Blogs

In the well-meaning and surprisingly banal book, White Fragility by Robin Di’Angelo, there is a discussion around ‘White fragility’ in talking about racism. I don’t think the term fragility does it justice, it’s a little more like short-fused, nasty, vicious and mean. However, I do admit White Short-fused Nasty, Vicious and Mean Snappiness does not make for a catchy title—but how about The White Rabid Defense Reflex? Or more to the point, nod to JP Sartre: White Racial Nausea. Either way it seriously understates the larger issue in which this fragility must be seen.

Since 2016, we’ve entered the Era of incompetence, or if you like, the Counter-Enlightenment (or if you prefer the Un-enlightentment or the Anti-Enlightenment). Science, Factual Knowledge, Rationality have been replaced by "Saying makes it so" neo-Medieval Do It Yourself Reality culture. Scientific facts, reality, reason, things we had taken for granted have been blatantly and crudely attacked.

George Floyd will not have lived in vane. He is igniting a crucial moment in American history. Now is the time to rise to the situation.

COVID Shut down, shelter in place, death counts, these were the top of mind concerns of the country. The news was an endless drone of the same pandemic. Even as the occasional story would touch on how minorities were being disproportionately effected both economically and in health, still the main concern was the virus and what to do about it. That's all changed now.

I have been working diligently on preparing for the release of my upcoming Volume II of the Goldberg Variations. I apologize for the delay, but one of the minor sources of the delay is a writers block because I can’t seem to get something off my mind unless I write this post.

The Coronalvirus has caused an enormous amount of rescheduling and various delays to the publishing supply chains.  My publisher is redesigning the book launch for Volume II of the Goldberg Variations, The Redemption of the Damned, to be virtual, if necessary.  The good news is I can do book readings, and other events remotely to anywhere in the world. So, please, if you know if a venue that might be ingterested in a book reading around September, please let me know.

Here is the complete text of the ArnoLand Press announcement:

I have great news to report: I have a publication date for Volume II of The Goldberg Variations.  For the details, I'll just copy the announcement from the ArnoLand Press:

"This is by far the most ambitious venture I have ever attempted, I wanted to take the journey of Jamie Goldberg to its inevitable conflicts that Jamie has wanted to so dearly put off," stated Jonathan Taylor the author of new forthcoming entry into The Goldberg Variations series, The Redemption of the Damned.

I have many heroes, I am embarrassed to list some of them here. People who have played positive roles in my life and inspired me to do as well as I can. A random partial list—people with an incredible strong sense of integrity, and wisdom: Harvey Milk. Gustav Mahler, Golda Meier, Winston  Churchill, Malcolm X, Theodore Heschel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hermann Hesse, John Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Menelik II, Johannes Brahms, Martin Luther King, Jr, Senator Phillip Hart.

There is a humanitarian disaster going on in Yemen. In a world of humanitarian disasters this one truly has our hand in it. The root cause is the civil war whcih is being relentlessly conducted  with American backed Saudi support to the goverment forces against the Houthi rebels. But this is no time to blame one side or the other it is a time to act to help the best we can those staring and dying.