Spontaneous Musings

Neil Gaiman interviews Art Spiegelman (Wrote MAUS0




"As a result, we ended up in a world where we're all in the spin room being spun as opposed to being taken back to see what is being done to us." [He's discussing giving into the cynicism seen in later incarnations of Mad Magazine, and not believing in anything greater than ourselves and power and control and greed. See Rudy Giuliani.)

This is a fascinating video about creating comics and the art form. It's also an amazing conversation about MAUS, comics, Mad Magazine, perception, and the Holocaust. It's worth listening to.

***
Hmm...in a related event, Whoopie got suspended from the View.

ABC Suspends Whoopie Goldberg from the View

Whoa. Not that I care about the View.
( the Whoopie fiasco )

Words matter - if you have a platform. Not if you are just talking to yourself in your own apartment. Well they do, but you're the only one who will care - and possibly the walls, and maybe any ghosts listening in.

DW was not working - took forever to post comments, or get a page to load. Finally realized it was the internet connection - so fiddled with that, no connection at all. So rebooted, and finally got it to work. I have a feeling I owe Optimum a call to request a rooter upgrade, and at no additional cost - since they already raised costs with no benefit to me. If they say no, I may have to consider switching to Verizon. (And I hate Verizon.)

Still not as bad as what rural areas deal with - my brother's internet access goes out daily. And he gets almost no help restoring it. Same with various family members across all fifty states. Rural Michigan is so horrible that my Aunt and Uncle get up really early in the morning to check text messages and emails.

**

The weekend got away from me - so did not get around to seeing Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings on Disney Plus. I may try tonight, we'll see. I did manage to watch two episodes of Get Back - the Peter Jackson documentary, which is exhaustive. Apparently there was a previous documentary, Let it Be from the same footage, which I've not seen, and painted Yoko, John and Paul in a more negative light? I don't know, I've not seen it. And it doesn't matter anyhow, since this one is the more informative and valid of the two in that it was edited and reviewed by everyone involved, not just Michael Lindsey-Hoog, includes everyone involved, and is more exhaustive with the footage. My biggest take-aways from it are: ( Read more... )

Also watched a few episodes of School of Chocolate on NETFLIX. It's not very good. I keep wanting to smack the judge/teacher/chef. ( Read more... )

***

Talked to Wales today. Who managed to horrify me with stories about her family.

Me: How was it?
Wales: Disturbing. ( this is triggering folks )

I'm grateful that I don't have to personally be around crazy racist MAGA folks, one of us would most likely be dead by now.

I keep restraining myself from posting this on twitter. It's too dangerous to post on twitter, and I don't have enough room to tell it right. [Eh, I figured out a way to share it. Also on FB. Because honestly, folks need to know this is happening right now and how bad it is.]

But the discussion in all seriousness made me realize how desperately we need qualified instructors with Masters Degrees in History to teach history and critical race theory to children. Also no one should be allowed to teach history without getting at least a Masters in the subject. They should know more history than I do. I was appalled by my friend's story.

Also once again I'm worried about this country.

**

Apartment complex decorated only for Hanukkah right now - since it starts tomorrow, I think (yay, less crowded trains). Apt complex is about sixty percent Jewish, although that could be changing.

I'm waiting until next weekend, although in now hurry, since I'm flying to South Carolina for Xmas. I'm not sure we're going to have presents this year - none of us want anything.

**

Random Photo inspired by atpo_omn's flower peeking through the pavement.
Also off to make dinner and deal with the Sunday Scaries..

Storm clouds on the horizon!



This was taken about forty-five minutes ago. It is currently storming outside my window. We need the rain - so I'm happy about it. But it's pouring so hard outside at the moment, that I can barely see out the window.

Wow - we've got hail! It's serious.

Was hot and sticky on the walk. I came back soaking wet, with my clothes sticking to me, and feeling dehydrated, so I took a nice cool/lukewarm shower.

Feeling lovely at the moment. And the thunderstorm feels like a huge release of energy - my irritability melting away the heavens unleash its wrath upon the earth. Maybe it will cool things off? It's supposed to. Ah, and now, its clearing off. Will I get a rainbow - there's blue sky and sun behind it. NY is now officially a tropical climate, who knew?

New York vs. The Coronavirus and bankruptcy

Anyhow..listened to the Governor's briefing today - he gave a brief one.(I was told it was brief - it lasted an hour.]
( NY's ongoing battle with the Coronavirus and well, fireworks )

Crazy Company

( eh...we're broke )

NYC vs. the Black Lives Matter Protestors

Meanwhile...I was telling my mother about the protestors who've camped out in front of Town Hall, until NYC decides to reduce the NYPD's budget aka "defund" the police and redistribute the money elsewhere. They've set up quite a camp for themselves. Redesigned the plaza to be more hospitable. Among the attractions? A library, a community garden, and a tea hut. I've decided they are bored and desperate to socialize, also they are getting a lot of validation from our equally bored media. (I mean the Coronavirus is starting to get old.) It's also kind of fun to protest and camp out.

[NYC is broke, by the way. So I'm not exactly sure why they are fighting over de-funding the police - it's not like NYC actually has any money to fund the police. Actually NYC is more than happy to reduce the police budget by more than half, and use the protests as an excuse to do so, while they are at - they are closing Rikers, releasing people who can't pay bail, and releasing all these folks back into the population, and none of them have any jobs to go back to, or really homes. The police are kind of annoyed, but the city is broke. Doing this solves multiple problems from the city's perspective - less people getting the virus if the jails are less crowded, less money going to the police and more to other areas, and maybe it will appease the protestors! Win-Win. The Mayor announced today that he was struggling to figure out what to cut and if the state didn't fund them soon, they'd have to lay off city workers.]

Below the cut is the article from NY Times on Instagram about the encampment outside City Hall.
( here it is in case you want to read it for yourself )

I'm on the fence about the whole defunding police thing. I'm not so sure this is going to result in the reforms people think it will. Also racism? That's prevalent. It's not just against Blacks. It's also at its root about selfishness. We're an extremely self-centered and narcissistic society. Jim Carrey has a new book out about it - or about how narcissistic Hollywood is - where he lampoons himself, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nick Cage, a thinly disquised Tom Cruise...among others. Stating, somewhat arrogantly, I think, that this is the book for the end of the world as we know it - not the actual end of the world, but the end of the selfish world we live in. I don't know. I've read history. Humans are selfish creatures. If the Plague didn't make us better, or WWII, or the CIVIL WAR, or 1918 Flu, or various other things..why this?

Also Carrey thought 9/11 would be the end of ironic humor and nastiness.
Alrighty then.

I saw on FB, a woman rallying at a old white couple she'd stumbled across who told her not to date her boyfriend because he was black. Which, honestly, pissed me off too. But what she should have written was what I just wrote. Not, ( Read more... )

1. Watched Big Hero Six finally on ABC tonight. They are doing movies. Disney is advertising it's streaming channel on ABC by showing various movies on it.

I loved it. I found it very comforting. I needed something comforting.

2. So, they are tearing down statues of racists again.

[Note this is by no means the first time they tore down statues in the US - they did it about three years back in 2017? All the Confederate Statues were torn down in a flood of protests through the deep south. (If you follow the link above - you can see where.) And in sympathy, New York and various Northern States and Communities tore down their racist statues as well. (There aren't any in Greenwood Cemetery that I know about. Just a War Memorial to the Union Soliders who fought in the Civil War.) This lead to a nation-wide debate on whether preserving the statues was required in regards to historical narrative or if doing so, merely preserved racist sentiments and a racist agenda. A potential compromise - was to put the statues in museums where they could be preserved for historical purposes. Some even argued they were art - an argument that was quickly put to rest when it was revealed that they were all taken from a mold and kind of similar, and not all that artistic in character. All of this lead to a bunch of protests and counter-protests in the Southern US, culminating in that really horrible incident in Charlottsville where a White Supremacist rammed his car into a woman during a peaceful counter-protest (the counter-protest was against the Neo-Nazis and KKK) - later shown in the movie BlackKKlansman. Note then as now, the violent protestors were the White Supremacists, with few exceptions. So, as you can see this has kind of been building up for a while now. ]

Anyhow, I bring that up because what is interesting and encouraging about the tearing down of statues this go around is that, well, for one thing the US isn't alone, other countries have decided to do it too. And it's not just Confederate assholes, but "all" slavers, racists and genocidal leaders throughout history that are getting torn down worldwide. Personally, I don't think these people should have been honored or commemorated in the first place. But, hey, better late than never, right?

My favorite?

Last night, Christopher Columbus statues in two separate American cities were destroyed. In Richmond, Virginia, protesters tore down a Columbus statue, set it on fire, and then dumped it into a lake.

Roughly eight hours away in Boston, meanwhile, a separate Columbus statue located in the city’s North End was beheaded overnight.

Hee Hee. This kind of made my day. I despise Christopher Columbus.

3. NASCAR Bans Confederate Flags at All Its Events and Properties

Why they didn't do that before now, I've no clue. The Confederate flag should have been banned in the 1800s, after the Civil War.

I remember a black co-worker and her husband (who is Hispanic and a War history buff) visited Gettysberg, PA. She reported being uncomfortable.
When they went to a restaurant they were stared at. There were confederate flags in a Souvenir shop, along with other racist items. And one of the diners they went into had a Confederate flag hanging on the wall. It unnerved her. She'd never seen that. I told her that it didn't surprise me and I'd seen it. That a good portion of Middle White America was racist.
I remember her eyes getting big and she told me that she'd never seen it before. That when she went down there it was the first time in her life that she felt black. Or was aware of her skin color. She'd not been aware before then.

I'd like to live in a world where I'm not aware of skin tone or race. Where it doesn't matter. I do not see that happening in my life time, but I have hope. It's tiny, but it is there. DW gives me hope - why? Because I interact with people who use alias, and really don't see each other's skin tones, or races or creeds or genders, and we treat each other as well people. That's what I loved about the ATPOBTVS fan board for the most part - I felt as if what I looked like didn't matter. I don't want to be defined or identified by my race, ethnicity, religion/creed, sex, size, gender, sexual orientation, etc. It shouldn't matter. And I can't begin to tell you how much I hate that it does.

I have hope that one day we'll evolve beyond it. But probably not in my life time.

4. HBO Max removes Gone with the Wind from streaming service
- most likely until they can figure out how to add disclaimers to it - like they did with the Looney Toon Cartoons. Disney has similar issues and has removed similar content - such as Fantasia (which was redone several years ago), and Song of the South (which you'll never see - and I've mixed feelings about. Song of the South is a bit like Huckleberry Finn and old Mickey Mouse Cartoons and Looney Tunes.)

Gone with the Wind is kind of interesting. ( Read more... )

Day 82 finds me battling a sick headache - which is not COVID related, so no worries on that front.

And..I'm not so sure it is epidemic central any longer. We're entering Phase #1 of the re-opening tomorrow. This means that manufacturing, construction, curb-side pick up, limited and at a specific appointed time - in store retail pick up, and more subways. Although G trains were going every 12 to 15 minutes during the crisis according to the notifications on my phone. Subways in NYC will continue to close down between 1 am and 5 am, which is kind of an adaption of European guidelines. This allows the trains to be thoroughly disinfected.

At 3 Am this morning, I woke up from a nightmare about the COVID virus, to the vertigo/sinus-tension headache from hell. The vertigo aspect lasted until 5:30 am. I finally was able to sleep from 5:30-9:30. Took a shower, had oatmeal (the idea of eggs was kind of naseuating), green tea, and did the worship service ZOOM.

The sinus-tension headache portion has lasted all day long, with me fending off the vertigo. ( Read more... )

This Morning's Zoom Church Service was our Annual Flower Communion - this honors a Czech Unitarian Minister who harbored refugees from the Nazis and spoke out against the Nazis in his church during WWII. He was captured and died in the concentration camps - but while there made music and provided hope. In his church they had a ritual in which people would offer flowers and place them on the altar as symbols of love and faith, at the end of the service, each person takes home a different flower than the one they brought.

For this service - which took place entirely online via Zoom, we were asked to send photos of flowers to the interim Minister, a black UUA minister. (Considering the scandal in the UUA church in 2019-2018 about the lack of POC in the UUA, it is a big deal that our church had its first black minister leading services particularly during this time.( Read more... )

A healthcare worker, who runs and works in a facility that helps the underprivileged with health care needs and services, stated during the service that it was as if we had all been sent to different planets.( Read more... )

After service, my headache lurking painfully in the background, I called my mother for our daily phone chat.

Mother: I don't understand why they are still protesting. How long are they going to be protesting - it's been over ten days.( Read more... )

In my Covid nightmare which I shared with my mother - I was going to see my friend Diana, and got there, and there was a huge party, and she came in focus wearing a beautiful mask and I realized I'd forgotten my mask, and I held up what seemed to be an oven mitt over my face. Then I got into a debate with these people trying to pull it away from me - they weren't wearing masks and they told me that I shouldn't be wearing one either. That's when I woke up to the room spinning, I remember lying there for a while wondering if would stop long enough for me to go to the bathroom, and get some meds.

Outside my window, it is a beautiful day. In the low seventies, with light fluffy clouds, and blue sky and a nice breeze. The trees a fervent green.
And the weekend such as it is has rushed past me, I've felt as if I've accomplished little within it - outside of raging at my own impotence.

I leave you with a picture of a flower...my own since I can't seem to grab one from my church... to which I offer up to Breonna Taylor - whose petition for Justice, I signed this past week.

I tried the pharmacy today, and after about fifteen minutes, gave up.




It was actually worse than this - I gave up when people came towards me with no masks, and a guy was sitting behind me with his N97 mask hanging around his neck. I thought okay...I don't really need anything that badly, I'm going home. Also I knew it was going to rain soon. And guess what? It is raining now.

[ETA: Found out later that the tent were for free COVID-19 antibody testing, that had been arranged by the community for this area. It was from 8am to 5pm today, I didn't know about it until I got home and someone on the neighborhood Kesington Facebook Page announced it.]

But this begs the question - I've been asking myself off and on all week - am I the only person who is still afraid of the virus?

[ETA: Apparently the deaths in NYC have dropped to 0? I don't know about the source. I checked the NY Government site and can't find it. Wiki on Google states it though. Good news. (Except I know for a fact that they aren't tracking all the deaths - so this is the confirmed ones in the hospital.) Although according to the Governor, 42 people passed away due to COVID-19, down from a record-high when 800 died in a single day just eight weeks ago.)

Crazy Organization
Apparently not. My other manager/friend, J, who also happens to be black, called me - after I sent her an email to see if she was okay. (I've decided to check in on my black co-workers and friends this week. They are all fine - better than I am, actually. None are protesting - of the ones that I talked to and responded. Granted two didn't respond to my email/text, but I'm hoping they are okay as well.) J is more worried about the virus than anything else.

Crazy organization has sent emails to all of the managers requesting that they volunteer to give out PPE (hand sanitizer/masks) across twenty three stations out on Long Island and in the City. They are supposed to set up a PPE station, and hand stuff out to the customers who request them. J has not volunteered and doesn't think we should be doing it. Also it's expensive - we can't afford it - where's all the money going to come from?
J ranted about this for about fifteen minutes. I kept trying to talk about the protests or other things - but this was her main concern. She's also terrified about being sent back to work - apparently they are considering sending some of the managers back. Also she has her own office. It's not her office she's concerned about - it's getting to her office. I can identify - that's why I don't see them sending most of us back. She can't drive there - no parking. Trains - not really possible to social distance on trains, and according to those who've taken them? The trains now have a person in every row. So...where are we putting additional people? And what about the jerks who aren't taking the virus seriously? Have the police help you with them? Uhm, that didn't go over all that well during the stay at home phase.

(It's very interesting to work for a public transportation agency during a pandemic, you would not believe the issues that come up - and how complex this situation truly is. Add to that civil unrest and protests. Honestly one of the worst possible times to have protests and civil unrest is during a pandemic. Yet, I know why it is happening now. People are fed up. They've been cooped up for three months, and a lot of them are dead broke and struggling. Plus they got to deal with the threat of police violence. I kind of saw this coming a mile away. But it does pose interesting issues for a public transportation system struggling to keep running and working during a pandemic.)

Speaking of Crazy Workplace...I had a lengthy discussion about comic books over Microsoft Teams with one of my project managers.

He had his video on - and it looked like he was in a storage closet with files at work.

ME: Where are you?
Project Manager: My second office.
ME: Looks like a storage closet-
PRoject Manager: Oh this? I collect comic books.
Me: Cool! I love comic books.

[He lives in the suburbs with his wife, and now his daughter who recently returned home. His wife is working out of the living room. No one has left the property. He leaves work by going downstairs, and sits on an outdoor sofa on his lawn and he's home. I just take my laptop from my desk to the armchair - and I'm home. It's a quicker commute.]

He collects comics and sells them on E-Bay, also sells them for other people. He sold a mint-condition Incredible Hulk, issue #1 for a friend of his at well over $250,000 on E-bay. An X-man #9 on E-bay went for $95,000. He showed me a Captain America #1 in a glass encasement, an Avengers #1 also in glass encasement, and an Amazing Spiderman #1 in glass encasement.

We had a lengthy chat about the selling of vintage comics. And collecting them. We also discussed the procurement of a security assessment, which was the reason for his call. I didn't grace him with a video of myself. I do not do video chatting.

Fighting with People on Social Media is Exhausting

Meanwhile - because I'm frustrated at work, and easily distracted, I got into heated debates with people on social media. Yes, I know, it's a bad idea.

( fighting with entitled rich white guys on social media on both sides of the divide )

New York, The Protestors & Human Rights Advocacy

The Governor meanwhile has proposed an act entitled "Say Their Names" with four cornerstone's :

The 'Say Their Name' Reform agenda includes:

1. Allow for transparency of prior disciplinary records of law
enforcement officers by reforming 50-a of the civil rights law;
2. Banning chokeholds by law enforcement officers;
3. Prohibiting false race-based 911 reports and making them a crime; and
4. Designating the Attorney General as an independent prosecutor for
matters relating to the deaths of unarmed civilians caused by law
enforcement.

It's a start. I want more of course. If it were up to me, we'd ban all guns in this country, but it's not up to me. Getting people to give up their guns is akin to telling a guy - you are cutting off his dick. It ain't happening.

And dear god, the stuff on the news about the protests in New York are painful, sickening even - but it's not what I've seen friends post nor in my area.( Read more... )

Miscellaneous

Didn't really get much of a walk in. And I think after 47 days of waffling that my period may be coming? I'm sipping a Lime Tequila Margritta - that came in a can courtesy of Foodkick. Cheaper and easier than buying all the ingredients, also less sugar and alcohol.

Watching cartoons on The Disney Plus channel - at the moment "Wolverine and the X-men", one of the better animated of the Marvel cartoons. It's close to what they were doing with Justice League. The writing is about the same - except I have issues with how they've developed and written Cyclops. (But I always do. I've yet to see an animated or live action film that handles that character well.)

And trying not to let the world outside get to me, too much. I realized today that I have not been on a subway, car or any means of transportation since March. Nor have I walked further than Prospect Park or Greenwood Cemetery. Co-worker today said it was the end of week twelve of our confinement. And there doesn't appear to be an end in sight.

In two weeks, I will have to brave the subways for a doctor's appointment, hopefully blood work, and COVID testing as well. I am hunting more masks.
It's more compulsive than anything else.

Anyhow, tomorrow my desk chair shows up. I think. Hopefully it will be fully assembled as advertised. Fingers crossed. Also that it will work and solve some of my problems. Then I got to figure out what to do with the other desk chair. Small issues, I know. Embarrassingly small.

I miss being close - physically to other people - without fear. I wonder sometimes when that will change. That fear.

Anyhow, I leave you with a sunset..it was taken on my birthday at the exact time I was born - in Costa Rica in 2017. An enlarged photo of it hangs in my apartment, it is the only picture hanging on my apartment walls.

What can I say? Except to continue to report on what is unfolding as I see it day by day. To give you a sense of what it is like to live here in Brooklyn and New York City during a pandemic.

We are currently under a curfew citywide. I'm told it is nation wide by friends on FB. 8pm to 5am. I got an emergency alert on it around 8PM and at 5PM.

I read an article in the New York Times today that stated Where the Virus is Growing Most - Countries with Illiberal Populist Leaders - The US, the UK, Russia and Brazil.

Accomplished very little today - my mind refused to focus. And sleep is filled with jagged nightmares as the days flow tirelessly into each other.

I signed petitions online and tried to text - the text didn't work. And I've donated.

So this is the fifth day of protesting in pandemic central despite an 8pm curfew...actually they are kind saying "fuck that curfew".

( New Yorkers vs Racism, the Police and the Corona Virus )

I leave you with flowers.

( flowers )

When you read a friends post - about an event happening in their community that is far outside of yours, not in your country, not in your town and outside your realm of experience - please try to read it with curiosity, kindness, and concern, not judgement. Do not presume to know what that person is going through what their experience is, or what they are feeling. Do not presume to know what is happening near them. Or what they are experiencing.

Remember first, BE KIND.

They aren't you. And you do NOT know what they would do.

I am trying to be kind. I do not always succeed. When I'm angry or scared, it's very hard.

This morning, I cried for two hours - watching the Mayor and the Governor's press briefings.

I am sharing links here:

* Mayor De Blasio's Briefing on the Brooklyn Protest

* Governor Cuomo's Briefing on Coronavirus and the Brooklyn Protest

The protests took place outside of Atlantic Avenue Terminal and Barclays arena. This a twenty minute subway ride from my home. I did not know about the protests. There were two - one in Foley Park in Manhattan, which never became violent, and one in the streets around the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. I found out about the second one last night via a friend who lives in the area live video footage from her apartment.

To put this into context - the Brooklyn protests took place in an area that is just a couple blocks from various "hotspots". It had over 3000 people. No social distancing. Brooklyn currently has 54,817 confirmed cases of COVID-19 (that's not counting the ones that have yet to be confirmed), with 5,085 dead. That's the highest of any county in the US for deaths, and the third highest number of cases of any county in the US.

Currently many of the people in these areas are unemployed, they aren't wearing masks or practicing social distancing - hence the uptick in cases. Many of the people are essential workers.

I take the train and work with many of them. The area I live is among the most diverse in the country.

Throughout my life - I've worked in social justice. I went to law school to become a civil rights attorney - unfortunately couldn't get a foothold, so ended up doing what I could within a Railroad and through church, and various volunteer pursuits.

Last night scared me. Why, people chose to go out without regard to their safety or anyone else's and instigated violence near the train terminal I commuted in and out of daily. It was 20 minutes away. And it resulted in more violence and pain. And no, it is not an isolated incident. I've seen more violent protests in my lifetime. The only difference about what is happening now and what happened in the twentieth and nineteenth centuries is we have the internet and social media. So you can see it now.

I've lived through it. When I first started working in Jamaica, there were protests over the police killing of a man at a Gentleman's Club a block from where I worked. And my church had their banner "Black Lives Matter" stolen.
I've had people stare and move away from me and friend on subways back in the 1990s, because she was black and I was white.

And I walked through a housing authority project, in Kansas City, Kansas, with severe infractions - that I worked to resolve with Legal Aid of Kansas City. I've stood outside a courtroom with domestic violence victims and their abusers, as they attempted to get orders of protection. I've marched (I don't believe in person protests solve anything any longer - particularly if violence is involved.) In the 1980s, I remember standing up in a room full of activists regarding the apartheid situation in South Africa - and telling them that protesting for disinvestment by camping out on the front lawn or waving signs, was fucking easy, it was fun and games and the administration was treating them like unruly children because they were acting like unruly children. If you want to get their attention take a page from the smart activists of the 1960s such as Martin Luther King who staged a sit-in. Do a sit-in at the Dean's office where the alumni have to walk by and use that time while sitting there to write letters to them. (They took my advice, and I joined them, sitting on the floor of the Dean's office to write three letters to various members of the board. And you know what? It fucking worked! The college disinvested in South Africa.)

Fresne - want to know what she's been doing? She's working with a major phone bank and calling constantly to get out the vote and change the people who are in office. She's making masks and distributing them to shelters around Los Angelos (another area hard hit by the virus).

A consultant this week that I spoke with over the phone, who lives in the suburbs of Long Island.

Consultant: Every day I sort out eggs and food and take them with my daughter to the El Salvadorian Community where I live.
Me: Thank you so much for doing that. If only I could. [All I can do is give money to various places like the Robin Hood Foundation, Food Bank of NY, and City Harvest, and COVID-19 First Responders. That and wear masks, and stay out of grocery stores, tip delivery people high, and stay home.]
Consultant: I know, I feel like it is such a small thing.

I told a co-worker once that I've learned over time to ignore what people say and pay attention to what they do. Words can be deleted. I deleted a post and all the comments today, because I was furious at the lack of communication. We are so fucking good at judging each other and telling each other "What I would do if this was my situation" or "What I would do if I was" or "IF was a privileged white woman living there I would hope I'd.."

What are you doing? Not, what would you do, because I got news for you? No one gives a shit what you think or hope you would or might do. That's the most useless phrase you could utter. What we all care about and should care about is what are you going to do?

I have a friend on DW who tries to give blood plateletes every week. It's painful. She's in her sixities. She works in a blood bank. She is considered an essential worker. She went into the office on Memorial Day. And she goes out of her way to give presents to older people on their birthdays, at a safe distance and in a creative way.

What acts of kindness are you doing? Not what you think I should do, or you think someone else should do. What are you actually doing?

What am I doing? I work 8 hours a day trying to keep infrastructure going. I send money to various causes. I meditate to keep myself sane and in check. I take long walks through a cemetery and stay at distance. I wear an uncomfortable mask. I get food deliveries and for the first time ever, have been getting take out to keep restaurants afloat. I wish I could do more.
But I am immune compromised. I'm over fifty years of age. I have high blood pressure (the vast majority of people who get COVID-19 have high blood pressure), I have recently been diagnosed with the beginnings of Type 2 diabetes. If I get COVID - it could very well kill me. There's a 60-70% chance. You may not value my life very much, but I do and so does my poor mother and father.

I do what I can. I work with a boss who is black, and I'm proud of that, as I am proud that the president of my organization is Asian-American, and the vast majority of my co-workers and project managers are people of color or various races. Through my job I provide work to minority and women owned businesses. I abate the environment. A recent project provided elevators and stair wells and other safety improvements to a train station in a lower income community.

I do what I can. I don't have a lot.

I live in an apartment in the middle of a big city. It is a 77 unit building. I do laundry in the basement. I don't have a lot of furniture. I do not have an outside garden or a terrace. I don't live with anyone. The only person I spoke with today was on the phone, and the only ones I talk to all week are on the phone.

I go walk through a cemetery to get fresh air. Half the people I pass don't wear masks - many are young and privileged between their 20-30. With their cellphones out, as if nothing matters. The older ones tend to wear them, and it is a mix.

The crisis isn't over. And what is happening with the protests? That's been going on since before I was born. I was born in the 1960s in Chicago - the year of my birth - they had the race riots in Chicago - a block or two from my parents apartment. The city was literally on fire around me when I was barely a year old.

1. Already irritated for various reasons not worth going into, a shelf fell on my head, while I was attempting to get my grill out from the lower shelf. Luckily only plastic ware was on the shelf. The little plastic thingamigs that held said shelf in place broke off or came undone for no discernible reason and the shelf fell. This is worrying me, because its the second shelf that's fallen. And I don't know if the shelves holding my glasses will follow suit. I complained to the super but the prior shelf, but nothing.

So, am sending an email to management company tomorrow to advise that the shelves keep falling and it's dangerous. And I need someone to fix the shelves that they clearly constructed in a poor and faulty manner.

2. I have eclipse glasses, whether I'll use them or not, no clue. I will be working at the time. And the eclipse is around 2:45 PM. I've set my television to record the news specials on it, where they are showing it live around the country.

Also there aren't really that many trees around my building or places to see it. I work in a city.

Apparently there are people out there who have no idea what an eclipse is. One wonders about our educational system.

Actually, I've been wondering about it since the Doofus got elected.

3. Here's a nifty Trailer for a Television Anthology Series Based Solely on Philip K. Dick stories entitled Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams. It's apparently Australian produced, with Bryan Cranston and Ronald Moore at the executive producing, show-running, etc helm. Amazon has rights in the US, Channel 4 has rights in Great Britain.

4. Bloody tired of the seemingly endless debate on the ugly confederate statues and monuments.

Anyhow, I got irritated enough to waste time doing a bit of research on the topic.

The NY Times has a good article about the bloody statues, which were erected by, the Daughters of the Confederacy, along with various other white supremacists over time. Confederate Statues and Our History"

And Where and When they Were Erected -- although not sure how accurate that is.
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From: Confederate Monuments History..

* From the Atlantic The Stubborn Persistence of Confederate Monuments
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* Aha, found the article stating that the silly statues were mass produced from pre-fabricated parts and as artistic as well the wrought iron molding on your gate, although some people see that as art, I guess.

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Why Those Confederate Soldier Statues Look a Lot Alike

* List of Hate Speech Cases From the US Supreme Court Note, Hate Speech is NOT protected under the First Amendment. But, most people don't know what it is.
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1. States Remove Confederate Monuments

Following in the footsteps of Baltimore, many other cities across the United States have taken preliminary steps to remove their own Confederate monuments. This includes statues and plaques and the like, as well as schools, highways, and other facilities named for Confederate soldiers, even holidays. All told, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified about 1,503 items as of 2016. Moreover, the vast majority of statues and physical markers are located in what can be considered southern states; of the 718 monuments and statues, about 300 are located in Georgia, Virginia, or North Carolina.

As you already know, Charlottesville’s city council voted to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from the newly-minted Emancipation Park. It was this decision that led to the violence that occurred over the weekend. As of right now, the statue’s removal is on hold as the city tries to figure out how to move forward after the protests and tragedy of the weekend. Gainesville, Florida has already moved one statue, and is in the process of raising funds to remove a second. One North Carolina statue was knocked over by protesters in response to what happened in Charlottesville.

This is actually a big deal. A historic event. Keep in mind these monuments have been around since the 1800s. So they are over 100 years old. The removal of the monuments to the Confederacy has opened up a nation wide debate on the topic. A debate that everyone from Condoleeza Rice, former Secretary of State to Robert E. Lee Jr, V, descendant of the Confederate General have participated. Interestingly enough, Rice thinks the monuments should stay where they are and Robert E. Lee's descendant thinks they should be put in a history museum depicting the horror of the times.

You'd think it would be the opposite, it's not.

Asked about the value of preserving statues that honor slaveowners in a May interview on Fox News, Condoleezza Rice argued against what she called the "sanitizing" of history. "I am a firm believer in 'keep your history before you' and so I don't actually want to rename things that were named for slave owners," she said. "I want us to have to look at those names and recognize what they did and to be able to tell our kids what they did, and for them to have a sense of their own history."

"When you start wiping out your history, sanitizing your history to make you feel better, it's a bad thing," the former secretary of state added.

Rice's defense in favor of preservation is rooted in an argument that is the basic opposite of the reason white nationalists are rallying for Lee. They believe it to be a persistent reminder of a positive history. Rice, on the other hand, believes preserving monuments to the darker moments of our past ensures future generations are acquainted with history and charge forward rather than backward, away from the mistakes of their ancestors, rather than into their fading bronze arms.

To be clear, Rice has not yet voiced her opinion on this particular statue. But hers is an interesting perspective to consider at a time when a small but vocal group of racist bigots is drawing attention to one of the darkest times in our nation's history.

I am curious to see what she'd have said after the events in Charlottsville.

Meanwhile...

Lee, a great-great-grandson of the Confederate hero, and his sister, Tracy Lee Crittenberger, issued a written statement on Tuesday condemning the "hateful words and violent actions of white supremacists, the KKK or neo-Nazis."

Then, Lee spoke with Newsweek by phone.

"We don't believe in that whatsoever," Lee says. He is quick to defend his ancestor's name: "Our belief is that General Lee would not tolerate that sort of behavior either. His first thing to do after the Civil War was to bring the Union back together, so we could become a more unified country."

The general was a slave owner who led the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War and who remains a folk hero throughout much of the South.

"We don't want people to think that they can hide behind Robert E. Lee's name and his life for these senseless acts of violence that occurred on Saturday," Lee says.

The Lee heir says it would make sense to remove the embattled statue from public display and put it in a museum—a view shared by the great-great-grandson of Jefferson Davis.

"I think that is absolutely an option, to move it to a museum and put it in the proper historical context," Lee says. "Times were very different then. We look at the institution of slavery, and it's absolutely horrendous. Back then, times were just extremely different. We understand that it's complicated in 2017, when you look back at that period of time... If you want to put statues of General Lee or other Confederate people in museums, that makes good sense."

Then there's this statement from the Mayor of New Orleans...

But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.

As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other.

So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

He's not wrong. You should really read the whole thing. After listening to the Mayor's speech, I re-affirmed my view that yes, those frigging monuments need to come down. They should have been torn down in the 1960s. No, wait. They should never have been erected in the first place. Apparently there's a memorial to a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator in NYC, why it's there, I've no clue. Particularly in NYC of all places. Although changing place and street names may be a bit more problematic from a logistical perspective. (Yes, I know, I'm possibly the only person on the planet that obsesses over logistical matters... But, say you are looking for a post office located on Robert E. Lee Avenue and suddenly it has become Forest Hill Avenue. You're GPS can't find it and neither can you. Granted, if I were African-American I would not want to be living on Robert E Lee Avenue or passing down it every day to work. So, yes it should be changed. It's just a bit problematic. I bring this up because Governor Cumo wants to change the place and street names in New York. Now, why New York of all places had places and streets named after Confederate Generals is beyond me.

2. North Carolina Protest Arrest

In the days since Charlottesville, cities across the country have taken steps to remove Confederate monuments. Baltimore removed all of theirs in the middle of the night earlier this week. And if you haven’t yet watched the video of protesters in Durham, North Carolina, who refused to wait on their city and toppled a Confederate statue themselves, I recommend doing so. It’s highly catharticOne woman, Takiyah Thompson (you can see her coming out from behind the statue in the GIF), was arrested for her part in the protest. She’s currently out on bail, but this morning, a group of about 200 people gathered outside the Durham courthouse to oppose her arrest. And many of them (about 50 by some accounts) also went full Spartacus and lined up to turn themselves in to authorities.


3. How America Spreads the Disease that is Racism by not Confronting Racist Family Members and Friends

There's a nifty chart, see if you can identify where you fall on it.

Racism Scale Chart.

I can't reproduce the chart, sorry, I tried. You'll have to follow the above link.

If you fall below “awareness”, then this is a red flag that racism is a problem for you. If it is not a problem for you, but find that it is a problem for your family members and/or friends, then it’s time to address it or it will continue to spread throughout America.

Like alcoholism, an alcoholic cannot thrive without their enablers. It is the same white Americans who enable their relatives and friends who are racist. It is important to identify and recognize that racism is a mental illness and recommend that individual to a psychotherapist as needed.

There is no easy way to contain a disease, but if we can identify the symptoms, then we can put a stop to it through education and awareness.

This is why it is very important to talk to a diverse group of people constantly. I remember ages ago being challenged by my friends, when I muttered that if only I can be around people who agreed with me all of the time. They said, a)that would be boring, and b) how would you know when you are wrong?