Virginia is the first state to declare racism a health issue.
We all start somewhere. See below our extended family home on East 127th Street Harlem. House on left. This in 1945 more or less. My maternal grandpa bought it for his children who shared ongoing expenses. These being my Aunt Sybil aunt Agnes, and my Ma Carmen. My Aunt Agnes, and my Ma lived there till they bought their own homes later in the early 50’s. Aunt Sybil, and her family stayed till the early 1960′s.
Above is a WW2 M-3 Stuart tank.
I forgot my groceries at the shop left my keys too. A note for inside of my door. “Am I wearing pants? Do I know why I’m going out?” On the other hand for three days I couldn’t remember Oscar Wilde’s name. Exhibit “A” above.
A geological expedition from the stars on Earth 4 Billion years from now. These beings will find a thin black line. This down through the strata. That line will be us.
First Contact.
Humanity all we were, and did. From when we walked out of the seas at our beginning to when we raised it's level at our end.
Day 360,...I think.
FB just gave a pre-COVID memory from four years ago. Just days before #45 took office.
My Mother gave me life Sister Alice gave me a miracle to put into it.
Los Angeles just opened a tiny internment camp to house a few of the Homeless. See model above...just swell. Looks like a Lego toy town designed by public housing wonks. Still some critics say the usual. Basically work or die. As if there were jobs. Also the poor will run them down do drugs drink, and kill each other. So easy to say when one has a roof comforts, and eats regular.
However if they’ve kept their self respect sanity, and hope for a future. As many so desperately try to. Yes they’ll take care of these Internment sheds. Which in place of living wage jobs, and actual ‘affordable’ housing they are. I would have been very grateful to get one. I imagine they’ll have a lottery for them. These sheds being so few, and the homeless so very many. In the context of our times this is a good thing. It’s also a sign that Homelessness will never end. As the system is accommodating it not ending it.
Civil Service jobs now depends on a growing Homeless population.
I was houseless for a year. I was the same person on the street as before the wandering time. It was the attitude of others that changed. I was no more likely to deface one of these sheds than I would my home before my experience or now…we’re people like everyone else.
A decade later I’m the same person I was when I had a normal boring life then lived on the streets then came back to boredom. Well except for traumas that are with me for the rest of my life. Bright lights sudden movements sharp noises being unable even now to sleep a complete cycle, and a thousand other small things.
Much as soldiers that come back from wars.
My brother who served in a war said I was a vet now. Since like him I spent over a year in constant danger of injury or death. My family, and most friends did not know. Not till much later. I’m a performer. I acted the part of my myself. I learned later some thought I was traveling. Which in many ways I was. Be safe be kind.
A year ago my Dark Matter pocket watch.
My sentient time machine shut herself off. She’s slept in my fridge since.
On the passing of the commentator Rush Limbaugh.
I wonder about the cruel, and selfish. It exists in us all, but we temper them. However this man became wealthy famous powerful by his cruel words. He knowingly prospered by dividing peoples. I wonder about that world that so embraced what he said to them, and rewarded him for it. I wonder of him. I was taught that redemption in it's secular, and spirituals senses is possible. No matter how deep in unlighted realms one is.
Reading about awful shit happening to people all over the place. Democracies dictatorships all the same. This is what governments do. One country screws religious ethnics others despised nationalities. Here we fuck over racial groups, and everybody bleeps up Queers. They all,...all of them do it. Some for ideological religious tribal hegemony. Other places because the insane president for life feels like it.
All wars would be fought by guys 60 or 70. ...and sock puppets. They'd be on da toilet complaining or sleeping. I know I would. Later telling the generals all the tanks are broken,...same with the planes. They're waiting for parts, and they should call back next week. Then wandering over to the enemy who are also about 70. To chat play cards trade meds then watch da games. World peace at last.
It's been a year I've been alone in my digs. Same for most. Yes I've gone nuts as have we all. Tho' functionally so. The Subway. I dream of lost tunnels, and tracks. In my 70 years this is the longest I've not been down there.
My only travels by foot, and only about my 'hood. Very 19th even 18th century. When folks rarely left their town or county. I don't think things will be the same after this. Yes they'll be a media hysteria to say so, but it won't be.
Being so close to history blinds us to it. The very Capitol Building of the Republic. Our temple to the Constitution. That document that dream we all believe in. It's temple was desecrated a murderous mob for the first time. Not even during our Civil War did that happen.
That like living so close to home are too close to comprehend. We need time, and experience to use these experiences for the good. Time, and experience. Anyway it was one my mind,...again. Be well be safe.
The art is by my pal Ed Drooker. See his pages below.
Like the Electoral College our form of Impeachment amazes, and mystifies the world. We’re the land of one person one vote yet do this. But then we’re complicated. Our system deliberately makes change very difficult. The founders seeing how fragile democracy is made it so. What can be quickly done can be just as quickly undone.
Executive orders a prime example. So change comes generationally not at the stroke of a momentary pen. This is why the Civil Right Act is still there. Attacked since it’s passing it survives because it’s foundations are over a century of constant work deep.
Impeachment is similar.
It is as Senator McConnell said, “…a narrow tool for a narrow purpose.” With a two thirds majority needed to convict. This because the removal of a head of state without a coup or warfare is a profoundly difficult thing for a democracy to do. Witness what just happened in Myanmar. A coup was the easier choice for them.
Our systems of governance still function despite the last four years. So a 43 to 57 minority freed a demagogue from justice. The republic stands. A successful democracy is when no one at the table gets all they want.
Senator McConnell’s a smart bastard. Watching this it’s clear Liberals, and traditional Conservatives have things in common. I mean besides running slave camps on Mars. They generally…mostly believe in the rule of law not men. Remember it was GOP bigshots that told Nixon to hit the road,…and he did. This because both he, and they were bottom-line constitutionalist.
Sure they’d over turn the Civil Rights act if they could,…but can’t so they just chip at it. Still they mostly go by the game plan cooked up by the founding slave owners. Them guys back then while crunching the numbers on the Constitution. They were aware that the mob would from time to time install a demagogue. We’ve had several.
Jackson, and a few others deliberately ordered genocide against the Native folks. Rutherford B. Hayes dealed his way in by destroying Reconstruction, and allowing the Klan, and Jim Crow to spread. Kennedy’s dad basically bought his kid the election,…or so it looked at the time. Politics is as entertaining as it is dirty.
However #45 was the only one that tried to overtly overturn an election he lost. That, and install himself possibly for life. Tho’ actually I don’t think he thought that far ahead. Like he didn’t think he’d be elected in the first place. Thank gawd he was a fucking dummy.
Where was I?
Right…the GOP. Their civil war between #45 cultists, and traditional Tories will be very interesting to watch. An education on our Constitution. Like McConnell’s speech where he condemns the Capitol riots, and murder yet acquits. He also made sure the trial was after the Inauguration guaranteeing acquittal,…smart bastard. This will be very interesting.
I believe in a balanced governance. The extremes of recent decades will pass as the troubles that made them will. I retain my sanity by looking to the long road. The peaks, and valleys of history. Our original sins of Genocide, against the Natives, and Slavery both with long cruel aftermaths is still is slow play. There has been grudging progress.
What we were in 1950 when I joined this story is not what we are now. My great grand niece will be born into yet another history as I now live in one noticeably different from the one I was born in.
On a FB page about the 1950's. The issue of travelling while not white came up. I replied:
As in Narnia, “…Always winter never Christmas.”
The seas risen. The moon closer. The stars brighter. Ice covered the drowned city. Polar bears swam though sunken libraries with their cold, and floating stories. They slept on broken ledges of skyscrapers. These jutting from a new Arctic sea. All beneath a vast moon on a slowly healing Earth.
Tomorrow #45 faces his second impeachment. This time for violent insurrection against the United States. That tool impeachment is in our Constitution for a reason.
I am now posting on >>>> "Book of Days" (sidneyinhell.blogspot.com) This due to tech problems with Blogsplot. The ot...
