Is Trump More About Media Attention than Policy?

I don’t know, but people are saying, people are talking about Trump these days…they are talking about him—Donald Trump—a lot, and these are people who know a thing or two, even his pals at Fox News,…they are talking about how he’s just, you know, I don’t know, playing the media. Even the Rush-kin said it, way back in December of 2015, saying that he was going to explain “how it is that Donald Trump owns the media.”

So, do you wonder if his campaign isn’t really about public policy, but more about airtime, clicks, audience? Do you think, maybe, he figures he wins if he loses and he wins if he wins? Laughing all the way to the bank?

Remembering a 1939 sit-down strike

On this date in 1939, Samuel Wilbert Tucker and six collaborators staged what has got to be one of the cleverest civil rights sit-ins of all time. One by one, William Evans, Otto L. Tucker, Edward Gaddis, Morris Murray, and Clarence Strange went to the circulation desk at the Alexandria (VA, US) Public Library and requested library cards. As each was refused a card to use the library his taxes supported, he quietly went to the stacks, selected a book, sat at a table, and began to read it. Then the next followed with the same request, result, and action.

S. J. Ackerman’s 2000 account, published as “Samuel Wilbert Tucker: The Unsung Hero of the School Desegregation Movement” in Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, begins with the priceless description of these events shown at the right. Eventually, of course, library managers and city officials summoned the police. Meanwhile, according to story, Robert Strange (the sixth collaborator) raced to Mr. Tucker’s nearby law office and alterted him about how the events were occuring.

Inside the library, the police arrested the miscreant readers and led them outside. When they emerged from the library, the officers and five collaborators found 300 spectators, according to Mr. Ackerman. Mr. Tucker’s ploy had worked spectactularly on the ground, though it didn’t generate as much press as one might have hoped. According to Mr. Ackerman’s account, “The media paid scant attention to the episode. Preoccupied with the Hitler-Stalin pact, disclosed that same day, the Washington Star missed the story. The Post reported that ‘five colored youths’ had staged a ‘sit-down strike.’ The Times Herald and the African-American Washington Tribune used similar terminology.”

Even if it didn’t make a big splash, the 1939 sit-down strike in a public library sounds like an early incident in something pretty important. Civil rights. Non-violence. Rule of law. Access to public services. The list could go on and on….

There are sequels to this story: Mr. Tucker was later offered a library card for a “colored library,” and he refused it. He later co-founded an eminent law firm in Richmond (VA, US) and argued important civil rights cases, many before the US Supreme Court (including Green v. County School Board of New Kent County). He served for many years as the representative of Virginia’s NAACP. And very much more.

You can read more about Mr. Tucker including Mr. Ackerman’s account and the Wikimedia biographical entry about him.

Apple’s Human Family Ad

I understand that advertisements are brief, so the iPhone ad by Apple featuring Maya Angelou’s marvelous “Human Family” had to be limited to 60 sec. Ms. Angelou’s poem runs 105 sec. So, of course, some parts of the poem had to be cut. Well, here’s a link allowing you to hear Ms. Angelou reading the poem in it’s entirety. Sorry. No photos shot on an iPhone or anything else. Just the the elegant, excellent words in her beautiful, more-alike-than-different, human-family voice.

Most readers will see the Apple advertisement without my help.

Improv Everywhere causes another scene: Porta-potty!

What a hoot!

Sending thoughts and prayers?

Tired of hearing people using that phrase? Want to see how well sending your thoughts and prayers works? Into retro video games? Well, for whatever reason, now you can play a game of Thoughts and Prayers. That’s right! This image is linked to the on-line version of the game.

By the way, in the game there is an alternative to thinking and praying, but it doesn’t do much, as you may discover if you play. You might consider contributing to Everytown.org, though.

 

Vi Hart’s superb analysis of “Happy B’day”

At the beginning of her analysis of the lyrics and music of of the familiar song, Vi Hart refers to recent news by saying, “So you might have heard that you can sing ‘Happy Birthday’ without getting sued….” That’s just the beginning. Click here to watch the video and learn a lot.

The image is linked, but if you’d prefer, here is a direct link.

Vi Hart out on a limb

Vi Hart, who is probably my favorite mathematician not named Robert Berry, released another wonderful video on 15 September 2015. Vi Hart muses about using a tree diagram to represent digits recursively in infinite progression (regression?). As usual, it’s smart, informative, amusing, and highly recommended. Snag a view from the Web page, Infinite Binary Trees, or from the YouTube page.