel Weitz, Colin Firth stack up against Jamie, Will Smith, Denzel, etc. in terms of box-office clout and popularity.  The last time I heard, 44% or so of Americans claim ancestry back to the British Isles (England/Scotland/Wales) compared to 13% to Africa.

Most recent American film dramas have to do with "the black experience" directly or indirectly:   "The Butler," "Djiango Unchained," "The Help," "Lincoln," "Precious," "Dreamgirls"...Audiences eat it up.

We all know that white boys can't jump (I guess that means black men can and do), that there are too many "dead white men," e.g., Newton, Edi(black men) son, Jefferson, and Brahms, and that stupid white men have run and continue to run the country.

Ergo, it would be better and fairer if 6.5 percent of the population (black men) ran the country, from Congress to the Supreme Court to major corporations and institutions of higher learning.  And we all know other people of color (Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Muslims...) would feel that they were "getting their share" if that were ever to happen ("At last!  One of us!").

Black has never been more "in"; in American history, one race has never made more into the stuff of heroes and simultaneously of downtrodden victims.

* * * * *

Secondly, Americans know very little of Europe, either its history or culture.  What does the average American care about Jean-Jacques Rousseau ("le Contrat Social") even if his life would otherwise have been very different without him?   Or of Disraeli?   The Medici? The Hundred Years War?   Charles Dickens for that matter?

And who cares if the NSA has been tapping Angela Merkel's phone (who is Angela Merkel, anyway?) for years?   We saved them, didn't we?

Americans are, you guessed it, sui generis.

It cannot be that Americans are Euro-centric because they overwhelmingly concern themselves little or not at all with Europe and, aside from the color of their skin, do not seem to have much in common with Europeans, culturally speaking.  Europe is a foreign continent to Americans.  They do not speak the languages of the continent, they do not have relatives that they have any more than a nominal contact with.

On the other hand, I find Europeans very America-centric, almost to the point of embarrassment ("selling oneself," talking loudly, or shrieking/shouting in public to indicate approval, exaggeration or boasting).  Even the erstwhile Yankee-phobes, the French, know vastly more about American sitcoms than I will ever know.

More Europeans seem to know who Janet Jackson is rather than Jacques Brel (was).

Nothing is less flattering than watching Europeans (or Asians) aping Americans.  

* * * * *

I am perplexed when I hear African-Americans proclaim how racist the United States is when I observe daily in a city which is 70% Caucasian all the adulation and admiration of and for African-Americans and African-American culture.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that America is in love with African-Americans.  What is better measure of the esteem with which Americans hold other Americans is there than looking at who their sports heroes and movie favorites are.

The other "proof" of this great infatuation is that many if not most Americans minimize or deny the statistics, albeit not that easy to find, (and often their own personal experiences of being victims) of violent crime committed by African-Americans, from majority-white cities like Seattle to heavily African-American cities like D.C. or Philadelphia.

All of the above points to the U.S. being Afro-centric, not Euro-centric.

We must learn not to be afraid of African-Americans

"Just a bunch of innocent kids out looking for some fun.  At heart, they're actually pretty decent kids."

from Kiro-TV News  Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013:

13-year-old kept in juvenile detention for two violent robberies

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Dajohntae Richard

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Joey Crudo was attacked in Westlake Park in July.

By Natasha Chen

SEATTLE, Wash — 

A 13-year-old boy has been ordered to stay in juvenile detention after he pleaded not guilty to being involved in two violent robberies.

In the first case, he is accused of being part of a group that robbed and brutally beat a security guard in Westlake Park in mid-July.

He is also accused of theft and assault in a similar case in mid-August, not far from the location of the first incident.

Joey Crudo is the security guard attacked in the first incident. He said he remembers trying to stop a theft in progress. But the group of people stealing turned on him.

He said 13-year-old Dajohntae Richard reached for his wallet in his back pocket.

“I was shocked to see, when I turned around that someone was grabbing my wallet, how young he was. And again, I felt the same way today in the courtroom,” Crudo said.

Crudo said that the boy looked at him in the courtroom.

“I felt kind of strange when he looked at me. He didn't look at me like I was the victim of a crime. He looked at me like I was the one victimizing him. And that made me feel really bad. It was a 'you did this to me' kind of look. And I know I didn't,” Crudo said.

The charging document stated that Richard and another suspect had laughed at the victims when one of them fell of his skateboard. Police said that the suspects then beat and robbed the group of victims.

The document states: “[Victim] said he observed Richard kicking [victim] several times in the head before he turned his attention to [second victim] and started kicking [second victim].”

The judge said that she would detain “this young man as a danger to the community,” keeping him in juvenile detention until his pre-trial appearance Oct. 17.

and from KiroTV.com   June 26, 2013

(http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/warning-graphic-video-shows-woman-beaten-kicked-we/nYWxP/)

Police: "We need to find the attackers," and Westlake Park victim

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PHOTOS: Woman beaten at Westlake Park (WARNING: Graphic)

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A woman was attacked by three other women in downtown Seattle.

By Gary Horcher

SEATTLE — 

Her face is bloodied, bruised, and swollen, but the woman seen staggering away from a vicious public beating in broad daylight is still a mystery to police.

"We don't know where to find her, and we need to," Seattle Police Detective Renee Witt said.

Even veteran SPD officers were astonished when they saw the cellphone video, which shows a defenseless woman being punched, kicked and stomped relentlessly by three other women for almost 60 seconds. The attack happened in the middle of crowded Westlake Park, and no one there seemed interested in stopping it.

Police hadn't seen the video until being contacted by KIRO 7.

"It's unbelievably violent and shocking. We need to find the attackers, they need to be arrested," Witt said. A link to the video was sent to KIRO 7 on Monday.

SPD detectives said that even if the beating suspects are identified they cannot arrest anyone until they find the victim first.

"Without her cooperation, her willingness to testify, to say these are the people who assaulted me, our detectives don't have a case," Witt said.

The beating led to several 911 calls and when officers arrived they spoke briefly to the victim while she was being taken to Harborview by paramedics. She suffered head injuries in the attack, but it was not life-threatening. She was released hours after the attack.

"They got what they believe to be her name, but she didn't have a good address," Witt told KIRO 7. "She might be a transient, but she deserves justice.

Officers detained three suspects in a nearby alley, but eyewitnesses would not identify them as the assailants, so officers had no choice but to let them go.

"We know who those suspects are and where they live," Witt said. "If someone can lead us to the victim, we would be able to go and arrest them."

People who hang out at Westlake Park understand the unwillingness of eyewitnesses to come forward. Anyone with information is asked to call police.

"If they'll do that to her, what's to stop them from doing the same to me," Seattle resident Katie Bradbury asked. "It's just sad and frightening."



Note:   Neither of the above incidents was reported by The Stranger (nor were the ones below).

Four women plead not guilty to vicious Belltown beating

KOMO STAFF

Published 4:00 pm, Thursday, October 17, 2013

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Four women stood before a King County judge Thursday morning to deny allegations they beat a woman so badly her eyes were swollen shut, leaving her bleeding and half naked.

The judge released all the women from jail except for Adrienne Lynn Devorce, who is the alleged aggressor.

Kristen Marie Devorce, Charquella Dutchess Gardner and Cassiana Jean Halloway were ordered to stay away from the victim and are banned from entering Belltown.

Halloway's mother, Sharon Neal, claims the victim was intoxicated and said something to instigate the attack. She emphatically touts her daughter's innocence.

Asked how her daughter wound up at the scene of the attack and under suspicion for taking part in it, Neal said, "I don't believe it. She's trying to rescue her friends - just trying to tell them to come on, and they're not listening."

Gardner's mother also attended the arraignment and said her daughter did not participate in the fighting.

Officers working a violence-prevention emphasis patrol in Belltown shortly after 2 a.m. on Oct. 6 were called to a fight in the 2300 block of Second Avenue.

They arrived to find the victim covering herself on the ground while she was attacked by four women, according to the police report for the  incident.

The victim's face was completely swollen and bleeding and both her eyes were swollen shut. She was having difficulty standing and talking and was missing her pants and shoes.

Before being transported to Swedish Hospital for treatment, the victim told officers she and a male friend were walking home when a group of women started yelling at them.

According to the report, one of the women punched the victim in the face, knocking her to the ground, and the other three started punching and kicking her.

The victim's male friend told officers he tried to protect the victim by lying on top of her while she was being attacked, and he was punched and kicked, as well.

The four women were arrested at the scene for investigation of aggravated assault, but none of them would say why they attacked the victim, according to the report.

from kirotv.com   October 11, 2013

Shooting suspect wanted, police ask for help

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Robbery detectives are asking the public for help finding this man who they say shot and wounded another man Oct. 8 in a First Hill apartment complex.

By KIRO 7 STAFF

Robbery detectives are asking the public for help finding this man who they say shot and wounded another man Oct. 8 in a First Hill apartment complex.

Police said the suspect was inside the victim’s apartment in the 800 block of Jefferson Street when he tried to grab a wad of cash off a table. They said he drew a gun and pointed it at the victim, who shoved the gun aside.

The suspect then shot the victim in the shoulder and fled the building, investigators said.

The victim was rushed to Harborview Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

"What did I tell you?  Here we have no problems."

Comments:

The "look" on the face of Dajohntae Richard that he gave to Crudo in the courtroom is similar to the looks I receive when I board the Metro bus my eyes, dart-like, have a split second to take in who is on the bus:  There is no mistaking the laser-intense beam of hostility and barely contained rage:  a look of sullen, deep reproach directed at me, a person of color.

I get the message.  And my face paralyzed with fear replies,  "Hey, I won't make any waves.  I know that you can blow my a-- right off the bus."  Like a mouse transfixed by the eyes of a python.

These kinds of things happen often but go unreported or under-reported by the media.  You see fierce,

 unruly young people like this all the time downtown-- at Westlake Plaza and at 3rd & Pike/Pine.  This

 youth was doing what others do and have done.

Twelve years ago while walking through Westlake Plaza. I was harassed by a group of young African-
American women, one of whom grabbed my collar, laughing, prancing, and screaming, not letting go

 No, I didn't report it.  My word against theirs.  Who would believe me?  And the hassle of finding a cop. I was also too shaken up inside.  And I just wanted to get away.

If I had tried to pull or push the hands off me, I thought to myself, "she'll yell at me, 'Hey, what ya think ya doin pushin' me?' and start to shove and/or slug me really hard. Or worse, a lot worse.  God, I just want to get away."

Since then I rarely ever go past or through Westlake Plaza.  If I have to, I am extremely vigilant.

There IS racial fear and tension in Seattle.  And the Seattle Police Department and local media do not help matters by refusing to release a breakdown of types of violent crime by race of victim and race of aggressor.   That said, I to believe most people are to a lesser or greater degree aware--that is, if they have any eyes or ears and have ever walked around downtown Seattle--of the wide racial disparities, even if they are in denial.

In this city, we openly speak of educational and economic inequality by race yet we are reluctant to openly discuss and measure violent crime using the same racial categories.

It is the right of the public in a democracy to have access to information, especially that which directly affects their health, well-being, and safety.

To defuse racial tension and decrease suspicion, greater openness and honesty on the admittedly sensitive subject of crime and race would help, even if it lead to a sense of the necessity of greater  effort and responsibility on the part of parents with children who are "out of control" and in trouble at school and on the streets to inculcate moral values in and employ much stricter discipline on those they have brought into this world as well as  to cooperate more with social and law enforcement agencies.

Pretending that violent crime is equally distributed across the racial/ethnic/national origin/religious/income spectrum is as meretricious as pretending that diabetes, coronary disease, poverty, or educational levels have an identical (equal) distribution across the aforementioned measures.

To say that the cause of violent crime is racism and that its solution is to solve the problem of racism is empty, hollow, and false..

The belief that one belongs to a group that has been and is always a victim cannot be the guiding principle or core tenet of that same group.  (Obviously, it can be the primary political program).

I can imagine liberal white Seattle now saying to me:

"He [Crudo] was asking for it." 

"He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It was bad luck (Tuba Man, listen carefully)."

"Hey, man, you're cherry-picking.  There was a white guy recently who beat up a..."*

"Hey, look, this is what poverty and institutional racism do.  You know, rates of unemployment among blacks are double those of white people."

"The attackers could have been white, Asian, or Hispanic.*  Don't bring up race, it makes you look like a racist."

"The solution is to not show pictures of the attackers and to avoid any mention of their race.  Crime has nothing to do with race."

and

"If that's the way you feel about African-Americans, maybe you should move to another city."

* I agree with these statements insofar as, yes, indeed, it could have been someone of a different race. Where I disagree is that from what statistics there are AND my own personal observations and experience, it is clear that an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of very violent crimes ARE committed by African-Americans.  For instance, it might be ten or more times as high as that of whites or Asians.  This important fact should be acknowledged and neither ignored nor denied, as there is little chance of a solution without acknowledgment of the specific and salient facets of a serious social problem.

With this in mind, certain demographic segments and groups should be targeted, not blamed, for study and concrete measures (e.g., anti-violence, anti-bullying,  parental education) and held at least partially responsible for dangerous behaviors.