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Copyright © 2018 William Tell
Friday, November 3, 2017
This message is principally addressed to me, myself. After a couple weeks of doing pretty well at The Way of Peace, I’ve come again to a juncture where I seem to have tired of being happy, and am inclined to let go of this Way and return to, frankly, the way most people live.
Related: Learning curve
I may need to reason with myself, to persuade myself that self-management (1) is really worth the effort and (2) deserves to be a “First Thing” — a concern to be given priority, and to be held more important than other concerns.
On one occasion sometime between 1983 and 1990 — I can recall where I was living, but not where I was working — I came home from work and became suicidal. I don’t recall the basis of my agony, but it almost certainly pertained to certain foibles of “the flesh” that my “spirit” seemed powerless to overcome.
A former student had left a cassette tape at my door that day, full of music he wanted to share with me, beginning with “Bad” by U2. I had a second floor apartment, and had sometimes heard this from the boom boxes of people who walked by outside; and I knew what effect it would have on me, particularly the opening section, with the bells. Given my state, for that reason I intentionally delayed playing it.
When I couldn’t bear the pain any more, I put it on, and was at once transported from the pit of despair into a place of perfect peace. I count this as a case of divine intervention: by means of that young man and that music, God saved my life.
Continue reading A short route to agony
Word list:
Copyright © 2017 William Tell
Ethnic differences don’t all need to be A Problem.
A certain woman has struggled for some years with alcoholism. I have followed her case because she’s close to me and because I am, after all, an alcoholic myself.
(Originally posted 05/19/12 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 02/19/14.)
Plan that, after you obtain your high school or college diploma, you will work continuously until you retire.
At all costs, do not allow yourself to become completely jobless.
Is someone signing up all his or her Outlook contacts as followers to this blog?
If anyone knows, please advise!
Follow-up, Saturday, January 20, 2018:
OK, here’s the deal. On some blogging platforms, comments from Followers go straight through without being moderated, and by-pass the spam filter. So now these new Followers have begun submitting spam comments, counting on WordPress being the same way.
Although we want to alternate hands, we don’t want to cross hands. Typing p with the left hand, and then r with the right hand — with any speed — would be awkward.
Racism
Continue reading Conclusion
(Originally posted 2014-02-17.)
Bookmarks:
The Kimberly Leto murder
Controversial books
Governor candidate Mizeur’s crime plan
February 3 – Police arrest two teenagers in killing of Highlandtown woman
February 4 – Woman’s death in burglary leaves Southeast Baltimore reeling
Random comments:
(1) We must get past the twin scandals of race and class.
(2) My greatest concern is to find out where these two young men “come from.”
(3) Had she had a gun, could that have saved her?
(4) Gorham-Ramos, at age 14, has a daughter?
(5) What was the sentence from the August 19 crime? N.B., police identified Gorham-Ramos through fingerprints.
(6) Was Gorham-Ramos’ involvement with the August 19 crime sufficient basis to bring him in for questioning concerning the January 31 crime?
(7) I know from my own time in jail why, if at all possible, children should not be incarcerated with adults.
(8) Pinkney appears to have a mental illness, and was off his medications. The treatment-resistant patient is always problematic.
(9) Does this neighborhood deserve a greater police presence than, say, Barclay? Actually, during my time there, the police presence was pretty darn high; its visibility heightened by the inexplicable consistent police use of white unmarked cars and white officers.
These have been on display in the main hall at EP, and I get to browse them while waiting for a computer. I have not read either one.
American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Harvard University Press, 1998)
“This powerful and disturbing book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities.”
Not to short-sell the book, this is wholly consistent with the politically correct proposition I questioned in “My Homeless Self.” I wonder how the authors account for that portion of the underclass which are white, and how they got there.
Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation
This was originally published in 2002. Author Molefi Kete Asante (born Arthur Lee Smith Jr. on August 14, 1942) has an impressive page at Wikipedia and appears to be a leader in all things Afro-centric.
He demands reparations.
This fits squarely within the definition of ideology I set forth in “The Gospel vs. George F. Will.” As I said there, it says, “‘We’ cannot be happy unless ‘they’ change their ways.”
I have no desire to ally myself with anything liberal; and my first, personal, gut response to Heather Mizeur is to dislike her. And most critically, I have no idea what she means by “prevention.” Aside from all that, I find her proposals exciting.
The Homeless Blogger 