Occupy

Again, these banks need to show good faith by reforming themselves. They know exactly what to do, and they know how to make the reforms felt in public.
If they make the best transformative corrections to their most wealth-destructive hammers in the average family budget, there are those in Congress and at Occupy who will acknowledge, and take note.
If the reforms are bona fide, they will be enacted into law by our more responsible lawmakers. Banking doesn't need us to keep telling them what is anathema to the public, to a majority of depositors. It doesn't need Occupy to identify individuals for them to demand from, to argue with, and to compromise.
Occupy doesn't need the George Bush model of capitalistic democracy. They don't need to invent an 'appointment' to a leadership position, which will then enable them to buy the concomitant 'policy' thereafter.
If Occupy sticks to its own democracy as long as possible, then it's the model of what it is asking
of current U.S. policy-making sectors.
Otherwise, Occupy could elect a Supreme Leader, some representatives, some magistrates, and
spend all its time attempting to maintain its systems...just the way Congress and business are doing now, to the disenfranchisement of 99% of the public, ergo the public good. Circular much?
Today's news: pensions are taking another hit on Wall Street. So familiar. Since these banks got
bailed out from a public Welfare constructed just for them, my pension check shrinks a little bit
more every year.
Now exactly how is that supposed to work when I have family members out of work, no cost
of living on the Social Security I contributed larger and larger amounts to all my working life, and youngsters in my family dependent upon all of this- while the price of food and gas does go up?
Is it my bank, or my budget, that needs a bailout? At the very least, it is going to have to be both. As one of the 99%, I don't have to give a hoot about my credit rating. None of us does.
Banks can charge as many phony fees and interest rates (that bear no resemblance to the ability of the economy to sustain such rates if people are to eat) as they like. There isn't anything saying the many 'charges' will get paid. The reality could possibly come down to a vote of 99 to 1 that they won't.
Think then they might want to reform?

Mississippi Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1961, thirteen citizens boarded a bus in D.C. bound for Mississippi
and Louisiana as a racially integrated group. Along the way they became
more than one bus, and several hundred people. Recently many of the group
came together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their struggle.
When they arrived at segregated bus stations in 1961 they were jailed. So many of them gave testimonials I found unbelievable because they were jailed for thirty days!
I was stunned by many things as I viewed the proceedings on C-span.
One astounding thing was that Governor Haille Barber gave a speech which
included an apology for the jailings! When he got to the podium I was certain
he would say it wasn't so bad to be jailed because each jail presented
as "A Clean Well Lit Place".
He didn't say anything even close to being so backward. He was a complete,
polite, respectful human. Haille Barber? The same man who left his state
just as the president arrived there to talk to officials about thier
need relative the gushing oil BP had slicked onto, their coastline was
well-mannered and gracious during a freedom riders celebration!
Continually throughout the celebration he referred to his wife and himself as a
couple doing public service - never himself alone.
A man couldn't be more gracious that that.
The only upsetting thing I heard him say was that the celebration could not have
happened without the corporate support it got. He named everyone of the
coporations. Please.
The freedom riders asked some of their group to speak individually.
They were particularly proud that their desegregation sacrifices led to successes
such as Judge Ruben Anderson's position on the Mississippi Supreme Court, to
Judge Carlton Reed's position in the Federal Distict Courts, and to
Congressman Bennie Thompson who reccommended Judge Reed.
Mention was made of the exceptional leadership of Congressman John Lewis, who was
one of the most ardent starting leaders of C.O.R.E.
Sonny Montgomery was mentioned as Mr. Lewis' arresting officer at one point. Later
the two served together in Congress.
One woman came to the podium who seemed to be Chinese. She was a young college student like the rest of the freedom riders fifty years ago. She looked Chinese
by virtue of her stature and coloring. She told the crowd the officials who
greeted her when she got off the integrated bus she rode into the south back then
informed her she was not black. Everyone laughed as she kept repeating to them
to counter their assertions, that she indeed was definitely black, or whatever term
people were using then for those of African heritage.
All the freedom riders who spoke stressed the diversity among them as regards
whites, blacks, and persons of differing religions.
The most stunning report came from a lady named Claire O'Connor.
She looked very Irish to me. She said people where she gave talks always asked her
why she did it.
Spike Lee would have loved her answer. She said she was raised to understand that
if the promise of forty acres and a mule had been honored, our country would be truly
unable to be challenged in any field right now. She said her parents taught her
that cancer would likely have been cured in the twentieth century, and many more
important world-altering achievements would have been given the world in the first
one hundred years after the civil war. It was just a matter, she exclaimed, of how
much she loved her country. That is why she had become a freedom rider.
I haven't heard of Civil War aftermath spoken of in that way before. Maybe I haven't
even thought of it in exactly that way. But when I do stop to think of it now, courtesy of Ms. O'Connor, I realize hundereds of billions of dollars have been spent
in these years since the Emancipation Proclamation, to keep black people from
achievemnet. What would that have achievement have rendered after all?

Agincourt, JFK, Abbottabad

The late Mr. Ted Sorensen, appointed Special Counsel by a newly elected
President Kennedy, tells in his book, titled simply, 'Kennedy', of how one of
the President's favorite pieces of literature was the St. Crispin's Day speech at
Agincourt, France, made by King Henry V in the Shakespearean play of the same name.
He didn't say in the book just what so impressed President Kennedy about t
soliloquy; but he did indicate it had something to do with the pride of working
together with persons of like minds.
As President Obama spoke to the 101st Airborne, and met with the elite team who had
to fly undercover so quickly into Pakistan this week, I kept recalling the photo
of the President with the Situation Room team. Henry V came to mind.
I don't religiously follow Shakespeare's line length's here; but this speech feels
so right to recall at this time.
Henry begins just as Westmoreland, one of the Earl's preparing for the coming battle
with the French, has wished ten thnousand of the men off work in England that day were there to help in the fight. Henry then replies:
What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland?-No my fair cousin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow to do our country loss;
and if to live,
The fewer men the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour, as one man more,
methinks,
would share from me,
For the best hope I have.
O do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland ,through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowshio to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, Tomorrow is St. Crispian;
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, These wounds I had on Crispian's day.
Old men forget;
yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,-
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd,-
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the endling of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any
speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.
*******

----And just then, word came in the French had begun a charge...

Rev. Ricky Burgess

The Rachel Maddow show interviewed Rev. Burgess on site in his neighborhood in Pittsburgh on May 6th. His description of what young men have done to their community, of the many serious life losses he has incurred in his own family, and
of his tireless pleading for better gun laws in his area, Hometown, broke my
heart. Rev. Burgess is a city councilman living in America, in a third world country. Nothing much emerging from that country but callous risk-taking on the part
of the learned challenged, and death or dying for the murdered and their per-petrators.
From my experience, young people have to be scarred by utter hopelessness by the ages puberty settles in to be so panicked about joylessness that they have to destroy all they can see.
I know neighborhoods like Homewood exist all over the U.S. In Detroit, driving for
instance out Gratiot street from downtown, the neighborhoods look as though bombs
have recently gone off on several streets at that main thoroughfare.
Mayor Coleman Young struggled against it as best he could for as long as he could
stand on his feet. The gun violence was somewhat under control, but investment
died anyway because Mayor Young wouldn't countenance all white work crew and work
details roaming the streets in an almost all black city. And knowing the price toiil
be paid, Detroiters loved their mayor.
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick also led in that same spirit, but had an even more progre-
ssive bent. For that he was crucified.
The last progressive mayor Detroit had who lied about an even more scandalous picadillo than Mayor Kilpatrick, Jerome P. Cavanaugh, got away only by the skin of
his teeth. In those days, judges in the north were not circling their wagons in the
"kill them all" fashion they love to do these days. Dr. Michelle Alexander calls
the blight left to flourish in black communities 'The New Jim Crow'.

Economy

During the eighties our economy suffered mightily from the decimation
AIDS wreaked on us.I don't imagine the terrible losses in the economy directly
related to this disease were noted at the time because people were either growing
very rich, or suffering awful financial stagnation. The leveraged buy-out reared its head to cover up
some of the suffering. Then in the nineties, President Clinton inspired such confidence
in the consumer classes, that business re-bounded and boomed for quite
some time. Even now, however, President Clinton expresses some regret at not
putting some regulatory muscle-flexing in place to steady Wall Streets wild
bucking products and practices.
But such damage had been done by the year 2000, that in order to cover
up a lot of systemic loss, bundling, and hedging were the only things
booming. At least keep as much money in the world as possible with
Americans, even if the middle class has to be gutted, aye?
So many of those who died of AIDS in the first twenty years the disease
flourished were those spending untold billions in this economy every
single year. Except for the start and finish of the dot.coms, billions
dropped out of our economy each year for twenty years, at least.
AIDS victims, before the disease began to spread so quickly, and take lives so
soon after diagnosis, were spending untold billions on cars,
designer clothes, shoes, furniture, furnishings, grooming services,
flowers, candy, toys for children in their families, travel, higher
education, theater, gourmet foods, personal products, books, mutiple
residences, etc.
As quickly as these dead were buried, prices rose continually on the things
they were no longer buying; so that some businesses just couldn't make up
the differences in customer base at all, and finally folded.
Every year for twenty at a minimun,, we lost more and more revenue from the
fortune AIDS victims had been previously spending in our country.
I cannot imagine the situation was much better in Europe ,where England
had been a prosperity leader ,yet still under Margaret Thatcher and co.
seemed totally uninspired by the need presenting itself in this crisis.
At the same time consumerism was bearing up under these blows, the health care industry
found itself over-burdened with delivering an excess of already scarce
health care dollars to help victims of a disease for which no actual help
was available. The costs for that may be inestimable; but financial institutions
involved in losing cleintele, losing businesses, losing large personal credit
limit accounts, were determined to absorb no losses.
To his credit,President Clinton did do all he could to help fund the research
which would be able to develop effective medecines for the disease; and he invested
in public education initiatives which could help slow the spread of it. The dissemination of information about AIDS was sorely needed, yet completely neglected
all during the eighties. When it was finally accomplished during the nineties, it
helped motivate high-risk persons to seek early diagnosis.
That fact alone may have saved countless lives, and so much of our economy.
In the final analysis, we have suffered greatly from the losses in great
measure of so many crucial things that were once cheaper when so many more people
were buying them in such great number.
The loss of life is never ever cheap, or even tolerable, especially for human beings,
because the way those humans express humanity is part of the fabric of all our
lives after all.

A Very Bad Year

I believe there should exist an incremental measure of political time which
describes a sixteen year period.
In that way, professionals in politics could possibly study public policy
starts and stops in specific areas, in ways that might more easily lend
themseves to the big changes taking place during specific
"regime" changes.
Conversely, policy undergoing little or no change might be subject to more
cause and effect possibilities for changes in areas affecting daily lives most.
A sixteen year span could give a bird's eye view of two administrations at
once, and could show us more how the rest of the world might be prone to
react to what happens here.
World poliitcal climate seems to be changing more drastically during each
succeeding sixteen year period. It seems political thinking is contracting
so rapidly, globally, that it has become easier and easier to see extremes
as norms, and moderate thinking as uninvolved. Half-century analyses aren't
enough, while decade analysis is not politically precise in U.S. politics.
I would characterize 2001 as a year which continually took us by surprise
because we hadn't had a handle on how violently the rest of the world somewhat
secretly reacted to the U.S. apparently moving away form evolving into a
model of government President Clinton sponsored in order to keep the fragile
peace the world held its breath to preserve during Clinton's eight years.
President Clinton moved in a world he was leading into prosperity.
For the time being, so goes the nation here, so goes the world. This may
continue to be the case until at least mid-century if Americans get the
education and skill sets President Obama and President Clinton want to see
here.
When George Bush was elected in the year 2000, the entire world seemed to
gasp. Whereas we don't really vote to suit them, I think it would serve
us to know where we stand in areas of world panic so we can diffuse
whatever wrong-thinking reactions blossom suddenly as threats.
Bush had barely been sworn in when China shot down a technological marvel
of an American armed forces plane.
I cannot for the life of me ever think of that incident as an ordinary
international blip.
It happened on April Fool's Day, which has never seemed a coincidence to me.
The act was so aggressive because the Chinese knew for a fact we were no
threat to them. That is why I felt the timing was an unfunny joke.
The Chinese then refused to release the expertly-trained, highly skilled
crew for what seemed like months, because there was no reason to keep them
at all.
The Chinese authorities seemed to make things personal by insisting to
President Bush they were releasing no one until he apologized to THEM for
violating their air space - a thing it proved unclear we had done at all!
Finally, President Bush did apologize - under duress of course - to get that
air crew back. Still, they refused to send back that plane. By all accounts,
it was a powerful, state-of-the-art military jewel.
The next thing I knew, planes - yes, planes, were being flown through our own
airspace by amateurs...into the twin towers, into the Pentagon, encompassing
three other numbers well-established in American culture, and in the culture
of panic, 911.
Within days the FBI ran advertisements looking for people who spoke a Chinese
dialect.
I remain horrified.
I am very very thankful to the team who used American airpower to get into
the place where Osama Bin Laden hid, making certain he could plot no more.
I'm so grateful that same team blew up our helicopter in Pakistan.
Pakistan ought to thank us as well. There is no way they could have kept away
other hostile countries or jihadists, who'd have been constantly salivating
over it...even had they wanted to do so.









































model of government President Clinton sponsored in order to keep the peace.















































in a world he was leading into prosperity.
For the time being, so goes the nation here, so goes the world. This may
continue to be the case until at least mid-century if Americans get the
education and skill sets President Obama and President Clinton want to
see here.
When Gerge Bush was elected in the year 2000, the entire world seemed to
gasp. Whereas we don't really vote to suit them, I think it would serve
us to know where we stand in areas of world panic so we can diffuse
whatever wrong-thinking reactions blossom suddenly as threats.
Bush had barely been sworn in when China shot down a technological marvel
of an American plane. I cannot for the life of me ever think of that
incident as an ordinary international blip. It happened on April Fool's
day, which has never seemed incidental to me. The act was so aggressive
because the Chinese knew for a fact we were no threat to them whatsoever.
That's why I thought the timing was as unfunny joke.
They refused to release the expertly-trained, highly skilled crew for
what seemed like months because there was no reason to keep them.
The Chinese authorities were seemimgly making things personal by telling
President Bush they were releasing no one until he apologized for
violating their air space -a thing it proved to be unclear we did at all.
President Bush finally did apologize to get back the crew, but not that
aircraft. That plane, by all news accounts, was state-of-the-art.
The next thing I knew, planes were being flown into our own air space
by amateurs, and into the twin towers, encompassing three other numbers
well established in American culture of course - 911.
Within days the FBI ran advertisements looking for people who spoke a
Chinese dialect.
I remain horrified, and very, very thankful the team who killed Bin Laden
blew up our helicopter in Pakistan. Pakistan ought to thank us as well.
They could not have protected it from countries or from jihadists who'd have
been salivating over it - even if they'd wanted to do so.

Chronic

No, I mean disease! Asthma now affects one in ten U.S. children, and one in
twelve adults in this country according to the CDC. One reason for that could be because allergy treatments for children are expensive, and require a tremendous
time and energy committment from parents.
Our air is not good, our treatments are out of reach for so many 8 -5 workers.
Most doctors are reluctant to diagnose asthma in the first place. Hospitals
refuse to allow private physicians to admit asthma patients. People are
asked to go right to the emergency room; so the diagnosis is professional thorn.
Xolair is a remarkable controller medecine; but most doctors don't even
want to let people know about it as a treatment because it is so expensive.
If these same doctors would use it more often, wouldn't the price come down?
Xolair was developed to supress symptoms between injections, but it also
takes a lot of danger out of an actual asthma attack.
As the air gets worse, our medical community should be much more serious
about preventing asthma illness and death.
A doctor told a medical conference I attended that he became an asthma specialist
in the first place because he saw his dad suffer with an asthma
cough so powerful, while the doc was still a child, that the cough broke
his father's ribs.
Asthma is a bad, chronic, violent disease whose cures can cause diabetes,
high blood pressure, and therefore heart trouble. The attacks can cause
choking, injury, and death within twenty minutes of onset.
We need new committments for the handling of this disease.

Young Adult Black Males

As a group, young black adult males have a lot of family to support when they turn
eighteen. So why are we silent when they get out of high school and immediately sign
themselves up to work on the biggest plantation in America? I don't think we should revile, or ridicule them.
I just think we should have a continual discussion going about how to free them. We are their community, and the NCAA is a tremendously tentacled parasite.
Universities don't compensate these young athletes in any way; but they pay people
millions to coach them. We appreciate the coaching, but these coaches have talented
men on their teams. What is that worth?
These universities reap revenues which help keep EVERYONE's tuition costs down.
I think these young men should consider staying together to form non-official teams. There is no college degree in the world worth the way these guys have to slave on those courts, while still having to study, getting no consideration for how
much money they earn for these schools.
The NCAA has a terrible record of ignoring the attrition rates of these young men besides.
Lastly, when one of them does make it, we need to recognize that they feed, in the main, the actual NBA. Trillions of dollars are in play when yearly revenues of the
NCAA and the NBA are added. I would guess 1.2T minimum.
These young men are collectively are a multi-billion dollar industry. We need to begin to fight for them, because they are young, and they are busy, and they are
already doing the best they know how to do to get ahead. They want a shot. Nothing wrong with that. But let universities starve, and let the NBA dry up for a while.
This country can't afford to do without the basketball industry and its side businesses, I know. But not one of these young men should sign with any of these
universities for less than $500,000. In that way, they can afford four years of college whether they hit a snag or not. If they play just one year, they will earn
thousands for the school. If the student doesn't play the entire, season, pro-rate
him.
If the guys get together to study while working at McDonald's, or mowing lawns or
shovelling snow or playing for crowds at the gym, or whatever, fine.
If we assume the guys will use a high school diploma to earn $16,000 per year, then
the colleges will be putting them ahead of the fray by $436,000 of the 500 I am
suggesting.
Noone already rich in the system is going to like my ideas one bit. But what plantation owner was happy to do the right thing? I have never heard of one. If there was one, I feel sure he knew he couldn't let it be common knowledge among
his (or her )peers.
Hey, I have a college degree. I have had it for years. I am proud of it, yes;
but all I had to do was pay tuition, and pay back my loans. I didn't have to wake up sore when it was time to get to class. If I worked during those years, it was
not to pay the university for my training or education way more than the costs of
tuition and fees.

A Brand New President

A few weeks after the 2008 election, President Barak Obama went to Florida for a
talk with grass roots people.My daughter and I watched on TV.
His talk was outside in the open air. He reminded voters he intended to honor
the campaigning committments he made.
Then the president agreed to take questions.
He called on a lady who proceeded: 'We are living in my car. I have a young son,
and we lost our home, and we just need a place to live.'
Our President took the question in stride, saying he would make sure someone on his
staff heard her out and did what it would be possible to do.
But to my youngest daughter and me, it didn't pass muster as a question on national
policy. We looked at each other feeling for the lady and for the new president - then I had to show some of my incredulity. I started to sing 'see my eyes I can hardly see'. My daughter, an opera singer, helped me out immediately - chiming in -
'see my tongue, I can hardly talk'. We went on together, not really knowing if
the words or sequences in the phrasing was exactly right, 'won't you help, won't
you heal me Christ? I believe you you can make me whole.'
We agreed then just between the two of us that the United States of America was
love-starved, neglected, suffering...and would be a very tough room for an honest
man just tryin' to 'render unto Caesar'.
The next person the President called on bolstered our belief. He was a young man
saying his job at McDonald's wasn't paying benefits, or offering raises. My, my,my...

Tsunami

I flunked college geology. I did well on my exams, but on my practicals, I just could not see differences between igneous and metamorphic rocks to save my life.
Even some sedimentary just looked metamorphic to me because they didn't look igneous and I wasn't sure they were sedimentary. In that class, if you could not get a
passing lab grade, you flunked. Period. When I elected it, I thought, 'the lab will be easier than any other lab I've had'. Oh well. So to comfort myself after grades
came out, I just re-read the book cover to cover. Of course, as another disclaimer
for my geologic opinions, that was in the 70s - and I haven't kept up much.
All that being said, however, I did read a lot of the material my eldest daughter
bought in the 90s for a University of Michigan class called 'Oceans'.
At that time I was amazed to learn that whatever mountain ranges, rivers, lakes, streams, eruptions etc. we have on the earth's surface - there are larger, faster moving, more vast, more volatile counterparts on the ocean floor!
Whatever happens on the surface of the earth, happens in spades on the ocean floor.
So I just have to believe that since climate change has somehow caused more frequent
and larger sink-holes on earth's surface, we may have larger and more frequent
sink-holes on our oceans' flooring. Where they would be in proximity to a tsunami, I would have no idea. How they would be related to earthquake, I could not say.
What I can say, however, is that the polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate
according to Al Gore and most scientists. And I know water is very, very heavy. It
is going somewhere. It is moving quickly if gravity is real. It is causing severe
weather patterns. And obviously that is happening both on land, and at sea. I
think we need a LOT more geography and geology majors in our colleges. I'm just sayin'.

Sargent Shriver

Early this year Sargent Shriver passed away. From then until now I have considered
nearly every day what a profound effect he had on me, on my city, on my family,
through his policy of trusting people to employ their government to grow.
When President Johnson asked Sargent Shriver to head Great Cities, I thought "O wow, another government program. It won't be administerd to benefit anyone I know." I was too wrong! My mother followed the guidelines to apply for funds for the children in her surrounding neighborhood. I was married with a child by then, but my mother told me she was serious about needing me to get involved. Since I was trying to complete an undergrad degree, I initially thought I was too busy to make a committment to a project which would never come to fruition.
In the end, though, I saw the proposal I helped her write actually did get funded. So one day I went down to the church building, which was mainly a donated space to help with the program for children I felt were going to amount to an unruly chore group. Again I was so wrong. The children were young, from around eight years of age to maybe, twelve. Mom had named the program E.A.R.N. and Learn. The kids I met were engaged and engaging. My mother had hired a young art student from a nearby university to give the children art lessons twice per week. Initially, I thought even that was sort of an erudite idea. I visited the program one day, though - during an art lesson.
I felt such amazement at how quiet, how orderly, how eagerly the children soaked up the lesson on color and shading, and perspective. That lesson proved to be the first real art lesson I had ever received myself! The young people were respectful when they asked questions, but were not actually eerily quiet. They were truly working hard on their assigned projects. The teacher was very generous to let me sit in because she at first thought I would be a distraction, or an estimator of some sort for my mother. In the end I had a great deal of fun helping pass out the lunches that day, and helping preserve art for parents to see. I tried to visit the program to help out each day after that.
E.A.R.N. and Learn children did chores for elderly residents in their neighborhood. They swept up lawns, got a few groceries, swept porches, went to the mailbox, little things which could be supervised by the adults in the program. Every week they got paid. Every day they got a lunch. Every week they got a little evaluation by their seniors. Every week a tiny amount was put into individual accounts for them, a savings for program's end.
I just couldn't believe how motivated the very young very blonde teacher was each and every class period, how precisely my dad kept each and every receipt and expenditure in its proper place. The adults were so productive. The children were so industrious. Those getting services were so proud. The parents were so proud. Not from that day until this have I seen such positive governing at work. There was no waste. There was no fraud. There ws no putting children at risk. There were no parental complaints except that a few of them wanted to be more involved. There were no elder complaints.
In the end, Chrysler took the name of the program in a desperate move to garner some government attention at some point. We waved that away, as Great Cities had come to an end anyway by then. I'm not aware of what the name was used for at Chrysler.
Mom died in 1998, but a representative from the city came to her funeral to speak of her loveley achievement during the seventies, and to say there would always be a plaque to commemorate that achievement hanging in a place of honor in the City Hall.
I have seen first hand that children love to be the focus of meaningful education on any subject. I have seen first hand that every teacher is different from every other teacher. I have seen that a tiny church a few blocks east of Mack and Van Dyke on a street corner in Detroit can be a place of immense joy and community.
Forever and ever, I will thank Sargent Shriver for the depth and breadth of his conscience, of his wisdom, and of the gift those both were to us in America's great cities. Thank you Sargent Shriver.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge

Thank you to Congressman John Lewis. Please lead lectures on your view of the movement which details the events you experienced, and all those you
interacted with to make so very much American history. I wish all living civil rights leaders took turns teaching classes at least once a month. I wish a lot of those classes could be taught at the NAACP. I wish we could have a John Lewis Day at least in the black community. Then we would always be reminded how we got "Letter From A Birmingham Jail". The civil rights leadership in the U.S. - both living and departed, both black and white, are a national monument. I wish our children had proper access to them.

Partial Body

What in the world is the proclivity of American sculptors to portray black men as partial persons?
The artistic vision escapes me. In Detroit Joe Louis is sculpted as a giant fist. It should be hilarious, but it is just so awful. Mr. Louis was a complex person,
always disappointed he hadn't gotten an education.
Now we have the statue of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. as a man with no obvious feet.
Isn't he the proverbial "inventor" of the peaceful MARCH?! Doesn't a march need feet?
Again, I want to laugh - but it is so terrible! Could we maybe vote on the
final depiction of these statues? It couldn't cost all that much to get it on the ballots. Hey, we need a sculpture somewhere in America of an entire black man,
and I need to see it myself.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King is a revered public figure in this world. He has a lot of family in this
world; both public and private family. He has an enduring world legacy. For
me, though, he holds a special, private, quiet place at the heart of the formative
years of my social consciousness. Until I learned who he was, I had no idea such
things as I had begun to hear about could happen. Between 1961, and 1965,
I learned most of what I admired most about Dr. King from Ebony and Jet magazines. I turned eighteen in 1965.
I felt a great deal of disappointment none of my teachers at school
had breathed a word about it. I guess to them the movement was militant.
Our school was tiny. Our graduating class was one of the largest the school had
had in years. There were 100 of us! I found out people who were the fabric of
my very existence were suffering, likely dying, for the sin of wanting equal
justice under the law - equal treatment by law.
I wanted to hear Dr. King speak in Detroit. For all my anticipatory pride
and identification with the event, all I got was news in the hometown paper
that Dr. King was breaking the law to come to our arena because our mayor
hadn't issued the permit for the public gathering. Reading that gave me a
first commitment to the promise I intended to make to myself the day of the
speech; a promise of civil disobedience. I prepared myself for a big fight at home,
a big fight at school, a big ballooning struggle with police and courts.
I didn't need to be that prepared. Everyone and anyone came downtown to
hear that speech. I mean, except anyone from school. My parents had quickly
informed me early on they wouldn't miss it for 'all the tea in China'.
Everyone in the world knows that speech now. But by the time I heard it, I
was thinking Dr. King was just too kind, too accepting, too forgiving. I had
learned about Emitt Till. I knew he had gone unavenged. I had learned about
SNCC and CORE. Those were bitter legacies. I found myself arriving late at the
table of the SCLC. I harbored still, an immense respect and hero-worship for
the man who risked his life and limb every day, so that his people could be
'free at last'. When I got back to school the following Monday, I wasn't angry
no one seemed to have gone. This wasn't their fight. It couldn't be until we
had made it a lasting enigma. I don't even remember if the other black students
went. People at my school didn't seem to want to be known so much as black
but rather as 'black but just like everybody else'. I never did relish that idea.
I found early in life I loved being black. Not everyone agreed I knew what it
meant to be black. But I felt it deep down inside whenever I was home or
around extended family. At school, I felt...other. I didn't mind. But when I
got back to school after that speech, I knew it was up to me to spread the
word, and contribute to the work. Dr. King gave my the gift of turning me into
an activist-mini. I couldn't do much - but I did appeal to my classmates to
be the Catholics we had been reading about. We got reluctant permission
from the principal (probably because the captain and co-captain of the football
team were on my side) to organize canned food drives for the marchers
in the south who couldn't stop along their routes for a bite to eat. She let us
organize for a week or so. I thought the effort should have been ongoing; but
I had learned from Dr. King. I took what was authorized, yet I collected beyond
the end date she gave me until she began to intimidate the givers.
I will always be grateful to my mother for helping me provide collection
tools and containers. I will always be grateful to my dad for 'getting me to
the churches' and other collection centers 'on time'. (He was later to beg me to
do the same 'on time' bit with him for my wedding!)
So at seventeen, I found I did have it in me to stand for something. That
self knowledge it turned out, got me through a million later tribulations.
But Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took my mini- committment, and kept giving
as we know past the day he died.
I went back to class. Dr. King went back to the marches. Southerners turned
dogs on him. Southerners turned water hoses on him and the other
marchers. Southerners jailed him. Constantly. Finally Dr. King had to
marshall his inner strengths for fighting the war in Vietnam. Young black
men were coming back from the war with no cheeks left to turn. Dr. King
had begun talking with Macolm X. And people like me just loved Huey Newton.
Dr. King in America had become Nelson Mandela in the old South Africa.
Our society began to see they were going to choose from among Milton Henry,
Dr. King, Malcom X, Huey Newton. After 1967, and 1968, we naturally chose
Dr. King to lionize. He was the only one associated with peaceful coexistence
in a nation of many cultures. Huey didn't have the humanity to match his devotion. He was hero of returning warriors who mocked the "para-military".
Later, in South Africa, the apartheid government was to choose from among
Nelson Mandela, beloved the world over, Winnie Mandela's "boys", (a majority
of black youth in South Africa were teenagers at the time) and the Zulu Nation.
They surely didn't want either of the latter two.
We as black people did not get jobs or any equal access or any EEOC attention
until after our civil insurrections in '67 and '68. Laws on the books had no
teeth we could see in the cities. Of course I call them civil insurrections.
Our journalists and officials called them 'riots'. Young people don't hear or read
the real history of '67 and '68. They don't hear the truth of how Dr. King was
treated when he was alive. They don't even know the history of Thaddeus
Stevens. The true history of slavery is obscurred and obfuscated in countless
high school texts. Even at the height of black pride we skipped over our
slave ancestors to be proud of our ancestors who were kings and queens in
Africa. Our children, however, don't study African history. The true history of the
Mau Mau is nearly impossible to study in America. I hope one day
the history of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords will be honestly told.
For though she is not a traditional civil rights hero, she voted for Congressman John Lewis for this Congress's Minority Leader, even knowing her girl Nancy Pelosi would win. Hey, we love Nancy too. But Giffords honored the venerable one. And whereas '67 and '68 , a more violent part of the struggle,
are glossed over in the U.S. - Osama Bin Laden obviously
studied it intently. And whereas Congresswoman Giffords has suffered
terribly, possibly for being so honest, possibly for being so forthright, you can
bet your bottom dollar that if the Reverned Jesse Jackson, or the Reverned
Al Sharpton had put rifle cross-hairs on a map of certain congressional districts
the resultant conversations wouldn't be so "kinder , gentler".
If we really love Dr. King we will study the history of his work more closely.
We will conclude the truths about the meaning of his work in modern
culture more precisely. We will know more assuredly the work left still to
be done. And we will note, for instance, more of the little noticed affects of
his legacy. For instance, the Liberal Arts and Sciences, literature, and
western civilization studies before Dr. King, and after Dr. King, are like
night and day. If you are a black person - teach you children. If you are
not a black person, you should teach your children. Run and tell that, all
of you.