Roger O Green

The Buffalo mass shooting

great replacement theory

**This is actually a photo of flowers after a Colorado shooting, which tells you all you need to know.**

If I were to mention every example of gun violence involving multiple victims in America, this blog would not only be really depressing but also quite monotonous. It’d be, as blogger buddy Chuck Miller mentioned, The Vicious Cycle.

Heck, before I could even write about the Buffalo mass shooting, one was killed and four critically wounded at a Presbyterian church in Laguna Woods, CA, likely motivated by political hatred of the Taiwanese community.

Though I heartily support it, I’m unenthused about calls for gun control. If America isn’t going to respond to 20 six and seven-year-olds murdered at school almost a decade ago, I can’t see it happening in this circumstance, I’m afraid.

It IS peculiar that a teenager who threatened a school graduation shooting last year and was given psychiatric treatment, could still purchase three guns legally.

Broome County, NY

So the Buffalo incident compelled me to note it. Certainly, the fact that the shooter* came from my home county, Broome County, NY in Conklin, just a few miles southeast of my hometown of Binghamton, is a huge factor. There’s just a smidgen of irrational personal mortification.

And the other thing is that the shooter drove 200 miles (322 km), three and a half hours, to find a bunch of Black people** to shoot. He, or someone in his circle, did a demographic dive to ascertain that the ZIP Code where that TOPS grocery store had the highest concentration of Black folks within a reasonable driving distance.

WIVB-TV reports that the name of the gunman matches the one “given in a 180-page manifesto that surfaced online shortly after the attack and took credit for the violence in the name of white supremacy… The excruciating detail provided leaves little doubt of its authenticity.”

Yahoo News and other sources note that the manifesto “repeatedly cited the ‘great replacement’ theory, the false idea that a cabal is attempting to replace white Americans with nonwhite people through immigration, interracial marriage, and, eventually, violence…

“In the manifesto, [he] claims that he was radicalized on 4chan while he was ‘bored’ at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. The document also claims ‘critical race theory,’ a recent right-wing talking point that has come to generally encompass teaching about race in school, is part of a Jewish plot, and a reason to justify mass killings of Jews…”

Crazy?

I came across this frustrating conversation about whether the shooter is “crazy.” “Someone must be crazy to do something like that, right?” “If he’s crazy, he’ll use that as his defense.”

The Weekly Sift guy actually addressed this back in 2019 when another shooter targeted Hispanics at a Walmart in El Paso. “His actions made perfect sense if you took seriously what Trump had been saying over and over: Mexicans are invading our country. If your country is being invaded, isn’t the most obvious response to take military gear to the border and kill the invaders? What’s mentally ill about that?”

The same thing [in Buffalo. The shooter] “has been told time and again that there’s a plot to take America away from the white race, and that this plot will eventually result in racial extinction. If he believes that, what’s the logical response?”

Recognizing the dog whistle

“High-profile people like Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Elise Stefanik may not explicitly tell people to go out and kill Blacks or Hispanics or Jews, but how does anything less deal with the problem they describe?” WS describes the replacement theory much more fully here.

Carlson’s defenders point out that the shooter’s manifesto included no mentions of the FOX commentator, as though that takes him off the hook. Also, the document attacked 21st Century Fox for hiring Jewish people. Whatever. It’s standard Vulpine gaslighting.

Stefanik is the Congressperson in a distinct adjacent to my own, and the third-ranked Republican in the House of Representatives. My
local newspaper notes that she and “other prominent Republicans made statements critics say align with theory.” She denies it, of course.

Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) warns that the Replacement Theory is ‘Getting People Killed.’ “Kinzinger, a staunch critic of former President Donald Trump, has repeatedly slammed [House minority leader Kevin] McCarthy (R-CA), Stefanik, [Marjorie Taylor] Greene (R-GA), and [Madison] Cawthorn (R-NC) in recent months.”

Liz Cheney (R-WY) has said the GOP leadership has “enabled white supremacy.” As Rolling Stone noted, The Buffalo Shooter Isn’t a ‘Lone Wolf.’ He’s a Mainstream Republican.

Ahistoric Americans

Just as some people celebrate “representation” and “diversity”, others see a zero-sum game where white people lose out. The targeting of Asian-Americans and Jews and LGBTQ folk – do I need to document those recent mass shootings? – breaks my heart over and over. This is even though, as Carolyn Gallaher wrote in The Hill after the Walmart shootings, The alternate history behind the ‘great replacement’ theory is simply wrong.

This is one of the reasons I fear Kelly, who is a Buffalo-area blogger, may be right. “It’s an entire community of human beings, specifically targeted again. Reminded that they will always be targeted, again. Reminded of this country’s long ghastly history of this stuff, again. Confronted by our nation’s abject refusal to admit its past and atone, again…

“No horror, no injustice, no violent outcome is ever enough for us to collectively say, ‘No more.’ ‘We will be back about our business by, oh, I don’t know. Dinner time today, I guess…

“We are the country we have chosen to be, and I see no reason to believe we are going to choose to be anything other than this.

“And that is how America will fade into history.” America, prove him wrong if you can. Give us more than “thoughts and prayers.” Show that love actually DOES conquer hate.

*or the alleged shooter, if you prefer
** I capitalize Black people here, which I don’t always do, because of some scold in the comments to this post

Marcia is in North Carolina

first song, third side of the white album

There’s something fundamental that changes in the family dynamic when the parents have both died. So even though I’m in upstate New York, Leslie is in California, and Marcia is in North Carolina, we have managed to keep in touch over the past 11 years, possibly better than before the parents passed.

Leslie, I have seen her a few times, mostly because she’s traveled to upstate New York, for her high school reunion, for one. Then I went to San Diego when she had her bicycle accident in 2018.

Marcia, I haven’t seen her since my mother died in February 2011. Well, that is not ENTIRELY true. I have seen her on ZOOM probably 100 times since the pandemic began. Indeed, as I’m sure I mentioned before, she was really trying to get our sister and me to hold a regular meeting on Skype. But I found the platform wonky and unreliable and non-instinctive when we tried it seven or eight years ago.

I’m not sure that Zoom is more instinctive, but I’ve used it SO often that I’ve become mildly competent with its use. Zoom is more reliable now than Skype was then, which, of course, is not a fair comparison.

Still, I haven’t gone south, and she currently cannot travel much at all. So one of these days, I’ll have to sojourn down there. If I travel alone, that would probably mean the train, because I so loathe flying. To be clear, I’m not AFRAID of flying. I just hate the feeling of being in an airborne bus. The last time I went to Charlotte, it was by train.

Since my wife is retiring, maybe we could drive down, assuming we can find a suitable cat sitter for our flaky felines

Natal day

Oh, yeah, I should mention that today is Marcia’s birthday. She’s HOW old? Well, she’s younger than I, younger than Leslie. I’m trying, but failing, not to refer to her as my baby sister. She hasn’t been a baby in.. a while.

It’s weird not seeing people that you’ve known for years that you haven’t interacted with in person. One gets a little of that at high school reunions. Heck, COVID restrictions had that effect to some degree.

It’s different, though, with a sibling. They are, statistically speaking, the people one is likely to know for the longest continual amount of time. So sometime before her NEXT birthday, I’ll have to see Marcia face to face again.

1972: “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

Ban The Box

As I indicated last week, my diaries for this segment of 1972 are, alas, gone. I did write about the incident a decade ago, but of course, the details get a bit fuzzy over the passage of time.

What has become more clear in the years subsequent is that I was very lucky. The district attorney wanted us to be charged with a misdemeanor after the IBM demonstration. That is to say, a crime. The judge decided that we would be charged with a violation. The significance of this has probably been enormous.

When I’ve applied for a job, for a loan, for graduate school, and who knows what else, there has often been The Question. “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?” Fortunately, the answer has always been, honestly, no.

Who knows what the consequences would have been if the judge had not been, openly, sympathetic to our actions. And since we essentially had merely crossed a property line, there were no bad outcomes. Certainly, no one was harmed, and no property was damaged. I wonder now about the hundreds of folks in upstate New York, not to mention thousands upon thousands of people nationwide who have criminal records because of acts of conscience.

Ban the box

In part, this is why I have long been a supporter of what has been called Ban The Box. “Ban-the-box laws received their name because they ban the criminal history box on initial hiring documents. The goal of the ban-the-box movement is to promote job opportunities for persons with criminal records by limiting when an employer can conduct a background check during the hiring process and encouraging employers to take a holistic approach when assessing an applicant’s fit for a position.

From the National Employment Law Project (NELP): “Nationwide, 37 states and over 150 cities and counties have adopted what is widely known as “ban the box”… These policies provide applicants a fair chance at employment by removing conviction and arrest history questions from job applications and delaying background checks until later in the hiring process.” The link has a number of resources.

Sunday Stealing hodgepodge

2 Samuel

This Sunday Stealing hodgepodge was so detailed that I could have written whole posts about a few questions. And in fact, that’s why I’ve done it here a few times, link to items previously discussed.

1. Where do you get your news these days?

I’ve thought about this a lot. I get a lot of newsfeeds, “mainstream,” progressive, and what one might call rightwing. About the latest mass casualty event, I receive a dozen notices. Elon Musk dithering about whether to buy Twitter I read about ad nauseum.

Yet the first time I read that Bob Lanier, Hall of Fame basketball player and an apparently really good guy had died, it was in from Kelly’s blog. And the second was from a weekly newsletter that linked to this article. It’s more and more difficult to know everything.

2. Do you like crab meat? What makes you crabby?

It’s OK. People hijacking the Consitution and/or the Bible.

3. Does freedom mean more choices? Have you ever felt there were too many choices? Elaborate.

I think we have a gazillion choices of picking watching TV/movies, e.g. – so many platforms! Sometimes keeping track of the options is essentially impossible.

4. Barbara Millicent Roberts was introduced to the world on March 9, 1959…that’s Barbie to most of us. Did you have Barbies as a kid, or did you let your own children play with Barbies? What well-known Barbara (living or not) would you most like to meet?

I think my sisters may have had a Barbie. I can’t think of a famous living Barbara I’d like to meet, but maybe Barbra Streisand.

5. What are three things you value most in another person?

Integrity, intelligence, and compassion.

THEY are old…

6. How would you define “old.” At what age is a person old?

It’s always been true: 30 years older than I am.

7. A place you’ve been that’s “old.” Tell us something about your visit there.

My Grandma Williams’ house was old and is now non-existent. This is a picture of my parents in the backyard of 13 Maple Street, Binghamton, NY.

8. Something you miss about the “good old days.” When were they?

In the 1960s, there were a bunch of Supreme Court decisions that were making the United States a better place: Mapp v. Ohio, Baker v. Carr, Gideon v. Wainwright, New York Times v. Sullivan, Griswold v. Connecticut, Loving v. Virginia.

9. In what way are you a ‘chip off the old block’? Or if you’d rather, in what way is your child a ‘chip off the old block’?

My daughter understands my motivation in terms of time usage, way better than her mother does.

10. Old fashioned, Old Testament, old-timer, same old same old, old glory, good old boy, old wives tale…choose an ‘old’ phrase that relates to something in your life or the wider world currently and explain.

My Bible study has been slogging through the Old Testament histories, presently in 2 Samuel. While some of the theology is mystifying, it is an interesting reflection of human foibles.

A juicy mango

11. July 5th is National Hawaii Day…have you ever been to Hawaii? Any desire to visit or make a return trip? Pineapple, mango, or guava…what’s your pleasure?

Never been to Hawaii, though I’d like to. There’s a story about that. Pineapple, though I never had mango until the last decade or so.

12. Last time you were ‘thrown in at the deep end’? Explain.

The Gutenberg block editor on WordPress, which I wrote about here. Just this past week, I tried it again, but could not “get” it.

13. Sun, sea, sand, salt…your favorite when it comes to summer?

I’ve NEVER done sun for the sake of it – ixnay on the unbathingsay, and that was before I had the vitiligo.

14. Bury your head in the sand, the sands of time, draw a line in the sand, pound sand, shifting sands…pick one and tell us how the phrase currently relates to your life in some way.

Sands of time. I’m getting older, and achier.

15. On a scale of 1-10 (1 = make your own rules and 10=like a warden), how strict were your parents? If you’re a parent where on the scale do you land?

My dad was a 7.3, and my mom was about 2.3. I’m much closer to my mom’s score than my dad’s.

My wife is retiring from her job

Taxing

The big news is that my wife is retiring from her job as a teacher of English as a New Language at the end of the school year.

You’d think since I retired three years earlier, I would have had time to get used to the idea of her being home too. Well, not exactly. Of course, she’s often home in the summer, though last summer she taught in August.

I was home alone from September 2019 until early March 2020. Then my wife and my daughter were doing the education thing at home for over a year because COVID.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I believe it’s vitally important: early on, she converted the spare bedroom into her office, pretty much at my insistence. Previously, she was teaching from the dining room table, which meant I was invading her teaching space regularly. That was not working AT ALL.

Money

Am I anxious about the economics of her retiring? Er, yes, since she had been making more than I had been – I was grossly underpaid – for a number of years. But she does have a pension and other resources.

It’s impossible to know whether she would have left at this point if COVID hadn’t happened. No doubt, students suffered educationally but, at least as important, socially and emotionally from remote learning.

Now she’s musing on what the next phase of her life will be. I’m hoping that she’ll not take on another job for a time. Recently, she suggested we do “spring cleaning.” I’d be happy just doing something with the boxes and bags that have cluttered the living room and dining room, some since my mother-in-law moved from Oneonta to a place near Albany last summer.

Taxman

It’s our 23rd wedding anniversary today. I’ve determined that there are certain actions that help us to get along. One major one is not trying to decipher her filing system. When we get documents she believes are important, she files them away. And she retrieves them because, for whatever reason, I can almost NEVER find them.

This became an issue when she emailed me that the accountant needed to know how much I made in 2021 from Social Security. She emailed me, “I think those forms are in the tax file folder. Look in the drawer in the kitchen under the toaster for the folder.”

OMG, no, no. I know had received the document, and had promptly put it in her mail drawer. The document was NOT in the folder, which I, remarkably, located.

Now, I was able to find the amount of interest we paid in 2021 on our home equity loan, a paper we had likewise received. But because I’m the one who tends to access the electronic info from our bank’s online system, I could recreate the 1098.

Deductions

I called the accountant and told him I could find the monthly net amount I received, but not the gross. We’d been working with their firm for several years since some debacles my wife and I had in filing on our own. He said that he thought this was the first time he had spoken to me, and it was probably true.

(Prior to being married to her, I NEVER itemized our deductions. I still find it exhausting but it’s important to her, so I keep track electronically of my charitable contributions.)

I always found the title of a Paul Simon compilation album a true path for keeping a marriage intact: Negotiations and Love Songs.

Thanks, dear, for the full-body hugs every night.