Don't Read That Book

Dear Mr. Conroy:

I regret to read that your novels have received negative attention.    I treasure them.  I regretted coming to their end.

Do I have this correct?  A group of parents have raised the issue with a local school board.  They  don’t  want your books taught in their  children's classes. 

At this point,  things haven’t spread to a larger venue.  They haven’t involved libraries or bookstores yet.  

I would hesitate, at this point, to use the word censorship.  I recognize the dangers of the slipery slope.  But, it does seem that the situation is well contained.   I could also like nitpicking too much.

I deplore the fear filled or censorious  mind that tut tuts at the smallest deviation from their  version of the virtuous path.  The Australian slang word wowser comes to mind.

I wish you the very best.

Thom Thompson  

On and on ...

In all of this, few if any have maintained anything that one might call a balanced perspective.

Militarization (2) ever since Bush (43) / 9-11 started spreading $$$ around,  small police jurisdictions  have pressured their congressmen to spread the $$$ their way.  Even though, reasonable people could make a case the cities like NYC, Chicago, LA, Boston, SF, and the like can make the case that they deserve more $$$ than Fergistan or Sanford Fla, the smaller jurisdictions doing the machoi ego crisis thing stomped and screamed.  Voila, Uncle Sam opened up the armories and generous quantities of military grade materials went their way.  Result, Fergistan.  Because, within a limited framework, the local rubes, bozos, and denizens of the local chamber of commerce and civic pride had to strut their stuff. 

Militarization (1) of local police nothing new ... been around  eversince people wondered why drug gangs had semi-automatics  wearing body armor while police have side arms and little else.

heard too many people talk like this is something recent.  It isn't.  Police brutalisation has been going on since the sixties / LA / Rampart street situation. 

Best commentary on fergistan  2014-aug-24 Sunday WABE Atlanta On The Media / NPR

Ray Gun Myths

In
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction
Political Fiction
Didion, Joan

Didion examines R. Ray-guns behaviour in office in terms of his experience as an actor.  He was always on a shoot.   He treated everyone as extras, gofers, but never friends.

He also left us with a larger budget deficit and in some ways a larger government.  Larger because Ray-gun enlarged  the military.

Then synapses rubbed together and serotonin flowed.  What should appear to my wondering eyes but the supply chain that all those military purchases crated in the great American market place.  All the Lockheads, Martin Mariettas, Westinghouse, General Electrics, Blackwaters, Whackenhunts , and Halliburtons. All those business in the United States of armed America that make anything and everything for all the branches of the military:  And all the people they employ. 

Those people vote.  Yes they do: And not just every four year when the big man runs but every two years when the little local congressman runs.  Yes they do.  For that congress man sits on an appropriations committee.  One which sends $$$ money $$$ to the companies that employ our patriotic voter. 
O yes. O yes. O yes.

Look what I found

http://thevillager.com/villager_206/atalgerhissconference.html

The above link deals with the case of Alger Hiss:  A history thing.  The article and the case involves espionage, treason, and homosexuality.  In the history of the case various individuals have made a host of   conflicting assertions.

     White said he found the Hiss case a “tragedy for the nation because you could believe Hiss was
      guilty  without having to support McCarthyism.”

A professor of the Virginia Law School, G. Edward White, quoted in the article,  makes the above assertion.  I find the assertion tragic. The question of Hiss's guilt does not concern me.  The fact that the people of our country could produce a mad man like Joe Mc Carthy strikes me as tragic.  Their willingness to swallow the poison  that oozed from the sup·pu·rating  wound that we call Richard Nixon  meets and exceeds any definition of tragic.  His election twice to the office of president:  Tragic. 

But to continue electing the same crowd of war crazed monsters  in the form of Ronald Ray-Gun, George H. W. Bush ( 41 ), and George W. ( can't run a baseball team so I'll run the country ) Bush ( 43 ) goes beyond tragedy.  It speaks to our decline in integrity.

The Lords Prayer

For some time I have felt  that the only real prayer we have is "Thy will be done". 

By saying "They Kingdom ome", I state my willingness to embark or continue in Christs body.

Now I come to "Give us this day our daily bread." By this I mean to say that I will accept sustenance from no other source.  And by saying this, I make this a commitment.

Asking God forgiveness for my trespass at one time implies that I will forgive others theirs against me but also it gives me the freedom to forgive others. 

Only in this commitment, can I find relief  from evil  and temptation.

All of this happens in communion with other people.  These people take me and others into their midst.  In this group of people,  I change and grow.