I don’t like Elder Conrad.
At the shelter, they compel us to attend chapel every night. A different group presents each night, following a monthly rotation. Elder Conrad and his group come the second Sunday of each month. In nigh on four years, he’s never said a single thing I felt merited attention.
There is one exception.
Continue reading * “Son”
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
Bookmarks:
Two Men Use Girl As Human Shield — Until Her Father Guns Them Down •
Less incarceration could lead to less crime • Four Pinocchios for yet another Democrat ‘Mediscare’ ad • Why women love bad boys • Someone’s been sleeping in my bed. • Child immigration crisis • Pray for the honeybees
Continue reading * Two Men Use Girl As Human Shield — Until Her Father Guns Them Down
(Originally published 06/15/13 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 03/07/19.)
No comment. Read the story.
This is a good thing. Many young men are eager to step up to the plate and, in these circumstances, overcome the disadvantages of their own background.
Give ’em a chance.
We mammals aren’t reptiles.
(Originally published 06/05/13 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 01/17/19.)
It’s difficult to start this post, as the story’s prone to leave one speechless.
What sort of karma would impel a child to be born into that context?
At the shelter, we’re compelled to attend chapel every night. A different preacher comes each night, in a monthly rotation. These generally disappoint me in their utter failure to speak to the sort of situation in question here. About 40% of the presenters are preoccupied wholly with what will become of your soul when you die; whether you’ll go to heaven or hell; and your need to “believe in Jesus” as the key to salvation. It’s all about a cognitive assent, saying “yes” to a certain set of ideas. There is no presentation of Christianity as a lifestyle, nor any discussion of the role of discipline in following Jesus.
Another 40% of the presenters are preoccupied wholly with obtaining “blessings,” principally by the means of praise: “When the praises go up, the blessings come down.” A “blessing” here is always a material, for example monetary, advantage that one has done nothing to earn. It is as if God were some cosmic King Lear jealous for flattery.
Neither group mentions the call to repent, in terms of any need to change one’s ways.
The only hell that concerns me is the living hell that folk create in this life, here and now, for themselves and their community.
Continue reading * Carter Scott, Karma and Chaos
(Originally posted 02/23/13 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 08/23/18.)
Colo. teen heard on 911 call saying he killed girl
‘Why is it dark?’ asks blinded Chinese boy
Man Accused In Rape Of Toddler Breaks Down Door To Get To Victim: Police
Arthur Morgan, III
Man gets life for tossing daughter, 2, into creek
Lawyer: NJ dad doesn’t deny tossing toddler in creek
‘I hate this life’ – Slain girl’s journals focus of grandmother’s murder trial
(Originally published 07/21/12 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 08/09/18.)
The pigeons. Years ago, when I had an office job downtown, I’d wait for the bus every afternoon on the south side of Baltimore Street one or two blocks east of Charles. Often, someone tossed down several handfuls of torn-up bread for the birds to eat, and I’d have time to watch them.
For the most part, the pigeons acted just as you’d expect: eating together, share and share alike. But I noticed one individual whose conduct was quite different. This guy never picked up any food from the ground. He never seemed to notice any food on the ground. Instead, he’d notice what someone else was eating, and go over and take it away from that person. Time and time again, he did this.
Put this fellow down on top of a pile of food, and he’d starve to death, because he’d never pick up any for himself. Put another pigeon with him, and he’d be OK — taking away what the other one picks up to eat.
How much closer can you get to the way some people act; who will not do anything for themselves, but only take away what someone else has worked for? Can there be a gene for this?
———— ♦ ————
When I lived in Barclay, I maintained a bird feeder in the back yard — different locations, but always visible from the kitchen window. Two species used to visit the feeder in flocks: sparrows and starlings. There might be fifty sparrows or fifty starlings there at a time.
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.
(Reblogged 2018-01-11.)
The Homeless Blogger 