Bibamus, Moriendum est.

It was now just another decrepit old building 
At the end of the street
Dark and foreboding, 
               Crumbling and moldy
There was a time though, very long ago
When the building was filled with people                 
                              From the first light of morning
                              Until the day faded into the night
Businesses thrived from one end of the street to the other
Newsstands & Pharmacies, Shoe and Stationary stores
Restaurants that served breakfast, lunch and dinner
                                       24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Supper clubs that featured music from live bands
Where people danced into the wee hours
                       Hoping to end the night at the afterhours club
                       Around back and down the stairs

And now the building is only home
               To mice and rats and the occassional ghosts
Of the five or six men shot and killed while playing cards
Or playing with another man's woman
And the three or four women found slain and abandoned
                           Their killers still unknown to this day

From The Perspective Of A Man With Tunnel Vision

Other than all those times where he had to admit it was him making a ton of extremely bad decisions, Harold felt as if life had done a bang up job of screwing him over.

A Haiku Written In Tenth Grade

An English Teacher

Wanted Me To Write Haiku

I Wanted To Dance

Boo-tiful Houses In The Neighborhood (No Apologies For That)

Ice Free Sunny Day Tip Over Anyway

Wednesday Morning Coming Right Up

The Lakewood Museum Of Discarded Art Autumn 2017 Exhibition

For your viewing pleasure, the Fall 2017 exhibition of the latest additions to the Lakewood Museum of Discarded Art.

This is where artwork by a variety of anonymous artists that I have stumbled upon in thrift stores, junk shoppes, or garage sales is displayed and preserved for posterity because, well, why not?

A few of these are really nice and beg the question, "Why would anyone not want this?'

The Gypsy Who Read My Palm

A very long time ago a rather peculiar woman I had encountered on the midway of the Walnut Festival (held annually in Walnut Creek, Ca) read my palm.

She claimed to be a gypsy, born with mystical powers and possessor of incredible insights.

This woman told me that, due to the firmness of my palms she knew that I was a straightforward person, and because my hands were large, especially at such a young age, I would probably become a very detail oriented adult, the type that over-analyzes situations.

She also said that, due to the large number of lines that criss-crossed my palms, I was probably the sensitive type, and would always be so. 

She told me something about every major line that crossed my palm - the heart line, the life line, the fate line, etc., but I cannot remember what she specifically said each one meant

What I do remember is that she said that my thumbs, being thick and long, indicated I was a person with a strong sense of purpose.

At the time I was in my mid-teens and had yet to develop the healthy, skeptical attitude I possess now, so I somewhat thought it was cool that she could tell so much about me by just looking at my palm.

I'm still looking for that sense of purpose.

Low Pressure Dream

Everybody Wants

Everybody wants to end conflict
                            As long as it's ended 
                                      On their terms

Everybody wants everyone 
                            To be educated
                                      As long as everybody learns 
                                      What they want them to learn

Everybody wants everybody 
                            To get enough to eat
                                       As long as they're eating 
                                       What they want them to eat

Everybody wants everyone 
                            To be treated with respect
                                      As long as they 
                                      Are respectful enough to understand 
                                             Their place

Everybody wants everybody 
                            To be able to earn a decent living
                                      As long as it doesn't disrupt the                                                Hierarchy of the workplace

Everybody wants everyone
                            To be regarded as equal
                                      As long as they know that means 
                                      You have work your way up to being                                               Equal

Everybody wants everybody 
                             To figure it out
                                           As long as the way they figure it 
                                           Is in line with their thinking

Everybody wants everyone 
                            To be free to speak their mind
                                             As long as they watch 
                                             What they say when they are                                                             Freely speaking

Everybody wants everybody 
                            To find a god they can believe in
                                          As long as that god is the same 
                                          As the one they believe in

Everybody wants world peace
                                          As long as it's peace the way 
                                               They want it

Equilibrium Time Correlation Function

There's A First Snow For Everyone

My friend Mike has spent the past 50 Winters of his life in San Diego, California. Which means he really hasn't ever experienced Winter. 

Until today. Snow had been forecast since last Friday, and snow we got. Heavy, wet snow, the type of snow that weighs down tree branches, snapping the less stout.

Mike loved it. Except the part where the temps were in the low 30's.

But then again, no one likes that part.

A Short Break In The Action

The Meeting Of Someone Considerable

I think I've met someone who brings out the best in me

                 Once or twice over the past few decades

          Someone who sparks the desire in me

          To be the single best 

                           Version of me that I can possibly be

The kind of person 

      I always envision being

Whenever I slow down enough 

     To be able to do some envisioning

                       Of me being the best me possible

A Day In The Strife

He awoke as he usually did 
                           Well before the alarm
Made his way to the kitchen 
                           Where he poured himself 
His usual breakfast of a heaping bowl of
                           Sugar-coated self-loathing

Made sure his hair was perfect 
                          His tie was straight
Before he walked out the door 
                          And climbed into his Cadillac
Man, he really liked the feel of 
                          Being behind the wheel of

Such a powerful machine

He spent the whole weekend looking
                          Forward to Monday morning
When once again he could be king
                          Of all those ungrateful underlings
He sat at his desk with his eyes on the clock
                          As the bleary-eyed tribe walked in

At 8:00 sharp he got up from the small desk
                          Made his way to the coffee pot
Where he would greet the last ones in
                          With a smile of reassurance 
Commenting to himself as the stragglers filed in
                          How glad he was not to be them


                          
                          

Getting Away With An Extraordinary Level Of Insensitive Racist Invective

So, once again I find myself confused by established and social media reaction to blatant racism.

Recently, an incredibly hate-filled, disgustingly offensive comment was posted on Facebook that was so blatantly based on an ignorant racist stereotype that it resulted in the person who posted the comment losing their job.

The person who posted the comment removed it, but only after a number of people who were offended by the comment expressed outrage, and that was what caught the attention of the person's employer and led to that person's dismissal. 

This person's employer was one of the largest media corporations in the world, and this person's position was fairly influential, being a vice-president who represented the company in legal matters.

This is what that person posted on their Facebook account. It is their personal reaction to the Las Vegas Route 91 music festival shooting of Oct 1st:

Screen capture of comment made by Hayley Geftman-Gold that I lifted from Brandon Morse's Facebook page (made necessary because I do not have a Facebook page)

So, Hayley Geftman-Gold publicly exposes herself as an insensitive racist who believes:

1) It is okay for an employee of a major media corp. to use an
    offensive slur ("Repugs") when referring to members of the
    Republican party.
2) Country Music fans are most often Republicans
3) Republicans are gun toters
4) Gun Toten' Republican Country Music fans deserve to die 

After reading her comments (and the comments from others who I will have to assume share her views), I searched the internet for reactions from the media pundits who usually post reactions to ignorant racist comments made by public personas.

With the exception of a Washington Post article written by Mary Hui (that features Hayley Geftman-Gold's mea culpa, as well as five or so paragraphs that use the tragedy to address the political battles regarding gun control), I couldn't find much.

Chirp freakin' chirp. One million five hundred and thirty thousand results on good ol' Google for "reaction to Hayley Geftman-Gold Facebook post" and barely a single word condemning her behavior from any of the major media outlets, and not much from the usually easily outraged social media users, either. 

To be accurate, there are a large number of reactions from irritated or outraged conservative commentators on message boards and individual blogspots, but those are to be expected.

What I was looking for was the same level of condemnation (and frequently, vituperation) CNN, the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, or any of the other large media outlets usually post when an undeniably racist comment is posted by a public figure. 

But I could not find nary a one.

Which I find odd, because if you put "reaction to Terry Frei Facebook post", in the good ol' Google, you get one million, five hundred and sixty thousand results, the first three being from the Voice Media Group owned alternative weekly newspaper Westword, the Washington Post, and USA Today, followed by links to other major media outlets such as NBC news, the NY Post, the NY Daily News, the Sporting News, the Huffington Post, Breitbart, the UK's Daily Mail - hell, even Fox News. 

All of them soundly condemning Mr Frei, some to the point of evisceration.

What was so hate-filled and disgustingly offensive that former four-time Colorado Sports Writer of the Year Terry Frei wrote (on Twitter, not Facebook) that not only cost him his job and his reputation, but resulted in a smearing of his character on various social media sites that was ugly beyond description?

On Sunday, May 28th 2017, Terry Frei posted the following on Twitter after Takuma Sato won the Indianapolis 500:

Terry Frei's tweet from May 28th, 2017, which I lifted from some anonymous person's screen capture from Twitter, as I do not have a Twitter account of my own.

Is that tweet racist, or is it the honest reaction of a man who wrote a book entitled "Third Down And A War To Go", about his father's four years of military service in WWII, flying 67 unarmed missions in the Pacific Theater as a member of the 26th Photo Squadron?

For those that are not up on their history, 76 years ago the country of Japan declared war on the United States, and the Pacific Theater was the primary location of most major battles between the U.S. and Japan. Those battles took the lives of over 200,000 U.S. military personnel.

The uncomfortable feeling Mr Frei tweeted about should no doubt have been kept to himself, but it did not in anyway express a disregard for the person who had won the race or a disregard for that person's race, creed, color, etc., and it certainly did not advocate any form of ill-treatment of that person, and it certainly did not disregard the value of diversity in sports or society as a whole. 

However, it was written by a white male, the importance of which the social media shite storm that followed made very clear.

For Mr. Frei was immediately labeled a racist white male conservative Republican on several left-leaning websites, which he is most definitely not (and which is as racist a stereotype as any stereotype can be, but there doesn't seem to be a big rush to point that out by anyone)

Mr Frei is as far from being a racist as any human could be, and is a lifelong liberal Democrat. 

However, that apparently was of little interest to the haters.

Terry Frei was fired from his job a day after he posted that comment. 

As Hayley Geftman-Gold was the day after she posted hers.

However, that's where the similarity of the reaction to their statements ends.

For Mr. Frei was also soundly condemned in the national and international press, and was roasted on social media for being uncomfortable that a citizen of a country that declared war on the U.S. 76 years ago, (which resulted in his father having to face death nearly everyday for four years and which I point out again, resulted in the  deaths of over 200,000 American military personnel), wins an iconic American sporting event which takes place on Memorial Day weekend, the specific holiday on which America remembers and honors those who have fallen in defense of the country,

Sure, Hayley Geftman-Gold lost her job, but somehow she escaped criticism or condemnation from nearly all quarters.

What conclusions can be drawn here? Is it the blatantly obvious one, or is there something more subtle?

What could I possibly be missing...where is the usual hue and cry from the major media about this women's comment?

Is it because she is a lawyer and has threatened to sue for defamation? Is it because she was a fairly high-ranking member of the media and has the silent support of other fairly high-ranking members of the media? 

Someone please explain to me why Mr. Frei was pilloried and Mrs Geftman-Gold has not been.

The FooI In Me That Wants To Believe

There's this fool in me

Fighting to believe 

In life and love and manna from above

There's this fool in me

Who just can't see

What everybody else apparently does with ease

That fool, with his cuss'd insistence on proof

That fool, with his cuss'd persistence for the truth

He's going to get me in trouble someday

He's going to get me hurt

Probably won't stick around for the fight

Not a chance in hell

He'll make it sober through the night

There's this fool in me

Fighting to believe

That all the effort, all the work

Will be worth it

A World Of Angry Misanthropes

Days like today it's hard to believe the world is not being overrun by angry misanthropes.

Days like today it's hard to believe in humanity.

Someone Has Been Painting Murals In Dubuque