Tag Archives: Mexico

Days of Death

Posted on by

I’m taking an anthropology course at USM over Winter Session. These are “compressed” between semester course options. Basically, 15 weeks of work gets forced into an intense four-week offering. Lots of reading, writing, and reflection tacked onto an already busier stretch than I’ve had in probably three years. For a part-time student like me, it’s a way to make progress. “It’s all good,” as they say.

One of our assignments required watching an excellent documentary produced by the BBC on the Mexican Day of the Dead. In a nutshell, this is a day that combines indigenous Aztec traditions about death with the Catholic Holy Day, All Saints Day. Because Americans are rarely curious about anybody else but their own dysfunctional culture, most know little or nothing about this Mexican tradition that actually honors the dead in a way that Americans fall far short in their avoidance of the topic, or their superficial “thoughts and prayers” Facebook contributions.

Once a week since Christmas, I’ve had to respond to one of three assigned student questions we’ve all had to generate from our reading for the class. This week, I tackled this question because death and how we as Americans process it is something I’ve been living for the past three years. Continue reading →

Feelings Not Facts

Posted on by

After a welcome break from tutoring, I was back at for the first time in two weeks. I’m not sure why—maybe it was just that I’d gotten used to having my evenings back and under my own control—but I was exhausted when I rolled up on the cove around 9:45 Wednesday night.

When I get home after 2 ½ hours of trying to get 25 high school-age students to put down their cell phones and do some homework, I’ll often sit-up for an hour or so with a beer (sometimes a snack) and more often than not, I’ll watch The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC. Because I tune-in just prior to the 10:00 p.m. segue between hosts and shows, I’ve come to enjoy being there for the “hand-off” that takes place between the brilliant Rachel Maddow and O’Donnell, a savvy political veteran of DC’s internecine combat.

Wednesday night, though, for some odd reason, I switched on CNN. When I am home at night, I rarely miss Ms. Maddow’s special blend of research, commentary, and the way she weaves each evening’s storyline, coaxing viewers along for something other than the usual soundbite journalism that’s all-too-common in this post-factual era.

It’s unfortunate that the only two left-of-center news networks force us to choose: pitting Maddow against Chris Cuomo (over on CNN), and then, O’Donnell goes head-to-head against worthy rival, Don Lemon. What I often end up doing is channel-surfing between networks during commercials, which works at times.

Cuomo, in addition to being a journalist is also a licensed attorney. He draws on that  legal background to “make his case” in whatever story he’s covering on a given night. Wednesday night, it was President Trump, and how the Orange Menace opts for feelings over facts, time-and-time-again. This is nothing new to anyone who doesn’t source their information solely from TrumpTV (better know as, Fox News). But for the Kool-Aid crowd of Trump toadies, this is an interesting flip-flop. Continue reading →