After I graduated college, it took some effort to tune out the mainstream media’s ominous pronouncements that ours was a generation of underachieving losers and slackers. Some of my college classmates seem to be doing pretty okay, so maybe they can make up for the rest of us. David Gregory, has been named host of Meet the Press. (Executive Producer Betsy Fischer was also a classmate). I’d think Gregory was a good choice even if he hadn’t been a classmate, but it’s been interesting to me to listen to people argue against his selection. I have to admit I’m starting to get old (shallow?) enough that I enjoy the argument that he’s too young. It’s been a long and difficult Monday, let me take my joy where I can find it, okay?
Category Archives: news
Jonestown
MSNBC recently produced a documentary, “Witness to Jonestown,” that examines the history of the “People’s Temple” and the events that led to the murder of a Congressman and the deaths of 909 children and adults.
Last week Rachel Maddow interviewed NBC reporter Fred Frances, who talked about finding the bodies at the compound. The segment also included clips from the documentary, including footage from the ambush that resulted in Congressman Leo Ryan, witnesses and journalists being gunned-down on the tarmac as they tried to leave Guyana after visiting the compound as part of an investigation.
Approximately 400 bodies are buried in Oakland, California, and there’s a memorial service at the site each year on the anniversary of the massacre. The Washington Post reports today about the first phase of the memorial, which was dedicated at this year’s service, marking the 30th anniversary of the tragedy.
It’s ironic that after cavalierly using the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” for months, mainstream media outlets such as the Post are falling all over themselves to clarify that it’s a terrible reference to make in so cavalier a fashion, particularly in light of how many children were involved. In today’s Washington Post,
The memorial service was just one of a number of events, in the San Francisco area and nationally, commemorating Jonestown’s 30th anniversary. Renewed interest has been fanned by two new television documentaries and a play, “The People’s Temple,” now touring regional theaters. For those too young to remember Jonestown, the mass suicide-murder has become a part of pop culture. Brian Jonestown Massacre is the name of a rock group. And “drink the Kool-Aid” has entered the popular lexicon for a toxic kind of malleability, a reference to my first reports from Jonestown for The Washington Post quoting Odell Rhodes, a Jonestown survivor, saying that the potion drunk or injected into those who died was a mixture of cyanide and Kool-Aid.
Many of the Jonestown survivors and their families find the Kool-Aid references and jokes insensitive and deeply hurtful — reminders of the tragedy they suffered and, worse still, the widely held perception that the men, women and children in Jonestown were a bunch of crazies who willingly committed suicide out of blind devotion to their leader.
“The whole world looked at us as a bunch of kooks, that we were borderline people, uneducated and unstable,” Debbie Layton, whose escape from Jonestown in May 1978 set in motion the tragedy that followed, recalled Sunday. “People think that all the people just drank the Kool-Aid,” she said. “They have no idea of what that means or what happened. They just laugh about it.”
Much more is known today about the inner workings of the Peoples Temple than was known in the immediate aftermath of Jonestown. For example, many of those who died that day were highly educated. And at least some did, in fact, commit suicide. But there is clear evidence that armed guards loyal to Jones forced mothers to poison their children and gave adults a choice: Drink the deadly potion or be shot. And it later turned out that Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid, was mixed with the cyanide, a minor footnote to the larger tragedy that transfixed the nation, indeed the world, in 1978.
This is a bit of an extreme digression, but…I have this bad habit of assuming people are intelligent until they prove otherwise, so the first time conservative election 08 canvassers exhorted me not to “drink the negro kool-aid” I thought they were attempting to make some sort of complex comparison. Racist as all hell, but far more complex than I gave them credit for. I doubt they were smart enough to know that 80% of those who died at Jonestown were African-American. Or even what happened at Jonestown. Or that Guyana is in South America. Or, probably, how to find Guyana on a map. Also, possibly, how to read a map. But I’m really getting away from the subject now…
A few years ago “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple” screened at SilverDocs and won awards at a number of other festivals. PBS maintains a website for the film, with a teacher’s guide, timelines and additional information. The History Channel produced a piece, “Jonestown: Paradise Lost”, but it’s bit of documentary-lite, choosing to do dramatic re-enactments instead of using the incredibly compelling footage that exists of the actual events or conducting actual interviews with survivors.
That’s not to say that I didn’t seriously consider photoshopping new Kool-Aid labels and sending gift baskets to a few Right-leaning friends. Hey, nobody’s perfect….
What did you do this time?
As you may have noticed, weird things happen to me all the time. All the time. Hell, something weird is probably happening right now and I’m not even noticing. Nevertheless, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) seems to be a time of heightened weirdness. I won’t go through all of the weird coincidences that have happened over the years, you can get the gist by reading about how I once burned down Gatorland – with my mind.
When I walked into the kitchen the other day and said to Husband, “You know how it’s National Novel Writing Month?” his automatic response was, “What did you do this time?”
I didn’t do anything. But one of my ninety-something year old characters has been keeping the ghosts of three of her siblings trapped in her home. I’m not sure how or why, so for right now she’s just got their bodies stashed in the attic. For this reason the headline, “Police: 90-year-old living with 3 siblings’ bodies” caught my eye.
Yes, I’m aware that there’s not any sort of human action you can dream up to write about that someone, somewhere hasn’t done. But she’s had them for years, and it hits the news now? I think that’s weird.
As for the novel itself? It’s not going well at all. I generally end up writing 75,000 – 100,000 words in November. This year, for the first time ever in my life, the words are just not pouring forth as easily as usual. Having to sleep more than 12 hours a day isn’t helping things. Friday was a pretty good day, one of my characters from last year showed up and killed one of this year’s characters. I’m not certain why yet, but I’ll let you know when I find out.
President-Elect Obama seems to be real…
I’ve checked about two dozen papers now, plus CNN. President-Elect Obama is a real and for-true thing. It makes me cry all over again.
I refuse to think about how Ted Stevens possible victory in Alaska could bestow upon the nation Senator Palin.
No, I’m going to go back to reading all of the happy stories, like the New York Times, “Obama Is Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls” and the Washington Post, “Obama Makes History” and FOXnews, “For President-Elect Obama, a ‘Steep’ Climb Ahead”. The Onion gave us, Daily Beast and Huffington Post.
What a good day.
I’m saying it right now: we can only (semi)comfortably accommodate 10 out of town guests for the Inauguration and Jungle and Mrs. Pete have already claimed the best spots so make up your minds sooner rather than later.
Voting Gifts
Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and Ben and Jerry’s are three of the bigger names giving away treats today to voters. If you’re in New York or Seattle, you can also get a free sex toy:
The promotion is good through November 11, details on the site. I think the link is safe for work, although the site probably isn’t worksafe in many offices.