AIFF 2015: First Night

It's been a bizarre and busy day.  I woke to a Japanese business man, a rural Alaska mayor, and our house sitter having coffee in the kitchen.  Some video on their project coming in the future.

Best thing that happened didn't happen.  The car that smashed into the rear end of the car to the right of me at a stop light, in all its wobbling and skidding, never touched my car.  It was like watching a slow motion shot in a movie.

My cough/cold was better today, but it's still lingering waiting for me to stop paying attention.  So I'm  going to keep this brief so I can go to bed and heal more.

Kyle Rideout Q&A after Edward

We got to see Edward at the film festival.  Interesting movie.  Great subject and two interlocked stories - the first being the use of photography to capture motion, but having a row of cameras take pictures as people walk, jump, etc.  The second was his troubled relationship with his young wife, with lots of hints that his earlier carriage accident and resulting frontal lobe injury, had changed him.  But were not uallysure what comes from the accident and what would have happened anyway.

As he moved from clothed to nude models, I couldn't help but think about how many people volunteered to pose nude back in the late 1870s.   What does it mean about those times?  What does it tell us about our naked selfie era?  What might it suggest about the social construction of nudity?

There were beautiful shots all through the film.  I would have like a little more on the mechanics of how the cameras actually synched.  There were lots of ropes, but it was never clear to me how the ropes triggered the cameras.  Maybe I just missed it.  Given that Eadweard Muybridge is famous because of these photos, and not because of his marriage, a little time explaining that better would have been good for me anyway.  And yes his marriage and jealousy are important.  A well prepared questioner pointed out that timing in the film different from actual history - that he'd done these action photos before he met his wife.  Kyle explained that in the play the chronology was correct, but that the need for constant flashbacks in the film convinced them to portray them as married while he was doing the action shoots.  But when he said that, it some things much clearer - why his wife would have known about him and sought him out, that he was already fairly eccentric before they got married, and why he wouldn't use her as a model in the action studies.  I recognize that the logistics of flashbacks is tricky, but meshing the time together seemed to take something away from the emphasis on their marriage in his life.   We really didn't understand who she was and why she had nothing to do all day but wait for him to come home.  That didn't seem to match the progressive, forward young woman who would cross the country to meet and marry this older photographer.

But it was a perfect film to open the festival given it focused on the beginnings of moving pictures.  Eadweard plays again Wednesday night at Ak Experience theater.


Afterward I got to talk to several filmmakers and festival folks.

Bjørn Olson - Heart of Alaska

Bjørn Olson is a filmmaker from Homer, whose film Heart of Alaska, is in competition among the
Alaska Made Films.  His website says:

Hig, Erin and their two children walk out of their comfortable home on a cold March predawn morning and begin a four-month human powered expedition around Alaska's Cook Inlet. While carrying food, camping gear and other necessities for their survival, the family also carries a question – 'what do you think the future of Alaska will look like in 50 years?'
Read more: http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/movies/heart-of-alaska/#ixzz3tRNPAZ5e

We saw a film from Hig and Erin's earlier trek from Seattle to, what was it, the Bering Sea?  So this ought to be good.  It plays next Sunday (Dec 13) at 11 am.

Scott Ballard's feature, Death on a Rock, is a bout a woman facing death.

Here's the film's Facebook page.   It plays this Sunday, Dec. 6, at 8pm at the Alaska Experience theater.


Yeah, the lighting was weird after the movie.







Phillip Thomas, co-wrote and acted in When the Ocean Met The Sky  (just remember it's in the past tense) about three brothers whose inheritance is dependent on them doing a treasure hunt together.  You can watch the trailer and see him as one of the brothers.

This plays this Sunday (Dec. 6) at 2:30 pm at the Bear Tooth.  Here's the trailer:




OK, I need to get to bed now.  And get better.   Enjoy the festival.

AIFF 2015: The Man Who Proved Horses Leave The Ground While Running Comes To Anchorage Tonight

Well, not exactly in the flesh - he's been dead over a 100 years - but appropriately, in a film about his life.  From the National Museum of American History:

"Expatriate Englishman Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), a brilliant and eccentric photographer, gained worldwide fame photographing animal and human movement imperceptible to the human eye. Hired by railroad baron Leland Stanford in 1872, Muybridge used photography to prove that there was a moment in a horse’s gallop when all four hooves were off the ground at once. He spent much of his later career at the University of Pennsylvania, producing thousands of images that capture progressive movements within fractions of a second."

The film itself begins at 8pm, but it will be proceeded by the opening gala of the Anchorage International Film Festival.

The film is Canadian and simply titled Eadweard.   Kyle Rideout, the director will be there for questions afterward.

Looks like a good start for the festival.

With the Gala and all, it's a little pricey, but includes some food, and a chance to meet some of the filmmakers in town for the festival.  And, of course, ask the filmmaker about the film right after you watch it.

A discount version (regular festival prices) will Wednesday night at the Museum.


I''d add an additional note.  This is a feature film, but it is not in competition.  Most films are submitted to the festival by the filmmakers.  Some of these are recruited by the festival programmers who hear about good films or see them at other festivals.  Some are invited, for various reasons, to show, but not be part of the competition.  I'm assuming that that is the case here.

This is a good thing, because in the past, there were several years in a row where the opening night film ended up as the award winning feature.  That didn't seem like a great idea to a number of us who regularly attend the festival.

And here's the trailer:




He was a bit of a character, but perhaps that says more about the rest of society and how it imposes rules on all of us, than it says about him.

Mao: “I used to read [these outlawed books] in school, covering them up with a [Chinese] Classic when the teacher walked past . . . "

As a boy, Mao read voraciously, developing what would become a lifelong habit.  “What I enjoyed were the romances of Old China, and especially stories of rebellions,” he later recalled.  “I used to read [these outlawed books] in school, covering them up with a [Chinese] Classic when the teacher walked past  . . .  I believe that perhaps I was much influenced by such books, read at an impressionable age.”

I read this on the ferry into Seattle to catch the train to the airport earlier tonight.  I couldn’t help noting the irony between this quote and an article in today’s LA Times  about how four men involved in a book company in Hong Kong that publishes political books about Mainland politicians, disappeared in October this year.  Their work, based on the one country two systems policy, is legal in Hong Kong.  [Can't get the link right now as we prepare to board, but will try to add it later.]

Where will the future Mao’s come from?  Well, Mao’s legacy is pretty grim, so maybe those books should be available too so people don’t repeat what he did.  

The original quote comes from James Bradley, The China Mirage:  The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia.   

Bradley, who also wrote Flags Of Our Fathers, started this research trying to understand what had caused the US to go into the war in which so many died, and his father had fought.  

So far, the basic premise is that American Christian missionaries along with the traders who got rich smuggling opium into China, painted a picture for Americans  of China just waiting to become Christianized and Americanized.  And a few Chinese students in the US played this fantasy to their advantage.  

Sound familiar?  

Seems like we’re still running blindly into other parts of the world we are woefully uninformed about and are easily swayed by Americanized nationals, especially those of wealth, good family, and a US education, and a story that matches our narrative of the US greatness and as the savior of the world.  

Bradley traces how Warren Delano was among the opium traders who created family dynasties.  Delano's fortune was passed on, in part, to  both Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Franklin’s story of China came directly from his Grandpa Warren and his mom Sara who had spent a few early years in a completely isolated rich quarter in Hong Kong.   From this she was an expert on all of China.  

What do we really know about the Middle East?  Sure, there are a lot more sources today, but think about some of our recent adventures, and think about what some politicians are saying we should do.  Their realities are just as wishful as those who invested in Chiang Kai Shek in the 1920s.  

AIFF 2015: Shorts in Competition - From Iran, Belgium, Kenya, US, South Africa,

I started a little ahead this year, but grandchildren rightly claimed my attention this last week.  And passed on their germs.  So my goal at the festival is to see as many good films as I can while my health improves.  I will blog as much as I can and meet those other two goals.  Because of the four different programs these films play in, this got a bit complicated.  I hope I've made it easier for you to find the films you want.  And let me know if there are any typos.

Here are the Shorts in Competition.

Shorts = fictional films much shorter than features.
In Competition = films the screeners thought should be up for awards.

Since 'good' is often subjective - a couple of my favorite shorts weren't in competition last year - this doesn't necessarily mean these are the very best.  [UPDATED 8:53am:  I speculated wrong in the original about what the Jury Selection title actually meant.  So I've cut that out and I'm adding the info I got back from AIFF:  "These were the shorts and super shorts selected for competition." ]

AIFF 2015:  SHORTS IN COMPETITION
Film Title	Director	Country	Length
Nkosi Coiffure	Frederike Migom	Belgium	14 min
Scary Larry	Greg Ivan Smith	USA	13 min
The Bravest, The Boldest	Moon Molson	USA	17 min
The Call	Zamo Mkhwanazil	South Africa	10 min
The Story of a Rainy Night	Mehdi Fard Ghaderi	Iran	23 min
Zawadi	Richard Card	Kenya	12 min

The GOOD NEWS:  The will play several times in different programs.
The BAD NEWS:  Keeping track of when and where is tricky.

So, I've tried to make it a little easier for you to find when they play.  You still have to think a bit.

Program (right)   Film (below)	LOVE & PAIN Saturday Dec 5, 2015 2-4 pm - AK Exper Large	SHORTS JURY SELECTION Thursday. Dec 10 5:30-7:30PM BEAR TOOTH	SHORTS REAL LIFE Saturday Dec. 12 2-4 pm Snow Goose	GLOBAL VILLAGE Sunday, DEC. 13  1PM-2:45PM AK Exper Large
Nikosi Coiffure	√	√	√	√
Scary Larry	√
Bravest,Boldest	√	√	√
The Call		√	√	√
Story of Rainy Night		√		√l
Zawadi		√		√

Nkosi Coiffure
Frederike Migom

Belgium

14 Min

Showing all four programs in table above

"During a fight with her boyfriend on the street in Brussels’ Congolese neighbourhood, Eva escapes into a hair salon. The African women in the salon initially support her, seeing a woman in distress. But when they find out what the fight is about, opinions differ…"

Scary Larry

Greg Ivan Smith (attending  Dec. 5)

USA

13 min

From Middlesex.edu

Over Columbus Day weekend, Middlesex was thrilled to have Greg Ivan Smith back on campus shooting his original short film, "Scary Larry." The movie is set on a college campus in the early 1950's and follows the story of four coeds in the first year the college adds women to its ranks.   Greg wrote the movie to feature the talents of the ensemble of the Theatre 80 acting class.
Greg has been named by indiewire.com as one of “Ten Short Filmmakers You Should Know." Greg's short films have screened on five continents in over 35 film festivals.

This is NOT the slasher movie by the same name.

One Take Films suggests Greg is a pretty flexible film maker:

"I am currently seeking new representation, and would love to write and direct and edit your next zillion dollar movie, independent film, commercial campaign, television series, web series, music video, actor reel, or other exciting project..."

And that he directed the web series Darwin. 

The Bravest, The Boldest
Moon Molson
USA
17 Min
Showing three programs (not Global Village)

You can look at the trailer - two army officers knock on a Harlem door to make an unwelcome announcement.  This film has been to a lot of festivals in the last two years, including Sundance.



The Bravest, the Boldest - Original Trailer from Moon Molson on Vimeo.

The Call

Zamo Mkhwanazi  

South Africa 10 min.

Showing three times (not Love  & Pain, which seems most fitting)

A pregnant woman, a man, a decision.  

The Story of a Rainy Night 
Mehdi Fard Ghaderi 
Iran
23 min
Showing Jury Selection and Global Village

From an Iranian website:

"Story of a Rainy Night" was praised for using a different approach in presenting filling the gap between the reality of family relations in Iran and the West's demonizing media reports with sincere emotion and empathy.
Fard-Qaderi's 24-minute film is produced by Iran's Youth Cinema Association and narrates the story of an elderly man who is celebrating his birthday and takes a new look at the relationships among his grown children.
It has been screened and awarded in numerous international film festivals, including the Hollywood Festival of New Cinema and the 9th annual Colony Film Festival in Marietta, Ohio.
Mehdi Fard-Qaderi is one of Iran's promising filmmakers who has directed several successful short films so far. His films have been screened in numerous national and international festivals."

Zawadi
Richard Card
Kenya
12 min
Showing Jury Selection and Global Village

Having some trouble finding out about this movie without just copying from other film festivals.  Here's a bio of the director from his website:

"RICHARD LIVES IN LOS ANGELES BUT IS STILL A PROUD TEXAN. HIS STYLE AND TECHNIQUE HAS BEEN SHAPED BY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE BUT ALSO BY WORKING WITH AND STUDYING UNDER MANY INDUSTRY SHAPING DPS INCLUDING BILL POPE ASC (THE MATRIX TRILOGY), ROBERTO SCHAFER ASC (THE KITE RUNNER) AND DANA GONZALES (SOUTHLAND). A NOMAD AT HEART, RICHARD FINDS GREAT INSPIRATION IN OTHER CULTURES AND TRAVEL. IF HE IS NOT SHOOTING A MOVIE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY HE IS TRAVELING THERE WITH A STILL CAMERA TO DOCUMENT ITS INTRICACIES.

RICHARD BELIEVES NOTHING GREAT IS MADE WITHOUT PASSION, HE APPROACHES ALL OF HIS WORK WITH THIS MENTALITY.

IN 2008 RICHARD RECEIVED 2 DEGREES FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS BOTH BACHELORS OF SCIENCE FOCUSING IN FILM PRODUCTION AND PHILOSOPHY."

There's also a Vimeo video there from the film, but I couldn't find a share link.  And it doesn't have subtitles, so I'm guessing it is not a trailer.  There's a kid collecting bottles.  You can see it here.  Looks to have promise.

You've All Heard About The Guy Who Ate A Car, Right?

I was talking to my granddaughter about things and the story about the man who ate a car came to mind.  I was at the computer, so I figured I could get some video of this great feat.

I got something about a Frenchman, but no video.  Then I got the video.






It doesn't take too long to realize this has to be a spoof. First there aren't any pictures.  No way.  Second, they're all too articulate and serious.


.



But on the same Youtube page was The man who ate a lightbulb.





This guy looks pretty real, though some of the crunching noises sure seem to have been edited in.  My wife was wholly disapproving and my granddaughter and I had a serious discussion about not trying to to this and how dangerous it would be.

Next, there was the man without bones.






OK, this is getting a little weird.  But it is always amazing to me what the human body can do.  And the ways we limit ourselves by saying, 'that's impossible.'

OK, there was one more that seemed more appropriate to an almost three year old:  World's Fastest Reader




I told her she could try doing this.


Then I found this Jalopnik post that says nobody has eaten a car:

"The idea that a person has actually eaten a car is so commonly accepted that I had to figure out why that is. And that why is actually a who, and that who is a Frenchman named Michael Lotito. This is the guy that most people are pretty sure they saw eat a car on That's Incredible or something like that back in the '80s. And they almost did."

He does say that the French guy - who died in 2007 - didn't eat a car.  He went from bicycles and shopping carts to a Cesna 150.

He also concludes the video at the top is a fictional short film.  Which is what I was working on - a list of the shorts in competition for the Anchorage International Film Festival.  So enough of these diversions.

Seattle Shots Before Limping Back To Anchorage

It's been a good almost two weeks with both kids and the grandkids together for Thanksgiving in Seattle, but my body is not 100%.  My granddaughter's gift of a cough has slowed me down.

This was after a trip to Elliot Bay bookstore the other day, getting back to the ferry.

Taking my son and his family to the airport yesterday we went through total fog down to the water on the ferry, to surreal sun pierced fog with giant tree shadows.  But I was driving so can't show you that.   This was later.  Seatac was in the blinding, early morning sunshine, but going back downtown, there were intermittent pockets of sun and fog.






And unnatural fog.

Here's a different Seattle view from the ferry.

And for people like me, who have searched for unsweetened cranberry juice, it exists.  My son-in-law had some students who make it at Starvation Alley Farms.  It's organic, and I need to mix it about 1/5 cranberry juice and 4/5 water. Mostly they sell it to bars that use it for mixed drinks, but it's also available in a few markets in the Northwest.  I know the name's a bit strange for a food product, but that was the name of the farm before they bought it.

Cards by Lynn

We're excited to get home for the Anchorage International Film Festival that starts Friday.  I'm taking
these last couple of days to catch up a bit on important things that haven't gotten done yet.  Like writing thank you notes to friends of my mom's.  I feel bad about how long this is taking me to do, but it's hard, and I want to let people know how important they've been in my mom's life as well as mine.

And to try to get rid of this cough.

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything” - Mark Twain Would be 180 Years Old Today

Mark Twain
Born:  November 30, 1835, Florida, MO

Died: April 21, 1910, Redding, CT

I had the good fortune to go to a Junior High school named after someone I actually admired - Mark Twain.   So here are some quotes attributed to him at GoodReads:

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
― Mark Twain“ 

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”― Mark Twain

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

“Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.”
― Mark Twain

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
― Mark Twain

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
― Mark Twain

“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
― Mark Twain

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
― Mark Twain

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
― Mark Twain

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
― Mark Twain

“I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
― Mark Twain

“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”
― Mark Twain

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”
― Mark Twain

“Life is short, Break the Rules.
Forgive quickly, Kiss SLOWLY.
Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably
And never regret ANYTHING
That makes you smile.”
― Mark Twain

“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”
― Mark Twain

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
― Mark Twain, The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”
― Mark Twain

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
― Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

“Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.”
― Mark Twain

“What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce.”
― Mark Twain

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
― Mark Twain

“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”
― Mark Twain

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
― Mark Twain

“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
― Mark Twain
 

Trump's Poll Numbers: 70-80% Of Republicans Support Someone Else

I've been frustrated with the media frenzy over Trump.  So what if he's leading the polls right now?  For example, this graphic from Real Clear Politics, has Trump averaging in recent polls 26.7:

click to enlarge and focus

I tried to find the question that voters were asked, but I suspect different polls were slightly different. The assumption is that they were asked whom they would vote for (today?  at the primary?), but another poll I found asked who they thought would be the Republican candidate.  There the numbers for Trump were much higher.

But really, 26.7 percent means that 73.3 percent are supporting other candidates.  And these are just Republicans.  It would be more than that if all the other voters - Democrats and undeclared - were taken into account.   As other candidates drop from the race, how many will move over to Trump?

We can't predict for sure anything at this point - the numbers are relatively low (spread among a lot of candidates) and lots will happen between now and when someone gets the actual Republican nomination.

The media, rather than looking deeply into the important issues and how the candidates' statements jibe with the truth (yes, they are doing some of that) are highlighting the outrageous, merely spurring the other candidates on to be more extreme.  The link goes to what sounds much more like a blog post than something from the New York Times.


So as I was looking up numbers for this post, I got the the fivethirtyeight blog  (posted November 23, 2015), which was saying pretty much what I was thinking, but with much more statistical rigor:

 Right now, he [Trump] has 25 to 30 percent of the vote in polls among the roughly 25 percent of Americans who identify as Republican. (That’s something like 6 to 8 percent of the electorate overall, or about the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.) As the rest of the field consolidates around him, Trump will need to gain additional support to win the nomination. That might not be easy, since some Trump actions that appeal to a faction of the Republican electorate may alienate the rest of it. Trump’s favorability ratings are middling among Republicans (and awful among the broader electorate).

All this fuss about what 6 to 8 percent of the overall electorate want?  Puts it in a much different light.

So, forget the polls and the attention seeking antics, and read up on the issues.  For instance here's a giant climate change meeting (COP21) in Paris starting Monday.  Do you know what COP21 stands for?  Here's some help from Radio France Internationale:

"The COP21-UNFCC is a convenient and abridged acronym for an international conference and summit due to take place in Paris, France from 30 November to 11 December 2015. COP21 stands for the 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change."

Chattng With Guterson, Brunelle, And Hinman At Bainbridge Island Bookstore

We wandered into downtown Winslow and stopped at the bookstore (Eagle Harbor Book Co.) where we ran into three local Bainbridge Island authors on display with their books.  I guess this can be anywhere from author hell to heaven, trying to get people to buy your books.  And for me it was a chance to talk to three writers.

Gutterson with Problems With People and Cedars

I had read David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars long ago - it won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.  It weaves in Bainbridge Island's complicated history of Japanese-Americans' relationship to the white population on the island through a murder trial.   It deals with the essential topic of this blog - how do we know what's true?  Did Kabuo kill Carl over old family feuds?  There's also a pivotal role for a journalist who has his own history with the families involved.  

David's new book is short stories titled, Problems with People.  We talked a bit about the difficulties of writing about people you know.  He offered that when it's fictionalized, no one really knows what is true and what is not.  Except, I suggested, those involved, and they might not agree with the writer's view of events.  Personal experiences are critical fodder for a serious writer.  It's a dilemma.   





Lynn Brunelle, was enjoying the opportunity to talk about her book Mama Gone Geek.  As I understood her,  it's about figuring out ways to talk to her kids about big questions - like why Grandma was forgetting things, but really was into Santa Claus when her son was starting to question Santa Claus.  Using science.

She used DNA to help explain where babies come from.

My daughter told me when we got home that Lynne was one of the writers for the Bill Nye The Science Guy television show.





The third author was Wendy Hinman.  From the title of her book, Tightwads On The Loose, I thought this was going to be about how to live cheap.  It is, in a way, but it's really about her seven years of sailing adventures with her husband on a 31 foot sailboat.  The route our discussion focused on was from Japan to Seattle - a 49 day trip that was a little south of the northern route that freighters take.  I asked if she seen the Pacific Gyre - the continent of floating plastic in the north Pacific - and she said no.  It tends not to have good winds and they were sailing.  Their radio went out fairly quickly, so all they had in case of trouble was an emergency beacon.

Since I'm from Alaska, she mentioned her friend's book, Treadwell Gold.  We had been to the mine back in 2010 when Dennis, a Juneau local with long family ties to the mine, took us around.


Here, from the Hinman's book, is a map of their travels.  Sorry it's not a little clearer, but you make it bigger and clearer by clicking on the image.

[Update Nov. 30, 2015:  I once told an ADN reporter it would be nice to have an editor to catch my typos.  He told me, no, I was better off without one.  He was talking more bout choice of what I wrote and and how I wrote, not about typos.   That's all a preface to a mea culpa to Wendy and David for misspelling your names.  Wendy's caught while I was posting, but left it wrong in the title.  I put an extra t in David's.  But I think I've got it right now.]

Who Are The Real Crybabies?

Here's the column headline that spawned this post:

• Epidemic of sensitivity populates US colleges with crybabies*

Really?  Black students complaining about mistreatment on campus are 'crybabies'? (I've given my thoughts on the Missouri protests already.) What better way to avoid talking about the issues and to dismiss their complaints, than simply calling them names.  It seems to me that name calling and crybabies are both common in primary school.

By high school, some students learn logic and the common logical fallacies, like ad hominem attacks (from Logically Fallacious):

AD HOMINEM (ABUSIVE)
argumentum ad hominem
(also known as:  personal abuse, personal attacks, abusive fallacy, damning the source, name calling, needling [form of], refutation by character)
Description: Attacking the person making the argument, rather than the argument itself, when the attack on the person is completely irrelevant to the argument the person is making.
Logical Form:Person 1 is claiming Y.
Person 1 is a moron.
Therefore, Y is not true.

I googled crybabies.  The first couple of pages yielded two more stories calling black students crybabies.   (And more links to a podcast called Crybabies which, from what I can tell, celebrates people actually showing emotions.)

• The Ululations of Radical College Crybabies
• ‘Mizzou students are crybabies’ bathroom graffiti denounced as ‘hate speech’

This reminds me of the old stories of conservatives sending out the daily soundbites for media to use and you'd find the same words and stories repeated over and over again.

I did find one from a leftist perspective:

• “Douchebag says what?”: Stephen Colbert unloads on CNBC, GOP crybabies

The GOP crybabies for Colbert are the Republican candidates complaining about getting difficult questions at the CNBC debate.  Presidential candidates who can't deal with media questions does seem a lot more petty than black students standing up to continued racial discrimination on campus.

I also found a Salon article about Republican Crybabies that helps us understand where this is coming from:

Why Are Conservatives Such Whiny Crybabies? From Fox News to angry police, the right's stock-in-trade is predictable and lame.
Paul Rosenberg
February 5, 2015
 Over the years, Salon columnist Heather “Digby” Parton has written repeatedly about GOP/conservative hissy fits, most notably in her 2007 classic, ‘The Art of the Hissy Fit,’ where she noted that, “the right’s successful use of phony sanctimony and faux outrage…often succeeded in changing the dialogue and titillating the media into a frenzy of breathless tabloid coverage.”  It first caught her attention in the late ’90s, when top GOP adulterers Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston  ”pretended to be offended at the president’s extramarital affair” as well as being outraged that Democrats raised campaign money just like they did.   .   .

“[I]t’s about more than simple political distraction or savvy public relations. It’s actually a very well developed form of social control called Ritual Defamation (or Ritual Humiliation)” Digby wrote, linking to this explanatory article, and quoting the following passage:

Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and “insensitivity” or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.

There's a lot more, that was just an appetizer.  One could argue about the title of this last piece using the word 'crybabies' too, except that here that really is the topic - having typical crybaby hissy fits over stuff that really isn't anything serious, in an attempt to defame the person being attacked.  


*[This was the headline in the Alaska Dispatch News, but I haven't figured out how to get non-subscriber links to their syndicated columns and articles.  This Washington Post version has a different title, but includes crybabies in the first line.]
I'd also note that this article then goes on to blame it on the "Everybody Gets A Trophy culture,"  which, I'm willing to bet, is not something most black college students grew up with.  If anything, that was a white phenomenon.  Black kids have had their self-esteem denigrated every day in school, in the media, and everywhere else.  And black mothers are known for preparing their sons on how to deal with police.  They aren't just making this up.