Senseless Violence

The attorney general of Maryland, a walking buttcan, has described the riots in Baltimore as "senseless violence." Most people, black or white, agree with that, but we all understand what brought on the riots. They aren't senseless. 

How many times have we seen an African-American community, occupied by a militarized white police force, explode when the police kill a young black man (or woman or child) in a fit of, yes, violence? In these episodes, reminiscent of lynchings, the dead African-American is sometimes guilty of a minor crime like selling loose cigarettes or looking unhappily at an officer or playing in a city park while black. Next, young black people, dealing with a system that will not yield justice, burn down their own apartments and so forth.

These riots are a failed attempt to communicate. They aren't senseless, but they are futile. The leaders of the nation, the state, the city don't get it. For elected leaders, a riot is their opportunity to strut around demanding a return to the old passive order (called Jim Crow).   

Two Closely Connected Stories

In the first story, Edward Snowden, an American, leaks a zillion unread surveillance reports from our government's intelligence system. Leaking in public is against the law, but it proves that the government is watching each of us, reading our mail, listening to our phone conversations and so on. These days there is nothing Big Brother doesn't know about us. Nothing is private any more. And all of this is done in the name of national security. 

In the second story a postal worker, another American, decides he is going to fly a gyrocopter into Washington, D. C. and land it in the forbidden zone of the state capitol. Once there he intends to distribute protest letters to members of congress. This enterprise is against the law. Before taking off, the postal worker spends several days blogging about his plan and sends a letter to a newspaper, which publishes it. In the letter he describes what he intends to do. Next he vaults into his gyrocopter, whatever that is, and flies into the forbidden zone. His mission succeeds. The authorities are taken completely by surprise. The breach of security is astonishing. But can you blame anyone? I mean, who knew?

 

The Men Who Captured Manson

I never met my Aunt Ardith's first husband (she had about 12 if you counted the ones she married twice), but my father admired the man and liked to talk about him. His name was Merrill Helm Curtis, he eventually became the sheriff of Inyo County, and, while still a deputy, he was in the little group that captured serial killer Charles Manson. In packing up our house to move to Santa Rosa, I came across a short article Sheriff Curtis wrote about the incident.

My father's side of the family had come to California from Kentucky to escape the Hatfield-McCoy feud. They were small time ranchers, horse traders and cowboys to start with and later loggers and then oil field workers. They excelled in fist fights. When Merrill Curtis married into the family, he was, according to my father, the niftiest fighter of the lot. My father sparred with him and learned a great deal, he told us. My father was big, fast and athletic--he turned down football scholarships to USC and Oregon State in order to go to work--but he claimed he could never land a punch on his brother-in-law. 

Merrill and Ardith had a child, my handsome older cousin called Sonny, who tormented my brother and me when given a chance. Merrill Curtis himself had departed the family by the time I came along.

When my father was about 60, he heard about a Merrill Curtis in Inyo County, by then sheriff, and looked him up. They had dinner, and here I am, 80 years old, packing up, and I find an article that Curtis wrote. In it he talked about the Barker Ranch, Manson's last hideout. Curtis and other deputies went after Manson because he was suspected of vandalizing property in the Death Valley National Monument. At the time they didn't know Manson was a killer. They found him hiding in the Barker house in a vanity. Later Manson managed to get out of his jail cell by snaking through a 12 inch pipe in the ceiling. He was recaptured in the crawl space. Manson lives on in prison to this day, if you can call that living.

Relatives

We're packing to move to Santa Rosa, and I am finding weird stuff as I look through family papers. The worst news is that George W. Bush is my second cousin, nine times removed. Much better, Geoffrey Chaucer is my 12th great grandfather. He wrote "The Wife of Bath," which reminds me of a certain Presidential candidate, god bless her. I have one ancestor, born a slave, Richard Allen, who founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church; he was a fourth cousin, once removed. (?)

The New Obama

Larry Wilmore noticed that Rand Paul is the new Obama: Paul  has curly hair and a white momma.

I have noticed Bill Clinton is repeatedly cited as the great political genius of our times.  He's the "Big Dog." Yet Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, an attack on gays. He won the Presidency but without getting a majority of the votes. He set up the Don't Ask, Don't Tell rules for the military, an attempt to help gays that backfired. He failed in his attempt to extend health insurance coverage to the poor. He necked (so to speak) with a young and immature intern. He was impeached. He helped deregulate the New Deal, and then the swanky types wrecked the economy. When his wife ran for President in 2008, they botched the strategy, did not contest the small states and lost to an underdog.

In contrast, Barack Obama salvaged a failing economy, got something approaching universal health insurance passed, turned down the heat on two wars, integrated gays into the military, ended the cold war with Cuba, and was elected twice with majority votes, He did this despite being an African-American in a country whose central personal sin has always been racism. Nevertheless, Clinton is the great politician of our times because he isn't Barack Obama.

 I wonder what history will say about this. After many generations were taught that President Grant was a total failure, we today can see that he was a vigorous and successful fighter for civil rights. Historians have moved him from failure to moderately successful. President Obama, I predict, will eventually win history's praise.

Feticide

I didn't know there was a crime called feticide, but recently a woman in the wonderful state of Indiana was found guilty of a self-abortion and sentenced to 20 years in prison. That's good news for the industrial/prison complex and more employment for the criminal justice system.

Homo Sapiens vs. Irish

About 50 years ago I came across a pamphlet written by a lad who called himself Professor Wisdom from Pemberville, Ohio. The title of his pamphlet was HOMO SAPIENS VS IRISH, and his thesis was that the Irish were Neanderthals, "a despicable dirty species," guilty of "noncognitive yet cunning immorality."  Also the Irish had, according to Wisdom, an "instinctive attachment to Jews." There might be something in this last part--I am of Irish descent and had, instinctively and without cognition, married a Jew.

Although Wisdom was certain that the Irish lacked "the faculties of intellect," somehow they had succeeded in electing an ape to be President of the United States. Because JFK was an animal, no bill that he signed actually had the force of law. 

The lack of ability found in Neanderthals had been overcome in part by the "cushioning of Jewish scientists" and the Jews' "commercial exploitationism." Of course some interbreeding among species had already taken place. Remember Abbie's Irish Rose? Needless to say, a recovery from this plague of impurity would be slow. "Genealogical experience has shown that it takes at least eight to ten generations of pure Sapiens breeding to overcome the effects of interspecies mating. . . ." 

You could avoid contact with the Irish by avoiding anyone with a "recessed forehead," but good luck with that, given that about 25,000,000 Neanderthals lived in the United States. On the other hand, in our era, the DNA of the Irish has proved difficult to distinguish from the DNA of Europeans in general, so perhaps the Sapiens should just give up. I say to hell with them.
  

The Hatriot Game

Indiana, famous in the last century for its fervid support of the KKK, has passed a law that provides a legal defense for businesses owned by people who want to discriminate against the lesbian and and gay community. The Governor, a chump named Pence, is lamely trying to run for President on that platform, which he calls religious liberty.

The principle Pence wants changed is that a business licensed by a public body has to serve the entire public, and metaphysical reasons not to serve gays are no excuse.

My guess is that Indiana's new law will have little application in the real world. It's there because Pence wants to signal that he supports gay-bashing. He seeks the votes of bigots. That's the hatriot game.