by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 9/22/18-9/28/18

weeknotes family politics music race

This week

  • I attended my father in law’s funeral. He was a global citizen, while at the same time a devoted and proud Torontonian. He traveled widely, and with his family lived in Grenada, and Saudi Arabia, using both locations as stepping stones to travel further. But he was born in Toronto, and died there, and talked about the city to me and others with an enthusiastic pride of someone who truly loved it. He read widely, and could speak with great eloquence about history (particularly Canadian and Ukranaian), international politics, literature, music, and art.  He had a PhD in biology, and his passion was raising plants and trees, which he did masterfully both in the family’s home garden, and in a farm in Bancroft, Ontario that he reforested from barren scrub. He also raised one hell of a daughter, and was a thoughtful and generous grandad to my son. Those are his greatest gifts as far as I’m concerned. So long, Oleh. Rest in Peace.
  • I along with members of Hartwick College’s student Senate, helped register Hartwick students to vote.Technically it was last week, but for reasons that should be obvious, I didn’t really have time to take stock until this week.
  • I grabbed an album by the horribly named band “Diarrhea Planet”, entitled “I’m rich Beyond your Wildest Dreams”. Yeah, their name is terrible, but the music is righteous and fist pumping and beautiful. The song that converted me was “Kids”, a chiming, soaring guitar anthem about being young and the terror and sadness of growing up. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo6TcHMRN3k&w=560&h=315]
  • While watching the absolute horror-show of the courageous testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, I felt so disgusted, and decided to give money to RAINN (the Rape, Abuse, Incest National network). Their hotline is always open, and I wanted to give them money to keep it that way.
  • I read Natalie Shure’s article about the ways in which the Federalist Society’s agenda (they’re the group that picked Brent Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Nominee) serves to reinforce patriarchy and violence against women. Essentially, women’s equality demands a socialization of the kinds of labor for which women are generally not compensated (particularly around childcare and family work) and so there is an easy overlap between wealth inequality and gender inequality.
  • Harry Matthews, Hartwick’s Director of Intercultural Affairs, shows students from the Black Student Alliance around the Black Lives at Hartwick Then and Now ExhibitI attended the Yager Museum’s fall reception for new exhibits. I’m really proud of all the exhibits we’ve put up, and especially Black Lives at Hartwick Then and Now, which I co-curated along with Harry Matthews and Shelley Wallace.