John Lewis Died

I know very little about John Lewis.  He fought for Civil Rights--since before the 1960's.  He was quite a congressman fighting for his district and for all people.

The representatives in my state are nothing to write home about.

I know that the men and women that fought and fought hard to make this nation the nation that was promised in the constitution, are dying.

They are dying and they are leaving us to continue on.

There is an acting head of the department of homeland security, appointed without congressional approval or oversight, that has militarized warriors in large cities where their are protesters.  They are unidentified and uninvited by the cities they are in.  Rumor has it they are mercenaries supplied by Betsy Devos' brothers defense company.  They are taking protestors into custody.  No charges.  No crimes.  Releasing them with threats not to return to protesting.   And this is approved at the highest level.  I dare to guess that it was actually suggested by the current president.

The department of homeland security was created in 2002 in response to 9/11.

What happened on 9/11 was seen as the greatest affront to our nation since Pearl Harbor.

How many people died at Pearl Harbor during the attack?

The total number of military personnel killed was 2,335, including 2,008 navy personnel, 109 marines, and 218 army. Added to this were 68 civilians, making the total 2403 people dead. 1,177 were from the USS Arizona.  https://www.bing.com/search?q=how+many+died+at+pearl+harbor+total&qs=AS&pq=how+many+died+at+pearl+harbor&sk=AS1LS1&sc=6-29&cvid=C996A24B8FB547E88B0959549969C91E&FORM=QBRE&sp=3

How many people died on 9/11/2001?

2,977 people died, and 19 hijackers committed murder/suicide, and more than 6,000 others were injured. The immediate deaths included 265 on the four planes (including the terrorists), 2,606 in the World Trade Center and in the surrounding area, and 125 at the Pentagon.  https://www.bing.com/search?q=Total+deaths+on+9%2F11&cvid=54f3d309fb614438bf4e2d347ca8acb9&FORM=ANAB01&PC=U531

Both events cost the lives of less than 3,000 people.  On the date I write this, over 140,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 since the beginning of the year.
I'm telling you that, for a little perspective, as its a virus, not a shootable enemy.

Our own Civil war cost us between 640,000 and 700,000 lives.  War was in our fields and in our streets.  People in uniform were shooting each other.  People in uniform were shooting people not in uniform.  People were starving in prison camps.  People were freezing at campsites.  People were dying of wounds and dying of disease and of hate.

And all to stop the ownership of one person by another.  Most of those fighting didn't have actual skin in the game.

The black men that joined did, the rest were just doing what we regular folks do, following.

Slavery did not benefit poor white men in the south.  The enslaved men were very frequently better builders and farmers and blacksmiths.  The skilled jobs were actually being done for the cost of buying a person and providing just enough to get the owner's their moneys worth.  The poor white men might be hired for things like overseer, but usually they struggled along on small and unattractive plots of land trying to feed their family.  Apparently, all they had to look forward to was feeling superior to the people that weren't free.

The North, where slavery was already illegal, as much because the north recognized that free labor made it hard for poor whites to make a living, as for the ideal of religious right and our constitutional rights, went to war, because they were called to join as the south had seceded.  The southerners were oath breakers.  And, it's still what regular folks do.

War! War is mostly a stupid answer to a simple question.

The Golden Rule, a simple thing found by some name in every Religion and every philosophy, guaranteed that with a little thought, they all knew owning other people was wrong. They knew they didn't want to be owned.

A 4 year old could have told them that.

We currently have protestors in the streets supporting "Black Lives Matter".  It's all about the idea, so crazy, I know, that Police shooting black people for not moving fast enough when they are told to, not staying out of white neighborhoods, even when they live there, not holding toy guns when they are children, is wrong.

That same generic 4 year old would agree with them.

But now, we have a militarized federal government organization ignoring all the laws governing this land to stop protests.

They did that at Guantanamo, waterboarding and imprisoning people with no charges filed, no judge and jury.

So now, we are going to do it where we live, on our streets, stopping our rights to protest, stopping our rights to assemble, ignoring our rights to remain free without charges being filed.

Our own police are all for that.  They hate BLM; too many of our men in blue are only loyal to the blue, far too many, are also loyal to the white.  Plus, for some reason, our police, instead of just joining the military, decided they wanted to be military-like with their fellow citizens.  We appear to be in a modern war.

“no nation can maintain its freedom in the midst of continuous warfare.” said President Eisenhower, our last General turned POTUS.  "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."   https://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942244/ikes-warning-of-military-expansion-50-years-later

Yet, here we are.  Our nation has the largest military-industrial complex in the world.  We spend more than any other nation.  We spend more than the total of the next 6 high spenders.  Our Country truly has the ability to destroy the world.

And our current POTUS, a man of limited self-restraint, is the Chief of that monster.  The military currently leading us at the Pentagon has repeatedly refused to commit acts of war on our own citizens.  But this POTUS loves to fire those that don't do what he says.  He keeps going down the hierarchy till he finds someone that either agrees with him, or would love to be famous.

Now, our 18 year old DHS is acting every bit the adolescent that it is.
Shades of Kristallnacht, Gestapo, Putin's KGB, North Korea's Ministry of Social Security.  

Paranoia?

It got bad in 4 years.
Trump hates brown people like Hitler hated Jews.
There are still children in cages that our country took away from their parents.
DHS is in urban camo and military gear throwing BLM protestors into rented minivans.

At least 35% of the people are still loving them some Trump.

John Lewis fought for at least 60 years and died at 80, the fight unfinished.

Put your flags at half-mast.  We are a nation in peril.

Register to Vote.
Vote.
Wear your mask.
Social Distance.
And turn that phone into a video recorder if you see something going down.  Be a witness for the soul of our country.  Figure out how to live stream ASAP so you are prepared.

If we all fought like John Lewis, maybe those 4 year olds won't have to turn into 14 year olds that have figured out we are all hypocrites.

And remember, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Poverty, so many lives lost, yet it is the web that creates everything we want to change.

Below are links to tables and graphs showing poverty levels, by state, by year, by race, by ethnic group, by age.  It's been tracked and study ad nauseum.

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality

https://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/154286/50YearTrends.pdf

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759512938/u-s-census-bureau-reports-poverty-rate-down-but-millions-still-poor

https://www.poverties.org/blog/poverty-statistics

https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty.html

• 
  

We have a beautiful statue in a harbor--Lady Liberty--“Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.”, a gift from France in celebration of our first 100 years as a nation.  A And the poor came to us, the tired from war and oppression came to us, the hopeless came to us----and we gave them---poverty.

I hear you arguing, telling me, they just have to work hard, they just have to improve themselves.  We are all equal.  We all have the same opportunities.

Do you really believe that?

• Do the children in Flint Michigan( and we don't know how many Flint Michigans actually exist in this country, we don't check and if we find out, we don't tell) whose brains were poisoned by lead due to a government that failed to provide the same quality of water to the poor cities as the wealthy neighborhoods, ever have equal opportunity?  
• Do the children receiving the shitty serving of funds for their schools because the land surrounding their home is cheap have the same opportunity as the upper middle class neighborhoods that get the best of everything due to the high property taxes in that area?  (Nevermind the rich sending their children to $45,000 a year elementary schools and hiring masters prepared tutors if the kiddies don't get it)
• Do the children that spent the night cowering in their room while the police breakdown the doors of their neighbors, go to school the next day as well prepared as the child that went to school after a peaceful night in a house that doesn't know the sound of violence and fear.
• All people born into bondage were born into poverty.  Freedom and human rights must be present for a person to not be living in poverty.
• All people living in circumstances in which their children are forced into schools whose sole purpose is to remove any trace of their birth culture are born into poverty.  The many nations of people that were not exterminated by our government's goal of "Manifest Destiny", were impoverished by the forced relocation to reservations on poor land and the use of education to kill their native languages and destroy their crafts, rituals, and beliefs.
• All immigrants that were brought here, not for their own good but for their use by those wealthy businessmen that wanted to run a bigger plantation, a cheaper farm, a faster track for the railroad, were delivered, not into the land of opportunity, but into the land of poverty.
• Every immigrant group that left a place of persecution, violence and war in which they sided with the "losers",  entered this nation to live in a state of poverty.  From the Bond servants from Europe, to those escaping the famine of Ireland, to the Hmong that fought with us in Vietnam to the Central Americans that came up to escape the gangs that were birthed in the United States, then sent back home to ravage the places they had lived in before.  
• And let us not forget those who were born of parents that suffered addiction, born of parents without education--for whatever reason,  born of parents labeled "Convict", born of parent with untreated mental illness.  

There is a lot of information to study and ponder in those few links, but to understand poverty, you must either live in it, through it, or up against it.  To help you see the difference between the sadly tragic effects of poverty as seen in graphs and numbers, you must see people.  Individuals that, for whatever reason, are living in poverty, have a very different view of life than a person born into and raised in a stable home where at least one parent had a well-paying job that they were secure in and at least one parent that was capable of caring for the child(ren) in a way that was both nurturing and protective.  There have been people that were born into poverty as long as the United States has been a nation.  But what are the components of poverty?

• A daily struggle to insure everyone in the household eats enough that their stomach isn't growling all night.
• Making decisions like--do we get gasoline to go to work or pay the water bill this month.  (and on time!!! those late fees eat up the grocery money)
• No one in the family ever seeing a physician except in the emergency room---even if you qualify for medicaid, the physicians don't make appointments for the same month you call, the docs are paid in a capitated manner and making too many low pay appointments a month costs the Doctor money.
• Finding housing that is affordable but in a safe place.  You can get cheaper out in the rural areas, but no work and you need a dependable car as many rural areas have a central grocery store 10 to 50 miles away.  The suburbs have nothing affordable unless you qualify for section 8 housing and may take years and years on a long waiting list.  The urban areas have plenty, but it ranges from apartments with so many people in poverty they smell like desperation and a new pair of shoes can get you killed as everyone wants a new pair of shoes.  Don't judge---how many pair of shoes did you buy last year.  A new pair of shoes should not be an unaffordable luxury.  The other option is the currently-heading-down neighborhoods full of old and unmaintained homes---the final step before gentrification is the buying up of those houses to rent out, by people looking to make a profit.  The buyers don't even clean them out before renting them, forget fixing roofs, heaters, windows.  And they still rent at twice the price of a mortgage payment for the amount paid for the house, but people with credit don't want to live there---too many poor people renting nearby.
• Transportation--to work, to grocery stores, to schools, to medical care---poverty lives in food deserts, the clinics in walking distance are frequently less than wonderful, the schools are in areas where the property taxes are low so their funding is also low. 
• Childcare in a qualified preschool is not within range by distance or by cost.  When you live in poverty, you aren't donating thousands to the best prep schools trying to guarantee your child a place, you are trying to find a person nearby that will watch them for an hour or 8 hours for a low price or as a trade off.  Predators, both for financial and sexual reasons are known to volunteer to watch your kids, but you have no internet access so just think they  really love kids.  Or, you are scared, lock the kid in the house/apt while you go to the store, the job, or whatever else you can't live without for a while.  Five year-olds in charge of three year-olds and babies are not well cared for.  Before you call them skanky parents, what was the longest you set in your house with just the kids and no other person.  Poverty doesn't really allow for play dates and mother's day out.
• Now, lets touch on the complications that make it so hard for people in poverty to get out of poverty:  born into poverty, born to parents with addictions, to parents that were raised in our wonderful foster child system--not always the best, but no adult family when at 18 you are suddenly all on your own, raised by poorly educated parents or foster parents and getting your own poor education---while your stomach rumbled and your mind was focused on walking home past whatever predators awaited you, taught by teachers that mean well but have no idea why you can't just do your homework, bring your school supplies, show up clean and on time,  kids that have PTSD from things like witnessing violence or being the victim of violence and peer pressure to try this, try that, wear this, get that---but with no money.  
• Children raised in poverty do not see their parents struggling to get by as a role model to follow.  They love their parents; in jail, hustling for money, lying to the kids about what they are doing to make more money, but they don't want to be them.  So who do they try to emulate?  Who in the area has the money? the power?  Yes, in poverty, the heads of the gangs, crime lords, and the rare athlete or performer that comes home in a shiny car to move mom out, that is the hero.  That is who they want to be.  But being born with exceptional talent is not something you can emulate.  Neither can you get that lucky break that everyone of them got, noticed by the right person at the right time; just by wishing on a star.  Hollywood is full of young people trying to do exactly that, they are currently couch surfing or living in a car, or under bridges, waiting tables, or strolling on a corner, just waiting to be noticed.

Can this cycle be stopped?  Of course it can.  

Basic income for everyone would be a start.

Schools all subsidized at the state level, not based on local property taxes, would help, as would every student having an individualized education plan that allowed each to learn at their own speed and to their own ability. 

We will not all be Rhodes Scholars  and College bound, but the bright poor person should be able to go to college without a parental payout of 20-100 thousand a year.  We all should.  College is not just about tuition, but also books and a place to live and food to eat---without leaving school owing half a million dollars before even getting a job.  

All fulltime jobs should pay more than the individual poverty level where the job exists.(be assured, poverty level in podunk, mid-america is not the same as the poverty level in metropolitan coast city.)  If the company owner can't afford that, they should go do that job themselves---they are not yet a nonworking business owner.  And, if the job is  more than 3 days, its full-time.  Wait staff needs pay, not tips.  Pay your employees;  they didn't show up on their own hoping to make some money doing for the rich.(how feudal is that old system)  If you need part time, it needs to provide prorated benefits and hours so the person can work a second job without 24 hour days.

Childcare needs to be part of work benefits, paid sick time and maternity leave for both parents needs to be paid, mothers and fathers need a chance to bond with their new offspring. 

And Convicts need to be trained in prison for real jobs with halfway houses and jobs arranged with social workers not just parole officers that only care about drug use and violations.  If you want them permanently destroyed by their prison time, then just leave them in for life.  AND NO MORE SLAVE LABOR OR FOR PROFIT PRISONS.  NO MORE INMATE QUOTAS or even traffic stop quotas.  Crime is not our money maker.

Legalize Drugs, fix it where the supply is only through legal channels and affordable to the poor addict as well as the wealthy .  Alcohol is legal so bootlegging is way down, do the same with everything, including the stuff that the addicts need, free clinics for addicts, daily meds, combine it with the meds for mental illness, and free treatment for addiction recovery and mental illness without the nasty looks from those treating them.  Get rid of the money in the Crime syndicates and the motivation for selling drugs goes away.  Same happens with sex trafficking and weapons.

Poverty is not a birthright and it is not a punishment from god.  Our own capitalism and favoritism toward the wealthy creates this ongoing problem.  We have a 20% poverty level.  We are the richest country in the world.  If northern Europe can figure it out, we can too.  

Looking down at people worse off than you are is not really that important to your well-being.  Our own history created those in poverty.  What we do next needs to end that.  

July 5th--return to Manifest Destiny? or perhaps instead a return to the Ideal of our constitution

“This movement is openly attacking the legacies of every person on Mount Rushmore,” Trump said. He lamented “cancel culture” and charged that some on the political left hope to “defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.” He said Americans should speak proudly of their heritage and shouldn’t have to apologize for its history.
Proud words.  Sounds like the "Proud Boys".
These words were said at Mount Rushmore by the sitting POTUS before a maskless crowd of 7500 people with no room for social distancing.  The chairs were zip-tied together to prevent moving them apart, during a pandemic that has already killed over 130,000 people.  

The Lakota people were protesting the desecration of their sacred land, stolen from them, then used to place the faces of the leaders of the country that pushed them out of the treatied land with a final battle at Wounded Knee in 1890.  

"Although Mount Rushmore was constructed with the intention of symbolizing "the triumph of modern society and democracy", for the original land occupants, the Lakota Sioux, the monument embodies a story of "struggle and desecration". The U.S. Government promised the Sioux territory, including the perpetuity of the Black Hills in the Treaty of 1868. That lasted only until the discovery of gold on the land and soon after white settlers migrated to the area in the 1870s."  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore 

Manifest Destiny was the popular belief that any land coveted by Euro-Americans was, by providence, rightfully theirs for the taking.  It was an absolution for stealing land and killing the people and cultures that had inhabited it before they wanted it.  It was "GOD'S PLAN".

Apparently, God likes white people more.  God Plays favorites.  God is all about making white people rich and powerful at the expense of brown and black people.

How big of hypocrite do you have to be to believe that.  Sounds a lot like a televangelist requesting the last dime of poor people for seed faith---The mustard seed is all about a cash return.

So, who are our heroes that the protestors are defaming and what values are they erasing?

Right now, the protests are against the murder of unarmed, uncharged, and unjudged black and brown people by the very people our taxes are paying to protect us all.  During this, the statues of confederate generals have come under attack.  Statues placed in places that never saw that general and never fought for the confederacy.  Places that were not even states before 1865 have statues commemorating these men because 50 years after the war was lost by the confederacy, the Daughters of the Confederacy, in an effort to maintain a racial hierarchy all over the country, gathered money and paid to place these statues as a reminder.  It was just another foot on the head of our citizens with African ancestry.  

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/675958-we-hold-these-truths-to-be-self-evident-that-all-men#:~:text=Quote%20by%20Thomas%20Jefferson%3A%20%E2%80%9CWe%20hold%20these%20truths,are%20Life%2C%20Liberty%2C%20and%20the%20pursuit%20of%20Happiness.

All men, and while we have no equal rights for women in the constitution, I take the editorial we, as in, humans, all humans.

No Where Does It say "white men", or "except brown people", or "if their ancestors came from Europe"

And all the government's powers are derived from the consent of the governed.

The American people celebrated their Independence from a a tyrant in 1776.  The American people includes a rainbow of people, a multiverse of cultures, a plethora of beliefs.

What we all share is a vision of a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not just for the rich, not just for the white, not just for the male or the protestant.

WE ARE ALL AMERICAN.

Black LIves Matter 2.0

I'm recycling this, as it came at a time not unlike where we are this week.  The aftermath led to a year of my sister and I barely speaking.  If you have family that are Police Officers, I hope they are good ones and that you don't think you have to choose to be OK with dead black people out of loyalty.
Black Lives Matter;  "All lives Matter", "Police (blue) lives Matter".  The latter two became the response, usually shouted back at those supporting the BLM movement.

How does responding to the "Black Lives Matter" activism with "all lives matter" or "Police lives Matter" and even the photo of the police officer walking up in the mirror of a car that says "his life matters" create a hostile response?

The Black Lives Matter" movement  was started  in 2012 after a man shot and killed an unarmed black teenager and was acquitted due to Florida's "Stand you Ground" law. Stand your ground, apparently even in a public place that you both have an equal right to be in. The man that did the shooting, George Zimmerman, 
was a part of the local police's neighborhood watch group.  (see link for more details).  He since went on to be the subject of more criminal behavior--but who could have guessed that would happen(🙄🙄🙄)

 After the acquittal, Alicia Garza is credited as having inspired the slogan when  she posted on Facebook: "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter, Black Lives Matter."

I can hear the tone of what she wrote.  It is not a tone that says "we matter more", but one that says,"what happened was not ok, it is not ok to kill us, we are people too and our lives are as important as everyone else's."

When the "Black Lives Matter" activists started appearing at the places in which black people were killed or maimed for reasons that few nonblack persons would find believable and no rich, white person would face, protesters began the "all lives matter" slogan.  It was a response to the original cause; a way of saying "hey, we all matter, you have nothing to complain about."  It probably made the nonblack people shouting think they were being colorblind, when, in fact, it proved they were merely blind to institutional racism.

If you have never been stopped for being in a car because you look too ethnic for the neighborhood or been treated with disrespect because the person that pulled you over feels that they can talk to you like you did something horrible--drugs, alcohol, shot someone--but the pull over was for forgetting to put the sticker on you license tag; if you have never had to warn you teenage children  to not do anything in their car that might get them beat in the head or thrown to the ground,  then you really don't have a clue what it means to be black person in a country that is pseudo-colorblind.

But the third protest cry--" Police Lives Matter".  That is pure denial.  The NYPD officers that started selling the t-shirts that say that said it was in response to growing lack of respect for police and "people don't appreciate us the way they should"

My response to that is:
1. Respect is earned by individuals not given to a group because of their membership in that group.  You have a career.  If you act in a professional manner, people will show you respect.  If you act like your uniform entitles you to cuss people out, hit them, shove them, belittle them and treat them as lesser creatures than yourself, you deserve NO respect.
2.  Appreciation is also earned.  We agree to work for money and benefits.  If you want appreciation in addition to that, do appreciably more than the job calls for.  We all have jobs.  "Should" is a word used by truculent tweens.

Lets look at statistics.
Using the FBI reporting, between 1980 and 2014 the average number of felonious Police Officer deaths was 64 per year.  This was for the 50 states plus the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
In 2003 the number of deaths was 52.
In 2008 it was 41.
In 2011 it was 72. (the only year in the recent that was above the average.
In 2012, after the beginning of "Black Lives Matters", there were 48 Felonious Officer deaths--44 by gun, 2 by vehicle and 1 with bare hands/feet, and 1 with a knife.
That is national over a year.  We have lost 100,000 in three months to a virus in 2020)
In 2013 there were 27 felonious Officer Deaths, (new group--7 by ambush--no warning) 26 with guns, 1 by vehicle, (25 of the killers are already arrested or dead).
In 2014 there were 51 felonious Officer Deaths, (8 by ambush) 46 by gun, 4 by vehicle, 1 by bare hands, (All killers already arrested or dead)
The 2015 numbers from the FBI are not yet available, but if you search for the 2015 Officer deaths, you will pull up a string of media sites discussing recent years of spiking  officer deaths.  (We have not seen a year over the average since 2011).  In 2018, there were 53 shot and 2 beaten to death, so the number has not grown in the last few years.

The FBI did not put any statistics about the killers so it is unknown what their race, age, culture, or even sex was.

It is harder to track the killing of unarmed black men, unarmed men, or unarmed people of any kind.
There is no government function that tracks the excessive use of force by local police.  Since BLM began, they have been seeking a national tracking of this but for some reason, probably the same reason the CDC is not allowed to study gun violence, it is not allowed.
Most of us didn't know we weren't tracking police caused deaths until the death of Michael Brown.
If you do an internet search, you will find this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicholasquah/heres-a-timeline-of-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-over#.kvlPGE4d3

http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men

 http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/young-black-men-killed-us-police-highest-rate-year-1134-deaths

http://www.mintpressnews.com/776-people-killed-by-police-so-far-in-2015-161-of-them-unarmed/209127/

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootin


http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349

 http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150808-cases-of-24-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-this-year.ece

There are many more articles available now.

In my own county, an unarmed man was killed on video by a favored (read wealthy and contributing) volunteer to the sheriffs department.  The petitions that were passed around and signed by enough people to lead us to a sheriffs election this year, were carried by people of all backgrounds, races, and ethnicities.  The Sheriff was replaced and the volunteer was found guilty of manslaughter and received a sentence of 4 years.  He would be out by now.
That same year, 2016, a Tulsa police officer shot an unarmed black man, it was captured by helicopter, with sound, the video is still to be found, but when it first happened, the one that went out made it obvious she was in no danger.  She was fired, acquitted, and promptly got a job with a police department 20 miles away---training their officers.


So what is my point?  Here are a couple of stories about police shootings.

If you dig around in these stories, you find things like--
"Officer and his father and cousin shot when at a private residence, 3 people tried to steal a motorcycle and the police family started shooting, off-duty--over a motorcycle--over a motorcycle.  If a nonpolice victim and had done the same, they would have spent months trying to figure out who of the 6 involved in the shoot-out should be charged.

Black officer in plainclothes chasing hispanic suspect shot at 6 times---wait for it--by white office in squad car that passed the chase and made assumptions.  Lucky for Mr White Officer, he was cleared and is now a sergeant.

Officer C. Kondek, in Florida, shot and then run over by Marco Antonio Parilla, an hispanic 23 year old, out on probation for drugs and leaving the site of a crash, someone called in a loud music complaint, he was afraid of a probation infraction, scared of jail, so he shot the officer then ran him over--so the prison he was so afraid of is now to be the rest of his life.   2 lives ruined--not counting the families that have to figure out how to put all that into their memory banks without being rather crazy at the end.

But don't misread me.

None of the officers deserved to die.

Not one person has celebrated the death of any officer. (short of one song from 1992--and when you listen to the lyrics, you realize it was the angry rantings of people that had been mistreated by the LAPD when the LAPD was at its most over the top.   (Rodney King) That was it.)
No one is currently saying anyone should do anything to police officers.

The number of Officer deaths is not up.

And no one has ever been shot by an unarmed black man.

So, yes, all lives matter, but for a lot of people, that is not an expression of a new idea.

The next time you hear "black lives matter", just join them, say it back, chant it with them.

or just be quiet.
Now, a little rap about it all.
https://www.facebook.com/NickCannon/videos/249657193124575/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDE3MDA0Mjg3NjozNTY2Nzg4MzUzMzM2Nzk4/

http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/

Living in a Binary World (or how to talk yourself off a cliff)

There is a common theme out there these days.  Or perhaps 2 themes would be more accurate.
There are the "anyone else have a panic attack just thinking about going out in public right now," and the "why is anyone staying home or wearing a mask when they leave, the pansies".
These two groups are pretty much in hate with each other.
These two groups are not the answer to anything.

I've been living in a binary world for most of my adult life.
It prevents panic attacks
AND
It prevents stupid choices.

You just have to ask the right questions.
Such as:
If I don't have to go out in public?
a. I can stay home--I have plenty of projects, entertaining tech and chores, not to mention food.
b. I can go out in public for whatever I don't have.
If I go out in public wearing a mask, what is the worst that can happen?
a.  Somebody makes fun of me.
b. Nothing happens.
If I go out in public without a mask, what is the worst that can happen?
a. I catch the new novel SARS virus.
b. Nothing happens.
If I catch Covid-19, what is the worst that can happen?
a. I get sick and unwittingly expose my family to the virus during the incubation period.
b. I don't get sick, but unwittingly expose my family to the virus during the incubation period.
If I get so sick I need a ventilator?
a. I die.
b. I don't die but have all the side effects of being on a ventilator for a while plus a huge bill.
If I Die?
a.  I've already paid for the cremation and niche so no worries.
b.  Even if it isn't all handled, I'm dead and we all die sometime.

I've used this method of self-talk for years to keep from suffering escalating anxiety and panic attacks.
It works great.
It also makes it obvious that the social distancing and wearing a mask is the cheapest and easiest choice.

Neither the people with new-onset agoraphobia or the folks making fun of anyone taking any precautions are exhibiting good thinking skills.

Choices!!!!
They are what we have.

Positive effects of sheltering at home

While I know a few people that are ignoring all instructions, and a few people that are fighting it with all their being while recognizing that if the store says mask, wear a mask or if work said to work from home, do so.

I've also met a few that are loving it.  Perhaps that is too strong.

They are recognizing the effects of increased family time.

They are getting to know their kids and spouse.

They are having family movie times and board games and hikes as a family with instructions to not get into other people's spaces.

They are teaching tweens to cook and do lawn care.

They are interacting more and running around less.

It's rather nice.

As long as they still have income and food and utilities and a place to live, it's nice.

Conspicuous Consumption

I live in a state where an Oil boom came right on the coat tails of a land run and statehood.
This created a large number of OIL BARONS at a time when the industrial age was changing us from a agrarian nation to one of industries, factories, and Laissez-faire capitalism.   We had steel barons and mining barons and cotton and cattle and lumber barons.  And in each place that a single man or family dominated that industry in a place, we ended up with a monstrous, castle-like home and a group of larger and more ornate homes that belonged to any others profiting well from parts of that particular area's natural resources and a whole bunch of worker homes--houses both smaller and plainer and and more cheaply made.  
The neighborhood in the city where this oil boom centered (oil capital of the world for years) was a absolutely beautiful area of well-made homes, that between 1912 and 1932 was the home of the richest of the oil and banking world that grew up from the oil boom.

It contained 700 homes.

Today, they are protected as an historical area and range from 1,000 square feet for a couple of hundred thousand dollars to 10,000 square feet for several million dollars.  Not bad in the USA, but, a house in this area that is the the same age is closer to $50 to $150 thousand if in a  traditional worker neighborhood about 5 miles away--depending on size ranging from 1000 to 2000 square foot and how badly it is falling apart. 

One thing has always been true---people buy the best house they can, but if they don't stay healthy and working, they can't pay to maintain it.

The old Barons of industry have now become Wall Street warlords and Bankers and retail magnates and Tech billionaires and in my state at least , still quite a few oil men.  (don't scoff--it's keeping Saudi Arabian royals richer than god.

The newer neighborhoods they have created are even more opulent than the old.

The people working for them that are making better money have enough for cookie cutter McMansions on postage stamp lots.  Their homes costing a quarter of million to get a lot and put up a house (in about a month) that has a lot of covenants and a mandatory home owners association to prevent the rapid decline of the area---or not.  These neighborhoods, planned and thrown up tend to start looking dated and deteriorating in less than 20 years.
The less well paid get to go buy or rent the worker homes constructed over the last hundred years and either live in it till it falls down or spend their spare time trying to maintain it.  Workers are people too.

So why does a family of four need to get a 3 bedroom home unless they are rich, in which case they need multiple homes with enough rooms that they might never make it into some of those rooms during a week, or a month, or a year.  Why do some people have to have a car that cost $100,000 dollars or more when most people drive everywhere they need to go in a car that cost less than $30,000.  Why are there $10 t-shirts and $1,000 dollar t-shirts, $20 dollar shoes and $10,000 dollar shoes, and diamond rings from a few hundred to millions.

Why?

We know that the value of a thing is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it. 

I prefer an economical car to an economy car, well made jeans to badly made jeans, shoes with good support more than shoes so flimsy they fall apart.

But truly, explain conspicuous consumption.  Explain buying something because everyone knows its higher than it should be just be, so most can't afford it. 

How tragically superficially can we be.

Nimiety!!!😭😭😭

If you don't know this word, neither did I.  I've been saving cool words on pinterest for multiple reasons, and this one means excess: overabundance.

SYNONYMS FOR nimiety

• plethora
• glut
• overflow
• overkill
• overmuch
• oversupply
• profusion
• superabundance
• superfluity
• surfeit
• surplus
• surplusage

I immediately thought of billionaires.

I also thought of income inequality.

https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/  is a good site to peruse for who is and isn't a billionaire.  If you aren't on it, well, welcome to the world most of us live in.

Right now, you have to have at least 4.72 billion to be on the Fortune 400 list.

Donald Trump is now about 700 down on the list, so not even in the top 500 which you need over 3 billion to be on.  He is worth about 2 billion now.

A billion is 1,000,000,000.  Just 9 little zeros.  A billion doesn't even get you one the lists.

Our current deficit is over 984,000,000,000.  9 little zeros again, but so much bigger a number. 

1.426 trillion is our current budget for the year.

327.17 million is our current population.

  That is $435,859.03 per man, woman, and child in this country.

The average male annual salary is over 90,000/year.  The average female  annual salary is under 70,000/year.  That is average.  Average being you take all the salaries in the USA, add them together and divide by the total number of salaries paid out.  

The median US salary is under $65,000/year.  The median is the number in which 50% make more and 50% make less.  

The difference between those two has to do with how much a very few people make while a whole lot of people make very little.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/

While less than 12% of the population lives under the poverty level, only 8% makes over $200,000/year.  

For many couples making $100,000 to $200,000 a year, they know how far from unlimited wealth they have.  

But, if you are a couple where both have minimum wage jobs, that couple with $150,000/year seems rich.  

That minimum wage couple is making less than $32,000/year.  Hopefully, they have no kids or other dependents or are living in a place with very low cost of living.

Neither of these couples' lifestyles have anything in common with the people with billions.  They don't even have anything in common with people making $435,859 dollars a year, yet that is what we have budgeted for our country.

So, back to NIMIETY.

What do billionaires do with all that?

Buy a plethora of houses?

Eat like gluttons?

Have overflowing savings accounts?  Overflowing closets of designer clothes?

Is there lifestyle overkill?

Do they waste overmuch?

Do they oversupply their children with every toy, trinket and vacation?

You get the drift.

My biggest question is---why is so much in the hands of the few.  Why isn't every employee they have at least well off?

NIMEITY.  

If this word describes you, you might be a selfish, greedy, ungrateful, unsharing twit.  No one has ever made that kind of money alone.  NO ONE.

Dreaming during Covid-19

I don't know about anyone else, but my dream life has gotten bigger and weirder lately.

It might be the increased sleeping, as I really have nothing to make me get up earlier. 

It might be the insidious anxiety that I completely pretend not to have because there is a 97% chance I'll be fine and even better that my children and grandchildren will also be fine.  But.....

It might be the paranoia about Trump/GOP hiding the things they are doing behind a smoke screen of COVID-19 media blitzes.

It might be the butternut soup or spinach enchiladas or german chocolate cake I ate before bed--shades of Scrooge.

Both my granddaughter and sister have complained of weird dreams lately.

So---Is it just us?  Is anyone else out there having a more vivid dream life than real life?

I spent hours wandering around a mall-like hospital, only to finally find my way back to my own office and discover my cats were under the desk, and though still alive, starting to shrivel like little kitten mummies while meowing at me.  I was with my favorite coworker.

I've been retired for 2 years.

My cats are grown, fat, and never went to work either as kittens or grown cats.

I have never worked in a Mall-like hospital.

I woke up early and spent an hour hunting them down and hugging them.  Cats hate being hugged.

I dreamed of the two people that were my big romances, the dream had no romantic parts and was very scary.  I woke up at 3:30 AM and spent two hours playing a candy game online to clear my head.

Dreams, if not written down or told to someone else, fade, fall apart like smoke.
I have awakened with them crumbling at the back of my mind 6 out of 7 mornings for a month now.

All that is left by the next night, is either a relaxed, hope I dream tonight, feeling, or a dread that postpones lights out and causes frequent trips to check doors, closets, or if it was a roaring nightmare the night before, under beds and futons.

These last two months, I've seen people I haven't thought about in years.  I've gone on strange trips with people long dead and done routine housekeeping chores with childhood friends that are still just like the last time I saw them.

This pandemic has killed people.

It has lost people jobs and may be causing homelessness as I write.

It has become the only thing in the news, and has removed from public consciousness such horrors as the lost immigrant children in cages, the homeless, the opiate-addicted, the border wall, income inequality, government corruption (unless it is related to medicine and PPE), the uninsured, the destruction of the environment, and the rights of poor, brown, female, LGBQT, and unreligious.

But, I am fine.  Not F.I.N.E., but fine.  I'm in a safe home, with food and utilities paid and money unchanged from my usual.  I have an occasional cough or sneeze, stopped by allergy meds. (Oklahoma pollen is tough in the spring) 

It's raining a lot, a really wet spring, but not like last year, so the flood that took out my house should not repeat this year---hopefully.

My kids are all still working and getting paid.

My grandkids are doing distance learning--and having homeschooled my  own kids for a bit, I realize that depending on their own parents, might be learning more than usual or not.

Yet, my dreamland is churning out weirdness.  It's disconcerting.

I'm fine.

Stay well, and pleasant dreams.

Dear Teenager

When I ask you what you learned in school today, do not say "nothing".  AND, definitely, don't say "school is boring" "why do I need _____ (fill in the blank with language arts or science, or social studies or history or math or whatever thing you think you should never have to learn about).  AND ABSOLUTELY DON'T SAY,  "I don't need to learn that crap because I'm going to be rich and famous (or a professional athlete, a famous entertainer, or a internet  sensation).

Yes, you learned to use a Smart Phone before you were potty trained, but you couldn't read and were possibly still being breastfed.  You could take a selfie and add filters by kindergarten, but couldn't spell kindergarten. You can find a how-to on any subject on YouTube and have been making cupcakes, houses, cities, worlds and avatars for years now.

BUT.

Can you do anything without an app for that?

You are almost grown.
Smart Cars are not yet here, almost, but not completely.
Cooking food can be learned from a video, but watching a farming video will not provide the ingredients.  Simulated building tools do not let you know how to build a square corner to make a table or a box or a house.  Sometimes you have to fasten things together with more than a click of a mouse or the tap of a screen.

So.  If the world is unplugged.  If the civilization you were born in to, with its amazing gadgets and apps and instantly available entertainment were to suddenly disappear---what would you do?

Would you complain about "nothing to do", "I'm bored", "it's not fair?"

To use tools that you do not understand; not how they are made, not how their parts work, not their history, just how to push the on button and use it, means that when it breaks, you are dependent on someone left that understands all those things.

If there are only books, you need to be able to read and read well.  If you would rebuild the unplugged world well enough and quickly enough to survive, you must know how to follow directions from a book as those videos you love are not working.
So.
Could you eat?  Could you eat after everyone has eaten everything out of the stores?  Could you stay warm without burning down your own shelter?  Could you repair the place you have to live, or do you just go hunt a cave.

And, NO, the internet would not help if you had a solar battery charger.  The internet is not eternal.  You want that decidedly embarrassing photo you posted to go away, no power grid would do it.  Without those people that actually understand how the systems work, it will disintegrate.

I'm old.  I bought my first computer at 32, my first smartphone at 50.  I have never taken a selfie.  I don't know how to edit a YouTube video.  But I can read a blueprint.  I know how to use a square in carpentry and can hand a hammer, screwdriver, and saw.  I know how to fix a leaking pipe or reseal a toilet.  I can grow, preserve, and cook fresh fruit and vegetables starting with nothing but a hoe, dirt, and seed.  I know why you don't make rows going down the side of a slope.  I know not to get water from lower than the septic system.  I know to boil water, and how to distill water.  I know first aid.  Most of that stuff is boring---but it isn't "nothing".

"Nothing" is an app with no power.

Your smart phone should not be the smartest thing about you.  Right now, the world is pretty easy for a lot of people. But there are still people without smart phones and tablets and laptops.  Some of them still have a flip phone.  Some of them have a land line.  Some of them don't have any phone or even a bed to sleep in.

Life isn't fair.

You are not guaranteed a lifelong WiFi connection or a smartphone or even a bed in this country.

Right now, you are guaranteed an opportunity to get an education, and while it doesn't contain some stuff it should, like first aid, cooking, cleaning, clothing care, basic life skills, personal finance, and even a little home repair, it does have the basics, reading, writing, (no longer cursive, but at least writing with both a keyboard and a pencil.)  It covers social studies, both maps and graphs, history, at least some of it, political science, basic sciences, and all the math you can take in.  And yes, you need math.  Life may give you a calculator, but it doesn't tell you how to find out how big a rug you need or how to double a recipe or whether you are going to run out of gas before you reach your destination unless you actually understand what you need to do to those numbers to answer the question.

Your education may not be entertaining.  Your teacher, a real human, may not be fun or or even nice.  I guarantee, if I heard nothing but "I'm bored, this is boring, I don't need to know this--I'm going to be a rock star, (or worse) if I ever need to know this, I'll google it" at least 6 times a day, I would be cranky, too.  And you guys are no  joy to be around, eye rolling, shoulder shrugging, sarcastic, or worse, obviously fake respect then giggling with your buddies.

Right now, a lot of you guys are upset about a shelter in place order.
You have your phones. But now, no hanging out, no hating your classes, teachers, getting up in the morning.

It could be worse.
It can always be worse.
Stay well, go learn something that isn't on a smartphone.

Now, I just need someone to turn this into a YouTube video so you can actually hear me.

money over life

"WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!"
That is copied from a trump tweet about the 15 day social distancing that ends the first week of April.
It is in response to human deaths versus a Bear Stock Market.
If this was an O'Henry story, the president would go with the money, then lose the person he loved most to this virus. Unfortunately, it's no short story, and his malignant narcissism guarantees that the only one he could lose in that category, is himself. I'm not sure how O'Henry could spin that to make it poignant.

But enough about crazy people.

I'm quite sure, there are plenty of people out there that agree with him. They feel themselves above the hoi polloi. They consider this might be a great way to cleanse the planet of some of those 7.8 billion people crammed across the surface.
I'm thinking they don't understand the nature of disease--especially contagious disease.
The virus doesn't care if you are rich or important, powerful or beautiful. It doesn't care if you wear designer suits or work out three times a day and only drink imported glacial water out of lead crystal disposable bottles.
The virus, this virus, causes respiratory symptoms, and is spread by coughing and sneezing. It lives on surfaces anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days, depending on the surface, the temperature and humidity.
If you touch that surface before it has been adequately disinfected with appropriate chemicals, you are exposed to the virus. If you wash your hands after that, but before touching you face or any other surfaces or clothing or eyes or food, your exposure will not lead to infection. But if you, say, touch the back of a chair that someone coughed on 15 minutes before you got there, then straighten your tie, or scratch your leg through your pants or comb back your hair with that hand, or god forbid, go somewhere and eat a meal without thoroughly washing that hand (or after washing those hands, straighten that tie-again, or scratch you leg-again or tidy your hair-again, you are going to eat that virus.
Stomach acid is pretty effective, but on the way down there is the respiratory tract.
Obviously, getting coughed on or sneezed on is a more direct source but talk to those healthcare workers in the 1980's that caught HIV from the environment--oh yeah, you can't.

https://www.livescience.com/3686-gross-science-cough-sneeze.html

Now, let us look at our exposure.

I'm basically a hermit on a good day.
I saw no one yesterday.
I saw my granddaughter and daughter the day before.
I saw my granddaughter the day before that.
I went to the grocery store the day before that.  I consciously avoided getting within 5 foot of anyone except the grocery check-out clerk.

My daughter has a male friend she sees frequently.  And she and my granddaughter went to see a friend of hers for a couple of hours.  My granddaughter babysat 2 kids the day before that.  My daughter was still going to working and seeing clients--multiple clients--until three days before that.

Have I been exposed to anyone that has been exposed?
I was in close proximaty to only 3 people.
But I touched a touch screen while paying and a grocery cart (wipes were empty) and have no idea who might have touched the containers of the food I purchased, even in the 3 hours to 3 days before I grabbed them off the shelf.
I touched the bags, hanging on the racks and turned by the clerk's hand as the clerk fills them.
The clerks were too busy to spray or wipe the conveyor belt between customers.

Then, there is the secondary contact with everyone the three people I've been near.  Seven to 21 days of secondary contact that might have sneezed or coughed near them or on a surface they touched.

I woke up coughing and sneezing yesterday and declared--"NO VISITORS" for 14 days.  My son, concerned, asked if I needed him to bring me anything.  I reassured him I am well stocked for at least a week.  My daughter asked if I was over-reacting.  My granddaughter was sad because I have Sims4 on my computer and its boring at home.

I have seen plenty of wealthy people already testing positive.
Around here, if you aren't about ready for ICU and a VENT, ER's are sending you home untested.  Lack of Tests, lack of Masks, lack of gloves--we are not ready.  Unlike Ebola, instead of spending months preparing for that first case so we could catch it before it was in the general population, we spent three months acting like china was over-reacting.  We had already dismantled the team that handled Ebola--and they did a great job--but it was an OBAMA team.  The Republic of the Congo should have been so lucky as to have our team.

But-----now it is messing with the economy.  Social distancing limits use of gasoline, shopping, impulse buying, planned elective surgeries. The stock markets are erratic in a big way.

Can losing 10 million people in the USA really be that bad?

Of course, that is in addition to the usual deaths by other causes.

Who are you ok with losing?