The Jazz Owl
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Juneteenth and More

6/22/2020

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On Friday, June 19th, I made a recorded post for Facebook. It was marking and celebrating Juneteenth, a day which should be and must be a national holiday. A former student of mine, now a teacher herself, transcribed it for her own students and sent me that transcription. 

A Post on Facebook
Here's what I said.

“Happy Juneteenth, everyone!
I am not going to preach at you for very long but I AM going to preach.
As a historian, American History and Black History are inseparable. African slaves arrived in North America the year BEFORE the lily-white Pilgrims got here. The is no American history that does not include African-American history. Our sisters and brothers had nothing to celebrate on the fourth of July. Freedom from Great Britain meant NOTHING to those millions enslaved by those who proclaimed Liberty for all Americans. Therefore, we should celebrate June 19th as a second, perhaps even more meaningful, day of freedom. Juneteenth should mean as much OR MORE to us than July 4th because on June 19, 1865, all Americans were able to celebrate freedom.
As a Jazz Journalist, I would have nothing to say were it not for the incalculable founding and development of the art form that I love so well. I cannot imagine my life without Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, MaryLou Williams, Fletcher Henderson, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, and the Holy Trinity of Monk, Miles and Trane.
As a theologian, I am persuaded by the thinking of James Cone, Desmond Tutu, and Monica Miller. Gustavo Guttierez was correct, God is the God of the Oppressed. For me, it is the African-American churches where I am most at home and it is there where I find Grace so well lived.
So, when I say that Black Lives Matter, I mean that I cannot imagine my life and my thinking and loving the things I do apart from my Living Black Sisters and Brothers. If you respond with All Lives Matter, then you just don’t get the point.
If all I have is a voice and a pen, then so help me, I will use everything I have to keep that thought alive for those around me. 
Sisters and Brothers, I love you, I respect you, and I can’t, nor do I want to, imagine life without you.
Black Lives Matter to Me.”

Amazing Response
As of Sunday night, 6,500 people watched it and it was shared almost 200 times. That’s was gratifying, of course, and I heard from so many of my former students about it.
But what was amazing to me was the number of people who congratulated me who are unmitigated racists. Now, I am NOT referring to anyone who reads this paper.
I’m actually referring to people who I have known in the past and to whom I may be related by birth. I guess it’s true that most racists don’t know they are racists. 

The Crackers Show Up
But here’s what really gets me and I have come to refer to as crackerism. The word cracker is a slang reference for white people and is usually used by people of color. Not because we are white like a Saltine Cracker ™ or anything like that. No, it is associated with a sound, the crack of a bull-whip.
So, the crackers started showing up, sounding the ever-white whine of “But what about meeeee?” 
Makes me sick.

Time to Change
Then we start seeing corporate guilt showing up with (finally!) the changing of the logos for Aunt Jemima™ and other products. Aunt Jemima represented a slave “mammy” who was given the responsibility of feeding the slave “owners” family. 
Yeah. Time to change.
My friend, Jazz pianist Pete Levin, remarked that maybe all products should be just called “Acme” but, he said, “I would be afraid that every time I ate breakfast, I would be hit on the head by an anvil.”
So, Land O’ Lakes dropped the Native American young woman from the label and people lost their ever-lovin’ minds over it.
The woman is pictured on her knees before the buyer. I don’t care what the artist meant or how much respect he had for the Native American culture, the image is now seen as a victim of oppression. 
But even if you disagree or if you don’t see it, congratulations to the corporations who let their collective guilt prompt them to action. Doing the right thing sometimes requires a little pressure, if only from your own conscience.

A Salute to Kindness Meets with Vapid Response
So, Nicole then posted a remark on Facebook about those acts of kindness. Her entire and singular point was to celebrate the kindness of companies who take strides to be sensitive to the feelings of others. Otherwise, we are putting our “right to offend” above the responsibility to be understanding and respective and kind.
And, for the love of God, changing the picture doesn’t change the butter! Changing the mascot of the Washington NFL team won’t make them better or worse.
Freedom of Speech is not freedom to offend or trample or slander or libel or promote bigotry. 
And, if you’re tired of hearing me go on and on about racism, image how tired our sisters and brothers of color are, how back-breakingly exhausted they are, of 401 years of this insanity.
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The Lynching of Ahmaud Arbery

5/12/2020

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Picture
It was at 1:00 PM in the full light of a sunny day on February 23rd, 2020. In the Georgia community of Satilla Shores on Satilla Drive, reports came into the Glynn County dispatcher’s office of a break-in. The man in question was a 25-year-old African American named Ahmaud Arbery. 

Ahmaud Arbery, only minutes later, would be chased down by a father and son team of rednecks who murdered him in the middle of Satilla Drive. For 59 days, no action was taken by law enforcement. 

Simply Out for a Jog
The events were as follows. Around 1:00 p.m. Arbery was out for a jog. He slowed to a walk on Satilla Drive and stopped to look at a new home under construction. He did not illegally enter the home nor did he take anything from the construction site. But an old white man across the street stepped into his front yard and watched Arbery. The young man left the property without being ordered and without engaging anyone in conversation. He resumed his jog.

Immediately, a call came into the Glynn County dispatcher’s office. 
Dispatcher: And you said someone is breaking into it right now? 
Caller: No, it's all open. It's under construction. And he's running right now. Here he goes right now. 
Dispatcher: OK, what is he doing? 
Caller: He's running down the street. 

White People Panic
The simple action of running away caused white people to react. 

The old white man standing in his yard was Gregory McMichael, a retired police officer. His son, Travis McMichael, was with him. Gregory McMichael was the one who made the call. The McMichaels grabbed a handgun and a shotgun and jumped into a pickup truck and started chasing Ahmaud Arbery.

They chased Arbery and tried to cut him off. Each time, Mr. Arbery simply ran around the truck. The McMichaels got in front of him with the truck and Travis McMichael blocked Arbery’s path, brandishing a shotgun. Arbery tried to avoid him but the two of them wound up wrestling for the shotgun. 

Three shots were fired and Ahmaud Arbery was killed in the middle of Satilla Drive. 

No Investigation
There was no investigation by the Glenn County police Department or the district attorney's office because Gregory McMichael had been a police officer in Glenn County comma the Department first responsible for investigating the case. 

Two district attorneys recused themselves because Gregory McMichael had been a member of their team. In fact, the second District Attorney said that Travis McMichael acted in self-defense. He said it was “perfectly legal to let two armed white men pursue an unarmed young black man.” 

The second DA’s document—and I have seen it—reads as follows.
“While we know that Mr. McMichael had his finger on the trigger, we do not know who caused the firings.” Firings. Plural. 
There were three shots fired. 

The weapon carried by Travis McMichael was not an automatic shotgun. It was a pump-action 12-gauge. So, you're telling me that McMichael was able to pump another shell into the chamber while Ahmaud Arbery caused the firings? And McMichael was able to do that twice? 

Videos Surface
It looked like the case was going to be buried by the COVID-19 news. Eventually, however, two videos were released. I have watched them both. 

The first video was a surveillance video taken from the home immediately at the right of the McMichaels’ home. In the 22-minute video Mr. Arbery shows up near the 13-minute mark. You see him slow to a walk, look at the new construction and walk up to it and look at it. You also see McMichael stepping into his front yard and leaning against a tree. No words are exchanged and Arbery walks off the construction site and begins to jog again. McMichael immediately disappears into his house, apparently to place the phone call to the dispatchers office.

No break in and no illegal trespassing, 

The next video was released only recently. It was actually recorded by a friend of the McMichaels. That friend turned it over to his attorney, Alan Tucker. Tucker then leaked the video. When asked if he thought that video was going to help the McMichaels, Tucker replied, “I thought it was going to help the truth.” 
Bravo.

The Community and the Governor React
The community rose up in anger. Georgia’s governor got involved and directed the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to examine everything. The McMichaels were arrested and, on Friday, May 8, 2020, both McMichaels were charged with murder and aggravated assault. 

Everyone wants to see justice done. But this isn't just about two inbred crackers in Georgia acting on their own racial hatred. It's more than that. 

The Legacy of Slavery
That case was almost buried. Georgia law enforcement, at least on a County level, was not going to investigate one of their own—one of their own being former law enforcement and white—in order to bring justice to a murdered young African-American man. 

Over 150 years after the abolition of slavery, over 60 years after the end of Jim Crow laws, the stench of white supremacy is still unbearable. Even though slavery is over, we still have slave patrols—those deputized white men who freely patrol the streets looking for African-Americans who are “not where they are supposed to be.” 

Too many times law enforcement would use a code on their reports when an African-American was murdered. They would write on their report NHI. No humans involved. And that's the way Whites, especially white law enforcement, viewed our African-American brothers and sisters. Or, at least, my African-American brothers and sisters. I won't speak for you. 
​
Let's call this what it is. Caught on video, Ahmaud Arbery was lynched. 

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On the Passing of Don Shula

5/5/2020

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On Monday morning, May 4, 2020,  I woke up to the news that legendary NFL Hall of Fame coach Don Shula had passed. The Miami Dolphins confirmed in a statement, "Don Shula was the patriarch of the Miami Dolphins for 50 years. He brought the winning edge to our franchise and put the Dolphins and the city of Miami in the national sports scene.”

As of Monday night, no details about his death were provided. It was said that died peacefully. He had suffered a few scares like the 2011 blood clot that had moved through his heart and lungs. In 2016, he had been hospitalized for fluid retention.

Still, he got around. He made it to the White House for the honoring of the perfect-season 1972 team. He went to see his son Mike coach the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50. He was still a presence everywhere he went.

Growing Up in Florida
When I was a kid, Florida (where I grew up) didn’t have a football team. The Dolphins didn’t come around until 1966. So, my first favorite team was the Green Bay Packers. Everybody loved the Packers. Who doesn’t love a winner? Especially in the 1960s.

When the Dolphins did arrive, it was one long, slow, agonizing ride to any kind of winning. That is, until they hired Don Shula as head coach. Then things turned around.

Shula's Career
Shula had played in the NFL for seven seasons with the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Colts, and Washington Redskins before moving on to coaching. He served as the Colts' head coach for seven years and led the team to an NFL championship victory in 1968, only to get dropped by Joe Namath and the New York Jets in Super Bowl III. He took over in Miami in 1970 and stayed with the Dolphins for 26 seasons.

I remember him pacing the sidelines with his arms folded across his chest with that lantern jaw set firmly in place. You know, he once broke that famous jaw in a game when he played for Baltimore. He didn’t even know that he had broken it until he went to dinner that night and realized that he couldn’t chew his beef.

I love guys like that. In the 1979 Super Bowl, LA Rams defensive end Jack Youngblood broke his leg and didn’t tell anybody until the game was over. Or Muhammad Ali getting his jaw broken by Ken Norton and continuing the fight until the end.

Coach Shula was just that demanding on his players, too, once demanding the Dolphins practice in the Florida hear four times per day without water. He got the best out of them and made them the best. Twice, at least.

The '72 Perfect Season
But then there was that incredible 1972 Dolphins team: Griese, Morris, Csonka, Warfield, Kiick, Jake Scott, Buoniconti, and all the rest. What so many forget is that QB Bob Griese was sidelined with an injury for most of that season and the captain’s duties were handed to aging Earl Morrall. Now that was the guy who saved the 1972 perfect season. And Shula never let anybody forget it.

That year, the Dolphins went 17-0 and ended with a defensive battle to a 14-7 win over Washington. The only perfect season in NFL history.

Winningest Coach Ever
Shula was the winningest coach in NFL history, too. He compiled a 328-156 win-loss record. He retired in 1996 and the next year was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Even in his darkening years, Shula was as calm and peaceful as one could hope. He lived in Indian Creek overlooking Biscayne Bay in Miami. He had all kinds of personal trophies like replicas of his two Super Bowl trophies, photographs with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Clinton; 32 seasons’ worth of game plans neatly filed away in cabinets with the game plans from the 1972 season, the perfect one, kept in a safe. 

“He’s happy, he’s fulfilled, he’s done the things he wants to do and he’s enjoying every minute of his life,” his wife, Mary Anne, said during a Sports Illustrated visit to their home in 2013. “He is a very spiritual man, and he’s at peace with the world.”I still have that magazine.

Shula as Coach
He talked about becoming a coach, saying, “I played seven years, and I always knew how I wanted to be treated as a player, so when I became a guy in charge, I wanted to make sure I treated my players the way I wanted to be treated when I was a player: hard work, have fun and compete and win.”

He talked about finding different ways to win: “That’s what I think coaching is all about, is analyzing the talent that you have to work with and then putting them in a position where they get the most out of their talent. And a great example is Bob Griese and Dan Marino. Griese was a field general, a thinking man’s QB, and if we threw it 8 or 10 times in a game, that was a lot for Griese. He’d hand the ball off to Larry Csonka or Mercury Morris or Jim Kiick and then he’d throw to [Paul] Warfield, play-action to Warfield. Then when we got Marino, we handed it off occasionally, but he wanted to throw it on every down. When I talk about Marino, I in my mind talk about him being the best pure passer that’s ever played the game.”
​

Richard Neville, Duke of Warwick, was reported to have said, “Better to be a king-maker than to be a king.” I think Coach Shula would say that about great players.
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Boots of Spanish Leather

8/7/2017

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It’s Thursday as I write this. No one is in the office with me yet. Don is off on errands. Kitara is at her new job at Cozy Corner Café and Nicole is away with her grandbabies. So, I decided that I would crank up some music. I realized that I had not listened to Bob Dylan in a bit, so I pulled up his 1964 album, The Times They Are a-Changin’.

It is a great album with the title song, Ballad of Hollis Brown, With God on Our Side, and Restless Farewell. But the song that got me—and always has—was Boots of Spanish Leather.

The song opens with
"Oh, I'm sailin' away my own true love,
Sailin' away in the morning.
Is there something I can send you from across the sea,
From the place that I'll be landing?"


The song was written about his love for Suze Rotolo who was leaving for study in Europe. Every Dylan fan knows the story.
But Dylan once said, “It’s not important what I mean. What’s important is: What does it mean to you?”

Bob Dylan is a phenomenal poet. He is a prophet. I read his lyrics with the same rapture with which I read Rumi or Homer or Hopkins.

When I was 14 years old, I had started jotting down quotes that meant something to me and I would tape the quote to my mirror in the bedroom. Then, every time I would brush my hair (LONG time ago!) or tie a necktie, I would look at those quotes.

Quotes from Epictetus or Vergil or St. Paul or Chaucer or Tolkien. They were all lighthouses to me; warning me of the rocks and serving as beacons of home.

I bought the album The Times They Are a-Changin’ when I was 15 years old. Two lines from Boots of Spanish Leather hit me very deeply. I wrote those lines down and put them in a prominent place on the mirror.

"Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled
From across that lonesome ocean"

It wasn’t about a girl (I really didn’t date in high school. I was looking ahead to university studies and I wasn’t about to get side-tracked.). No, I wrote the lines to me and about me. Let me explain. And forgive me for being far too auto-biographical, even for my own tastes.

Even at 15 years of age, I knew that life was already a weird trip. I had a father and a younger sister whom I loved very much. My mother was another story. If dad was the eye of the storm, she was the hurricane. Life in the house with her was a nightmare.

I didn’t know what the future was going to bring but I would read the Dylan lines and keep telling myself to just come back to myself unspoiled.

Two marriages almost shipwrecked me on “that lonesome ocean.” Before my first marriage ended, I had looked at my reflection in the mirror and said aloud to myself, “I don’t even know who you are.” The second marriage separated me from my family—I wasn’t even allowed to speak about my children or my father or sister—and I was denied old friends. Even old photographs of family had been thrown away.

Again, talk about a lonesome ocean.

But today, I am listening to Boots of Spanish Leather and I went into the washroom to splash water on my face. I looked up and saw myself in the mirror, 43 years after having taped that quote to my mirror in my old bedroom.

I thought of what life is now. I thought of Nicole finding me adrift and taking me to safety. I have been “through many dangers, toils, and snares.” Looking in that mirror, I realized that Bob Dylan’s words, that I appropriated to myself, had been fulfilled.

I have come back to myself somehow unspoiled.
And I get to be in a community that doesn’t care about all that but accepts me as I am.

And a girl who sees me for exactly who I am—better than anyone ever has—and only cares that I am here with her right now.

And I am unspoiled.



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Ours in Not the Caravan of Despair

2/3/2016

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I have thought about the year just passed and the year that is opening before us. I think about the newspaper I own and edit and what it means to me. I think about my writings on music and culture and what I hope it means to others. But I also think about life and community in a larger framework. I have friends and influences of many political streams and religious currents and, yes, even musical tastes.

One of my wisest friends in the world is a Turkish man named Zeki and likes to quote the poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī or as is better known, simply, Rumi. Rumi was a theologian, scholar, poet and mystic who lived in Persia (b. 1207 – d. 1273). He wrote in Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Greek.

When you read aloud his poems—or hear them read aloud—the sound is intoxicating. It is said that he chose the language based upon the sound of the words, much like the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament often did. Onomatopoeia (the word sounds like the thing it describes) is a wonderful thing.

My friend Zeki has recently passed along two of Rumi’s passages and I cannot escape the thought of them. Rumi’s words are often simple but there is an incredible depth to his thinking.

One such passage was “I have learned that every mortal will taste death but only some will taste life.” One commentator, Imam Shaf’i, added, “Some people have passed away but their character has kept them alive. Others are alive but their character has killed them.”

I have met people—now gone—who remain alive because, indeed, their character allowed them to taste life and has kept their memories alive in the hearts of others. My beloved aunt and uncle were the dearest people on Earth to me. They tasted life well and shared it with everyone around them. Life with them was a feast of love and understanding.

And they are well-remembered. Their lives go on in the hearts and minds of others. My uncle lived to be almost 101 years old. My aunt had died about 12 years before. One day he was asked what was the most surprising thing about living to be one hundred.

His answer, “I didn’t know how hard it would be to live so long without my girlfriend.”

Yet, he lived on and shared life with everyone around him. He would go to the mall almost every day to walk and get his exercise. At the mall, he would meet up with other senior gentlemen and get their rounds in.

One day, his son went to pick him up and went inside to find him. What he found was a huge birthday party in the middle of the mall in my uncle’s honor. But it wasn’t just the other seniors who were in attendance. Oh, no. There were many young women who worked in the mall who were there with him. The old charmer.

But that was him and that was the life he and my aunt created together and shared with others.

Which brings me to the second Rumi quote from my friend Zeki. “Come, whoever you are…come. Our caravan is not a caravan of despair…Come, come again.”

This is the richness of life. To travel together in life and peace and understanding is the caravan in which I want to journey. The interesting thing about caravans—or wagon trains—is that not everyone begins at the same place and ends at the same place. Some people join along the way or drop off along the way. Everyone has their own journey and—for a time—we may travel together.

To those who join with us at whatever point, “Come, whoever you are…come. Our caravan is not a caravan of despair…Come, come again.”

Thank you, Zeki.

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Departing the True Path -- Religion and Paris, 2015

11/20/2015

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In the shock and horror of the events of Friday night, November 13, in Paris, the world musters again and threatens violence to meet violence. The Internet, especially Facebook, was loaded with hate and calls for revenge and massive-scale assault on ISIS, Al-Qaeda, whomever…

I saw it play out over several days. People were spewing hateful speech about Islam and that all-Muslims should be killed. I’m not kidding.

“The religion of Islam is evil and Muslims are evil,” vomited one “good Christian” man on Facebook.  It was 9/11 again, this time with French subtitles.

Of course, we grieve and weep with the victims in Paris and their families. The world does. But what about Mumbai in 2008? The dead and wounded numbers were almost the same as Paris. But the victims were Hindus, mostly, and didn’t look like us. We barely paid attention.

In 2013, at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, 67 people were killed by Al Shabaab terrorists with over 175 wounded. But these were Africans, mostly, and didn’t look like us. Nobody on Facebook changed their profile picture to be shaded with the Kenyan flag.

So, for us to care, the victims apparently need to be white and/or Christian. But enough with comparative suffering.
But through all of that hate-mongering about Muslims, we forget that other religions—yes, even Christianity—has done the same…or worse. But we never seem to connect the dots between violence and our own religions. When Jihadis of radical and militant Islam attack a beloved city like Paris, we cry out that all of Islam is wicked.

But when the IRA (Irish Republican Army) was blowing up bandstands, did we blame all of Catholicism? Of course not. It was rightfully seen as a struggle against a colonial power.

Sort of like when David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin and the others were carrying out terrorist attacks against the Arab states in Israel’s War of Liberation in 1948. Ben-Gurion declared the State of Israel before the British mandate had expired. The Israelis took and kept large portions of the territory that had been set aside for the Arab state under the United Nations guidelines.

But did the West decry the religion of Judaism because Jewish forces engaged in terrorist activities? Did we spew hate on all of Judaism because of the actions of some? Of course not.

There are no more heinous (and I’m including ISIS/ISIL in this) actions than those perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Their website reads: “Our children, our race, and our Nation have no future unless we unite and organize White Christian Patriots.”

Christians? So they claim.

But does any thinking person (and the KKK does not include thinking persons) truly believe that the Klan represents true Christianity? I hope not. The words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer resound powerfully. “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

To not speak up for well-meaning and compassionate Muslims make us as guilty as the Klan who is so very “Christian” because, after all, our inaction is an action.

We would readily say that the KKK has departed the true path of the teachings of Jesus. The same can be said of Zionist terrorists—departing from the true teachings of Judaism. Why can’t this be acknowledged regarding the radical Muslim Jihadis? They have departed from the true teachings of the Qur'an which prohibits murder of the innocent.

If we refuse to speak up for those who have done no wrong and if we refuse to mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep no matter their belief or non-belief and no matter their ethnicity, perhaps we have departed from our true path, as well.


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A Place Called Tuttle & Sons Grocery... Now Long Gone

11/6/2015

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This week witnessed the tearing down of the Indianhead Community building which took place in Owen where I now have my offices. It had been a retail store in 1902, a mercantile and gas station, a grocery store and, finally, a resale shop. The surrounding community has reacted with a mixture of sadness and fondness for the old place.

It made me remember those places that I loved as a child and have now lost. I have heard several people talking about their memories of this ice cream, this or that person who owned it or worked there, Scott and Linda (you know who you are) kissing at the end of the check-out line.

I had just such a place when I lived in Miller Beach, Indiana, when I was eight years old. It was called Tuttle & Sons Grocery. I passed it on my way home every day from school when I was in 2nd grade. Mr. Tuttle was a very kind man who ran his store with great care for the community and great affection for the children.

In fact, Mr. Tuttle gave me my first “job” when I was eight. On Saturdays, I would give a “demonstration” on how to peel oranges in one piece. My grandfather, you see, was the owner and manager of orange groves in central Florida. Papa had told me “it takes a man to peel an orange in one long strand.” I learned the skill, after much practice, by the time I was five.
So, at the age of eight, I was in Indiana where “Hoosiers” had no such “expertise.” I found that such noble skills could fetch attention and payment that was worth far more than simple money.

One of my 2nd grade school chums was Jerry Kennedy. He was a bright kid that was happy and smarter than the average bear. I went to his house one Saturday morning to pick him up for baseball that we played every Saturday in the park. Jerry—and all my friends—lived in a government housing project. For all practical purposes, so did I by actually lived in an apartment in the back of a church across the street from the project.

When I knocked on the Kennedy’s door, Mr. Kennedy answered. He was a tall, good-looking, African-American man of noble features and manners. He greeted me warmly and told me that Jerry would be ready in a moment and he invited me inside. He offered me something to drink and I told him that I was not thirsty. He opened the refrigerator door which—beautifully, wondrously—was lined with ice-cold Dr. Pepper.

I changed my mind. He served up the nectar of the gods but apologized for having “no Moon Pies.” It was an old joke, maybe insult, that African-Americans loved “Dr. Pepper and a Moon Pie.” He made a joke to me at his own expense to which I replied, “Umm, I don’t really like Moon Pies, anyway.” He smiled at me and said, “No? Neither do I.” A joke made a bond of understanding between this young white boy and this wise man of color. I understood, even at eight, that universal descriptors are almost always wrong.

He asked me about life in Florida and the oranges that my grandfather grew until Jerry came downstairs and off we went for our Saturday baseball game.

The next week, I stopped into Mr. Tuttle’s grocery store where Mr. Kennedy worked as the produce manager. He showed me the fresh bags of oranges that had arrived and asked me if I knew how to peel an orange. Did I know? I was an EXPERT. I told him that “it takes a real man to peel an orange in one strand.” He gave me a knife and said, “Show me.” Sure enough, I peeled that Valencia orange in one strand. He told me to wait there. I sat on a table with my legs swinging.

In just a minute or two, Mr. Kennedy brought Mr. Tuttle, the owner, back to where I was sitting. Mr. Kennedy had me retell my story to Mr. Tuttle, who then handed me the knife and an orange (I was happy to oblige because I got to eat both oranges).

I peeled the orange and Mr. Tuttle looked at Mr. Kennedy and said, “Well. I guess we’re not real men, after all.” I told them how to make a juice cup from an orange by peeling half of the orange, cutting a drinking hole in the top, squeezing the orange just right to bring the juice to the surface of the hole and drinking it out of the orange itself.

Mr. Tuttle crowed, “By God, boy! I want you to show that to our customers!” It was my first job. Mr. Tuttle got the consent of the parents and I would give “demonstrations” in his store every Saturday for that month.

The next Saturday, I got to the store by 11 a.m. to show Tuttle’s customers how to make the juice cup and how to peel the orange without lifting the knife. They put a green apron on me and stood me on a crate. I was a star.

At noon, we took lunch in the back room and I got to have free Dr. Pepper with a sandwich. In fact, Mr. Tuttle said that he couldn’t outright pay me but I could come by the store every Friday after school for a free Dr. Pepper and a Twinkie. Are you kidding me??? Who needs money when your life’s desire is offered in exchange for peeling oranges?

For several weeks, Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Kennedy would keep trying to peel the oranges, usually with them concluding "I guess I'll never be a real man."

The month ended and the oranges were gone. There was no need to stop by Mr. Tuttle’s on Friday afternoon, I thought. But one day, Mr. Tuttle saw me walking by and asked why I wasn’t coming by for the soda and snack anymore. The demonstrations were over, I told him. He had already paid me. “No, no,” he said. “I told you to come by every Friday. Navel orange season is coming soon and we can do it again. A deal is a deal. Keep coming for your pay.”

He explained to me that what he paid me was really worth about 12 cents. But every week he was selling out of those big bags of oranges. He said that I was a big part of those sales. “If by paying you 12 cents per week I can increase my orange sales by $20 per week, don’t you think that is worth it to me?”

One day, on my way home from school, I stopped by and Mr. Kennedy saw me said, "Hey, Travis! I'm a man today!" It gathered strange looks from unknowing customers but laughs from those who were there for the demonstrations.

I loved my Saturdays at Tuttle & Sons Grocery.

When we moved away from Miller Beach, I stopped by to say farewell to Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Kennedy. These two kind and generous gentlemen got "wet around the eyes" and Mr. Tuttle said, "Well, I guess you will never see me become a man."

When I heard about the Indianhead building being torn down and heard people’s stories of it, I went to Google Earth and looked for Mr. Tuttle’s grocery store. Because of the “street view” available from Google Earth, I could virtually walk from my old front door, turn east on 4th Street and head to the corner on Lake Avenue where the store had stood. It was gone.

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Tsutomi Yamaguchi - A Survivor of Two Nuclear Attacks

8/6/2015

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PictureTsutomi Yamaguchi (Getty Images)
While we celebrate anniversary of the end of World War II next week, this week marks the 70th anniversary of one of humanity’s most heinous acts. Maybe it is the very worst.

After three and one-half years of fighting alongside Britain in World War II, Nazi Germany was already defeated and Imperial Japan was tottering. Most of the islands of the Pacific Theater of Operations had been retaken from Japan. Even Okinawa, one of Japan’s southernmost populated islands had fallen to American amphibious assault. All that was left was an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

The military estimated that it might cost as many as five hundred thousand to one million lives to accomplish such a feat. MacArthur was ready to plan the invasion but the political authorities were not so sure. President Harry Truman was persuaded to use the newly-tested atomic bomb—two of them—on Japan.

The belief was that it would be such a horrifying sight that it would force Japan out of the war. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was enough to do it. The Imperial cabinet met quickly and began drafting a peace settlement. From the US point of view, however, a statement needed to be made, so they dropped a second bomb on Negasaki.

The statement was not intended for the Japanese; it was aimed at the Soviets as a warning to halt their aggression in Europe and to take their sights off of Japan. It was a statement that cost 70,000 additional lives.

On August 6, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip to Hiroshima. He was a designer of oil tankers for the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Company. He was on his way home but before getting to the train station, he realized that he had forgotten his travel papers at the Hiroshima office. So he went back to retrieve them.

When he stepped off the trolley, he heard the roar of a warplane’s engines overhead. It was 8:15 a.m. He look up to see if it was a Japanese warplane but it was not. It was the Enola Gay. He saw two parachutes released but could not see the bomb attached.

“There was a great flash in the sky and I was blown over,” Yamaguchi later recalled. He was a little over 1.5 miles from the bomb—a 13 kiloton uranium atomic bomb—when it detonated overhead. When a thermonuclear device explodes, first comes the flash and the shockwave followed by the fireball.

Yamaguchi was temporarily blinded by the flash and the shockwave blew him off his feet. Then came the fireball. He was burned on his left side. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was seeing the mushroom cloud.

"When the noise and the blast had subsided I saw a huge mushroom-shaped pillar of fire rising up high into the sky,” he told the London Daily Telegraph in 2010. “It was like a tornado, although it didn't move, but it rose and spread out horizontally at the top. There was prismatic light, which was changing in a complicated rhythm, like the patterns of a kaleidoscope. The first thing I did was to check that I still had my legs and whether I could move them. I thought, 'If I stay here, I'll die'."

He made his way to the air-raid shelter and discovered that he was severely burned. He was bandaged and decided to make his way home to be with his wife and son. The rail bridge was destroyed by the blast and he had to cross the river to get to another train.

In an interview with NHK in 2007, Yamaguchi related that he had to swim past burned and bloated bodies in the river to make it to the other side. He spoke of the walking dead in Hiroshima. Eventually, he made it to the other side and boarded a train for home.

His home was Negasaki.

With bandages and all, he reported for work on August 9. His supervisor had asked him about the burns and the bandages and Yamaguchi told his story. He told how he had seen metal melted and twisted. The supervisor told him that there was no way that a single bomb could do such damage to Hiroshima.

“You’re an engineer. Calculate it. How could one bomb destroy a whole city?” his supervisor questioned.

At that moment—at that very moment—at 11:02 a.m., Negasaki was rocked by the second atomic bomb. Because of the distance from the bomb and the lead shielding in the building where he worked, Yamaguchi was saved again.

He made his way home to find his wife and baby son still alive. The home was ruined and they spent the next week in an air-raid shelter. On August 15, 1945, he would learn that Japan had surrendered.

Yamaguchi and his family suffered from radiation sickness for the rest of their lives. Even his as-yet-unborn daughter would be affected by the radiation.

Yamaguchi would spent his post-war years speaking out against nuclear proliferation and war. He never blamed the United States. The true criminal, he would say, is war itself.

“It was my destiny that I experienced this twice and I am still alive to convey what happened.”

To the United Nations, he said, “It is my responsibility to pass on the truth to the people of the world.”

In 2009, Yamaguchi was called eniijuu hibakusha (the double bomb survivor) by the Japanese government. The year before, his wife died from liver and kidney cancer caused by the American-made Negasaki bomb. His son had, in 2005, died from cancer caused by the bomb.  His daughter suffered by blood-related illnesses all of her life and she still worries for her health. In 2010, Yamaguchi himself would die from leukemia, the result of one or the other blasts he temporarily survived.

In an interview with the Independent in 2009, he said, “I can't understand why the world cannot understand the agony of nuclear bombs. How can they keep developing these weapons?”

In August of 1945, there was only one nuclear nation. Today we have the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea… But, so far, only one nation has been barbaric enough to use them.

 


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Pope Francis on Capitalism and Colonialism

7/14/2015

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It seems that conservatives have always treated the Roman Catholic Church as an ally and a fortress against the social liberalism of the left but especially as a refuge for capitalism. Pope Francis is now showing himself to be neither ally nor defender.

In fact, the weight of the Church’s authority has swung rather dramatically away from the markets and toward the market-goers. Pope Francis is opening the fortress of the Church to the enemy at the gates—the down-trodden and the oppressed.

More than that even, the Pope is throwing open the history books and reading the past with the lens of honesty and truth. In John Calvin’s mind, if you were down-trodden and oppressed, you should blame yourself. The Church in Rome was of similar mind.

Pope Francis, last week, was in a three-country tour of South America. While in Bolivia during his week-long swing visit, he began to speak about a subject long-avoided by the Church: colonialism. Last Thursday, Francis was speaking to a congregation of workers and fired a broadside against European colonialism and the complicit role of the Church.

He was daringly honest and forthcoming.

"Some may rightly say, 'When the pope speaks of colonialism, he overlooks certain actions of the church,'" said Francis. "I say this to you with regret: Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God," according to the New York Times.

And there it was. The confession of “grave sins” committed in the name of God—the very charge laid at religion’s doorstep by atheists and agnostics everywhere. But Pope Francis did not merely confess.

"I humbly ask forgiveness," the Pope added, speaking of the sins of the church and the crimes committed against native populations during the "so-called conquest of America."

As an historian, colonialism—and its Gorgon-sister slavery—are the blights that cannot be erased from the human record and that still have a strangle-hold on those who suffered under them…no matter how many generations may pass.

God and Gold were the motivations for the impoverishment of developing countries by the world economic order of 15th-16th century Europe and “Christianity.” The Church wanted to convert more “souls” and the economic powers wanted the gold and silver that was so plentiful. But let’s be honest, they all wanted the gold and silver.

And before we congratulate ourselves on our tenderness towards indigenous peoples nowadays, remember what is still happening in Africa. No longer in the name of God, these days the economic powers unabashedly plunder the diamonds, the rubies, the copper, the uranium…

Pope Francis has not just confessed and asked for forgiveness, he has joined the other side. He has urged the poor to change the world economic order. He has denounced the “new colonialism” by markets and even continental unions that impose austerity programs.

Think of Greece and the back-breaking austerity demanded by Germany’s Angela Merkel. Albrecht Ritschl of the London School of Economics calls Merkel’s demands on Greece “hypocrisy” since Germany has never paid off its debts. Europe is treating Greece as a colony of the European Union.  

Pope Francis has today’s Greece in mind also as he is calling for the poor to have the “sacred rights” of labor, lodging and land.

In one of the longest, most passionate and all-encompassing speeches of his pontificate, the Argentine-born pope used his visit to Bolivia to ask forgiveness for the sins committed by the Roman Catholic Church in its treatment of Native Americans during what he called the “so-called conquest of America”.

Then Pope Francis brought it all into the present. “The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called ‘the dung of the devil.’ An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.”

Since his election in 2013, the first pope from Latin America has often spoken out in defense of the poor and against unrestricted capitalism but this speech in Santa Cruz was the most comprehensive to date on the issues he has championed. Francis’ previous attacks on capitalism have prompted stiff criticism from politicians and commentators in the United States, where he is due to visit in September.

But, it must be remembered, Pope Francis is not calling for the dismemberment of capitalism, he is calling for restrictions on capitalism. In other words, in a global economy wherein the poor and oppressed are crushed by the unbridled pursuit of gain at the expense of others, we must remember that capital is to serve us. We are not called to serve mammon.

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The Final Fall of the Confederacy

6/24/2015

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Picture
Take down that God-forsaken flag!

After the horrifying events of last Wednesday night, June 17, in Charleston, SC and all the hate embodied in the Confederate flag and all the rallying symbolism of that flag for white supremacists and racists throughout the United States, it far past the time when all traces of the flag of the Confederacy should be taken down and should also be removed from states’ flags, as well.

Yes, there were brilliant generals and brave soldiers fighting for the Confederacy. I don’t care.

Maybe there was a time when that flag meant something—anything—that sounded like valor or honor. So what.

Did you know that the swastika was once a Tibetan good luck symbol? Not anymore. Symbols change and the symbol of the Confederate flag is rancid with racism and ignorance.

In the United States, we are forever talking about the flag and what it symbolizes. We talk about the freedoms represented in the American flag and the valor and heroism of those who died to defend what it symbolizes. Symbolism is alive and well in the Confederate flag also.

PictureThe Tennessee state flag
That Confederate flag is an unnerving but enduring symbol of all that is wrong with America now as much as then: the division, the animosity, the separatism and …wait for it…the racism that still pervades our society. And it is found in so very many of the state flags of the southern states.

South Carolina may not have the Confederate flag in their state flag but that because they fly the real thing! Other states, however, keep the flag alive within the stitching of their particular state flags.

Look at the Tennessee state flag with its red field and the circle of stars. Perhaps it is not as blatant as some states’ flags in the obvious connection with the flags of the Confederacy, but it is there.

Arkansas also has the red field with its triangular shape, a connection to various regimental flags of the Confederacy. But the single star above Arkansas’ name on the flag represents its membership in the Confederacy.

Alabama’s flag may not show the blue and red Stars ‘n Bars but the single red “St. George’s Cross” bears direct resemblance to some Confederate battle flags.
Florida’s is much the same as Alabama’s flag with the addition of the state seal in the cross section. Florida also used to fly the Confederate flag at the state capitol building and then-governor Jeb Bush had it removed.

Georgia’s flag may look innocuous enough but it is actually based on the first "national" flag of the Confederacy. And don’t forget the 13 stars of the hoped-for 13 states within the Confederacy. As it turned out, only 11 states joined with Kentucky and Missouri staying out.
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Without a doubt, the most egregious example is in the state flag of Mississippi. Shocked, right? The Jack part of the flag (the upper left-hand corner) is the Confederate battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. The designer, a Mississippi state senator, wanted to “perpetuate in a legal and lasting way that dear battle flag under which so many of our people had so gloriously fought."

What a load.



It is long past the hour when the symbols of racism and treason should be removed from the public forum. Not only the battle flag of the Confederacy but remove the symbols from the state flags as well.

Symbols are important. Paul Ricouer said in "The Symbolism of Evil" that "the symbol invites thought." The thoughts invited by this symbol are all too clear: treason, hatred, racism. There is nothing noble there.

Take down that God-forsaken flag!

Picture
Set it on FIRE!
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    Travis

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