John Doar

I can't believe John Doar will finally get a Presidential Medal of Freedom this year, and from this particular White House. I am overjoyed.
Most white people in the 60s civil rights struggles have remained as famous, and not so famous, names of brave persons and deeds, or martyrs.
John Doar has been neither; yet he was one of the most stalwart, most formidable icons in the struggle to get civil rights laws implemented and obeyed that any of us had ever heard of or learned about. And during the grief and struggle immediately following the death of Medgar Evers, John Doar ran into an alley to reason with a large gathering of black youth who had guns and plenty of
anger. They relaxed all the rage initiative fueling them, mainly out of respect for John Doar, and the
legacy of Mr. Evers.
I imagine only a small fraction of the young people who know the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.have ever even heard Mr. Doar's name. But Mr. Doar was in Mississippi at the inception of the
voter rights struggle, long before President Kennedy sent troops to the South to enforce the laws of
our land.
I wonder if when Mr. Doar began at the Justice Department  he had any inkling,while undertaking the work of enforcing the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, that in about three years he would be
in a photo on the front page of the New York Times, nearly getting his head bashed in with a tire iron at the Farish St. riots in Jackson, Mississippi, once the body of Medgar Evers lay in state there- on the same day a young man took aim at Mr. Doar with a rifle.
Mr.Doar was an enforcer who had a face off with staunch segregationists, and those who sometimes became reactionary toward these lovers of the status-quo.
I doubt he knew.
We know. And we know we owe Mr. Doar a great debt. All of America owes him. At least he is getting a Medal of  Freedom, from the first African-American President of the United States of America.
Thank you Mr. John Doar. Thank you.

Born And Bred

When Governor Romney comes to Michigan, he says every ridiculous thing
he can think of to say, but never, 'I was born in, or- I was raised, in Michigan."
I imagine he has a lot of unpleasant Michigan memories.
For one thing, his father was head of an auto company, which is supposed
to be one of the penultimate positions and industries in this country, and The
penultimate in Michigan. However, that company went broke, some years after
George Romney fashioned it as a future auto company powerhouse.
For another thing, the Romney family was Mormon; so none of the elite in the
auto baron culture would accept his family into the social folds of their worlds.
Auto elites built homes in the Grosse Pointes, and the women were
eligible for, and welcome in, The Junior League. The Romneys were not going
to fit into any of that. Perhaps their religion would not even have allowed it.
Consequently, he was then, and always will be, nouveau riche.
The Fords wouldn't even accept Lee Iaccoca into their societal bosom; and we all
know a guy couldn't be more top drawer than Iaccoca.
Henry Ford II couldn't get into the Yale club in college because he wasn't a
fifth or sixth generation millionaire. Auto industry titans were not ever after that
going to be in the mood to open their "elites" status to any relaxed rules or
acceptance without extreme rigor in requirements expectations. One either fit the
auto baron part of the Grosse Pointe mold, or one did not. The Romneys did not;
and for all their talk of "dressage", they never will. Though there is not one thing
wrong with that, I doubt 'the Mitt' will ever feel or believe that way.
Auto elite is a tough crowd. Mr. Romney's family wasn't even educated.
He was always on the outside looking in; so I know he would have loved Detroit
to go bankrupt, even though he is as American.
Oh, the scars of childhood.

You Are Fired

Can anyone fire Secret Service personnel?
Scary.
Don't the Secret Service have our secrets?
Of course they can be relieved of duty. However, we have to do that with proper caution.Right?
It is a shame the Columbia kerfuffle became so public. We would have been much better
off coming to an agreement of severed employment with our "secret" service members if
we could have done it without announcing we were scouring the planet to find the accusing
sex workers so that they could further, publicly, point their complainant fingers.

Saving More Money In Primary Politics

Why, if we are cutting our American budget, do we need to do it in our presidential election processes?
I still see no reason at all for Newt Gingrich to drop out of his party's primary. He is doing something
few Americans will ever have an opportunity to do. He should stay in until the end so that as many citizens as possible can interact with the process in person, and hear his policy ideas for our future, even
though like me, they may agree with none of them.
Democracy depends on the fact that we have an electorate as informed as possible.
If we pay tax dollars in order to participate as fully as we can in these democratic processes, then so be it.

UNC

POTUS spoke at University of North Carolina this afternoon, saying he is like other student parents,
wanting their children to do better than they could.
Does that mean one Obama daughter should one day be a POTUS with the other as her Secretary of
State? Well that would be an excellent family administration.

Nice Doggy

Did the Romneys dry Seamus off and give him something for an upset tummy, or hose him down and
put him back up top for the wind to fly at him again on the highway?

Joblessness

If joblessness is in a  heightened state in November, and that causes us to neglect getting POTUS back into the office of President, we are all going to have jobs worth half of what they are worth now.
And then, we are all going to be homeless, or living in neighborhoods with more empty houses than family houses no municipality wants to take responsibility to maintain.
Lucky taxpayers one and all...