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.