Just some thoughts and ideas going around in my head while trying to figure out where I am and where everyone else is going.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Rand Paul

Rand Paul is the Republican candidate for the US Senate from Kentucky. He is also a Libertarian and a Tea Party member and I guess I’m not.

When I was younger, I never really understood the whole meaning behind political things like Civil Rights and maybe other stuff. I could never understand what was so wrong about sitting at the back of the bus; I mean that was where all the cool people sat. I’ve forgotten what the actual bus number was from Newark ‘s Penn Station to South Orange, but I remember you could smoke at that back and since it was the late 70’s and early 80’s most people were smoking something different from Marlboros or Kool cigarettes. Sure the bus driver would shout out, “Stop smoking that shit or I’m stopping the bus,” but nobody ever took any notice of him. Even if you didn’t smoke you could get a slight but nice buzz if someone was smoking the good stuff or perhaps a pleasant odor that would linger in your clothes long after you had left the bus that would make it all worthwhile.

I remember also that I didn’t really understand what the big deal was about sitting at the lunch counter at Woolworths. In fact I thought that if anyone had seen me sitting at the lunch counter at Woolworths sitting next to Mr. and Mrs. Birnbaum arguing over the price of linen or chocolate covered pretzels, I would probably die of shame. I figured that if I was going to eat out, it had better be someplace decent. As Susan Green had taught me, I needed to go somewhere where a girl wouldn’t regret being seen with me.



When I grew older I began to understand why it was wrong for private businesses to discriminate against people because of their color, their religion, their gender or sexual orientation. I began to understand that even though people would call their businesses private, they would still accept deliveries for their businesses on roads that were built with public funds from all people. They would still accept the services from the police and firemen whose salaries was paid for by the same people that they would have had beaten up and or had the hoses turned on against. They would still accept protection from foreign invasion by troops that consisted of people, who they would refuse service to while allowing their businesses to grow and flourish and I knew why I had been wrong but I wonder why doesn't anyone else feel that way.

It’s a funny thing this era of a Post-Racial America. I never thought that there would be people who think that this was a good time to bring up the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What’s next, an attack against the Americans with Disabilities Act or the repeal of the 13th Amendment and a reintroduction of slavery?

Those Tea Party people scare me.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Nothing More To Be Said Here



Alright but I've said it before, Betty White is a living legend.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Lena

Some people you have to look at all the facts and the figures and the stats to see what they are about. Others, you just have to feel them to appreciate them.

There will be no dates or numbers here for you to look at, just a celebration.


Free Hugs

Apparently there’s a movement going on and I know nothing about it. Oh God I feel old. You can tell when you are getting old and the whole world seems to drift by you and you don’t even have the ability to be a spectator let alone be a part of it.

I was in Rittenhouse Sq. the other weekend at the Spring Festival in Philadelphia. Spring Festival is a euphemism for saying we celebrate May Day but we aren’t Socialists. Anyway I took a picture of this man, well actually there were a bunch more people in the photograph but I cropped them out, they weren’t the ones that I was interested in. He, like the others, was carrying a sign that said “Free Hugs” and I wanted to get my hug. There are some days when you are in need of little love and affection and you will get it anyway you can. But this day wasn’t going to be one of those days for me.

From a distance he seemed like he would be taller than me and I hate to be dominated physically by anyone so that would defeat the purpose of getting hugged. Plus even though my first instinct was that straight black men don’t hug other men. I had seen him hug other men but with that bearhug type mentality thing where he would wrap his arms around someone, lift them off the ground while squeezing their chest against his and whispering….I’m starting to digress. I think I need a moment here.

So, I think what I was trying to say was that whatever motives I had for getting a hug were probably not the motives that this young man and the group had for giving a hug.

I posted a black and white version of this picture on Facebook and a friend of mine had said that he had seen a group of people doing the exact same thing in Union Sq. in New York but he had thought that it was some sort of joke. That made me do a little research on the net and sure enough there is a website dedicated to free hugs that explains how the idea came about and was created by Juan Mann and that’s it’s really nothing other than being able to share empathy with another human being.

Could there be a movement traveling the entire world that I was blithely unaware of?

Yes.

Is Juan Mann a real name?

Sunday, May 2, 2010

English Only

A couple of years ago, I was at a party that was being held to celebrate Barak Obama going over the top with enough delegates to win the Democrat candidate for President. I have forgotten which primary night it was, but he was supposed to finally beat Hillary Clinton and bring the Democrats together and beat whoever would be the Republican nominee. However it didn’t turn out that way.

Hillary did her third or fourth comeback and beat back Barak while Governor Huckabee dropped out on the Republican side. I remember how people laughed at Mrs. Huckabee and said that she was so ugly that she must have been a man. For some reason I was surprised at the misogyny going around from both men and women and listened to how they hated Mrs. Clinton primarily because she was female.

I don’t know how the conversation turned to truck drivers and border control, but someone suggested that Mexican truck drivers were a hazard and threat to the road and Americans in general and that they should be regulated and or restricted from entry. When asked why, the young man said because most of them couldn’t even read English. I wondered to myself if having the ability to read The Grapes of Wrath or I know Why the Caged Bird Sings was really a qualification for good driving, but I kept quiet.

Now listening to Tim James who is running for governor of Alabama, I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only one who thinks this language thing is just a bunch of bullshit and that maybe there should be more pressing issues to deal with.

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