July 18, 2013

I just watched some of the raw, black and white films of the riots of Selma

That happened 50 years or so. This was the pivotal event that ended up with the Voting Rights Act.

The VRA is probably the singular moment in the 60's because it showed that defying entrenched power was possible and that the country was energized.

With the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by five of the most privileged men in this country, men who never had to jump through hoops to exercise their rights, the US could very well fall back into way it was.

I know that sounds like hysteria but several states have already moved to reinstate purging of voters, barriers for registration and limiting vote by mail.

I'm not a young man anymore. And here in Ohio there is no real push for drastic change in how we conduct election so far. So I wish for those DU'ers who live in states that have already implemented changes that throw up so many barriers to voters that it will be hard to keep the Democratic Party viable in some of these states to keep the faith and do something, anything to stop the madness.

I honestly thought this was stuff that was settled, that the US would never go back to segregation and wide spread voter suppression.

Fuck!

July 10, 2013

About that 10 year old who recieved a second pair of lungs...

Just so you know, I am a candidate for a lung transplant. In fact I could be going under the knife as early as this Fall.

I asked a long time ago, when I first was being tested for the transplant, what would happen if my body completely rejected the lungs. I was told, with no if ands or buts about it, that I would get one set of lungs and if that operation didn't take,well, that was it...

I understand that this is a "special" case, afterall, telling a ten year old that they had their chance sound cruel. But I ask you, what about the person who was passed over in order to give this child another chance? What if that person died waiting for a set of lungs?

Just something to ponder.

July 5, 2013

Carefull people....

Tread carefully as these quagmires appear to suck the life out of our country.

To me, this is worse than the 60's. We knew there were racial problems in the country, we knew that the Vietnam War was sucking the life blood of our "republic", we knew there was a great ecological crisis foaming on the beaches of the world.

But now....

The war against terrorism is the way world wars are fought these days. Proxy armies or terrorists, depending from which magic tube you gaze through, keep the tension of war percolating all the time, off in the corner so we all feel threatened.

Unbelievable malfeasance has been unleashed and we just let it plop all around, the bank crisis, the voting purges, the creepy concentration of lady parts and the threat of terror permeates everything...

These are interesting times, indeed....

July 2, 2013

In the glooming, when the stillness of the in between invades, when even the

street sounds are mute, out to the edge of my eye, I noticed rustling off in the far corner of the neighbors back yard.

We have gotten spoiled of late with all the wildlife that has taken residence in the two stands of wood that surround our suburban development. By our count, we have checked on the list Deer, Rabbits, Ground Hogs, a Fox, Chipmunks, an Owl or two, high flying Hawks, skunks, feral cats that take to taunting our domesticated pets and a porcupine.

Yesterday evening, we were treated with something special; two fawns barely a foot high. They were tentative as was the mother. I went to get the camera and they were gone. We had them for about 10-15 seconds before they made there way to the other side of the street where the small stream is released from the corrugated piping.

Suburbia has it pluses and minuses. But all that time I lived on the fringe of the suburbs, I never saw nearly as much of nature as I do now. Perhaps we have semi-domesticated nature and the wild life has adopted survival skills.

What ever it is, I sure am glad we bought this house. Pizza and a mini-version of Wild Kingdom...