The command tense of the verb "to heal" in Spanish is spelled "cure" (pronounced kyur-ay), and I, by Devil, do hereby command my heel to heal! Of course, I also commanded myself to jump over a wall on the Harbor Steps late Friday night after a bite and a drink in Pioneer Square - which resulted in a bruised bone of some sort in my right heel. Some of the most reckless incidents in my life have happened when hanging around with My Older Brother. Even as we become more aged, mellow and gentle this potential for crazy behaviour continues to tug at me like puppet strings - ah, but who is the Master Puppeteer?
The good news of course is that I am alive to tell the tale and have not hit the windshield of life going 70 miles per hour. My brother and I played some great tunes together, registering some long-held recognition of tenderness between us with our wives; musing on current affairs and politics (we stand politely on opposite sides of most of these issues). We were joined on the Friday night outing by our 3rd sibling and his wife - and all differences and similarities aside, what becomes some moment when held in fragile time will stand on its own, at least in my eyes. There is certainly an inclination to pick apart the past, fear the future and completely miss out on the present. On an energetic level, at least, we set those habits to rest and simply explored the sidewalk of evening. It is hard to do this - why?
Now on to what may seem an unrelated subject; the Weather Underground and why the youth of America today are so mild-mannered. Certainly the war in Iraq, the stealing of the presidential election in 2000, the insanity of the Bushites, combined with a growing online media that can effectively shout down the Fox crazies would lend itself to a roiling, dynamic, marching and screaming campus scene across our fair nation. One would think. But no. As the words of a song I wrote back in 1985 recall;
Now on to what may seem an unrelated subject; the Weather Underground and why the youth of America today are so mild-mannered. Certainly the war in Iraq, the stealing of the presidential election in 2000, the insanity of the Bushites, combined with a growing online media that can effectively shout down the Fox crazies would lend itself to a roiling, dynamic, marching and screaming campus scene across our fair nation. One would think. But no. As the words of a song I wrote back in 1985 recall;
"Look away, look away, don't look, look away.
Keep carving out your life each day.
Look away, look away, don't look, look away.
Polish it perfect, your gold and silver.
Look away, look away, don't look, look away.
Line the pockets of your Masters.
Play it blind and deaf and dumb.
Drive to work and suck your thumb." (from "Look Away")
The wife brought home the documentary film of the Weather Underground this week and we got into watching last night, and then into a discussion about the value of violence as a means of protest. When I was about 18 my tastes started drifting toward bombing the power grid and towers surrounding and transporting electricity to and from nuclear reactors. It was a short-lived fantasy for me. Interestingly it corresponded very closely with when the Weather Underground were most active - but I was unaware and not plugged into the fabric of what real revolutionary protest looked like. Less than a year later I broke off a friendship with 2 guys who had replayed their story of destroying some large construction equipment to "show those creeps who not to f**k with". It just stopped making sense to me.
Do I hate what Uncle Sam does with a large percentage of my tax dollars? Hell yes! Do I keep paying my taxes every year? Again - yes. And keep paying into my Medicare and Social Security accounts which, if they have their way, the Republican Right will 'privatize' to the liking of their big business constituents and rip away from the middle and lower classes. No retirement, no health care because they are "run by the government" or some other lame-ass sound bite excuse for pushing the wealth into a smaller and smaller corner of our world.
The front line truly is the media. Fox News and associated network is the mind-numbing institution that puts us all to sleep and feeds us pablum to accept this continually diminishing return on our investment into the nation (thanks to Right Wing Values). What do you suppose would happen if there was an uprising of the folks being pushed down, beaten down and stepped on by these institutions of large insurance companies, large financial companies, large energy companies - similar to what happened in the late 1960's and early 1970's? The under-thumb class in this country is enormous and growing. Drug them, drop them out of school, keep them from crossing the borders all you want, but eventually something very large could break very loudly. Which side will you be on?
Yours,
B
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