Roger O Green

V is for Virginia

Virginia was the 10th state to enter the Union.

I’ve long had this odd fascination with the state of Virginia. Partly it’s because it’s part of the old Confederacy, but the northernmost part. The distance from Richmond, the Confederate capital during the US Civil War, to Washington, DC is only 110 miles. General Robert E. Lee of Virginia seemed the reluctant warrior.

Several northwest counties broke away from Virginia during the Civil War to create the state of West Virginia, which entered the Union in 1863.

Four of the first five US Presidents, all save John Adams of Massachusetts, were from Virginia, and eight altogether, which gave it the nickname “Mother of Presidents”.

Here’s some trivia information stuck inside my head. In order for the new Constitution to be accepted, nine of the 13 states had to ratify it, and it was so. But the holdouts were massively important to the vitality of the nation; finally, they came around, and that’s why I remember Virginia was the 10th state, New York, the 11th, and North Carolina, the 12th. Rhode Island made lucky 13.

In 1607, the first permanent New World English colony was established in 1607 at Jamestown. I was reminded by a question on the TV quiz show JEOPARDY! that the colonists resorted to cannibalism during the brutal winter of 1609.

I have vacationed in Virginia at least twice. Once, with my girlfriend at the time back in the early 1980s, I went to Virginia Beach. We went to see her brother, whose name, as I recall, was Roger. The other time was in 2008 when my family visited Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg.

Every time I take the train to Charlotte, NC, of course, I travel through Virginia. I think I spend more time in that state than any other during the trip.

The most frequent reference to Virginia in this blog has to be the case of Loving v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the bans by Virginia (and other states) on interracial marriages were unconstitutional.

Since 1969, the motto for the state has been “Virginia is for Lovers”.

Read about Virginia from Wikipedia and the official government site.

ABC Wednesday, Round 15

John Lennon: #9 Dream

This is the anniversary of John Lennon’s death, which I always remember. Obviously, he was taken by the number nine. He was born on the 9th of October (1940), as was his son Sean (1975).

Reportedly, The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein first saw them perform on the 9th of December, 1961. “Beatles experts might dispute the actual date, but John Lennon recalled November 9, 1966 as the date when he first met Yoko Ono.”

He even died on the 9th, in British time. The owner of FantaCo, Tom Skulan, reminded me that, after I got the word – on Monday Night Football, no less – I called him, and others, with the sad news.

He included the number 9 in many of his songs, such as Revolution #9. LISTEN to #9 Dream from his 1974 album Walls and Bridges. The single coincidentally peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 US charts.
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Who Was the Walrus? Analyzing the Strangest Beatles Song, which you can LISTEN to.

The perfect victim, just the right symbol

Why is it that white men wave real guns around crowded areas in America and are taken into custody alive, yet Tamir Rice, a 12-year old carrying a toy gun in an open carry state, is dead?

Right around December 1, when everyone was rightfully talking about the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ 1955 refusal to cede her seat in a Birmingham bus, one of the Twitter pals of Arthur Tweeted, “Do some research on Claudette Colvin, sidelined as she didn’t have the right ‘look’ of a true heroine”. Arthur wanted my thoughts on that, maybe on March 2, 2015, which is the 60th anniversary of Colvin’s arrest — the first arrest for resisting bus segregation.

As it turns out, I DID write about Claudette Colvin, almost five years ago, and I don’t have much more to say.

Arthur added:

Seems to me this raises issues of expediency — deliberately choosing the best “face” to put on an issue (something I know LGBT activists have done, too), and also how quaint such outdated social mores seem to us now. But it seems to me it also raises issues of elevating sidelined pioneers in struggles for justice because we don’t look down on people like that nowadays.

I think it still happens, all the time. And it has to do, among other things, with young black men getting shot by police, or in Trayvon Martin’s case in Florida, by a wannabe cop. So the narrative becomes whether any of these victims is the “right” one to galvanize a nation seemingly willing to allow for the idea that each of the shootings was justified.

Thus, in Florida, Trayvon Martin is turned into a “thug” who may have smoked pot. Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO is a “thug,” who stole some tobacco product before he was killed.

How about Eric Garner in New York City? He was allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes on a Staten Island sidewalk, but the police action that led to his death was ON VIDEO. The fact that the grand jury, in this case, failed to indict Daniel Pantaleo, shortly after Darren Wilson was not indicted by the grand jury in Missouri, seems to be the tipping point, with demonstrations all around the country.

It is the perception that the PROCESS is broken. Read the New York Times editorial. Well, unless you’re Pat Robertson, who believes police brutality against blacks is a thing of the past. Or the more pervasive view of CONTINUING to parse every case to find some fault of the victim.

Former Republic National Committee head Michael Steele complained about a lack of indictment in the Garner case. Even former President George W. Bush found the decision “hard to understand.”

Why is it that white men wave real guns around crowded areas in America and are taken into custody alive, yet Tamir Rice, a 12-year old carrying a toy gun in an open-carry state, is dead? In part, I think it’s the fact that both the police and the general (white) public actually view black kids as older and less innocent than white kids. Thus the suggestion that the 12-year-old boy in Cleveland killed by police might have been 20. (But shooting a 20-year-old unarmed black man would not have been OK either.)

These cases seem to be piling up recently, with the shooting death by police of 34-year-old Rumain Brisbon in Phoenix, AZ, a black man armed only with a bottle of Oxycotin pain medicine. Then there’s 22-year-old Darrien Hunt, who was shot in the back six times by Utah cops. He had a cosplay sword; no charges were filed. Read this article about the decline of police deaths, even as civilian deaths from police actions have increased.

I am actually excited that the demonstrations are taking place in locations NOT involved in these shootings. What makes me guardedly hopeful about the future is a large number of young white demonstrators; it’s not just a “black issue” anymore.

I recently posted on my Facebook Ezekiel 13:10 New International Version
Because they lead my people astray, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash.”
Make of that what you will.

Finally, from Arthur:

Seems to me that change usually happens because of the people who are NOT the smug, self-satisfied folks who try and dictate who is and who is not an “appropriate” symbol for a change movement. I seem to remember this one guy who was born in a stable and grew up to hang out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and all sorts of marginalised people, a guy who lost his temper and wrecked a market, disrupting businesses, before eventually being executed under questionable circumstances by the government. That’s one thuggish guy people don’t seem to mind as a symbol, even if they choose to ignore many parts of the story.

Where I’ve been in the USA

Sadly, I haven’t added to the thirty states I’ve visited since my trek to Chicago, IL in 2008.

I got to the map on this page via Dustbury.

Click states in the map to cycle through the colors, or use the list beneath. Choose:

red for states where you’ve not spent much time or seen very much.
amber for states where you’ve at least slept and seen some sights.
blue for states you’ve spent a lot of time in or seen a fair amount of.
green for states you’ve spent a great deal of time in on multiple visits.

These are definitionally tricky categories. In addition to NY and NC, where I’ve lived, I’ve added PA to the green category, because at least three of my grandparents’ families lived there. The parents of my childhood friend Carol owned a cottage in northern PA, where I visited a lot. I’ve seen my now-ex, the Okie, there. One of my brothers-in-law lives there now.

Likewise, I spent so much time going to Boston and Springfield that I added Massachusetts to the list. The same then future brother-in-law used to live there, who I visited after I appeared on JEOPARDY! in Boston.

California almost made the list, due to multiple visits to San Diego; I’ve actually been to the major league ballpark there more than any other. Vermont was also on the blue-to-green bubble. Washington, DC would be definitely blue.

Most of the amber states I visited as a result of a single conference visit: Colorado, Kentucky, Illinois, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin. I went to Michigan and Ohio on a train trip in 1998. Oddly, the only place I’ve been in West Virginia is Martinsburg, about halfway between Albany, NY and Charlotte, NC, but we’ve been there enough times to identify the restaurants and hotels, practically from memory.

A few years ago I did a similar map, but it was a merely/yes no thing. Sadly, I haven’t added to the thirty states I’ve visited since my trek to Chicago, IL in 2008. But we ARE working on adding to The Daughter’s list.

Incidentally, if I were to add the Canadian provinces, Quebec would be amber – two trips to Montreal in the 1990s – but Ontario would be blue, with trips to Windsor, Toronto, Peterborough, and especially Niagara Falls.

The Emmaus/RISSE (probable) arson

“The need in Albany is clear: Refugee families need long-term mentoring and education as they build new lives after experiences of trauma, dislocation, and relocation.”

It’s human nature, I suppose, to be more strongly affected by tragedies that are close to home. I’m a former United Methodist, and I know the building at 240 West Lawrence Street in Albany, which was once a parsonage for the Emmaus United Methodist Church; I once helped the pastor move in one July 4. I’ve attended the church occasionally at Emmaus, and knew a subsequent pastor rather well, including attending her first service at the church, also, ss it turns out, on an Independence Day.

The first bit of news I read this week was this from AlbanySNN, the school notification site:

The after-school tutoring program at Emmaus United Methodist Church on Morris Street is cancelled until further notice due to a Tuesday morning fire at the program’s nearby administrative offices.

The tutoring program is operated by Refugee and Immigrant Support Services of Emmaus, or RISSE, whose West Lawrence Street headquarters were badly damaged in the fire.

We will keep you posted on the status of the tutoring program.

Then The Wife calls me with more disturbing details about the fire, which was only five blocks from our home:

Police are trying to determine if slashed tires found on two vans owned by Refugee and Immigrant Support Services of Emmaus on West Lawrence Street are linked to an early morning fire that gutted office and instructional space used by the group, firefighters said…

RISSE, which helps immigrants and refugees adapted to life in the United States, is based in the nearby Emmaus United Methodist Church.

The only thing I can think to do, in order to fight off my deep disappointment over this probable arson is to contribute to RISSE. Read about the good work the organization has done:

The need in Albany is clear: Refugee families need long-term mentoring and education as they build new lives after experiences of trauma, dislocation, and relocation. About 400 refugees arrive annually in New York’s capital area. While government-sponsored organizations provide initial intervention, community-based support for the longer-term is critical.

This is not a rich organization. It is affiliated with a financially poor congregation, which nevertheless is doing great things. Please consider making contributions yourselves.