John Lennon: #9 Dream

JohnLennon_tapeThis 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?

Black Lives MatterRight 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choosing the best “face” to put on an issue (something I know LGBT activists have done, too), and also how quaint such outdated social mores seem to us now.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.

map1
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.”

risseIt’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.

40 Years Ago: Giving Up (for the nonce)

I remember wandering through the Campus Center on December 4, 1974, the day the drop-course forms were approved, with such a sense of release, that this unmanageable burden had been lifted.

never-give-upAlmost a year ago, I read this in Mark Evanier’s blog:

One of those folks who didn’t want me to post their name wrote…

Your comment intrigued me. Don’t you think there’s a value in not giving up? My folks taught me there was no such thing as a lost cause. My father used to say, “A man who won’t be defeated can’t be defeated.” If you believe in something enough, whether it’s a political cause or a dream you have, shouldn’t you pursue it with every breath you have left in you? If you give up on something, doesn’t that mean you never really believed in it in the first place?

Sounds like Man of La Mancha.

Mark replied: “I have found that for me, it’s healthier to be realistic about what you can and cannot accomplish and to cut your losses on the latter.” I totally agree with that, but had I been asked, I would have just quoted The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, as I often do: “You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them.”

Every December 4, I remember the tremendous relief I experienced when I was able to drop two college courses in 1974. The Okie, to whom I was married, was moving from New Paltz to Philadelphia for unstated reasons at the end of November. I couldn’t afford to live in our apartment on my own, and I had to move elsewhere, as it turned out, for a month. Unsurprisingly, I had difficulty concentrating on my classwork.

But I knew it was past the mid-semester point when I could drop courses without academic penalty. Someone in the dean’s office said the only exception was if I could get a note from a doctor or psychologist or another professional stating that I was having physical or emotional distress.

As a member of the student government, I had had opportunities to talk to the campus minister, Paul Walley, not about my situation, but general campus issues. Still, I went to see him, asking if he could sign the form waiving the drop-course deadline. And, to my great relief, he did.

I dumped the courses and ended up getting A’s and B’s in the remaining three. I remember wandering through the Campus Center on the evening of December 4, the day the drop-course forms were approved – there was some party going on – with such a sense of release, that this unmanageable burden had been lifted, that I cried with happiness. (Heck, I cry just thinking about it, four decades later.)

Sometimes, you just have to give up.

Ramblin' with Roger
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