Come Together

 The guy who was my first manager at Arby's way back when I spent my gap year slinging roast beef sandwiches at an unwitting public had this little piece of non-beef related wisdom for me: "Don't go to college to party. It costs too much."

The following year I went to college and callously avoided his advice. These were the eighties, after all. I wasn't going to be stuck in my dorm room studying art history when it was Beatles Night at Bennie's Basement. Dollar pitchers all night long. There was a life waiting for me to live/destroy out there. What were grades but an arbitrary judgement placed on my by the man for some bureaucratic record keeping that was no true measure of the depth of my knowledge. 

If I had been that self-aware at nineteen, I probably would have found some other way to display it. 

Like protesting. 

No friends, I am sad to tell you that all that youthful idealism was wasted on my youth. I did not attend anything resembling a protest until after I had graduated and had all that time to pursue my political and social activism. 

Right about the time I sobered up. 

Which brings me to the youth of today. It seems that I am currently reading daily reports of youth unrest on our college campuses. Protests at Columbia University have brought the institution the kind of national attention that no administrator wants. A surge last week in antisemitism on campus and pro-Palestinian protests on and near campus have proved to be a focal point in our nation's fractured ability to "just get along." So much so that Rabbi Elie Buechler, associated with Columbia University’s Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, sent out this warning to the school's mostly Orthodox Jewish students: “It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved." 

Improved reality. Sounds like something I was working on when I was an undergrad. 

Or maybe they should bring back Beatles Night at Amity Hall Uptown. 

Where Will You Sleep Tonight?

 It would be great if we could elevate the thinking about homelessness in these United States. The number of conservative voices who see fit to assume that not having a place to sleep at night is a moral defect, a choice made by folks who just got tired of having a roof over their head. Very few of these pinheads are making these claims based on any actual experience. Instead, they pontificate from the steps of their summer cottages as they try to decide which bedroom they would like to muss up this weekend. 

Without the hyperbole: The town of Grants Pass, which has no public homeless shelters, effectively banned homelessness by imposing escalating fines starting at one hundred eighty dollars for those who sleep outside. One of the original plaintiffs in the case against the city had over five thousand dollars in penalties before she died. The United States Supreme Court is now hearing the case of the City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, in which the justices will determine whether localities can criminalize homelessness by punishing those who sleep out on streets using tents, blankets, or even a piece of cardboard. The court must weigh if doing so when no beds are available violates the Eighth Amendment and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Maybe we should start with the level of ridiculousness this discussion entails. If someone is homeless, one expects that they lack the money to pay rent, or to buy a house, or to pay for a room. Fining these individuals is as crass as it is unnecessary. The city of Grants Pass Oregon began aggressively enforcing penalties for sleeping outside on public property, like issuing two hundred ninety-five dollar fines that increase to five hundred thirty-seven dollars if unpaid. Following two citations, the police could then find the homeless person guilty of criminal trespassing, which could lead to up to thirty days in jail and a new one thousand two hundred fifty dollar penalty. 

From people who have no money. The attorneys for Grants Pass argued that they were regulating the "conduct" of sleeping outside, not the "status" of sleeping outside. It was their assertion that  the government could criminalize homelessness, because it is not “a status like drug addiction” but a series of acts that can each be outlawed. 

There are more than half a million Americans who fit the description of homeless as laid out by this case. Breaking the law because they have nowhere to sleep. Human beings. Conduct? Status? Grants Pass has approximately six hundred homeless people living in their midst. Grants Pass has no homeless shelter. How can that be legal? 

That's One More Kid That'll Never Go To School

Eric Harris would have been forty-three years old. Would have been if he hadn't taken his own life after murdering twelve of his classmates and a teacher at his high school in suburban Colorado. His friend and partner in death, Dylan Klebold, was also a victim of the rampage. Dylan would be forty-two. 

It's an exercise in futility, but I wonder sometimes if there is a universe in which they were stopped in the parking lot of Columbine High School, disarmed, and sent to reform school or detention of some kind. Something that would have offered them copious amounts of counseling and time to reflect on their plans to become famous murderers. 

Once they were released, perhaps in their twenties, would they be rehabilitated? Could they have assumed a "normal life?" They might even have been able to get their jobs at Blackjack Pizza back. Some patient young thing could eventually have tumbled into their life, offering the chance for love that they missed as teenagers. 

By now, they would probably be settled down, with family of their own. Kids in high school. Eric and Dylan pontificating on how "it's not like when we were kids." Would they be able to use their troubled past to help this new generation find their way? 

Since April 20, 1999 there have been more than one thousand school shootings in the United States. Jaclyn Schildkraut, the executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government would like us to know that school shootings with mass deaths are "a statistically rare form of crime." 

And yet, I can't help but wonder if Eric and Dylan would have found themselves on the side of gun control after their scrape with the law. A quarter of a century later, with the faces of all those kids burned into our collective memory, would we be in a different place if they had never started the fire? 

Twenty-five years ago, the elementary school kids I taught never had to experience an active shooter drill. Even though this kind of crime is "statistically rare," we remain vigilant. 

Even though Eric and Dylan have been dead for twenty-five years. 

Heart Burn

 Here is a little background: My father died as a result of burns he suffered when the small plane he was in crashed on approach to an airport in Northern Colorado. Because my father was a hearty soul and in pretty good shape for a sixty-one year old, he survived for several days after the accident. He was kept under sedation during this time because the severity of his condition would have been far too brutal to experience if he was awake. For those days, shortly before Thanksgiving until just after, the doctors and nurses at the University of Colorado Medical Center Burn Ward did everything they could to keep him alive. During this time, I wondered what the future might be like if he survived. What would his quality of life be like once he had endured all that suffering, rehabilitation, surgeries for repair and reconstruction? 

And it boggled my mind. 

He never regained consciousness. I was grateful that I had a chance to say my goodbyes at the airport in Oakland when he left. I was glad that I had a chance for last tag on his corporeal form at his bedside before he shuffled off to the afterlife. I miss him and I adopted a bias against small aircraft after his passing. 

All of this is prelude to saying that I don't care what Max Azzarello was trying to prove last week when he set himself on fire outside of the courthouse where the former game show host with more indictments than entire crime families is on trial for misuse of funds to pay an adult film actress to stay quiet about their adulterous hook up. Mister Azzarello was seen tossing pamphlets about just before he poured flammable liquid over his head and lit himself on fire. 

Was he protesting the proceedings inside the court? Was he sharing his paranoid views about something connected to current events outside? Making a statement about global warming? 

Don't care. 

My father died as the result of an accident. Dedicated medical professionals worked to save his life. For days. This guy showed up where the TV cameras were and took full advantage of the media. First responders arrived within moments and tried to save Azzarello, and he was rushed to a New York hospital where he passed away later that night in spite of all the efforts of all those who tried to save his life. 

Good riddance. 

I miss you, dad. 

What Is It Good For?

 I know, it's hard to keep track of what is happening across the globe when things are so very tumultuous here within our own borders. The Middle East is continuing in its near eighty year run of having some sort of armed conflict going on. Currently it is Iran and Israel who are shooting at one another, with the ongoing ugly mess in Gaza has been pushed briefly to the back burner. Those folks are in a tie with the Civil War in Myanmar, where a seemingly never-ending series of insurgencies have been taking place since the end of World War II. 

Then there's the war in Ukraine. A relative newcomer to this list, but they can lay claim to an eight year conflict that began with Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity back in 2014. The full-on Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February, 2022. You may remember that just a little before that Americans learned the Latin phrase "quid pro quo" as it related to the then US "president" trying to make a deal with the President of Ukraine. "I'll give you weapons if you give me help me get some dirt on my political rival." 

Since then, aid to Ukraine has been a political hot potato here in the United States, with many in the Republican Party seemingly happy to have Russia continue on blasting its way to overwhelming the recently dignified sovereign state of Ukraine. Now, with the rock in Israel and the hard place in Ukraine coming together to create a diplomatic conundrum that sometimes seems more like a game show than a policy discussion. The previous Speaker of the House, Republican Kevin McCarthy was deemed "unsuitable to govern" by members of his own party and removed from his seat. The unsuitable part was apparently that he was actively courting Democrats to collaborate on solutions to the country's problems. Like the War in Ukraine. 

So along comes Mike Johnson, deemed to be just the right amount of god-fearing conservative to fill McCarthy's chair. With an election swarming into this mix to make things even more confounding, Speaker Johnson has suddenly found himself in quite the pickle. Honor his party's increasingly bozo demands, or work across the aisle to find actual solutions to the country's and by extension the world's problems. “I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the Balkans next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland, or one of our NATO allies.” 

What? This won't make Marge Greene happy. She's going to want to turn the Speakership over again until she lands in it. Or her favorite dictator wins the election in November. Then maybe we can look forward to the beginning of our won civil war. 

Sleep tight, America!

Youth Brigade

 Ah, youth. It gives me solace to know that the generation that is coming up now is ready to take the reins of not just this nation of ours, but of the world as we know it. Whether it is climate change or the crisis in the Middle East, these kids have the power and they know how to use it. Not content to sit idly by while their planet becomes a place where they do not want to live, they are taking to the streets.

Like the students from Mount Nebo Middle School in Payson, Utah. Were they trying to get their administration to take threats to student safety and promote gun control on and around their campus? No. Were they hoping to generate awareness about waste disposal and recycling? No. Perhaps they wanted to get more student involvement in grass roots political movements within their state? Not exactly. 

The walkout that occurred this past week at Mount Nebo was regarding the school's dress code. 

Okay. Fair enough. Let's stick it to the man. Nobody's going to tell me what to wear!

Except that wasn't the way it went down. The students who staged a walkout at the middle school were hoping that the powers that be would more strictly enforce the dress code.

To discourage furries. 

According to WebMD, a furry is someone who has an interest in animals with human qualities, and who sometimes dresses up as a cartoon-like version of an animal. According to the protesters, the school’s “furry” population is accused of biting, scratching, spraying air freshener on, barking at and chasing other students. As for the "powers that be,"  Nebo School District Public Information Officer Seth Sorensen explained the reports of students dressing as animals are “a little bit inaccurate,” saying students wearing headbands with ears are similar to students wearing bows and sports jerseys. Sorensen said dressing up is “just what students of this age do.” He insists that it's more about misinformation and rumors than real trouble. 

What do the real furries think? A local Furry named Strudel showed up to speak to the media, insisting that “School is for learning. It’s a place of education, first and foremost.”

And learning to pitch a fuss, apparently. 

Uber Alles

 The idea that a carmaker, a captain of industry, could become a leading voice for anti-Semitism in the United States is not a new one. Once upon a time there was this guy who revolutionized the creation and proliferation of automobiles across this great land of ours. He is generally considered to be one of the great American innovators. The fact that his company survives to this day and dominates the market for light duty trucks as well as sports utility vehicles and passenger cars is a testament to the tire track he put on the planet. 

Henry Ford was also considered by many to have been sympathetic if not collaborating with Nazis to produce German weapons and war machines leading up to what would become World War II. It might not be a surprise then to discover that Henry Ford, like many magnates of his era, owned a newspaper which he used to promote his world views. The Dearborn Independent, with its somewhat ironic masthead, produced such journalistic gems as "Jewish Power and America's Money Famine" and a series written by Henry himself called "International Jew." This was in the 1920s. Is it any wonder that Adolf Hitler was an admirer of Mister Ford? From Mein Kampf: “It is Jews who govern the stock exchange forces of the American Union,” Hitler wrote. “Every year makes them more and more the controlling masters of the producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty millions; only a single great man, Ford, to their fury, still maintains full independence.” In 1938Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest honor for foreigners.

This is history. It is not a well-kept secret. And neither is the current reality of the "innovator" and "carmaker" who is currently attempting to force his ideals not just on the consumers of his "best selling car in the world," but to anyone who happens to stumble blindly into his somewhat newly acquired "newspaper," the once proud blue bird, Twitter. He is currently embroiled in a lawsuit that is bringing to light just how he goes about spreading his anti-Semitic rants through anonymous accounts while attempting to stem the tide of consumers fleeing both his newly acquired social media machine and the suddenly detestable car brand. Which may explain his eventual exit strategy of fleeing to Mars. 

But in the meantime, Americans could really use what he seems to be so very bad at selling: Electric cars and social media as a means of spreading connection rather than conspiracies. Alas, this doesn't seem to be where Mister Musk's path diverges from that of Henry Ford. Henry Ford was accepting medals from Adolf Hitler and he could still sell cars. 

Anybody want to buy a slightly used social media platform?