(Heavy Sigh)
The Houston Chronicle occasionally runs a front page of the current date from years ago.
This one made me bang my head against my keyboard. I’m gonna share it with you in a size that will fit here and you can see the headlines, but I’ll upload it full size for those of you who need it.
Here ya go, March 1971 in Houston —
Now, don’t get hung up on the banner headline, go on down to see “New Get-Out-the-War Move …” or “Poor Children’s Growth …” (See New York Times a month ago) and “High Court Split on Flag Defiling” and nope, I can’t take anymore.
For fifty damn years I have worked to change things and for 50 damn years about the best I did was getting 18 year olds the right to vote and elected a black president.
I kept thinking that the hateful people in the United States Senate like Strom Thurmond, James Boggs, John Tower, Barry Goldwater, and John Packwood (I know I’m forgetting some rats) would just up and die. Well, they finally did, only to be replaced by oh dear God, worse men.
I’m delivering postcards today to a group of retirees in my community to write on behalf of a bright, wonderful, energetic young man in a Democratic run-off for county commissioner. He’s running against an old cog in the good-old-boy machine. I guess I’m just trying to improve my little corner of the world.
If you know anybody in my neighborhood, tell them to vote for Dexter McCoy. It’s his turn to try. He’s got grit, spit, and fit.
AMEN!! It is like banging your head against a brick wall 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Why can’t we do better???
1Those same two headlines caught my eye. Why, oh, why can we not improve our game? IMO: gerrymandering, dark money fueling elections, voter apathy and voter suppression….
2JJ, how could you forget the Senator from Texas at that time, who spawned a political dynasty? Good ol’ Bush the First.
I remember a local Selective Service (AKA draft board) member who came to my high school to prep us boys about what to expect. She was asked about joining the Texas Guard, and her reply mimicked a scene from Catch-22. “Are your parents millionaires in the oil industry? Is your daddy a U.S. Senator? No? Then forget about it.” We all knew she was referring to the Drunken Son, Bush the Lesser.
3The old saying of “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” was/is/always will be true. Until ego and stupidity become unacceptable, we will ALWAYS have to suffer constant repeats of history, good and bad. Mostly bad.
4How many secret and public plans to end the war in Vietnam did we have under Nixon anyway?
It’s too bad the plans that get us INTO (most) wars aren’t equally protracted.
5And we completely bypass the headline of Sinatra quitting show business. Talk about burying the lede. Of course, the banner headline also shows the same thing. I’d imagine 1921 also having the same thing.
6What??? Sinatra is out of show business??? Why doesn’t anybody ever tell me these things?
7“I guess I’m just trying to improve my little corner of the world.”
You know, every time I think about the state of the nation, the world, and the planet, that’s what I turn to. I’m just trying to keep my little county a bright blue spot in a sea of red. It’s like sticking my finger in a hole in the dike, but I have to remind myself – I may not have to do everything, but I’m not allowed to do nothing. Here’s hoping those postcards do some good!
8My own family (mom, dad, sis) could nevr understand why anyone would run for public office. If they were saints when elected, they invariably were sinners in no time at all. They always fell back on the old adage about consorting with bad people always turn good people into bad.Well, with that sort of attitude, why the hell get out of bed in the morning? I’ve been watching good people in public office for a while now. One of them is Senator Leahy from Vermont who is retiring as of the next election. He has served in public office the majority of his life.Farmers tend to love him. He got my approval for the beatdown he gave a certain immigration judge who swore that he could make a 3 year old child separated from her immigrant family say exactly the right things in court despite her trauma. Court. Now thats another area of public service that needs cleaning up. Seems that the same folks who abhor elected officials abhor judges for the same reason.
9For all the crazy, hate, and lack of humanity we still have—my departed grandmother would have said someone should have salted the earth on the hateful a long time ago.
10Neither poppy nor shrub was a senator
11Hence the reason the Qcumber Nazi Party considers “woke” to be a four-letter word. All the more silent skullduggery with which they have engaged for 5+ decades woke the hell out of even the most apathetic. TFG and his supporters screaming the formerly silent parts have raised an alarm. Moscow Mitch stacking SCROTUS? Woke? It would require a deep coma to miss what the QNP end game is.
Without a doubt the 2022 and 2024 elections are vital. But. In the next few weeks it’s time to wake President Biden and Congress to level the playing field by ending the filibuster and expanding SCROTUS.
12Sent your dude a Franklin. (You should feel free to highlight locals so those of us in safe territory can send money, if not lawyers and guns)
13OT:
Thiis is OT, but it needs much more attention in every venue possible. It’s about the Russian atrocity of deliberately bombing the state theater in Mariupol, which held a large number of civilians.
Some have discussed it here before, and I’ve done considerable research. More details are emerging, but given the conditions in Mariupol the full story will likely not be approached until a Nuremberg type war crimes trial occurs. FYI: the Wikipedia pages about Mariupol have been in a tug-of-war, I suspect Russian operatives are tampering with them [ * ], and are quite outdated.
Some of you might not wish to read the article below, it is chilling.
The summary is that there were up to 1500 people sheltering in various parts of the theater, almost all women, children, and elderly.
They included most of the pregnant women, new mothers and babies who were transferred from the earlier bombed maternity hospital. This group was housed in the right wing of the theater.
At about 9:45AM, a Russian aircraft dropped a 1000pound [likely a KAB 500L] laser-guided bomb obliquely through the roof of the theater’s right wing and towards the rear of the building, where about half of the building’s occupants who weren’t in the basement or front were sheltering.
It appears that all of the maternity women and babies were killed in the blast, more than 200 of them; along with many others in the dining/kitchen area for ‘breakfast’.
The following is a first-person account of this horrific event told by a woman, Nadiya, who survived it, to a Ukrainian reporter, and translated to English. Much detail and pictures.
Euromaidan Press, News and Views from Ukraine–
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/03/26/horror-and-terror-in-mariupol-eyewitness-testimony-of-the-bombing-of-mariupol-drama-theater/
“Article by: Anna Romanenko
Source: City of Mariupol website
Translated by: Christine Chraibi
Editor’s Note
Nadiya was hiding in the basement of the Mariupol drama theater with her daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and elderly grandmother when Russian troops dropped a heavy bomb on the building, despite the enormous sign “children” next to it. At least 300 civilians were killed by the attack, according to city officials. Here is her eyewitness account of what she and her family witnessed that day. …”
“…Thus, according to eyewitnesses, on March 16 at least 300 people died in the Mariupol Drama Theater… maybe more. Due to the ongoing fighting in the city center, it is impossible to give a clear figure.
Among the dead – pregnant women and mothers with babies evacuated from the Mariupol maternity hospital.
People who managed to leave the basement that day ran to other shelters in the city. …”
“These testimonies will be included in the evidence base of the crimes committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine. Mariupol must be designated as the venue for the next “Nuremberg Trials”.
.
14[ * I even tangled with a couple of these Russians [one in Toronto] before as an occasional Wiki editor, in the Wikipedia account of the USS Fitzgerald collision near Yokosuka Japan. They were trying to make the Navy look as bad as possible, with totally inaccurate and unfounded statements about navigational matters of which they knew next to nothing. ]
Putin has successfully held the US and NATO at bay militarily with his threats of using nuclear weapons, which he repeated this weekend. I am conflicted about letting him get away with atrocities like the bombing of the refuge of women and children in the Mariupol theater. And that’s not all. His troops attacked civilians fleeing after agreeing to safe passage. I am conflicted about calling bullshit on his threats and getting serious about helping with the military equipment Zelensky has been pleading for. Part of me says make Putin pay now. I guess my conflict is in thinking such a nut job as Putin is just gaming the US. Certainly don’t trust him with the nuclear button anymore than I did trumpf.
15Susan, we still live in a democracy. So far. Getting ANYTHING done in a democracy is next to impossible.
BY DESIGN
Otherwise it’s mob rule, until the mob’s brought under control by an authoritarian regime.
Which IMHO whips the mob up simply to create the need for authoritarianism.
You’ve done great things.
You continue to do great things.
And I hope you continue to do great things for decades to come.
Because we’re all the better for it.
Even if it’s just a tiny bit at a time, seemingly.
Here in this joint.
Because this joint is one the framers would be proud of.
16JJ, glad to see you’re supporting Dexter McCoy. I would vote for him but I’m not in that precinct. He went to high school with my kids, and he was impressive even back then.
17Linda, you’re right! Poppy Bush was a lowly congress-critter.
Maybe I got him mixed up with Barefoot Sanders, who I only remember because of his nickname. At the time he was running for the senate, I wondered if everyone would always be looking at his feet to see if he really was shoeless.
18Sandridge, thanks for including the coverage of those killed at the Mariupol Drama Theater.
This morning’s awful statistics I had not seen before — the estimate that Ukraine now has 10 million or more refugees — out of a population of 44 million. Nearly 3.9 million registered out of the country. 90% are women and children. One estimate is half of Ukraine’s children have been displaced from their homes.
Yet another reminder of just how vulnerable “civilization” is — and the incredible privileges of sitting here, using electricity and connectivity, drinking hot coffee, and knowing I can do a variety of “normal” today.
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