Life is often about passion, sychronicity, purpose, or untold events we might never imagine. ...she never really seemed to "fit in" in any clique, didn't have a hobby, and wasn't great at sports. ...watched...the plight of child soldiers abducted...in Northern Uganda... ...on her first visit to that village in Uganda where...a huge welcoming party for her and invited what seemed like everyone... There was...joy that seemed so out of place for such a rural, impoverished village... ...a huge indication that they were doing the right thing. So many nonprofits encounter problems when Western views, clash with what Africa needs...
...devoted to the rescue/restoration of children who have been sexually exploited commercially. Disillusioned with life...the teenager turned to drugs and rebellion. But...had an epiphany that God is real and began dedicating his life to serving Him. To break language barriers he would dress as a clown. Mother Theresa eventually invited him to share his "Snuggles, the Love Clown" character... - JeffCo Living, Nov/Dec/Jan, 2015-16
...our ambition to spotlight the connection between Colorado's passionate lifestyles and the kindred spirit of the state's thriving craft scene.
As a bartender at one of the busiest restaurants in a world-class ski resort, I have an intimate first look at the needs and interests of imbibers from all over. Just like the food revolution, people are moving toward drinks with wholesome ingredients they can pronounce. Whether you're simply a natural-born host...at next week's dinner party...or the full-time working bartender...
.the breweries are also serving a greater purpose. "Breweries are creating a sense of place and community - it's wonderful." - Thirst Colorado, Fall 2015
I am thankful that I get to be in an amazing business, where we get to be there for people in some of their most difficult times. I am thankful for an amazing, supportive, and beautiful wife... ...my three wonderful children... I am excited to announce for the first time in seven years, that major storms and fires in Colorado have slowed down. ...we may be rounding the corner for home and property insurance pricing. ...we had a major revision to both our logo and our website. - (letter from my home owner insurance company, 12/2015)
We started a new activity here at "Mile High Natural Awakenings" headquarters. On the kitchen counter is a jar, a pen and a stack of paper scraps. We have committed to dropping a note n the jar every time we are grateful, inspired or moved by spirit. This came about because it has come to our attention that employees...have reached the age where they barely remember what they had for lunch yesterday... ...we might have to buy another 20-lb jug of jalapenos...to have a jar big enough. Evidence and belief: a winning combination for manifesting even bigger and better miracles! - natural awakenings, 1/2016
...middle class income and way of life... This is the desirable status in America, no matter how you cut it. This does not say...values of middle class life are exemplary. One has only to read any popular magazine to find this out. "...to 'accelerate the effective functioning in urban life of those who do not become middle class.' ...will require us to modify...traditional optimistic assumptions both about the availability of middle class rewards in our society and about...individuals...devoid of middle class rewards to respond to them quickly." Middle class teachers...should get a heavy dose of the sociology, politics, and economics of the slums in their curriculum. ...communication devices, such as circulars, newspaper ads, posters, radio and television announcements, and word of mouth, people, such as detached workers, and places, such as bars, cafes, and pool halls. - Hunter
...the planning department's efforts...focused on promoting characteristic "Main Street-style" development...and...worked to stem the tide of auto-oriented commercial-strip development... - Westword, 1/14-20/2016
Saturday. It's warmer than single digit temps this early morning before sunrise, but just into the teens. I'm a short distance from home, just down the street. As I round a corner, I spot a home with Christmas lights. Wafting in the breeze, mounted next to the front door, is a tattered American flag. Sunday. I'm coming home on the bus from the grocery store, around 11:30 AM. Along the way, a teenage woman comes on. She has a buzz cut and her gear appears "gangsta." On her ball cap is embroidered "Trigga." After I drop of my groceries at home, I ride bike to the bike shop to have it serviced. It turns out that my chain, all of three months old, is completely worn out. The mechanic asks me how often and how far I ride it. When I mention my ride to and from work, he tells me that since its purchase at the beginning of October, I've put some 2,500 miles on it. The typical chain, he says, will need to be replaced at 1,500 miles. I shall be without it until Wednesday. I walk a handful of blocks to a deathburger, where I grab lunch before I make it to the train. There be a NFL game at the local stadium, and the train station is replete with fans on their way to the stadium. I get out at my boulevard and cross to the bus stop. When it comes, a young guy gets out and writes his tag in the grime on the window. Before I go home, I stop in for a haircut from a beautiful middle-aged Vietnamese stylist. She got my Christmas card, with "Happy Holidays" in Vietnamese. She got it, but let me know that she only speaks Vietnamese, she doesn't read it. We discuss my diet. She tells me to stay away from rice, and that the first thirty pounds you loose are the easiest. She should know. She must be in her fifties, and she is one of the most beautiful women I know. I ask her if I can take a picture of her cutting my hair. She tells me that she would "probably break the camera." Has she no idea? I almost went in to her shop last night, but decided that I didn't have the time then. I stopped by to see what the hours were on the door. I saw her sitting inside, quietly reading. A picture of beauty indeed. After my haircut, I had Sunday dinner as usual at the Vietnamese restaurant behind my home. The stylist told me to stay away from rice on my diet. As long as I am eating here, I can't avoid the groovy Caucasian entourages. Long, straight haired girls in teardrop shades during twilight. Apart from my next door neighbor, the only gay guys in this neighborhood are in here this evening. I watch a brand new Mustang with Arizona plates pull into a parking spot. I sit, I eat. I listen to Vietnamese music as several screens show the football game. I wonder why the people I see nowhere else around these streets show up here. When I get back home, up until 9:30, the streets sounds like a goddamned racetrack.
Beginning this new year, I notice redesigned bus transfers, train tickets, and copies of bus and train schedules. For at least thirty years, probably longer, the bus transfers were newsprint, and punched by the drivers with a holepunch. The transfers and tickets (new as of the 1st?) have a silver strip which can not be reproduced simply by photocopy. I smell a marketing scheme coordinated with the chamber of commerce, a city on baited breath to impress a certain kind of visitor. A identity crisis between local and resident, between stakeholder and shareholder.
"Who are we that we should argue against their hatred? ...before their very eyes, we turn into our homeland the land...in which they and their forefathers have had. ...without the steel helmet and the cannon we cannot plant a tree and build a home. ...we see the hatred fermenting and filling lives of hundreds of thousands...who sit around us." ...the speech epitomizes the stark philosophy of the 'Arab Fighter'; that is to say, the...equivalent of what the Americans used to call an Indian-fighter, a type common to the second generation of settlers in...conflict with the native population - the 'Arab Fighter', gradually emerged to become the most typical and celebrated element of the forces... The National Home had been conceived as the answer to...the ghetto, but anything more closely resembling a massive, armed ghetto than the fortress state...would be hard to find. "We have to set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion." Military conquest would stimulate...growth in manpower and wealth, in prestige, self-confidence and ideological conviction. Growth, dynamism, the maintaining of a permanent sense of emergency... "And if we cannot get real peace for ten or twenty years...there will be some blessing in it..." "...peace...could have had disasterous effects.... ...under the impact of free and peaceful association...would in all probability...maintain their old culture which is incompatible with a modern, strong, and homogeneous...nation... The people would have lost their sense of crisis and purpose. We...still are...fighting...for...the creation of one homogeneous nation - one culture, one language. Everything was subordinated to this." ...a permanent violation of international law and order... The highly politicized religious hierarchy contributed...who 'rave about the army...applaud...armed violence' and 'certify...the...army...in conformity with the teachings of...religion.' - Hirst
...the I-25 and Broadway [lightrail] Station Area Plan...was constructed using the philosophy of transit-oriented development (TOD) as a guide. TOD, according [sic] reconnectingamerica.org "is a type of community development that includes...amenities integrated into a walkable neighborhood and...quality public transportation." ...a dense, urban, mixed-use center...with an "area of influence"... - the profile, January 2016
...the pressures toward discouragement, surrender, and family breakup... ...it is of transcendent importance that the young man get connected with the world of work. he must avoid the diseases of disconnection, alienation, disaffection, down-spiraling, and crystalization of failure. Do...policy-makers...want to encourage the weak and disadvantaged to organize...against those who are strong at the top, or do they think it better to attend to the inequities...to spread the benefits of the affluent society? The "apolitical stratum" does little beyond formal voting... It may be apolitical for lack of educational breadth, distance from the political and governmental culture, absorption with personal matters, or as a general pattern of exclusion from community life. ...slum people...feel they are out. The world of success and the good things of life is somewhere else. The poor and the slum residents know that things are run by somebody else. They have no stake in the larger community, they do not make its decisions, and most do not expect to get anywhere in it. ...alienation from the institutions and systems through which...human development is nourished and the culture is perpetuated...formation of subcultures with values at variance from those of the dominant culture... Reference to the possibility that slum residents may get so active that they "get out of hand" or go off on...a tangent may sound utopian to those who have experience in trying to organize some low income people for...political participation. The most extreme prescription, of course, is the communist one of revolution. ...power or the good things of life...have to be taken by force, and power lodged in the hands of...the proletariat. - Hunter
As a self-described Christian conservative... ...had in recent years sworn off both parties as an unafflilated voter, but recently registered as a Republican to run for Congress. "I'm going to be known as the homeless congressman. I have a passion to help and I'm going to be down feeding the homeless." ...an Internet radio talk-show host and author. He and his wife are also "Christian marriage coaches." ...taking a break from his online marketing business... - Denver Herald Dispatch, 1/7/2016
Monday. My bike in the shop for a tune up, I board the bus for home. An employee of another business in the shopping center sits behind me and we converse in Spanish. She is a native of El Salvador. She works at a pizza place but never takes pizza home because she doesn't like it. She has an overweight cat, whose name is the Spanish word for Fatso. The current driver rotation for this route is a guy who like to be on the mic for the duration of his trip, embellishing it with his proverbial verbiage to the wise; stay away from negative people, enjoy your day, be productive. He must think we are all ex-cons. The lady behind me waits for me to translate his speeches.
Tuesday. I'm on the bus to the train station. The driver approaches the wrong gate with the bus, and must loop around the drive to the correct one. A passenger stands at the rear exit. "You're goin' the wrong way, 'Slice," he admonishes the driver. Some eight hours later, I catch my first bus home from work. Same driver, usual proverbial verbiage. Just as I sit down, a passenger in back exclaims, "Ahhh!" The driver asks, "You alright back there, brother?" "Yes," the passenger replies. Then, quietly, he tells the driver, "Now, shut up." The driver, talking to another passenger about Australia taking away its citizens' guns, does not appear to hear him. We continue on as the driver continues to speak. He mentions connecting routes as we pass certain avenues, he tells us to stay positive, to keep smiling. It's just too much for this passenger in back. He yells, "SHUT UP!" in a demented voice. The driver goes quiet for just a minute, until he stops to pick up another passenger. The driver, in his customary way with all passengers, greets this new passenger and offers him a seat. He sits behind me and replies, "Thank you." "Thank you for the thank you," says the driver. "This guy never shuts up," says the passenger behind us as we turn into the train station. The guy behind be tells the one in back that he is an asshole. The driver says, "Say again?" As an argument ensues between the two passengers, I disembark for the train. On the train is a goofy-looking guy in the aisle, asking each passenger for money 'to help him with the bus.' He has a seat next to someone with a bike, who asks him about something which he notices on the guy. "They're florescent," goofy guy answers. "That means they change colors." At my station, I step out and over to the gate for my bus home. I wait there under a street lamp with someone in a Captain America shirt. There are so many moving here, even the Captain bought in. The flying aircraft carrier must have just dropped him off. To bad he isn't saying anything, or I might tell his florescent ass to "SHUT UP!" The bus comes to collect us, including the Captain, and I have a quiet ride at last. This driver is a friend, tells me Happy New Year. He drops me on my boulevard, and it's a bit before my last bus ushers me a few blocks home. I sit right next to a little old Hispanic guy. He has a hole in the left leg of his jeans, either from a welding spark or a cigarette burn, and his pants are faded by the sun in a pattern which make whoever wears them appear as if they just pissed their pants. In his left fist are some crumpled dollar bills. Whenever I see something like this, I always wonder if these are the clues to some kind of metaphorical puzzle. An hour after my first bus experience, now it's this passenger who won't shut up. He is quietly repeating the same sentence. "I'm going through. I'm going through." He mentions some of the streets which we will pass along the way, asks me if I am "going through?" Is he drunk? The streets he mentions are correct, they're dead on. This time, it's the driver who turns to the passenger. In an accent from Africa, he tells the guy, "Sir, you can't shut your mouth? You're not saying anything serous." I consider making my own exclamation, that "Well, turnabout is fair play, isn't it?" I would be just a voice in this darkness. I decide to shut up.
As I have been back on the transit system, and off the bike trail, during this the first full week of 2016, with its revamped and improved bus schedules and transfers, once again I feel as though I am among the proletariat. Especially during daylight hours such as Wednesday morning, here at the train station. When I return to the bike trail, it shall be to what Alger Hiss referred to as "the road of the informant," upon which "it is always night." The bike trail after dark, with its scenes of distant shopping malls, evokes the impression that civilization is far away. Were Mr. Hiss on the trail today, perhaps he would be pushing a stolen shopping cart. The following evening, I have my bike back for the moment. I ride home as it spits snow which crackles as it hits the power lines. Wednesday evening, I'm on a bus back to my neighborhood with who appear to be three people who are all related. They are discussing the "charges" against one of them, a young guy with a pencil thin mustache, and "charges" against someone else who all of them appear to know. The young guy says of her, "I read her case."
Friday. Snow. I must wait until I can take my bike back to the shop for replacement of a part. I unsuccessfully attempt to contact my new insurance company. And I am on the train with a guy I first saw last year, at the train station on a private university. He's a young and long, wavy-haired dude who ain't right in the head. He carries a laptop on which he watches movies. Earlier this week, I saw him get off the bus with it. He may have been the one yelling at the gabby driver to shut up. This afternoon, he walks the train car aisle, asking passengers if they "can spare anything so I can get something to eat at McDonald's?" Wednesday, I saw the goofy guy from the night before, also walking the train car aisle panhandling. Today, out in the blowing flurries where I got on the train, there was one guy standing and listening to a friend standing next to him.The one talking had a bike, a scarf, and a groovy fishing hat covered in pins or patches. He was talking about this year's announced expansion of the transit system train lines into the metro area. "I mean, I'm glad they're expanding. But I'm homeless. It's hard enough to take the train." This evening after work it's a quarter to 8 PM. I traverse an icy parking lot toward the bus stop. On the bench is a guy with a grey Civil War beard and in full cold weather gear, drinking a cup of coffee. As I approach, he gets up and walks over to ponder a pair of nearby dumpsters before returning to the sidewalk. A pickup accelerates past us, leaving diesel exhaust in its wake. He waves his arm in front of his face until he's satisfied that the air is safe to breathe.
The following morning, I'm out the door to catch what a couple of weeks ago was the 5:54 AM bus. I remember while at the bus stop that the schedule for this bus may have changed with the others on Sunday. As I am attempting to read the schedule in the dark, it shows up. It's now the 5:43. So I don't want any questions about why I leave for work early. I've listened to my share of transit system passengers complain about the schedule, 'okay, Slice?' The driver this morning is one competent "operator of this bus" as the sign says. She wants to know if I am using a new discount coupon before she asks if I want a day pass or a transfer. That's more information that I've ever had from a driver. I wonder if she's a supervisor. She confirms what I suspected Sunday, that the transfers are now good for 3 hours, as opposed to an hour and a half. I don't read the newspaper, online or on newsprint, and I don't have a mobile device or phone. Even so, I would be surprised if the transit system was doing any advertising on twitter or sending texts. I don't even think I've seen one hashtag on a posted ad for the system. It did post ads on its trains and buses, announcing its rail line expansion. And the disembodied female twin voice of Hal will, on occasion, come out of the message boards hanging over the train platforms, announcing schedule delays due to special events. Usually taking place downtown. And I'm now seeing signs alerting us to upcoming marathons on the bike trail. But it would appear to be up to us, together with whatever may be offered by the transit system's roving ambassadors ("SHUT UP!"), to decipher whatever changes are being implemented in the fare system. I do see, splashed across the outside of an entire train, an ad for either a new Pixar release or some cryptic product or service. It's a graphic character in Dr. Evil gear, laughing as bombs fall behind him. Hey, fresh bomb daddy, shut up, Slice!
...poor people...must act in concert. To accomplish this getting together of people who live in an atmosphere of disagreement and helplessness, issues and dormant conflicts must be highlighted and exacerbated, so that the dispirited will have something to rally around and get excited about. Enemies must be identified... Then, with this base...voter registration, picketing, boycotting, publicity, public meetings, threats, and so on. "There can be no darker...tragedy than the death of a man's faith in a man's...power to direct his future." ...the establishment...to "cool out" the potential negative votes... ...to access...citizen participation... ...did the group...have staying power? Did it have to be nursed along interminably? Was it taken over by a few people...inflating their own purpose? Was it able to influence large and powerful institutions? Was it able to spark...changes in institutional and bureaucratic methods? ...were the people involved...a true cross-section of the neighborhood or area, or were they semi-professional at...community organization? Was the leadership limited to people...already on their way...out of the slum...? Did the organization...retain the character of "us"? "...we find or form a group of people (they need not be 'talented' or prominent, indeed we often work with ex-prisoners, ex-mental patients, or bottom stream secondary school children); then, by means of a survey we draw their attention to some existing social evil or injustice (better still, if they spot it themselves...)" For low income people...organizing...methods must...differ from ...the usual P.T.A., League of Women Voters... Physical and visual rather than aural. (How long can you listen to...the secretary's report of the last meeting?) Content-centered rather than form-centered. (Who cares...what the by-laws should say? Let's get down to business.) Externally-oriented rather thn introspective. (Jow Blow got fired because the foreman didn't like him, not because he was late...) Problem-centered rather than abstract-centered. (...a racial-mixed hosing project. I don't care where it's located.) Inductive rather than deductive. Spacial rather than temporal. Slow, careful, patient...rather than quick, clever, facile. Games and action preferred to tests. Expressive rather than instrumental orientation. Words learned in relation to action... (Inventive word power and "hip" language.) ...small groups meeting at odd places like the back of a cafe or bar... Participation in community affairs and decision making is one of the routes to upward mobility. Witness the policy of many companies to encourage their employees to play a part in community activities and voluntary organizations, and the readiness of "busy" businessmen to accept appointment to boards and committees or respectable organizations seeking to improve the community. Black nationalism engages people who have never been engaged before. The...NAACP and CORE pull...people into participation. The student movments combine civil rights objectives with social reform and...individual service (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, Northern Student Movement)... - Hunter
"1948"
June 5.
Bao Dai, French High Commissioner 'Emile Bollert, and general Nguyen Van Xuan sign the Baie d'Along Agreement to establish State of Viet-Nam...
July 20.
The government of South-Vietnam rejects the North Vietnamese government's invitation to discuss the elections, on the grounds that in North-Vietnam the people would not be able to express their will freely..
"1956"
October 26
A republic is proclaimed by Ngo Dinh Diem who becomes the first President of South-Vietnam.
"1959"
Auguet 30.
Second national elections give the National Revolutionary Movement and other pro-Government political parties all seats in the National Assembly in South-Vietnam. No opposition candidates are allowed to take their seats.
"1960"
November 13.
U.S. State department expresses satisfaction at the failure of the coup against President Diem and also hopes that "his powers will be established on a wider basis with rapid implementation of radical reforms and energetic action against corruption-suspected elements."
"1964"
February 18.
Secretary McNamara testifies before Congress that the "bulk" of the United States forces in Viet-Nam can still be expected to leave by 1965.
March 26.
In a major policy speech, Secretary Mcnamara announces that an additional ...50 thousand more troops would be levied in South Viet-Nam, and that the war there might not be finished "in the first thousand days of the Johnson Administration."
"1965"
March 24.
Secretary of State dean Rusk explains in a press conference that use of "police type" gases in South-Vietnam does not constitute "gas warfare."
July 15.
"Voluntary censorship" of news requested of journalists by U.S. Military Assistance Command, Viet-Nam. - Raskin and Fall
August 2.
Pittsburgh, PA, U.S. Brother Love is born. For better or worse...
Here was a people who had conquered another's land and expelled its inhabitants - here it was winning ecstatic approval for yet more conquests and more expulsions. ...the Arabs would attempt to restore merely a portion of...civil and religious rights of the...inhabitants of Palestine...which had been taken away by force and then be universally condemned for doing so... ...this international goodwill...created a whole new empty 'framework' to be filled in. ...overnight... It all gushed forth...in a torrent of biblico-strategic, clerico-military...imagery. It was atheists talking about the "God of the armies'. It was paratroopers...a bible in one hand and a rifle in the other... ...biblical poems and hymns set to jazz on the weekly hit parade. - Hirst
Our authentic self is constantly trying to get our attention. ...we naturally...see how redefining moments appear as needed. They are drawn to us sequentially...in the process of staying the course on our pilgrimage, each one a perfectly aligned portal in space and time, opening and closing, creating whatever experience is required to guide us to heightened awareness of our authentic self. - natural awakenings, 2/2016
Sunday evening. 6 PM. I head over to the Vietnamese restaurant behind where I live for dinner. I pass someone in their car, parked in my townhome lot. They are listening to music. I suspect that some residents do this perhaps because they live with large families, and the ones in their cars are looking for some privacy. Or the rest of their families don't like hip-hop. Or they are making out. I don't know. Outside, the boulevard sounds like the Indy 500. At the restaurant, it's jumpin'. One family appears to be from India. At least half of the customers are some kind of Caucasian ski bum couples. All the guys have beards. One, with a red Civil War beard, I swear was here last Sunday. I order, and when it arrives it has peanuts on it. As I am allergic, I send it back, They are kind enough to make me one without peanuts. In the mean time, a Caucasian couple sits behind me, eats, and leaves. One tall Caucasian couple, both in huge dreadlocks, sits in front of me. I can't tell which one, or both, smell like body odor. The guy, who sounds like some post-stoner, sounds as if he is telling someone on his phone about the amount of marijuana he scored. I get my chow, eat a bit, get a box for the leftovers, and head up to the counter to pay. On the way, I am stealing glances at all these Caucs, wondering where they all come from, and where they all go. On the way back home, someone is still in their car, listening to music.
There were ordinary men and women around him. Hell, "he" was ordinary enough. There were just too many of him. Like a clone. ...there was a...bum... ...Harold said,,,"have you noticed something funny? People in brown sweaters and jeans?"
"Hell yes, buddy," the bum said. "Kind of light brown hair? And tennis shoes? Hell, yes, they're all over the place." He shook his head dazedly. "Can't get no money out of 'em." ...every third or forth one of them was the person in the brown sweater and the blue short-sleeved shirt. It was like an invasion from Mars. And he saw that some of the normal people - people like himself - were staring at them from time to time. And the farther downtown he looked the more he saw of an array of brown sweaters... ...he looked down at his own clothes and was relieved to see that he was not himself wearing a brown sleeveless sweater and that his jeans were not the pale and faded kind that the person - that the multitude - was wearing. ...people...were now about one half sandy-haired and sweatered and the other half just random people. he realized that the repeated person hadn't seemed to crowd the city any more than usual. They weren't "new", then. If anything, they were replacing the others. - "Out of Luck", by Walter Tevis, OMNI Magazine, November 1980
Monday. I have my bike back, this time properly repaired. I'm on my way to work around noon, out on the trail where I turn to take another. There is a woman who appears to be out for a walk, on a "bike" trail. She doesn't notice me, perhaps because she is watching a dump truck or something back up in a parking lot. When she does notice me, she acts startled. A guy in a hard hat is there to tell her everything is okay. There are still some heroes in America. The following day to work and night home, I come up behind a handful of people out walking on the trail who don't notice me. I feel as though my having to announce my presence is just too strange. Tuesday night, sometime after I am asleep, I have a dream about going to work. In this dream I ask random strangers for a ride. As usual in my dreams, there never is any explanation how I know that I can always count on somebody I don't know giving me a ride to work, but I am convinced. The last ride is from someone who I think is a guy but turns out to be a woman. She says she has to get her truck fixed and she intentionally drives down a highway embankment of stones and through a spillway full of water. We arrive at a garage next to a train station, and I tell her that I can take the train home. And none too soon...
Wednesday. On the trail to work. It's the first day close to 50 degrees F in some time and there are more people walking, running, and walking their dog on this trail today than I have ever seen. I announce my presence to one in Spanish. Another is crossing the ice with trepidation as I pass her on the right. Through the neighborhood of opulence, a middle-aged couple is out in their driveway. One of their two dogs appears to be wandering away. When I alert them to this, the wife lets the husband know that I am trying to get their attention. I point at their little dog making its way across the snow covered neighbor's yard when it comes running in my direction. It stands and barks at me. On the ride home, along the river, I smell smoke and hear who I think is someone with a campfire on the bank. Off the trail, I am back on the street. As I walk my bike up a steep hill, in the yard of a bungalow is a guy sitting crosslegged and rapping with earbuds in his ears. Rapping in the dark under a hazy crescent moon. Ahead, in the sky, a police helicopter turns circles in an overcast sky. I follow it back to my street. As I cruise through the park, a police car slowly goes past with its spotlight on.
...arranging our social and economic institutions and systems so that there are opportunities for all to...participate in social relationships that are not hurtful or destructive, to be part of a larger society... A mother may seek help from Legal Aid in staving off the bill collector for the installments on the television set. The older boy may be in trouble with the police, the teen-age daughter may be pregnant out of wedlock, and there may be a mentally defective child in the home... ...just one big problem for the mother. This is the 'multi-problem family.' ...people who are sophisticated about certain aspects of life in the slum jungle... ...with low income families and individuals. ...lower class ways of living do not equip them to ...verbalize, to ruminate introspectively, and to look within the personality... This sounds very much like an anthropologist's treatise on the culture of the natives on some isolated island, of which the missionaries will have to take account. The parallels are very close. ...Mobilization for Youth...called for...suggestions... Keep interviews...with not too much note writing. Don't be afraid of humor. Do not diagnose with middle class standards. Learn the idiom of the low income client... Treatment may take place in unusual places. ...a family celebration...at the corner bar...sitting in a truck, or...pushing the baby carriage... The consequences of...(e.g., drug addiction) should be clearly...discussed. Capitalize on the fact that the psychological difficulties...diminish...when...involved in...a religious movement, hobby, a social movement. Involvement in the movements to improve the social, political, and ethnocentric position...may have strong therapeutic effects... Participation...may give...the client...a feeling of..being somebody... ...the Black Muslim movement...has had just this effect... ...perhaps it is time ti err in new directions. Let it be known that it is all right...to express personal feeling to a professional who is not a priest or minister... These suggested modifications...are all in the direction of facilitating rapport...between professional social workers, who are highly educated and come from middle class backgrounds, and low income, low status, or lower class clients. [Right on, man!] ...many people still resident in the slums, carefully selected, can perform a number of tasks in social screaming, as well as other institutions functioning in the slums... They may in fact...accomplish...objectives better than...personnel whose personal milieu is the middle class world. "Since it is doubtful that middle-class professionals can soon develop the knowledge and empathy needed to communicate with lower-class clients, it may be necessary to dichotomize these professionals... ...people who have themselves come out of the lower-class culture...using their talent - for it is a talent - to mediate between the classes." - Hunter
"...we had the feeling we were living at the summit, breathing pure air. We had fought to reach the summit; we were content with what we had achieved... ...we made our own private peace with all this. ...the great disturbance we feel today lies in our understanding...that we were wrong. We have to acknowledge this. ...villages were built in place of...villages...these geography books no longer exist. Nahalal arose in place of Mahlul, Gvat inthe place of Jibta, Sarid in the pkace of Haneifa, and Kfar-Yehoshua in the place of Tel-Sheman. There is not one single place in this country that did not have a former...population. We are doomed to live in a constant state of war...and there is no escape from sacrifice and bloodshed. If we are to proceed with our work...we shall have to expect such sacrifices. This is what used to be called 'goat by goat'. ...there will be complaints against you if you come and say: 'up to here.' Your duty is not to stop; it is to keep your sword unsheathed, to have faith, to keep the flag flying." In...the strategist there was a streak of fatalism. ...doomed, therefore, to expand to better prosecute the conflict. As a politician...sometimes assumed the plumage of a dove. ...existence and defiance...depended exclusively on its own strong right arm...master not merely of its destiny but of that of the entire Middle East. The ideology of force...by dint of almost unchallenged repetition, aquired a sacrosanct character ...the "Arab-fighter' aquired a new title, 'emporer of the occupied...', - Hirst
For the Western conception...seems to be like a disastrous and dog-eared poker hand of unrelated cards, most of them left over from he last century. ...the cultivated, callous, opium-smoking criminal. ...the petty crooks and dope peddlers... Cowards and cold-blooded torturers...known...to eat unborn mice, monkey's brains hot from the hacked-off head, hundred-year-old eggs, and snakes cooked alive in boiling rice. ...they talk that murderous mixture of English, Portuguese, and bastard Cantonese strung together... No one can possibly include in one composite portrait the traits of the half-starved...Communist cadre...the jovial overblown Hong Kong merchant, heavy with...the importunities of his seven wives, the Cambridge-trained lawyer practicing putts in his downtown office... ..the Caucasoid gazes with pride at his fashionably furnished "Chinese" lounge with its splendid paintings of a seated mandarin and his spouse...the solid teak coffee table, the pale green vase... The...mandarin and his wife...are obviously not the ancestors of these people. ...the thing he's stuck orchids in is not a vase but a cheap cylinder for holding rolled-up scrolls, and the coffee table is a copy of the kind Chinese butchers use for killing pigs on. ...stools with the "long life" character carved into the seats...they can only come from an undertaker's. Why doesn't he bring a coffin into te room, and have done? ...the European's choice of his own personal misconception of China...depend on how devout...he was and when he was born. To the agnostic of the Eighteenth century we use the golden legend of the great Confucian state..changeless, peaceful, inert, and practically embalmed... To the Victorian curchgoer...China was the nightmare of the Protestant missionary... - The Chinese Looking Glass, by Dennis Bloodworth, 1966
Mark's Meat Locker
A young man came to the door saying they had a case of meat they were unable to deliver and did I want to have it for free. Then the "dad" gets out of the vehicle with the box of meat - opens it up and says it sells for $400 but would "give" it to me for $120! I said, no. The meat looked off color... They were ready to continue their pitch when the mailman pulled up. I just looked online and this is the same routine they use over and over. - Nextdoor Westwood, 1/14/2016
There's no magical meal fairy that shops, slices, mixes and cooks up healthy food. ...there are menus to plan... It may make sense... If the hands-on work of shopping is one of your weak points in meal preparation, consider the value of paying someone else to do that... ...fresh, flavorful and unblemished produce. ...Instacart, Google express, Amazon Fresh and Door to Door Organics... Companies such as Hello Fresh, Blue Apron and Plated... ...shopping online might help you...reduce impulse buying. Wandering the store means seeing...baked goods and frozen treats, as well as seasonal items like plants, sports apparel and other items that are hidden budget-busters. Ordering online means you'll avoid these altogether.
...include comfortable shoes for gravel walkways and uneven surfaces... Angry dogs, fearful children, fallen food and people allergic to animal dander aren't a good pairing with award-winning wines. Broken cookies, crayons of Lego pieces on the floor around adults who have been tasting wine could be...dangerous... - Her Life, 1/2016
Thursday. After a 12-hour shift, and after happening upon a sheet of frozen melted snow, and having my bike go out from under me, and slamming my head on the ice, and fortunately having my helmet preventing me from even having any pain at all, I am back in my own neighborhood, chasing another police helicopter home. Right after checking my mailbox around a quarter to 9 PM, two police cars go racing up my street with their lights on. After I get inside, I can hear more police following them. The next morning, I am racing to the bus stop, from a deathburger, to make the approaching bus. On a grocery shopping trip before work, I'm dragging my freshly purchased groceries in a cardboard box on a tiny collapsible dolly. As I come running through a parking lot, a pickup truck with racing stripes takes off from the intersection at the green light, and goes roaring down the boulevard. The pickup smoked my microwave oven box full of groceries. Out on the trail a couple of hours later, I come upon some bird watchers. I pass a handful listening to a woman speaking about the Red American squirrel. Much further down the trail, closer to work, I happen upon a couple of guys I've seen here before. Next to one winding part of the trail, a guy sits cross-legged on a low hill, up the bank of a wooded creek. Sitting in the sun with shades on below his knit cap, he sounds as if he has some kind of bronchial cough. His pal stands on the trail. He's a tall guy with what appears to be a new lime children's BMX bike. He holds it, motionless. Eight hours later, I am approaching my townhome complex. It's across the avenue from a building which has been in the process of being renovated for more than a year. At one end of the parking lot is a Port-o-John. I hear the door slam as I look up to watch a resident of my complex walk back to his unit. The residents may have all signed a petition to have our previous HOA president removed, but she should be proud that at least one of us is doing our part to save on the water bill.
Saturday. A dusting of overnight was predicted, but is nowhere to be found. But it is cold. 16 degrees F. I'm bundled up from head to toe. I am close to work when I realize that I can not feel any of my toes. Monday, I am back out on the trail.. The weather is headed to close to 50 degrees F after a couple of weeks or more in single digits, and the trail is rife with dog-walkers, couples hand in hand, weirdos in nylon knit jackets with no shirts, bikes, and strollers. Toward the end of the trail, I happen behind a young woman walking three bulldogs preventing me from getting around her. In front of us are a couple arguing with each other who don't see any of us. When they notice us, the pause until we all pass between them before resuming their argument. I then pass the bulldogs and their owner. That's life on the big trail. Some eight hours later, I am off the trail home and headed toward my own street. In a residential neighborhood, on a sidewalk in front of a home, is a woman gasping for breath. She is half-laying and texting on her phone on the ground. The following morning, I am on a bus down the street, on my way to meet my new doctor. It's also the bus to the neighborhood high school, and there are a couple of posing, tough-looking teens among the students. Thirteen hours later, I am waiting for my last bus home, at a stop popular with drunks during warmer months. This evening, a guy I got off the connecting bus with is carrying a pizza box. He asks me if I want any pizza. I decline, and he wanders down one side of shops in a Vietnamese shopping center. he puts his box down and goes into one restaurant. Then he crosses the parking lot and goes into another at the opposite end of the center. He comes out with a small bag of something, comes back to the stop, and we both get on the bus when it comes.
"If the Summit County Parade of Homes is any indicator of what people want, Mountain Modern, Mountain Industrial and Traditional Mountain Elegant..." ...common layout features...were larger gathering spaces...and entertainment rooms. Open floor plans...no formally designated dining or living rooms... MOUNTAIN MODERN The interiors...simple, with more angular to round shapes, and muted colors of taupe, gray, silver and black. ...used to draw attention with a "pop." ALPINE ELEGANT ...rustic elements...fashioned into an "ambiance of elegance," especially in luxury homes... ...timeless feel of gabled roof lines...bringing the outside elements inside...granite or quartz... ...cedar...shingles, combined with color elements... ..soaring ceilings within peaked rooflines... .- Explore SUMMIT, Winter 2016
Resorts like Taos tend to attract the best of the best when it comes to ski patrol. ...North American ski communities are some of the most expensive places to live on the planet. According to December 2015 figures from Coldwell Banker...a single family home in Park City, Utah is $2.9 million, with condos and townhomes averaging $1.5 million.
...they...give me exuberant high-fives before they...help the next stoked skier... This is what a tribe feels like, I think. ...there's no drama, no lines, no attitude... It's a far cry from the battle of traffic...and bad attitudes I faced when I lived on the Front Range... ...the Base Area Services Manager...he's one of the crew heading up the informal "high-fives for everyone" movement. ...you notice something...there's no base area development, no condos, no faux-Bavarian shopping area. ...no expensive mountain-top restaurants. You can feel...high-five vibe down in...the rest of Chaffee County too. Stop in Absolute Bikes...and you won't encounter a back room of shop techs sneering at you... Maybe that is really what drives the stoke here. "...I'm so proud we're one of the few left providing a unique and real Colorado experience." All I ask...you had better give me a high five. - Elevation Outdoors, 1-2/2016
The...army, a people's army...vanquished vast hostile forces. ...our ancestral heritage liberated and...a city...redeemed... In the hour of deliverance...new vistas have been opened... A sacred duty to upbuild the country... - Hirst
With many of the individuals that...Colorado Affordable Legal Services (CALS)...helps belonging to the lower and middle classes, a sudden eviction can quickly lead to unintentional and unplanned homelessness. Officially termed as Forcible Entry and Detainer (FED)...an eviction can move...sometimes in less than a week. ...the evicted party...risk[s] becoming homeless. "Everyone that is homeless... Some were just told by the court that they couldn't live there anymore.. The problem that we are seeing is the lack of affordable housing and rent control." In 2014 there were more than 8,000 FED's filed in Denver. ...each...eviction...stays on...the tenant...record for seven years, with the ruling requiring no explanation... "Once an FED has been placed, there is no landlord in Colorado that is going to touch that tenant."...refers to an eviction as a "Scarlet Letter." ...CALS plans to open the Colorado Eviction Defense Center (CEDC) in early 2016. - Life on Capitol Hill, 1/2016
Wednesday. I get to work and the guy I have been working with since October is gone. A new face is looking at me as I walk in the door. She is from Mali she tells me. She was a buyer for a company there. I don't know why she had to leave. Al-Shabob? She doesn't mention anything about it. She speaks four languages. Thursday. I have the results of blood work which was done before I lost weight. My new doctor would like new blood work after the weight loss. This morning, shortly after 7:30 AM, I am down the street to catch a bus to get the more blood taken. That's what happens when your year-old insurance coop goes out of business, your doctor you've known for forty minutes resigns, and you are successful in finding new insurance and subsequently a new doctor. In front of a high school, huddled inside a bus shelter on this chilly January morning. There are perhaps ten male students smoking marijuana and spraying air freshener. The bus comes and takes me down the road, where a young woman gets on. The natural color of her eyebrows lets me know that her hair is dyed blonde. She is wearing a white T-shirt with big typewriter script on the front. It reads, I literally do not care." Friday. Another nice afternoon. There are twice as many bike riders, adult tricycle riders, runners, and walkers as the last nice day on this trail. I can't turn a corner without running into someone. On the way home, seven hours later, I pass someone small on a miniature motorcycle. He's waving at me as he goes past in the dark, having just come over a bridge from the trailhead. There are not supposed to be any motorized vehicles out here on the trail. But at least he is not pushing a stolen shopping cart. Saturday. Between 6 and 7 AM. Out on the trail, the sky and ice are red. The river is cerulean. The sunrise approaches. If I don't stop screwing around taking pictures, I will be late to work. In the morning, I watch the moon set behind the mountains. On the way home, it's dark again, I watch it rise in the east. Moon to moon...
'...has been the...capital for 3,000 years...' This is historical nonsense. But to the devout...it makes bedrock emotional sense. ...bringing the spiritual appearance of the city into harmony with the spiritual reality. ...on their immense new fund of international goodwill. ...the 'doubtful Maghreb community' would have to go. And go it did. ...beneficiaries of an endowment which Saladin's son had founded seven hundred years before, were turned out of their homes at a few minutes notice. A thousand people...were scattered into...lanes and streets, in a nearby market, an unfinished school... ...they were wiping whole villages off the face of the earth. ...Beit Nuba, Imwas and Yalu... Their 10,000 inhabitants scattered were to the four winds. ...Sister Marie-Therese, a French nun...from the order of Companions of Jesus...recorded in her diary... '...donkeys wandered about the ruins. Here and there a crushed piece of furnature, or a torn pillow stuck out of the mass of plaster... A cooking pan and its lid abandoned in the middle of the road. They were not given enough time...' ...the story of Beit Nuba: 'They told us that they were driven out everywhere...wandering like this for four days, without food, without water, some dying on the road. They...said we had better kill them. A father ground wheat by hand to feed his four children. On the horizon we could see the next group arriving. A man carrying 100 lbs of flour in a sack - he had walked like that, mile after mile. More old people, more women, more babies. They dropped down exhausted where we told them to sit. ...soldiers burst into tears. We stopped a car with a major... We asked...why these refugees were sent from one place to another and driven out of everywhere. They told us that this was good for them, they should go. refugees arrived, until there were hundreds of them. We drove them out. They go on wandering in the south like lost cattle.' How magnanimous the...victors must have seemed...judged by their radio... ...'administrative detention'. This imprisonment of politically-minded intellectuals, who were the natural...Arab minority...leaders...had been a time-honoured practice. ...whole families were confined in total isolation from the outside world. ...relatives of theirs were suspected...of working for the resistance. Crowded into tents surrounded by barbed wire, they were denied radios, newspapers... Woman and children would be put in one camp, male relatives...in another. The whole male population of a village or refugee camp, from fourteen to seventy years of age, would be...herded into a stockade. ...fathers and children would not be together. Both groups would be made to kneel, squat...or...some...posture. Thus they would remain for two or three days, and the soldiers who guarded them would keep firing in the air above their heads. ...among the women killed or wounded were those who...made a dash for the lavatories. ...left nearly a million...leaderless... ...in those desperate first months of exile, their immediate concern was to keep body and soul together. Those with means and skills, mainly the urban middle classes, tried to rebuild their lives wherever they could.
"If Jesus could see it now,
He would preach 'jihad' with the sword!
The land in which he grew
Has given birth to a million slaves.
Why does not He revolt,
Settle this account, tooth for tooth and eye for eye?
In despite of all His teachings
The West's dagger is red with blood...
O apostle of forgiveness! In our misfortune
Neither forgiveness nor love avail!"
"...our fundamental desire is for the land..which was ours, whose loss we deem...above all else, a national dishonour, a badge of ignominy... We made it what it was. If that goes, if that is taken from us, then everything goes...our very being, our humanity, our name. The quest of honour is to return to our usurped earth. ...the only good is that which leads to the usurper state; and peace - peace is vengeance...against the burchers of Deir Yassin, the criminals of Qibya and Nahalin. Such is the psychological state in which we live...thus we do measure morals and ideals; in this scale do we weigh events. ...we only desire life insofar as life enables us to begin the battle for our land, our earth, our freedom and our dignity. We cannot just run to the United Nations, dominated by America and the imperialist sttes under its influence. We cannot rely on the world conscience as represented by the UN, which speaks for the hateful... ...governments have stopped...mouths, tied...hands..." - Hirst
Shan Yang pulled Ch'in...together into a tight-knit state under a highly centralized government. The people of Ch'in were to be organized into groups of families which would be mutually responsible for each other's good behavior and would be punished collectively... Subjects of Ch'in were not allowed to leave the state, were regimented for forced labor, terrorized by secret police... Mention of culture made Shan Yang reach for his sword. He looked on love as the archenemy... Shan Yang taught total war. The entire people must be mobilized for conquest - men, women, and children. - Bloodworth
Wednesday. I'm a little way out on the trail around noon. The trail runs along the river on one side and a street on the other. Riding parallel on the street with me on the trail are a pair of cyclists, a middle-aged guy and a woman who appears younger. The guy is wearing a full length dark green coat which could be leather, and a British cap. As I am watching him, he looks at me. Another rider passes me on the left. This one is in a hoodie with the colors of the city's football team. Thursday. I'm preparing to leave for work when I find a flat tire on my bike. Nine hours later, I am up the street from where I live, at the stop for my last stop home. At the corner of the Vietnamese restaurant is a guy in a wheelchair wearing a coat with the name of the local Superbowl-bound football team on it. When I look back his direction a few minutes later, he has vanished into the dark like Houdini. The following morning is grey and overcast. Before I leave, I'm in my basement listening to the steady rumble of traffic outside. Shortly before 7:30 AM, I am on a bus to work with a bike wheel a stop to see my doctor along the way, and hoping to squeeze in a visit to a CD store. The bus goes past a deathburger, where I see someone opening the door for the guy in a wheelchair from last night. I wonder where he has been between here and there in the past eleven hours? I get out at a transfer station next to a high school. I sit and watch as pickup after pickup after pickup rumbles past. A couple of girls come along. One tells the other that she just changed her shoes. "You want to check my Facebook?"
Palestinians who rebelled against Nasserist orthodoxy were accused...of reverting to 'regionalist' heresies. But...the Algerian uprising against the French...helped the heresies take root. It reversed the slogans. They now became: 'Liberation of Palestine is the road to unity'... 'Through loyalty to my revolution...I shall...unite my Arab nation.' It scorned conventional political debate; it was neither right nor left; it had no official views of ordering society. ...the...only concern was 'to be or not to be.' - Hirst
One ninth-century chief eunuch amassed a fortune in gold, silver and gems whose value exceeded the entire annual budget of the empire. ...the provincial governors, the prefects, and the magistrates were in turn obliged to squeeze the population... The country...its scholar-officials and people ripe for revolt. The Mandate of Heaven was about to be withdrawn. The drama and novel...frequently attacked authority or the social system... - Bloodworth
Saturday. It's a quarter to nine PM. I am in a bus shelter in front of the supermarket. Along comes a guy in a hoodie, his only defense against the snow which has just begun blowing. As it swirls in, out, and around the shelter, he asks me if I have a cigarette to sell him. When I tell him that I am not a smoker, he apologizes...and then offers me two condoms. The following evening, it has begun to snow after a clear if not sunny day. I head over to the Vietnamese restaurant behind where I live, for dinner. The patrons this evening are an eclectic mix. A trio in front of me, two guys and a girl, include on this snowy evening a young and skinny little guy in...a white undershirt. presumably to show off his menagerie of tattoos on both arms. When the trio is leaving, he has put on a T-shirt. At least his shoulders will be dry. This winter, I've seen wealthy Caucasian guys in shorts which I can't explain either. At a table next to them is a couple of guys who are also gangsta, but only as a fashion statement. Outside, all day and into the evening, pickup trucks continue to race along this godforsaken boulevard, come hell or frozen water. The first month of this currently enigmatic year is blowing away in a winter gale.
