In Case You Missed It (v17)

Time for your recap of this week's posts, in case you missed any of them.

Sunday School brought a rare interview with Andrew Yang. one of the now 12 Democrats and one independent still in the race to face Donald Trump in November. Yang sat down with Jonathan Karl on ABC's This Week, and this comment from the December debate was front and center, for one reason, but it should have been for two.

Why am I the lone candidate of color on this stage? Fewer than 5% of Americans donate to political campaigns. Do you know what you need to donate to political campaigns? Disposable income. I guarantee if we had a Freedom Dividend of $1000 a month, I would not be the only candidate of color on this stage tonight. 

There was a special edition of MTP Sunday; Chuck Todd and his guests talked about truth, lies, social media, Russia, Trump, Ukraine, and more, all focused on our 'post-truth' society, which was the focus of this week's Sunday School Extra Credit post. In the first segment, we heard from Martin Baron (exec editor of the WaPo) and Dean Baquet (exec editor of the NYT). Among the topics they discussed was why politicians sometimes lie, and the role of journalist when they do. Take a look. 

I'm not convinced that people want to be lied to. I think people want to be comforted. And I think politicians sometimes say comforting things to them, and our job is to jump into the breach and jump into those conversations, to do the deep reporting, to say "look, I'm sorry. What I have to say may be uncomfortable. But that think you just heard that made you feel good is a lie." And I think that's our job. 

There was so much in that MTP show that I had to do a Sidebar on it, mostly because there were so many questions that were not asked, not answered, or both. Here's one example.

The role of the 'media star' - the Sunday Show and cable show hosts, the nightly news anchors are just some examples. This is more of a TV thing than a print thing, but there are media stars in print, too. The oversized personae of these folks actually gets in the way of the news they're reporting, or the conversation we're supposed to be learning from. Case in point? Chuck Todd, again, and his conversation with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in which Todd fought harder than ever before - on a question about Johnson 'wincing' at something. What was the point of that battle, and all the kudos he received? 

In this 'end of year' entry, I looked at the Top Posts of 2019.  The posts covered Syracuse, Albany, Anywhere, just like I say in the blog Pages.

The top post was news in January from The Update Desk about the Allyn Family Foundation (AFF) and a new, mixed-use property it's developing in the city of Syracuse, which will house a food hall and market, office space for not-for-profit organizations, and residential units.

The post talked about a naming contest, what voters thought of the choices, and what happened when that feedback was shared. In the end, I noted,

The post was about a foundation, and a building, and a name - but it was more about the value of listening and responding to constituents, something that we often wish happened more - and something the majority of us can learn to do better. 

This past Thursday Julian Castro suspended his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sadly,

Like Kamala Harris before him, Castro never really got traction where it mattered - from the media. That lack of traction translated to poor fundraising, which translated to poor polling. Together, the fundraising and polling led to missed debates, which fueled further lack of interest from the media.

His announcement to supporters and subscribers earned him the coveted Email of the Week - here's an excerpt.

We traveled to communities not typically visited by presidential candidates to shine a light on important issues. We walked the storm drain tunnels beneath the Las Vegas strip where folks experiencing homelessness take shelter. We crossed the border to Matamoros, Mexico to see the effects of Trump’s immigration policy. We met with people living in a trailer park in Waukee, Iowa, after a corporate landlord jacked up their rent.

He promised to stay involved, and I hope he does.

And, then, almost before I knew it, it was TGIF time, and not surprisingly, a couple of our usual suspects were on the bad week list. Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer traded barbs, with McConnell getting the best of it.

Both spoke to an empty Senate chamber today, with the former saying

We are content to continue the ordinary business of the Senate while House Democrats continue to flounder. For now. If they ever muster the courage to stand behind their slapdash work product and transmit their articles to the Senate, it will then be time for the United States Senate to fulfill our founding purpose.

Not only that, but McConnell reminded posterity of Things Chuck Schumer Said back in the time of the Clinton impeachment.

He voted against the articles both in the House Judiciary Committee and on the House floor. And a major part of his Senate campaign that year - listen to this - was literally promising New Yorkers in advance that he would vote to acquit President Clinton.

Yeah, fun times with McConnell, always.

And finally, today, I took a look at another medical care case out of Texas, where the laws of the state sometimes seem to get in the way of doctors, of patients and their families, and embroil everyone in big ethical issues - whether it's who treats who, or who decides who gets treated. The current case, involving an 11-month-old child, is heartbreaking on multiple levels, leaving one medical ethicist to point out that

These cases get framed as political battles, when in fact there's a tragedy at the heart of the case that could pull people together. 

 As can so many things...

So there you have it -- the week in a nutshell. If you don't want to miss them as they happen, you can subscribe to posts by entering your email in the 'Instant Gratification' box at the top of the right sidebar.