Bookmarks:
U-Va. students challenge Rolling Stone account of alleged sexual assault • TV experts who aren’t • Fox news affiliate distorts coverage • Vast dogfighting ring in Baltimore, Baltimore County broken up • Monkey heroically rescues its friend • Phylicia Barnes update
Continue reading “Jackie” and The Rolling Stone
Category Archives: Justice
The inevitability of evil
Sooner or later, it had to happen.
Sunday, about 14:00, I had just bought my second coffee at McDonald’s. I put it on my table and, as they require me to do, took all my things with me to go out and smoke.
Related: Does McDonald’s discriminate against the homeless?
Outside, I took one more shot at trying to understand how evil — negativity, conflict — happens.
There are those who say that evil is necessary because without it, humans would never be able to appreciate joy. I have never found this believable.
Continue reading The inevitability of evil
Status report: A snapshot of my life right now
On Tuesday 12/02, my therapist asked for a thumbnail summary of my overall situation.
I said, “I have goals, I’m taking concrete steps toward those goals, and I have a ton of hope.”
I know no way to account for this but the exact scenario I set forth in “Chaos overwhelms the poor:” I pay attention only to the concrete here-and-how, and to what I myself can do. (Related: Here – Now – Can.) From the farthest reach of my right fingertip to my right, to the farthest reach of my left fingertip to my left: within that range lies all my responsibility, everything that I can control. Here, the world appears orderly. Here, I can order and manage my affairs. Here I have power. I can act effectively. I can easily find hope.
A ton of hope.
Continue reading Status report: A snapshot of my life right now
Change Begins Here
A post re-blogged from Tracey Seekins’ “Random Words;” originally posted 2014-12-15.
Change Begins Here
My white friends are upset about Eric Garner
Garner grand jury case reaction unifies left and right
Krauthammer: Decision not to indict NYPD officer ‘totally incomprehensible’
Garner was middle-aged, as we are. He had not just robbed a cigar store, rough-handling the clerk; he was selling “loose ones,” as we all do. We all buy and sell them all the time. There’s some risk to it, as in Baltimore this activity in public can get you a $150 ticket (and you must appear for trial).
Death, however, isn’t normally in the scenario.
Continue reading My white friends are upset about Eric Garner
“How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty”
“[T]he uprising in Ferguson was an inevitable reaction to the institutional racism coursing through the area for decades.” — Jack Kirkland
I’m homeless. At this writing, I’ve been homeless for exactly 3½ years.
When you meet a homeless man for the first time, you won’t notice his skin color. Not first. You’ll notice the condition he’s in. You’ll notice his clothes, his grooming, his conduct. Skin color is so far down the list, it might as well be left off completely.
Some disagree. They seem to think race is the only factor in poverty.
Continue reading “How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty”
Joseph in prison
The 07/26/18 post, “When needs are met,” gives the text concerning Joseph’s time in prison, and looks at that time somewhat.
I want to amplify that examination, given that his circumstances and opportunities in that setting weren’t that much different from my own now.
Continue reading Joseph in prison
I am exhausted from grieving race.
The practice has done me a ton of damage, and no good.
So now I take a different approach. Continue reading I am exhausted from grieving race.
“Acting White”
Against the notion that blacks victimize themselves by “acting black,” Princeton undergraduate Kristen Coke complains that “acting white” does not insulate her from petty racist insults. After all, she doesn’t act “ghetto.”
I’m not concerned about victimizations that occur when blacks “act white” in the presence of whites. In my world, there aren’t enough white people to matter. I’m concerned about the victimizations that occur when black people “act black” among blacks.
Karma basics
We begin with Galaxian’s comment on “Jeanette:”
Schizophrenia is not a karmic matter. It is an organic disease just as much as cancer is. I don’t see how anything someone did in a previous life, or early in their current life, would bring this horrible thing on them. Anybody can develop this condition at any time, although it usually starts in young adulthood.
I gather we are both familiar with this disease.
It’s a mistake to condemn a person on the basis of his or her lot, and also can be highly misleading to say she or he “deserves” it.
