"The Fire This Time"

Harry Edwards' (architect of the black power salute at the Olympics a decade ago) rousing talk over alternative radio suggests that James Baldwin's "Fire Next Time" has been updated by events, and that the "fires" we are living with are growing, becoming potentially less controllable, dangerously precipitious. His examples are many, and I won't repeat any of them here.

Troy Davis's execution by "lethal injection" last week in Georgia was still another example of the fires raging in our Nation, and elsewhere. On death row for many years, Tory's time ran out: his appeals, the almost complete reversal of the evidence for his sentence, and ultimately the refusal of the Supreme Court to review the case, meant that he had to die.

We are thus reminded of the stupidity of death sentences, as we are by the African-American minister who presided at Troy's memorial service who reminded us that "we are all on death row." The needs of others are forgotten most often because of our self preoccupations, our forgetfullness, our very survival in d e n i a l of reality. "I am Troy Davis."

Wall Street Protests

There is a word which describes the huge disparity between the so-called 99 per cent and the 1 per cent, and that slips from my 80 year old mind at the moment. Like so many words it has dropped from our vocabulary because it is so much a part of the endemic nature of things that it nearly has no meaning (something like dis ingenious, described in earlier BLOG). Thus the "main stream media" is having a little difficulty putting "a handle" on what is happening around Wall Street (and now throughout the Nation).

In the late fifties, my former wife and I were hitchhiking through the Midlands in England. It was mid afternoon, I was starting to wonder where we would stay that night, and then were picked up by a lorry (truck) driver, Alf Lornley from Leeds. He was on his way home and suggested after a brief conversation that we accompany him, that we could stay with he and his wife and children. We were so pleased that we just accepted and off we went.

For the next two or three days I rode with him in his truck and made coal deliveries. One afternoon we visited a tiny place (two rooms, the aged woman lived in the kitchen and kept warm by the little coal stove), which he described as common for aging people, living on next to nothing. He often gave some of these people small amounts of coal to supplement what they could afford, and he and his wife lived in very modest circumstances to say the least.

How would the one percent understand the situation in this all brick, post industrial city in England, and how would they emphasize and create programs to correct it? What will the rapidly deteriorating conditions for the ninety-nine per cent of Americans be understood and changed by those who insist that "trickle down economics" will change things? The protests go on, as they swell up and proliferate.

Practical Goods

When we sold produce at the Powderhorn Market year ago our next market stall was occupied by a fascinating peddler named Wendy Ward. I'm not sure what she called what she was doing then, but now-a-days it is a shop in St. Paul, Minnesota called Practical Goods What distinguished this lady's stock from others was the innate quality of it, whatever it was, and that continues until this day.

What I want to do more with this BLOG is share positive, especially alternative culture figures, businesses, causes, whatever seems to fit. We have hit the wall in our culture at present, typified by the demonstrations against "Wall Street" and the dominating 1% of the economic elite ... and their minions. What is becoming more and more evident is that we will need a higher and higher concentration and proliferation of alternatives to "business as usual."

Wendy's shop, philosophy and work are instructive of this, and I suggest you support what she does. She is at 1581 Randolph Ave. (just east of Snelling), her phone number is (651-690-1122, her hours are long and convenient (11 to 6 daily), and she is on a bus line. I'm going to quote a couple of things from her broadside: "Who should shop at Practical Goods?" " - People with lots more taste than money" & "People who like our planet and work to keep it nice" - & "People who wear clothes, use dishes, affirm the kind ship of all human cultures and might dislike living in a world that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mc-Wal-Cola."

If you are not fortunate enough to have a Wendy Ward & her Practical Goods in your region try and support business like hers, even if you have to create something like this yourself. Thanks.

Intermittant Communications

A friend asked why blogs were not being written by me. When I answered "gremlins" her eye brows raised a bit. Having grown up in a time when this word was used fairly often, sometimes for questionable purposes (?), it comes back at times when the"hard luck and troubles" seem more evident than usual. What is it? Superstitions, perhaps. But when a string of misfortunes keep coming on it is hard not to take this personally, and even give names to it.

I would hope that this "string" is at an end, or at least occurs less often and with fewer "punishments." This is not a good time to have things which cost additional money and time prevail, would you agree? & yet they have and have continued up until this weekend. Something that I have intended to write for at least two months will be written next, and my hope is that whatever those "forces" out there that have been occurring will back off, perhaps even disappear for a time. It bring up my superstitious nature to even mention that they will not occur again.

Look up the word yourself, see what you think. I asked a fellow who works next door this morning whether his father ever used the word. "Oh yes," was his answer, and nothing else needed to have been said.