LOVE WHO?

Forget your enemy, and neighbor, why do we love our oppressors.

We have all met that person---the female coworker that makes the statement--with great pride "I don't get along that well with other women, I think more like a man", the wife that gives religious reasons for husbands beating their wives that don't act right, even the kidnap-victim that joins the gang that kidnapped her (Shades of Stockholm Syndrome).

When I read Alice Walkers "Possessing the secret of Joy" regarding the elderly women that both performed the female circumcisions and encouraged the practice, I knew I had also met this person, the person that gains personal power at the expense of his or her own peer group. Trustees in prisons do this, people held in bondage do this, the "teacher's pet" and the middle-management kiss-up, all do this.   The tough guys in old mafia movies do this, as does the crime boss's "kept woman".

What is the pay-off for such behavior.  We know the price of fighting the wrongs in the system, and the possible pay-off if we all stand strong.  But what is the payoff of assisting those that do wrong to their own  "tribe".

Is it an increase in self esteem?  I find it hard to believe that such hypocritical esteem boosting can exist, but think that may well play a part.  If you hear that your group; women, minorities, unclean, unmoneyed, uneducated, undeserving, unbelonging. other--whatever other might mean--is inferior and to be despised, enough times, you learn to believe it.  For people that are used to not thinking for themselves or that have always followed an authoritarian leader, believing that means they are doing the right thing, becoming closer to those that are better (whether that is male or white or holy or upper caste or the super-rich or powerful in whatever way affects their own world view).

Is it pride? Is it a sign of a competitive person that has found a way to WIN.  Winning by association?

Is it for favors?  For Tips?  For Gifts?   For the opportunity to live a little better than their peers in exchange for loyalty?  Is it for a Gilded Cage?  Or is it more like the original wild dogs that became domesticated as they edged closer and closer to the fires of men to eat the scraps and share a bit of warmth.

Tell me it is NOT just about the ruling class and the rest of us have just become domesticated.

Is it for an opportunity to be seen and heard by our Betters, for a little credit, for a little opportunity.  We all know that people that are oppressed frequently never develop their full potential; if they think deep thoughts and see great creations in their heads and yearn to invent and study and compile, they rarely get the opportunity to make any of that happen outside their own brain.  And being oppressed, unvalued, mistreated, told exactly what you can do and what you are worth and how you will end is pretty depressing.  Depressed people can give up.   Its very hard on cognitive skills.

I know that there have been those seen as exceptional (think about the root of that word, just think about it) that despite their poor, oppressed status they developed a place in society.  These exceptions are shown off like race horses or fur coats by those that feel they "created" them.  Did these individuals become exceptional just because they needed to use their minds.  How many of their peers were ignored or misused or beaten down for that same kind of exceptionalism that was never recognized or worse, was punished by those in power.

Everyday, I read or hear someone comment about how "I know a lot of rich people" or "my father is rich" or "my family runs a corporation" and then they proceed to prove that there is no inequality of opportunity.  Every time, Every. Time.  I hear this and the speaker is talking about people that are doing a little better than they are.  Their rich friends have a nice $200,000 dollar mortgage, both work, no kids, they went on a cruise, they bought a low-end Lexus.  Their dad always has money to loan them, and they live in a nice middle-class neighborhood and don't need to make payday loans. (they even paid college without loans), Everytime, the corporation is a single local eatery and Mom and kids just stopped providing the labor 2 years ago or they have a Mcdonalds franchise and on of them is there for a shift as manager every day. My sister's son knew one rich family--from a sport group that cost her a crapload of money, but was no big deal to them.  They were rich--top two percent of wealth--but not born there.  They were born at the top end of middle-class and went into one those two careers that everyone knows can move you up.  Lawyer, Doctor.  And there are plenty of both that never make it above the upper middle.  They neither one have to live blue-collar, though.  That family never thought twice about seeing a show in Vegas, fly out, see it, eat, spend the night, fly home.  (my friends...that is a lifetime trip, usually starting with a 18 hour drive with the car piled full.)

This just proves how important perspective is.  When you are lying at the bottom of the hole, the people standing over you in the bottom of the hole look immensely well-off.  The people at the top of the hole look like gods.  But at the bottom of the hole, there are no mountains, mountains are not even imaginable.  Who dreams of mountains when all you can see is a blip of sky behind the heads of those still standing over you.

I'm sure that lying their, helpless and hopeless must make you love the head that might be looking down at you.  You might matter a little. 

Maybe loving our oppressors are our enemies and loving them is not that rare.  Maybe we all need to learn to love those that we see as our inferiors, beneath us.  Maybe.  Or maybe it is a strange but common belief--fantasy--daydream, that we are better than the rest of the people in our situation, and "almost a real person." Do many of us dream of being loved by a rich/powerful person and being transformed like the Velveteen Rabbit.

hard to unbelieve

Our beliefs don't just color our world, it  makes it impossible to really consider things that don't fit our current beliefs.  Changing beliefs is tough.

I have seen, frequently, the way those individuals that hold with the protestant christian beliefs of the bible belt, so clouded by their knowledge that when a person says "I'm not christian, they first ask "catholic?" then "how can you not believe in god?"  Quite a leap from their religion to atheist , but that is where their belief led them.  Their religion is about god, everyone else's is not.

Religious beliefs are very life shaping, very narrowing to our ability to think in ways that are not covered in our particular religion--especially if a child in raised in them, schooled in them, by parents that are either devout or unquestioning.  It is no wonder that  heresy was as much a reason to burn someone during the Rule of the church as witchcraft.  More likely to get you in trouble than murder or rape. 

The beliefs put out politically, are a little harder to understand, but the people that use political belief are rather good at it.  Sometimes the belief is straight from the original thinker of the belief, and his or her passion can carry a lot of people.  But later users are quite aware of the power of propaganda, patriotism, fear of being seen as a traitor and just plain buy-in by those that are lazy thinkers that want to be on the winning side.  Political beliefs hold quite a lot of sway.  Our own American view of history, created and approved by the government agencies that cover education and curriculm, bears little in common with the history learned in other countries.

I love history, so use every person born on foreign soil as an opportunity to see the other side.  I am always baffled and amazed that my own (small town, tax-paid, bible belt) precollege education was completely lacking in information about:  1)the history of the middle east, all I learned about that was from bible school in the summer, a decidedly christian perspective,  2)  Asia, China became Red China just like Russia became communist Russia, before that, both were wonderful places with royals and castles and that is literally it, it was in connection with the fact that Russia and China were REDS, so our enemy, 3) Africa, its where the slaves came from, it's a country and a continent, and its poor. 4)  India is over-populated and starving, and cows walk around in the streets because they worship them (yes, a history teacher told me that, he was a coach, though....) 5)  Japan was our enemy until we hit them with 2 atomic (hydrogen? who knows what the actual difference is?) and then they learned their lesson.  6). Australia, filled with English criminals, maybe we should have tried that, cheaper than prisons (wow, I'm pretty sure that I have relatives that chose to go to Australia rather than the U.S. and for no good reason, just--you are poor, you got caught stealing or being poor, what ship are you going to get on)

I'm sure you noticed that every bit of history is completely about that part of the world's reputation in the USA among the people teaching the class.  Its not about information but beliefs.  Beliefs are allowed to be biased, one-sided, right and wrong, and completely fictional.

We are currently quite horrified by suicide bombers--people whose beliefs have overtaken their own desire for self-preservation; but forget that there have always been people that will sacrifice themselves if they believe the cause is right.  Japan had Kamikaze's, and Christianity had its martyrs, and let's not forget Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  People that die protecting what we value are martyrs and hero's.  People that die fighting against us are evil, deluded, crazy and ridiculous.  Perhaps we are all so stilted by our personal beliefs that they make us hypocrits.

We are currently being herded by our own buy-in to "Evil Socialism" despite the countries that have a higher standard of living due to it and the reality that we, in this country, were saved from "the great depression" by socialist programs like SOCIAL Security, the WPA (that was likely they last time many of our old infrastructures were repaired).  Those programs were then added to by the addition of Medicare (because no insurance was available for people over 65--to high risk for the actuary tables, then Medicaid--so our children--even the poor ones didn't die of simple things like compound fractures and complicated home births.

Public schools are socialist--and if we weren't currently sitting on a kind of political identity disorder--"do we hate poor people?  do we need poor people?", notice I didn't say LOVE poor people, no one loves poor people but Mother Teresa, and she is not here, but we have public schools for poor people, because rich people's kids always received the best schooling available, but until we changed from agricultural to industrial, no one cared if the person planting seeds and milking cows could read.  Once you have big machines and more complicated jobs, reading and math is rather important.

And ideologically, the USA is supposed to be:

• the land of the free and home of the brave (
• the land of opportunity (you know, like Trump, took a measly million to get that opportunity opened)
• the place where all men are created equal in the eyes of the law (notice, no women, and plenty of men will tell you that the eyes of the law seem to respond well to money)
• one nation under god (pledge of allegiance, ca, 1954)

In my 20's, I spent years trying to reach ground zero on my spiritual beliefs so I could then go in search of beliefs that did not cause me cognitive dissonance.  I think that a lot of people are currently doing that about their own beliefs about the country that they call home.

It is a hard trip.  It is hard to not be angry at hypocrisy.  It is hard to not be hurt when you hear that all that equality you believed in was really more about cheerleading than about how the powers-that-be felt about the average person living in this country.  It it hard to look at your home with open eyes, seeing the inequality, the lack of opportunity, the injustice, the wasted lives and early deaths and extreme lack that has created so much of what is wrong in this wonderful, amazingly rich country.

Recently, a 30-something white male made the comment that the Catholic church could stop world poverty with the money they had stored over the years.  He had no idea how much money they have, and while I doubt they are poor, their biggest assets are religious artifacts, extremely valuable--to those that collect religious artifacts--but not inherently worth anything.  When asked what it would take to stop world poverty-the answer was rapid and flip--"how much does it cost for a bowl of rice?" 

Beliefs.  If you have a bowl of rice, you are not poor.  I didn't ask if that was one bowl per person per day or 3 bowls per person per day.  I do know that nothing but rice is not a balance diet, it will keep you alive today, but you will never make it to the median life expectancy if that is it.  He also didn't address those people that have no access to clean water--and shelter from the elements, healthcare, and if you want to live, not just survive until tomorrow, you need something to do with your mind, your hands, your life.  And you need enough stability in your life that you can have friendships and love, raise children or create beautiful or useful or meaningful things. 

Beliefs.

I have heard it said that the Taoists seek no beliefs, and empty cup.  No preconceptions interfering with their examination of each experience.  I am intrigued, but have found I can't do that.

Apparently, my own beliefs, in fairness, in honesty, in transparency---mean I still have a ways to go before I am truly an unbeliever.  Until then--may the force be with us all.

Simple

When I was young, not 20 young, but under 7 young, the world was a beautiful and amazing and magical place.  Outside was warm and sunny.  The grass smelled sweet or freshly mown.  The trees whispered with the wind.  The sunlight twinkled through the branches.  The ground felt inviting and the grass tickled and the tiny flowers hidden in the weedy lawn became wonderful bouquets for the house.

An afternoon of making mudpies or playing in a sandbox was pure joy.  Hours and hours of intense creating.  Or pulling stuff from a ragbag and turning it into the most amazing play clothes, making friends into cowboys or cops and robbers or kings and queens or whatever story had sparked an ongoing, freestyle rendition of pretend.

My father made weird toys and that was always a weird hit in the neighborhood.  My favorite was the stick horse that had a rolly-wheel on the ground end that was set up to hit something plastic with metal things so it made a clacking sound--not unlike the playing cards on bike spokes.  He also made stilts and wooden guns and wagons and such.  It was as fun to watch them being made as it was to play with them.  Such things were never projects, but were the reusing of scraps from more serious constructions.

We had a dog--we always had a dog, and the dog was always an inside/outside dog, because while dogs were animals and should be outside, if it was cold or wet or too hot or scary or (any excuse worked) it could come in.  We occasionally had a dog that was mostly a stray.  We left out food because its hard to be a stray--its not like being a wild dog at all--no food sources that are consistent and hard to find water with all the fences and gun-bearing stray-haters.  Those dogs didn't come in, didn't want to, but they ended up with covered/protected areas--either in the garage (when did that dog door get in the garage, anyway) or in a house made from the same scraps that furnished toys.

When I was young, we went to the country a lot.  We went almost weekly and spent the weekend.  We drove up the back way; a 3 hour drive on curvy, narrow, pockmarked roads, the last part gravel, frequently in the dark on Friday after Dad got off work.  When it was dark, my sister and I would share the back seat, blankets and pillows, suitcases between the seat so we didn't roll off in a sudden stop.  I remember sleeping, the vibration of the car, the strangely scratchy cloth upholstery. the smell of cigar smoke and the sound of the wind hitting the little window open by the drivers seat.  (When did the little window stop?  Why did it ever exist?)  I never remember getting there.  I always just woke up at grandmas.  But I do remember sometimes waking up to see a black sky full of stars while hearing my parents voices.  I miss that scratchy upholstery.  I miss those stars.  I worry that seatbelts stole something from my children's memories--not their safety, but maybe their feeling of safety.

I loved falling asleep on a blanket in the sun in the spring.  It was the best.  Maybe not better than the Drive-in theater, but I would love that feeling again, while I will skip the drive-in.

Jello salad, and macaroni and cheese, deviled eggs, devils food cake, fried catfish eggs, wilted green salad--those are so simple, and yet food was so wonderful.

Simple.  Why was life so simple so much of the time, why do we complicate it so much as adults.  Not a single home back then was "up-dated".  No one cared if the color scheme was current, or the furniture matched the decorations or even each other.  People didn't redecorate, they bought a bed when they needed one more for another person, or for if one was broken and couldn't be fixed, or if it was--god forbid--stolen.  No one donated perfectly good furniture so they could redecorate.  If they donated, they no longer needed it.  Someone had grown up and moved out, or they had "passed".

In a simpler life, we are not "consumers".  We are just living our lives.
We are not being trendy to compete with the neighbors.
We are not hoarders, we are taking our time to find a new use for what we don't need right now.  Sometimes we make something new with the parts.  Sometimes we give it to someone that just found out that they needed something we no longer need.  Sometimes we are just grieving a little longer for the loss of the reason to keep the thing.
We are not working constantly so we can buy more stuff.
We are not buying more to fill the hole in our lives--that feeling of purposelessness that grows from being rudderless, unconnected, lacking in something.
We are being ourselves.
We are alive.
We are being present in every moment of our life.
We are simply alive.

FAMILY HISTORY

Why do people worry about geneology?
Lots of reasons:

• Sometimes they want to find that rich or famous person that proves they ARE someone.  Good luck with that one. 
• Sometimes they are that branch of the tree that fell off.  Parents or grandparents moved away never to return, married, had children, then died and the offspring are too alone.  They yearn for their roots.  They yearn to find their people and be part of a family again.
• Sometimes they have heard family stories and want to verify them or prove them wrong.
• Sometimes they are just plain obsessive/compulsive and start a project that ultimately has no end.
• Sometimes they just love history--all history.

A friend from an homogeneous culture told me that no one from that culture worried about geneology.  She said they all knew where they came from and who their ancestors were.  She understood how people in my country would do it since we are all intermixed.  I wondered what she could tell me about her great-great-grandmother---besides that she came from the same culture as everyone else in her family.  I didn't ask her.  It seemed rude to ask.  

 

But my little journey into personal family history taught me alot about my relatives and lots about the regular people that lived in this country before me.  The history books tell you nothing about regular people, history books are full of BIG moments and BIG people and little moments in BIG people's lives--many of which, like Washington's cherry tree cutting, never even happened.

Family history should be real history.  I have seen some older books that were vanity printed; some were good, honest, warts-and-all histories.  Others were prim, proper, with whole branches eliminated due to less than braggable moments.  Searching for and writing about family history should be about self-discovery.  If you are not brave enough to go to the store without full battle makeup, you may not be ready for what your family history reveals. 
There are no benefits to finding and writing an abridged family history.  You might as well just take up something purely creative.

I have heard people argue that geneology is NOT Real history unless there is some BIG moment.  Everyone's family was here for the BIG moments.  EVERYONE'S!

My mother loved telling me about the night that "The War of the Worlds" was on the radio-live.  She knew it was a fictional story, but it was quite dramatic, and her own father got a little revved up before she convinced him it was like a movie.  Apparently, quite a few people had a problem with mistaking that particular production as a genuine live reporting event.  Must have been a little like walking into a showing of "The Blair Witch Project" and thinking it was a news program.

That was history.  That was what her family was doing during that bit of history.  For some people, they would have slept through it, others got out their guns or shivered in their beds.  Everyone alive at that time was somewhere doing something.  History is all about perspective.

Our family history helps to connect us to our roots.  Roots provide sustenance.  They ground us.  They anchor us.  They connect us to the space-time continuum. 

I have heard people say--"I don't have a family history, I'm adopted".  They are still connected.  They KNOW, if they just think about it, that their family goes back to the beginning of humans, just like everyone else's family does.

 If you don't know your history and can't find your history,  it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  It just is a mystery.  If you are really disturbed by the mystery, you can do things like one of the autosomal genetic tests or you can dig really hard--this might actually be a bad thing, as our search for our history should not take over our lives and the brick walls of adoptions can be pretty hard and frustrating.  You can borrow your spouses history or your adoptive family will most likely be glad to share theirs.  Or you can make one up--just remember to keep it real, none of that kings and heros and famous actors crap.

Knowing about the people we came from can help us recognize our strengths and appreciate the diversity of our quirks and strangities.  It can also help us be less judgemental, less arrogant, and less certain of our own superiority. 

Anything that makes us more aware of who we are, what we are, and where we fit into the larger picture is a good thing.  And in those BIG history moments, those BIG historic people were larger than life--the rest of the time, they were just eating, sleeping, toileting, doing chores and pondering the very same things the rest of us were.

mY LITTLE theory (or "what am I afraid of")

I love science fiction.
 I have read a lot of it.
I have watched a lot of it.

I have noticed that the very early science fiction eventually bears a striking resemblance to the NEW present.

My theory is:  If we can imagine it, it can happen"

My fear is;
 


                   


                                                                                      
   

And yes, I know they aren't real.

Yet.

climate change--why do we believe it, why do we not believe it,

A lot has been said about climate change in the last 5 years.  Most of us had heard the term, in close association with greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and the size of our carbon footprint, before it became a political issue.

Most of us had sort of believed it, made tiny concessions like  not running the car in the driveway while getting ready for work, not eating on nothing but Styrofoam plates, not making 10 trips to the store for 10 items, recycling--when it was easy and convenient or they paid us; that kind of thing.

Most of us sort of believed it because it made sense.

Many of us didn't want to believe it because it meant we needed to do something different.  We had help not believing.  Some of our leaders, the same leaders that told us that sugar was good for us and cigerette smoke wouldn't hurt you and the only moral way to stop kids from getting pregnant or catching a disease was to not have sex until they were married, have found scientists to back them up.

Scientists like money as much as the next guy.  While scientific purists wouldn't do it, those scientists that have no problems making bombs, no problem cheating on their research for drug safety and no problem swearing to a theory that others find ridiculous, can always be counted on to say what the guy with the money wants them to say.  Being a scientist doesn't guarantee ethical behavior or honesty.

The problem with climate change is:

1. it is pretty slow
2. it is mostly not very dramatic
3. it looks a lot like the normal variation from one year to the next.
4. in geologic time--we have already had climate change--we think 5 times so what is the big deal, and humans didn't cause them (the dinosaurs are still dead, the endless waters parted, the ice age helped create racial diversity, and who knows how many species never left a single fossil so its like they never existed 

The reason that powerful people want to deny climate change is obvious.  Their business models are all based on doing what we do now the way we do it now.

It's very profitable NOT to have to redo the factories, NOT to have to change the materials we use in the widgets we sell for massive profit, NOT to have to pay for research and development of new ways to do things that aren't so hard on the ecosystems of the earth.
And--they do NOT want to sell the idea of "LESS IS MORE", selling less does not make more profit.  They like there consumers buying more, More, MORE!

We may have all quaked at the number of shoes Imelda Marco had in her closet in 1986, but these days, that just meant she was a hoarder, if she had bought 365 pairs a year and thrown them out or sent them to Goodwill after one wearing, no one would even raise an eyebrow these days.
We buy more.  We make more trash than ever.  We use disposable, and these days, everything is disposable.

We Consume!!!  WE ARE LOCUST!

What would we do with ourselves if our lives were not the way they are now?  (be bored? write blogs? volunteer at the shelter? take a class? talk to a friend? make something out of used stuff?)

Those of us that are comfortably consuming; buying and buying, driving and driving, eating and tossing, trashing and discarding---we are living the life of ease.  Or at least the life the media tells us is a sign we have succeeded.

Those of us that are not able to buy whatever we want, that are shopping in goodwill, cooking instead of buying prepared, have a goal of becoming the media darling that has no worries about such things.  Success is just around the corner.

Those of us that are trying to be less wasteful, trying to eat more earth-friendly foods, grow our own, cook our own and compost the remains; that limit their consumption of widgets, buy used, recycle, walk more, ride bikes, read labels and avoid buying products with excess packaging, chemical additives, poor production processes--we are ridiculed as eccentric, weirdo's or avoided as outright crazy.

We want to be the person on the American TV drama.  Not the geek on the sitcom, not the pathetic creature on lifetime that needs saving--unless she is also rich and beautiful, but the rich, powerful man or woman that is living the American dream.

In the American Dream, there is no Climate change, just endless seasons of love, beauty, human drama and consuming of products. 

If you can't be rich and greedy, you can always be shallow and consuming.

Remember, the earth made it through the other instances of climate change.  It was still here, changed but here. 

The Dinosaurs, Trilobites, Mammoths are not.

GO EARTH!

BLACK LIVES MATTER-ALL LIVES MATTER-POLICE LIVES MATTER-WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?

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 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 have 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/

Little fears from the downhill side of life.

There are plenty of big fears in the media these days--from Trump as president and North Korea's possible nuclear weapon to climate change that floods the coasts and heats up the middle to Death Valley proportions to suddenly finding ourselves slaves in a corporatocracy with no rights promised below the management level.

There is disease, and antibiotic resistance, videos of police shooting unarmed petty criminals and a return to the need for back alley abortions.

There is war moving so many people that the refugees may double the size of the places they are fleeing to, and they are fleeing to places that did not do well in the not-really-over global recession, so people are scared--big fears.

We are scared for our future and our children's futures. We are scared for the loss of lives, animal lives, people lives, plant lives, that we have known and accepted as part of our own lives since our childhoods.

But there are also little fears.  And when you are more than half way to the median life expectancy number, you can count yourself on the downhill side of your life.
I don't consider that to be a negative thing or a reason to give up hope. 

It does give a person a very different perspective.

On the uphill, I couldn't imagine a world without me in it.  My grasp of the time before my birth was more fantasy than history.  Most of those rare moments when I tried to imagine life after my own death, it involved the world standing still, crying and weeping and gnashing of teeth. That was where the giant "THE END" showed up.  No more me?  What is the point.

But from this side of the hill,  after years of history reading and listening to people and watching survivors as they regroup after a loss of a loved one, I get that there is no "THE END" when I die, except for me.  I get that when anyone dies, other lives change but life goes on. 

I also get that the same is true of species.  Dinosaurs might not have gotten it, or maybe they did---I certainly never met one in my life so that conversation never happened.  But what about those "last of their species" currently living out their life.  I suppose they could hope there are others still out there to continue them.  It is certainly in our genes to always try to continue our line--and that if part of being a living thing, not just a human, or maybe I'm anthropomorphizing.   I know we tend to lean toward the opposite of making animals more human, which is really just our own need to make ourselves less animal-like.

But little fears pop up.  Not like they are new to my life, but they are different fears.  Fears like "will I have to deteriorate for a long time in a nursing home?" and will I remember who I am", will young strangers make fun of me" "treat me like I was always so incapable"  "do I have enough time to improve my skills with a paintbrush and can I learn to work with silver?"  "Should I keep trying to find a way to keep this home I love so much, that is just now becoming a place that feeds my soul or should I accept that I can't do everything I want and that is likely to get worse in the coming years"  "will I have enough money to live or will I end up choosing to burden my family or go homeless"

Little fears.  The kind that do not change any part of the world but my own.

The kind that I never thought of on the other side of the hill.

we aren't rats, what are we?

There has been talk of 6th great extinction.  This one is not being caused by meteor strikes, or volcanic ash or an Ice Age.  It is instead, just like everything we buy regularly--manmade.

Estimates are that there are fewer than 3200 tigers left in the wild.  Tigers are dangerous predators and make great coats.

There are about 100,000 gorillas but only 600 of those are the mountain gorillas (like in the movie).  Gorillas are dangerous animals and make great knickknacks.

Giraffes number the same.  Its not like they are good for anything, they just stand around and eat out of trees.

The sperm whale population is thought to number in the hundreds of thousands, but when your backyard is all the seas and oceans of the world, that seems a rather low number.  It is also an estimate due to the difficulties of tracking something with such a large area to wander.  They were hunted for a substance used in perfume and cosmetics.  While legal hunting is no longer a threat, ocean noise, pollution, and fishing equipment accidents are still making their lives dangerous.  They are no longer considered endangered, but are still a vulnerable population. ( Not that it affects most of us humans very much)

Ten years ago, there were about 3500 rhinoceros, but right now, there are only 3 white rhinos, 2 female and 1 male, and the black rhinos are mostly under armed guard due to idiots that prefer rhino horn to viagra.

Of the 44,838 species assessed worldwide using the IUCN Red List criteria, 905 are extinct and 16,928 are listed as threatened to be extinct. Millions of species still need to be assessed to know their status. As a result, the number of extinct and threatened species is definitely much higher than the current estimate. A species of plant or animal is classified Extinct when scientists have concluded the last individual has died. Usually exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat, at appropriate times throughout its historic range failed to record an individual, and the species is listed as extinct.

Not all the extinctions are directly related to human hunting prowess, the passenger pigeon and the near extinction of the American Bison were hunting and food related.  The African elephant population is about 10 millions but is in constant danger due to people wanting to buy ivory.  But a lot of extinctions occur because humans want to move into some other species living space.  We destroyed their habitat.

On the flip side of that, the earth is now home to over 7 billion people.   There are probably over 7 billion rats and 7 billion cockroaches, also.  Truly, we humans are the only large creature that is so numerous.  And while we like other humans better than rats and cockroaches, there are some things about us that are worse than either rats of cockroaches.

Rats don't kill other lifeforms to make themselves look pretty or decorate their lairs.
They carry disease, but so do we.
They don't leave the environment cleaner than they found it, but also don't create trash that kills other animals when they are accidentally trapped in it or eat it.
They don't spray deadly chemicals all over to stop other creatures from sharing what they don't want.
They don't destroy food so other animals can't use it.
They don't kill trees.
They don't blow each other up.

So who cares if there are no tigers or elephants or whales or whatever creature disappears forever so we can use more land, have more erections, eat more delicacies and wear more hides?  What does that matter.  What does that do to humans?

Who knows?  

The Purposeful Life

Why do we do so many crazy, ridiculous, meaningless things in our lives.

We work really hard, or try to find a job really hard, or give up and find an illegal job and work really hard or we find a crappy job and try really hard not to work really hard because maybe then, we still have won.

When we meet someone; we get their name and what they do for a living.

We judge each other and ourselves by the hierarchy of the jobs: that is a real thing, but not a real labeled thing.  We all know that the President is at the top and that the President of the Nation is only under the President of the world and the President of the universe. (President can be replaced by any number of hierarchical names like king, emperor, man-made-god, whatever)  and travels downward to the lowest level, which is either beggar man or thief, depending on whether or not you recognize the legitimacy of the organized criminal, in which case the Godfather is similar to President, but not usually at a national level.

I said usually.

Presidents go all the way down to Mom and Pop businesses where one is the president and the other is everything else.  It's still an hierarchy.

Why do jobs and titles and hierarchies mean so much to us humans?  Is it real? Is it just a man-made construct for a group that finds competition necessary to knowing if we are successful?

Is it just a way of avoiding why we are on the planet?

WHY ARE WE HERE?

Why do we struggle?

Why are we only happy when we feel we are valuable, important, purposeful? 

Why do we search so hard for our purpose, for a reason to be?

Why do we think that our life has to be compared to anyone else's life. Is that even possible?  What is a struggle to one person is a given success to another.  

How do we simplify, learn to live as a part of the life on earth and also find our purpose.

We keep hearing about mindfulness.  Being fully in the moment.  Keeping your mind where you are, doing what you are doing, not judging the experience, just feeling it, living it, being it.  It is very similar to what artists describe when they are working on their creation.  Its like the athlete's "Zone". 

We can live there.  Be one with the carrot we are peeling, vacuuming in the "Zone". 

So what about empathy?  If you are mindful, is it possible?  Is it needed?  If you are being without judging, do you need to try to put yourself in the other person's place? 

I don't know if anyone can live mindfully all the time.  But self-awareness is a good start.  Aim for the best you, the noncompetitive best you, the you that is doing everything you do mindfully, but knows when you are not there.  Know yourself: be aware of your own buttons,  your own character flaws, your quirky connections to certain things and aversions to other things that seem to be fine with your friends.

Maybe your purpose is to know yourself--the you that everyone else sees, the you that you see in the mirror, the you that you try hard to pretend does not and has never existed--all of you.

Or maybe being is the only real purpose anyone needs.

Whatever, live with purpose.  You are part of the universe and why-ever you are here, its important.

Is the power of the vote just a lie?

So far, I have watched one state use coin tosses to determine the winner of a vote, and have seen something called a "superdelegate" used to make the loser of the vote have more representation than the winner.
We have voting districts that don't represent the shape of anything except the areas of a place that are most likely to vote for the side creating the voting map.
And if the primary choice of the states doesn't coincide with the established parties plans, they can ignore the primary votes and chose whoever they want.
Then, at the actual election, we the people, who think they are voting for the person they want, are voting for a representative in the electoral college who can vote however they want.
If every single person in the USA wrote in the same name, a 100% agreement, the electoral college would still be able to choose whoever that wanted.

Its time for each person born in the USA to be given the vote at age 18, whether or not they register, we all have a social security number, it should come with a vote.  And if the total vote for a person is higher than the other person, that person should win.

It should not be that if 49% wants one and 51% wants the other, then that state is all voting for the 51% person. 

Every vote should count. 

If the people screw up, it should be because they screwed up, not because the rules were made so convoluted that the people have no idea who won the vote.  And not because they were manipulated by those same rules to feel that the person in office is who most people wanted, so they deserve what they get.

Popular vote may not have worked in ancient Greece, but it was ANCIENT Greece, a place without equality except for the citizens, not the servants, not the slaves, not the females, just the very special citizens.  And it didn't work forever there.

Its time for real equality, real democracy.  Its time for the Vote of the People to be the Truth.