Police officers have to worry about COVID too! They have families and lives to protect at home and on the streets, and in airport terminals. They are people, and they are tired, and they are upset and feel under-appreciated like EVERYONE ELSE. Where is her mask? As she is spitting in his face, does she realize she’s putting him at risk? COVID can get into his eyes as well!
What is wrong with people getting into the personal space of police officers these days? What makes them think it’s okay to confront another person in such a manner? Would she do that to a gang member or someone who looked like they would kill her on the spot? No, she chose someone who she thought would act as her personal whipping boy! Someone she thought was legally bound by law not to use his instincts and to let her continue her tirade and assault upon him.
For those of you that follow this blog, you know that I saw a case for citizens of Seattle suing their government over the development of CHAD or CHOPS or whatever they call themselves.
The residents and business owners have every right to expect the government to uphold the law and protect them from this kind of mayhem.
There’s a reason you were told never to tell anyone which candidate you voted for as a child: polarization and retribution. It’s also why polling doesn’t work in a politically divided environment because many people are risk-averse and they’re afraid of conflict. They often lie, avoid, or hang up on a poll taker out of fear. Many citizens wish to vote silently and let the chips fall where they may.
Our current environment has all of the telltale signs of voter coercion, manipulation via fear or guilt, and a basket full of other reasons why you should remain tight-lipped about who you’re voting for in the upcoming election. We need to remember this, and we need to consider it when it comes to mail-in voting. Privacy is a must in our elections. Our voting system is designed with this in mind. It should remain intact because the media and the internet are full of aggregation tools and voyeurism that wish to manipulate or even suppress your vote.
As for using the US Postal Service. I appreciate their hard work and effort in delivering mail, but I must ask the following questions:
I’m a New Yorker. I remember when Central Park was where no one would go at night unless a large festival was happening. During the day, it was crowded, fun, and rarely clean. My family would take me there to play at the Alice in Wonderland statue or one of the many children’s playgrounds and then for a walk around the park and then to a grassy knoll to play frisbee or something. Interestingly, we always came across someone unbalanced or looking to take advantage of a quiet spot we had unintentionally inhabited. Unintentionally meaning, it started with a lot of people, and during our preoccupation with whatever we were doing, we didn’t notice the other people had departed. These confrontations, coupled with our street smarts, made us very hesitant to enter the Ramble.
The allure of the Rambles for good and evil was ever-present when I was a child, and it still is today. The Ramble is a beautiful, quiet area of Central Park just a tad south of the Shakespeare theater that allows a person to be close to nature in a tranquil setting, away from Manhattan’s sensory overload.
Recently, my German Shepherd and I tailed a man who had been following a tourist into the Rambles. My Gotham instincts kicked in, and I wasn’t about to let a poor tourist get robbed. After several winding curves in the woods and quite a few paranoid glances, the would-be thief also noticed he was a target. He rapidly abandoned his plan and left the Rambles. Shortly after our exit, I politely explained to the tourist that it would be wise to be more aware of his surroundings and that Central Park still has its dangers like any other city, no matter how clean and welcoming it has become.
Twenty years ago, I lived in San Francisco. I moved there because I’m an IT professional, and that was where all of the hot DOTCOM jobs were located. I rented a sublet in one of the city’s loveliest areas with a beautiful view of the San Francisco bay overlooking Alcatraz. The only downside was the unbelievably steep hill that I would climb every evening on my way home. Some days the only thing that stopped me from waiting for the Union Street bus to take me to the top was the fresh memory of watching the older Asian men and women in their 80’s walk the hills nearby. They would traverse these hills as if they were the social fabric of their community. They would walk a quarter of a block and then stop and speak with someone for a few minutes and continue until they met another friend, and then they would visit again. They would do this throughout the day. And yes, they looked as if they were in excellent condition. It humbled me to complete my journey home on foot.
The Asian community in America is very industrious, and they’re wonderful transplants to the United States. They’re merchants by nature, and they love the freedom America has offered them to succeed. A good friend is Asian, and he told me his family came over from Vietnam in the ’80s with 5 cents in their pocket. They opened a small store and had their children work in it throughout their youth. It afforded the family to send the four children to college and live productive lives in the United States. Pretty much a mirror of the immigrants that came to the U.S. in the centuries before them. Hard work and sacrifice to benefit the family and contribute to the country.
That’s why I’m really pissed off that people are standing by watching these non-contributing zero’s attack the Asian community. These attacks are not new either! Twenty years ago, people were attacking the Asian community, and before that too! Why? Because they’re peaceful. They generally don’t see it coming, and they feel as if they shouldn’t say anything for fear of retaliation. Whether it’s a sociopath that belongs in a sanitarium or an angry homeless guy looking for a buck, the Asian community has been front and center as easy pickings. Just like the pioneers centuries before, they are targets of the criminal and weak of mind, and they require us as a community to stand up and say “NO More!”
I think of my friend and his parents and grandparents, and I say, NO! No more. No, not just for the Asian community; I say “no” for all of the U.S. Many of these attacks are committed by the mentally ill, people that belong in insane asylums. (Asylums need a comeback, but that’s another article.) Other crimes are committed by common criminals who have found the Asian community vulnerable because society doesn’t appear to have their backs.
I’m asking everyone to speak up! Think of our old Western movies. The movies where the homesteaders are being preyed upon by the common thieving thugs. We all cheer when someone or a community comes along as their champion. Let us do this for the Asian community now.
We need to get off our asses and help the Asian community by being good neighbors. Say hello, offer a helping hand, and make them feel welcome. They contribute a great deal to this country.
Many moons have passed since I would watch Sister Wendy Beckett and chuckle at her brazen descriptions of art from around the world. You might remember her from the PBS shows “Sister Wendy’s (fill in the blank).” If that doesn’t ring a bell, you may remember Sister Wendy from her signature chipmunk teeth, pleasant demeanor, and infectious love of art. She would spend hours discussing the history of paintings and statues from all periods in human history. And though she was a Catholic nun, her assessments were free from the trappings of the Vatican. She took great pains to educate humanity on the necessity of art. As statues fall around the US, I think of Sister Wendy.
Sister Wendy knew how much we could learn about societies gone past from the Artworks the citizens produced in their time. We’ve learned how brutal some periods were, how romantic, cold, or distant others were, we’ve learned about societies that we thought were fiction that turned out to be real, and much more. We’ve seen the ravages of tidal waves depicted in ways that teach us about geology and oceanography today. We still ponder on Easter Island and Stonehenge’s mysterious monoliths. We seek out the lost city of Atlantis and scour the world for art and writings for clues to its whereabouts. But what strikes me most at the moment is that many artworks depict slavery. We’ve learned how slaves were treated globally since the beginning of recorded history. Slaves were of every ethnicity in humanity too. Humans can be cruel, and art is often a whisper of how depraved we were and how far we have come.
Today I was watching the movie Shane with my aunt. It’s a movie from the 1950s depicting western life after the civil war in the 1800s. I’m generally not an old movie buff, but once and a while, there will be one that gets me thinking, and I start typing away.
American Westerns have appealed to people all over the world. I know this because I am very well-traveled, and I can’t tell you how many people had approached me when I told them I was American and said, “I love America, John Wayne. I love John Wayne.” Shane does not have John Wayne in it, but it is an American Classic about an American Frontiersman that’s fighting the odds against the bad guys. The scenery is Majestic and unyielding, and the homestead is small and dwarfed in its shadow. It looks scary and forbidding. So I have to ask, what is so appealing about this scenario to the entire world?
