The 'widely shared' part is where Capehart was tossing in some bullshit quantification that im sure sounded good, and was meant to be provocative, which is fine because he is a reporter and gets to ask in anyway that he liked, and thought Biden handled well and demonstrated humanity.
I like the Friday discussion with Brooks and Capehart on the PBS Newshour. Too bad maga types don't watch things like that where a youngish black guy and an old white guy discuss the goings on of the week and even tho they disagree some times they don't get stupid about it. Not like the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN with just constant repetition of speculation and so much filler. They bring up points and nuance a layman like myself may not have noticed in the news broadcasts.
Their relationship on that show is very reminiscent of a friendship I have with a 20something black man and his family. I'm a very old white guy that retired after working for 25 years inside Folsom prison supervising convicts at work. He's an ex-con with a lovely wife and two beautiful young daughters. We met a couple of years ago when he stopped by my house and asked if he and his daughters could pick a few oranges from my tree. We quickly became friends and we have many deep meaningful conversations about life and times. He has included me into his family and I attend his daughters birthday parties and school plays, we take bike rides around the park together and I have a wonderful time. I bought his oldest (6) a bike for her birthday and she loves going for rides with me. They are awesome people and we both seem to get a lot from our relationship. He certainly has a different view of things than I do but we always manage to talk things out. He has a strained relationship with his father and I think I fill some voids in his life, I know he fills some in my life. We are best friends.I like the Friday discussion with Brooks and Capehart on the PBS Newshour. Too bad maga types don't watch things like that where a youngish black guy and an old white guy discuss the goings on of the week and even tho they disagree some times they don't get stupid about it. Not like the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN with just constant repetition of speculation and so much filler. They bring up points and nuance a layman like myself may not have noticed in the news broadcasts.
I don't watch any Faux News so can hardly expect the other side to watch something definitely left-leaning tho if there were a right-leaning news program that was as to the point and not pushing an agenda I might give it a look to see a balanced view of the other side. In my dreams.
Anyone who imagines TFFG was/is capable of running a lemonade stand legally & effectively, already has more “Trump derangement” than they can manage
How about the petty MF DEMANDING that his name appear on stimulus checks,surprised he didn't want it hologrammed so it would vividly pop on paper in a multi-colored rainbow glow TRUMP,even cutting relief checks to suffering Americans is a quid-pro-quo w/the KING-O-VILE.
I never did like authoritarians.
I had a pretty strained relationship with my dad too but it got better later not long before he passed from cancer. More that I finally began to mature as I hit 30 and could see things from his point of view better. Him a WWII naval vet with a very strong work ethic and me an aspiring hippy who would work long enough to collect poggie and party the rest of the time.
My dad was a ww2 navy vet also. He shoveled coal in the engine room of the H.M.C.S. Charlottetown.I had a pretty strained relationship with my dad too but it got better later not long before he passed from cancer. More that I finally began to mature as I hit 30 and could see things from his point of view better. Him a WWII naval vet with a very strong work ethic and me an aspiring hippy who would work long enough to collect poggie and party the rest of the time.
He was really proud of me when I sobered up and decided to go back to school but passed before I actually started. So many times I wanted to throw in the towel but thoughts of him kept me going to graduate with a diploma in environmental chemistry at the age of almost 36. I never got a high school diploma and had to take a math upgrade course for 6 weeks in the summer before school started in Sept.
There was a black guy from Kenya sitting in on the class to brush up before taking a 2 year electronics class and as we both smoked got to talking when out for a smoke break. We ended up being pretty good friends and he even lived with us for about 6 months. My boys were pretty young and we went all over the place together. He really loved it up at our cabin and got to be a pretty good fisherman. His student visa ran out so he went over to Vancouver Island to dodge the authorities and was working at a big pot farm then a brother back home who had sworn to kill him if he came back was killed by gov't soldiers so Joel went back to Kenya and the last I heard of him was he had gone full alcoholic. He had got some lady in his village to contact me on FB as she wanted to come to Canada and he knew I was a single dad so wanted to hook us up. Bless his heart.
When I grew up near Vancouver we didn't have a black or asian kid in any class until about grade 5 so I had little contact with any but other white folk. After I dropped out of school in grade 11 and started working in factories was when I started having more contact with other races. Many were 1st gen east indians that didn't mix socially with us whites. This was back in the 70s and I have to admit to being just as prejudiced as most of my peers at the time. There was quite an influx of east indians back then and like anytime a new immigrant class starts moving in there was friction. These days I'm a visible minority in my old home town of Richmond which now looks more like the old Chinatown in Vancouver than than the smallish town I grew up in at my last visit about 7 years ago.
Rather than become more hard-nosed and anti-everything as I approach my 70th b-day later this year I've become a lot more accepting of change even tho I don't understand a lot of it. I don't think I'll ever figure out all this LGBTQ etc stuff but I've had gay friends since my teens so have no issues with any of it. My biggest concern is the total invasion of our privacy in almost every aspect of our lives. My dad told me that when they first brought in social insurance numbers there was a big stink about that. His generation compared it to how the Nazis tattooed numbers on the Jews and you look around now how the younger crowd spill their whole lives all over the internet with little or no regard to privacy concerns.
To return to the topic of this thread I think Biden proved in his SOTU address that he's still playing with a full deck and like myself has evolved enough to see that trying to keep things the way they were a century ago is not the way forward in this rapidly changing world. The kinds of programs that the right decry as socialism are no different than how neighbours help each other in times of trouble but expanded to include all neighbourhoods everywhere. Things like universal health care, a living wage and autonomy of your own body should be givens for all and not just the purview of the rich.
A lot of changes are needed but the changes the right are pushing for are in the wrong direction.
I keep meaning to get the forms for dad's naval service sent to my sister's place where my 96yo mom lives with her. Will be a lot easier to get his records if mom is the one who signs for them. As I was adopted I'd have to send notarized copies of my adoption papers and jump thru a lot more hoops to get access to them. All I really know about his service is he signed up a year before he was old enough and served on destroyers in both theatres ending his service as Chief Gunnery Officer on one of them. Mom's old hope chest with his uniform and other stuff was stolen in a break-in many years ago tho she had removed his medals and still has those.
That's really cool,warming,feel good vibes,and it's little things like that that can effect change through example,You can dispel myths among close minded people through your experience as can your friend through his. I can't say I have something that deep in my life but I have had enough encounters with other races that warm the heart,it's like shit man we're all just people and honey IS much better than vinegar in this life.
WOW,OM,I'm also adopted,My father was also on a Destroyer,USS MC Cord,a Fletcher class,in the Korean War,he passed at 52 (heart attack) while I was 19 and now man of the house.Was contacted by Bio Family at 26,after some letter correspondance w/my full sister my bio parents stood together and my guess is they weren't ready for me,bio dad was serving in Air Force in Nam and I was adopted at Otis AFB. I just let things go and communication fell off,my fault,as I had mixed feelings about hurting my mom(she had 7 miscarriages).She passed in 2000. SMALL WORLD,found out my ethnicity and the tidbit that my maternal GF was a WW2 fighter pilot.I keep meaning to get the forms for dad's naval service sent to my sister's place where my 96yo mom lives with her. Will be a lot easier to get his records if mom is the one who signs for them. As I was adopted I'd have to send notarized copies of my adoption papers and jump thru a lot more hoops to get access to them. All I really know about his service is he signed up a year before he was old enough and served on destroyers in both theatres ending his service as Chief Gunnery Officer on one of them. Mom's old hope chest with his uniform and other stuff was stolen in a break-in many years ago tho she had removed his medals and still has those.
He never talked about the war and mom doesn't think he saw a lot of action but he never told her much about his service either. I'd like to find out more as most of the guys who don't say much about the war saw more than they are willing to share. He used to help with setting up entertainment at the HMCS Discovery base on Dead Man's Island next to Stanley Park in Vancouver and would take me up there as a kid. I heard a few things from some of the guys he served with but they were all boozing so how much is fact right. They all seemed to really like him tho.
I know at the start of the war he was on convoy duty out of Halifax over to Britain so how he could not have seen plenty of action doesn't seem right. His dad served in WWI and I know nothing of his service. He and grandma emigrated to Canada after that war and dad was born in Vancouver. My birth mom, as an unwed mother, was sent down from Prince George to have me in Vancouver in 1954 where I was eventually adopted by mom and dad. Dad is Scottish and mom's parents emigrated from Switzerland a few years before she was born in southern Alberta. My b-mom is Scottish and all I know of my b-dad is that he was a lot older than her and his family lived in Saskatchewan so I'm not sure of that side of the family tho I have red hair and freckles so got the Scottish side of those genes. Ancestry has a sale on for the DNA kits and thinking of getting one of those to see if I can track that down. B-mom never told her family about me so they were shocked when I got info and made contact almost 10 years ago. Other than e-mails with one half-sister for a few months I have no contact with any of the 2 half-sisters and 3 surviving half-brothers. The adoption service contacted the oldest son who got the one sister to contact me as she lived a couple hours away but I suspect they didn't tell the others. B-mom died about 6 months before I made contact and the estate was still being settled. My mom said maybe they are afraid I was going to go for a share of the estate so I let that half-sister know I wouldn't do that and was willing to put it in writing but never heard back. I find it odd that out of 5 people not one wants any contact which is why I think 3 of them weren't told about my existence. Oh well, I have enough family drama with the family I know.
Still not sure about doing that Ancestry test tho. I've always thought of myself as all Scottish but a lot of Ukrainians settled in Sask so who knows. Could open a can of worms or maybe find a bunch of great people.
My mom encouraged me to seek out my birth mother when I was in my 20s but I felt like I would be disloyal to her. I should have tho as I could have got info about my b-dad. I had an also adopted sister 2 years younger than me who did and she had a half brother with the same first name as me and we looked like we could be brothers. Both red heads and about the same height but he was a heavier version but all muscle. We got along great and went fishing all the time when I got up for a visit. I'd stay at his little place or at his parents place right on the ocean. Bobbing around in a 10' boat in the sea was lots of fun. That sister died in march 2020 after years of dealing with ovarian cancer. Mom had one natural born daughter she lives with now and will be 97 in Aug. That sister turns 65 this year and is almost exactly 5 years younger than me.
I had the same haunting loyalty thing myself,which is why I let things go.At 35 both my parents were gone and mentally I didn't want know/experience the passing of 2 MORE parents in my life.Bless your mom,hope she sees triple digits,I always tell people that I was adopted as a baby and had a great childhood w/2 loving parents and to save your sympathy for the poor foster children who navigate multiple households and some shady people whose motivation is sometimes questionable,I was lucky.My mom encouraged me to seek out my birth mother when I was in my 20s but I felt like I would be disloyal to her. I should have tho as I could have got info about my b-dad. I had an also adopted sister 2 years younger than me who did and she had a half brother with the same first name as me and we looked like we could be brothers. Both red heads and about the same height but he was a heavier version but all muscle. We got along great and went fishing all the time when I got up for a visit. I'd stay at his little place or at his parents place right on the ocean. Bobbing around in a 10' boat in the sea was lots of fun. That sister died in march 2020 after years of dealing with ovarian cancer. Mom had one natural born daughter she lives with now and will be 97 in Aug. That sister turns 65 this year and is almost exactly 5 years younger than me.
I have the original little info sheets about my b-parents. My mom was only 17 when she had me and b-dad was 37. She had been treated for syphilis before I was born but I didn't mention that tidbit to my half-sister during our contacts. I sure would have liked to hear the story behind that.