SOL - Single "Old" Liberals (50s and Up)

https://kclibrary.org/events/why-everyone-hates-white-liberals-including-white-liberals

Historian Kevin Schultz says that “how you define a ‘white liberal’ is less a reflection of reality and more a Rorschach test revealing your own anxieties.” Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals): A History, Schultz’s newest book, is a criticism of modern liberalism, including the conservative project of crafting a caricatured image of a “liberal” and then aggressively attacking it.

(It's hard to predict how full the Helzberg Auditorium will be, but in this instance if you think you might attend, I'd recommend using the link above to reserve your space. It's all free.)

... and then dinner afterwards?

And in this week's Poetry Corner, a couple of satirical songs written and performed in 1966 and many times thereafter by heart-broken political activist Phil Ochs before highly appreciative (and occasionally hypocritical) young liberal audiences.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bcjffahn5tQ

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CjRwMgHvrhQ&pp=ygUbcGhpbCBvY2hzIGNpcmNsZSBvZiBmcmllbmRz

... and a couple of bonus tracks:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6lFPIIdud9o

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozotgk_2x08&pp=ygUWcGhpbCBvY2hzIGNoaWNhZ28gMTk2OA%3D%3D

I want to be the first to post this Douglas Adams commemoration on Meetup. I have scheduled our event from sunrise to sunset in our local space-time, but we can tie down more specifics as the date approaches. Just save the date! And wear a towel! (Open to suggestions of venues outside the reach of a short-fingered orange Vogonian and his headless stinkhorns. Backstories to these particular NSFW terms, unrelated to THHGTTG, at
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/2/11148356/donald-trump-short-fingers-small-hands-vulgarian
and at https://www.mushroomexpert.com/mutinus_elegans.html .)

For those not in the know, see …
https://towelday.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=terMYEIvBQA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsgbcYnmR6Y
https://nationaltoday.com/towel-day/

And since it is Towel Day, Members might consider making donations of towels (and other stuff) for people in our communities who are experiencing homelessness.

And don't miss Jill Lepore's several terrific essays on how the world's richest technocrats completely misinterpreted sci_fi and other lessons of history. ( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/opinion/elon-musk-capitalism.html )

In this episode's Poetry Corner ...
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/litany/

[Just fyi... Billy Collins was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001-2003.

Paul Neil Milne Johnstone (1952–2004) was a real poet who lived in Redbridge, Essex (not MO.) Johnstone had attended Brentwood School with Douglas Adams and the two jointly received a prize for English. There Johnstone edited a broadsheet, "the Artsphere Magazine," that included mock reviews by Adams as well as Johnstone's own poetry. Johnstone won an exhibition to study at the University of Cambridge (as did Adams). His name was used by Adams as the author of the worst poetry in the universe in the original radio broadcast, [Adams just taking an opportunity to get one more adolescent dig in at an old friend and rival.] This was changed to Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings for all subsequent versions of Hitchhiker's. Johnstone went on to achieve moderate prominence in the poetry world as an editor and festival organiser, including the 1977 Cambridge Poetry Festival.]