Jim: Roundtable time. Remember our e-mail
address is thethirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. Participating in our roundtable are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub. Betty's kids did the
illustration. You are reading a rush transcript.
Jim: So much to cover. One person wants to know why we didn't cover the recall since the core of THIRD is now based in California? I'll limit this to Jess, Dona, Ty, Betty, Kat, Wally, Ava and C.I. since, along with me, they're the ones in California.
Dona: I didn't see it going anywhere so didn't see the need for us to cover it. And by "cover" I am including attempted pieces that fell apart and weren't published. I knew from C.I. and from friends she had over that Gavin's polling had said it was no real threat. I knew the groups that needed shoring up because I do handle C.I.'s speaking schedule. It didn't seem like anything we needed to cover.
Jess: I'd agree with that. Had the recall gone forward, I'd already noted -- and Betty backed me up -- that there would be coverage at this site of the Green Party candidate. But it didn't look like the recall was going to pass and there were other things to focus on.
Jim: Dona, would you have been comfortable writing about it if we had? I'm asking that since you know what groups C.I. was doing reach out to.
Dona: I hadn't really thought about that. Would it have been a conflict of interest for me? Was it fair I had the knowledge that I did? I don't know. I'd have to think about it now because it honestly had not entered my head.
Ty: I had nothing kind to say. Early on, when Catlyn Jenner was announcing, I was ticked and made a comment to my boyfriend who laughed and then added, "You know if someone didn't know you, they might think the remark was transphobic." And he's right. Catlyn is a touchy subject to a lot of people. So if I can't say what I want, I don't see the point. And, to be clear, the joke wasn't that Jenner was a woman, it was that an elderly Olympian thought that listing qualified her to be governor. It was, "Oh so then Carl Lewis must be qualified to be President of the United States."
Jim: People are touchy about Jenner, you are correct. That's why I love it when SOUTH PARK does an episode with her -- running someone over in her car.
Betty: People think that because she is a transwoman that she is left and she isn't. I can remember, in 2016, when that idiot Debra Messing was kissing her ass on Twitter and C.I. noted in that day's "Iraq snapshot," someone forgot to tell Debra that Jenner's a Republican who supports Donald Trump.
Marcia: Stick a pin that, I want to jump in on it in a moment.
Jim: Pin stuck. Wally?
Wally: Nothing to say on the issue. It was DOA.
Jim: Marcia, I'm pulling the pin. You have the floor.
Marcia; Okay. So what do you think of 'Uncle Tom.' I used to use that phrase for Colin Powell and Condi Rice and many others. But now I'm uncomfortable with it. In part because of Betty's writing -- thank you, Betty for your kind nature.
Jim: Catch us up, Marcia.
Marcia: Betty tries to be supportive of all African-Americans and she's used her site to note repeatedly that this or that Black Republican believes differently than her but, hey, it's good to know that all viewpoints are out there and that we don't have to be the same. And that is true. I don't want people to make me be the same as everyone else. I think Condie and Collie are War Criminals --- I know Betty agrees with me on that -- but I don't know that I'd use that uncle term on them today.
Jim: Interesting. Any thoughts?
Cedric: I'll jump in on Larry Elder. I would never vote for him, we are on opposite sides of the political fence. But he is correct that if he had been an African-American Democrat he would have been treated by the press better -- he would have been hailed as a first, etc. Instead, he was accused of vile things -- promoting white supremacy -- and it was disgusting. This was on CNN. It was tasteless and out of bounds. And it was from non-Blacks to be clear. I get what Betty's been talking about for the last few years. I think Betty's the most spiritual of all of us. I know Betty's religious and I am too. But I think Betty's a bit deeper than me and a lot of the rest of us.
Ann: I would agree with that. She also writes in a very moving way when she's on that topic or when she's writing about her parents.
Kat: Amen to that. When Betty's cooking, no one can touch her. Although her focus now really is science.
Betty: Thank you for the kind words. My focus is really science now. I used to blog about the science on NPR's TALK OF THE NATION. Then that show went off. And I could grip about the fact that we had less science coverage and needed more and just gripe or I could do my own little part to help increase attention to science. So that's why I've shifted focus. But, goodness, it really makes me appreciate C.I. She's got to mention Iraq every day. There are days I want to talk about something other than science -- especially if climate crisis news is what I'm looking at and I'm depressed -- so I'll grab something else. I don't know if I could do science every day or even just five days a week, week after week, year after year.
Dona: Betty, last week, you noted a survey. Could you talk abut that?
Betty: Sure. This was in I find a report by Julia Jacobo (ABC NEWS):
Children and young people around the world are experiencing increasing
anxiety over the fate of the planet -- specifically climate change and
how lawmakers are handling the looming crisis, according to new
research.
Scientists who surveyed 10,000 young people, ages 16 to 25, across 10
countries, found "widespread psychological distress" among them, and,
for the first time, discovered that the anxiety was significantly
related to perceived government inaction, according to a study published
Tuesday in Lancet Planetary Health.
Betty (Con't): And let me especially emphasize this from Jacobo's report:
Of the young people surveyed, 58% said governments are betraying hem,
while 61% said governments are not protecting them, the planet or future
generations.
Betty (Con't): The youth of America clearly cares. And that survey helped me, the results, because the climate crisis really depresses me and I was getting depressed and worried that I was losing it or something. I was glad to know that the youth of today -- I'm sadly no longer the youth -- it has passed me by -- that the youth of today gives a damn, more than gives a damn. I look at people my age and older and just wonder if they even care. I'm not seeing the urgency that this crisis is calling for.
Trina: That's a good point. Why do you think that is?
Betty: I have no idea. I can't figure it out.
Trina: Like Betty, I'm religious, I'm Catholic, and I wondered do some people just think God's going to come down from the clouds and fix it at the last minute? I don't grasp why we aren't trying harder to move on this. And, yes, I get that some people don't believe it's a crisis or even an issue. That's their opinion. I'm not going to be able to change their minds. But I look at the apathetic, for example, and wonder, "What will it take to make you choose a side?"
Ruth: Well, as an elderly person, I often wonder if some people my own age and older are thinking, "Oh, it's not my problem. I'll be dead long before that becomes an issue." I hope that is not the case, however, if it is, what about future generations? Your own grandchildren or someone else's?
Rebecca: I'm tired of Jane Fonda's fire drill Fridays. That's nonsense. She needs to get more active of stop pretending. Ava and C.I.'s "" was very illuminating. But that sort of look-at-me activism that she's promoting does damn little.
Ava: She's not helped by bad advice.
Jim: From?
Ava: CodeStink's Jodie Evans among others. Two of Jane's ex-boyfriends think she was way too easily swayed by that laughable Jodie.
C.I.: She's doing her part and I find much to critique of it but she's doing something and she's trying so credit there. But, yes, I agree with ______ and _____ that she needs to stop listening to the easily distracted Jodie who couldn't lead a nature walk if you gave her a compass, hiking books and carried her to the trail.
Stan: Do you think, and I'm just throwing this out there, that some of the apathy might be due to all the movies about dystopian futures? I mean have we become so used to seeing it on screen that on some level we're starting to accept it?
Jess: Good question. I have no idea, but that's a good question. Didn't Shirley MacLaine write about the way aliens were being portrayed in films and wonder about the meanings there?
Kat: Yes, she did. In her book I'M OVER ALL OF THAT.
Dona: That's a good place to stop -- "I'm over all of that."
Jim: Yes, we're trying to do a full and real edition this week so let's stop there.