The Baltimore Mess

I have once again subjected myself to tedium and irrelevance by watching Meet the Press. Chuck Todd, the host, grilled the Mayor of Baltimore. Grilled her over and over about protestors, people in the streets who rioted and looted. But he has no grilling for the police. He showed a clip of Baltimore’s police commissioner saying the six police officers charged with crimes against Freddie Gray did nothing wrong. Really? The man committed no crime. He was in possession of a legal knife folded and in a holster not a switchblade as the police and the media announced. He asked for medical help right after he was handcuffed. They drove him all over Baltimore banging around in the back of a van with his hands and feet shackled. He asked over and over while in the van for medial help and was denied it each time. He lost consciousness in the van. He went into a coma at the hospital and died. But the police did nothing wrong?

What happened in Baltimore is not about black poverty. It’s not about criminal gangs running the streets. It’s not about single parent homes. It is about institutional racism. It’s about the police in this country who believe they are above the law. It’s about authoritarianism. It’s about a mindset in the nation now that says authority, the police, are without fault no matter what they do to people, especially to minorities, most especially to blacks, even if they beat them to death, break their spine, or shoot them in the back.

This country has some sort of military fixation that says we are at war with minorities. They are enemies. And it’s perfectly fine in war to do whatever you want to these people because they do not matter.

Chuck Todd and his kind perpetuate this stuff by blabbering on and on about poverty and looting and what in the world are we going to do about all of this crime? You know what? Have some courage. Show you are an intelligent person. Call in the police commissioner and ask him why his officers are killing people. Why they brutalize and harass and lock up blacks for petty offenses or just make up stuff in order to arrest them. Quit hiding behind your white privilege and fear that if you ask any hard questions of the police you’ll get in trouble with your sponsors and the big shot white men who run your show.

When are we going to actually grow up as a nation, actually be the moral and model country we keep saying we are, and stop treating minorities, especially black people, like they have no worth at all?

When, for God’s sake, will we do that?

Actions Make a Difference

“We make progress in society only if we stop cursing and complaining about its shortcomings and have the courage to do something about them.” ~ Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Physician/Author Pictured here is Kikuko Shinjo, 89 years old, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast. As a 17-year old nursing student she helped nurse victims of the carnage back to health. Many of them died in her care. She says she holds no grudge against America and encourages interaction between the Japanese and Americans. She has devoted her life to peace, saying, “I want all the people around the world to be friends, and I want to make my country peaceful without fighting.” Today she makes colorful paper cranes and donates them to the Children’s Peace Monument at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

I Saw the Delicacy of Life

I was flying Across the deep And I saw the delicacy Of life Wrinkles on the faces Of the old So pure they glistened Like awards The joy of children Running with abandon Their laughter ringing Like chimes in the wind I saw the soft moving waves Across the sea And the trees releasing Their rainbow leaves Birds joined me on my flight And I saw the surface of their wings Adorned with patterns Glorious and unfurled I saw the tears of the sad And the smiles of the glad The suffering in mourning And the celebration of birth As I descended toward the ground Slowly, slowly, softly I saw the gentle grass of the field And smelled the fresh earth It was a perfect landing © 2018 Timothy Moody

A Losing Strategy

OPINION PAGE (c) 2024 Timothy Moody The Republican strategy to mock and judge others has passed into some form of insatiable, all-devouring nastiness. It is so poisonous and contemptuous that it is now just evil. Republican Governor of Arkansas, Sara Huckabee Sanders, suggested to a crowd of Trump supporters Tuesday night that Kamala Harris can't be humble because she doesn't have any children of her own. When will Americans decide they don't want government leaders who are so arrogantly insensitive, as Sanders was, that they offend everyone? This crude, villainous rhetoric transcends political partisanship. It’s evil, dangerous, and insulting. The poet Ezra Pound’s brief lines are appropriate here, “Pull down your vanity, How mean your hates” To suggest that someone cannot be humble because they don't have children is not just a cheap political comment. It's an attack on a person’s humanity and worth. And that is now, and has been fo...

The Unclad Soul

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