What's Going On?

 

Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying

Tyre Nichols was calling for his mother as Memphis, Tennessee police officers were beating him to death. Typing that sentence makes me want to cry as I did when I first heard about it.

As we were watching the news report on the release of the video of Tyre Nichols murder, my husband commented that at least the killing wasn't racial since no White officers were involved. I said he was wrong, it was racial. Tyre Nichols was stopped because he was a Black man. Tyre Nichols was profiled by Memphis cops who assumed he was linked to something criminal just because he was Black. That is racist. How could those Black cops be racist? Because as cops they were taught to have a Them Against Us mindset. They were taught that Them are the enemy and a danger to the entire police force and society. They were also taught that everyone who isn't a White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant (WASP) is more likely to be a Them. They were taught that they were righteous men doing the righteous job of keeping society from descending into chaos and, as we all know by now, righteous men are natural predators.

Add into that mixture our country's mass descent into cognitive dissonance. We have members of Congress who have swore to uphold the US Constitution passing laws that curtail some American citizens constitutional right to vote. We have members of the US Supreme Court rejecting the right of women citizens to make their own health choices based on the Justices' own religion beliefs in a rejection of our 1st Amendment protection against the government making any one religion the only governmental approved religion. We have followers of Christ who spout words of hate and threaten do violence against anyone who does not believe what they believe. We have Racists, Bigots, and Sexist men who can only feel better about themselves by thinking that their skin color, religion, or gender makes them better that other human beings when deep down inside they know that none of this is true. And we have Black cops, who have faced racial discrimination as Black men, beating another Black man to death.

When confronted with the mismatch between what a person thinks and how they behave, that person's reaction can be anger or even rage. I'll bet that the cognitive dissonance experienced by those cops caused them to strike and kick Tyre Nichols even harder to release some of the discomfort they felt as Black men preying on another Black man.

The whole thing is disgusting and sickening. It's also an indictment of our society.
#TyreNichols #CopViolence #PoliceBrutality

Roe v. Wade Overturned

 

Let's Do The Time Warp, Again

 Ugh, I been up 2 1/2 hours and I already want to go back to bed. Damn you, Daylight Saving Time!

#EndDaylightSavingTime

Living In Trump Country

I was at the grocery store earlier today when an oblivious old white man managed to walk into my cart. I stopped. He started to apologize as he turned to walk away but did a double take and then angerly said, "Why don't you watch where you are going?"

I, knowing exactly what was happening (Me, mask. Him, not.), replied, "You fucker!"

That's when I caught a movement out of the corner of my left eye and turned to see three teenage boys standing beside me and staring at me with owl eyes. I apologized for swearing in front of them and they hurried away snickering.

Dog Tales

That was a long weekend. On Saturday night Belle had a seizure at 11:15 PM and we had to take her to the emergency vet. Bob called first and got a voice message saying they were no longer a 24 hr emergency vet and gave the phone numbers of 2 other vets. The first one said they were very busy and it would be 4 hrs before Belle would be seen. The second one was a vet clinic where Belle has been seen before and after we carried Belle to the car, we headed there. Belle went right in and after 2 hrs we got to take her home. She walked into the house by herself but was still very agitated post-seizure. She finally calmed down around 4:30 AM and went to sleep. She woke up at her usual time (7:00 AM) Sunday morning, went potty, got her meds and had some breakfast. She was still tired so I wrapped in blankets and put her in her bed on the front porch since that is her favorite place to be. She is doing well this morning and I will be calling her regular vet later to make an appointment so they can check her out.

Moving On

'Cause there's a place in the sun
Where my poor restless heart's gotta run
There's a place in the sun
And before my life is done
Gotta find me a place in the sun

I think it is time to announce a change in my life. In a few months my husband and I will be moving to Virginia. We are moving to the same town my sister Maura lives in which is why we picked it. I am sorry to leave the state I grew up in but I am so happy I will be closer to my sister. It's a big change but Bob and I have decide now is time to make it.

Echoes Of The Past

I signed up with Ancestry.com for a month a few days. I sign up once a year and then do intense research on my family during that time period. Today I found out the daughter (Nannie Shannon, age 33.) of my great grandfather's brother died in the SS Eastland steamship disaster of 1915. On July 24th of that year the Eastland capsized while tied to it's dock on the Chicago River in downtown Chicago killing 844 people. Like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City four years earlier, no one was held responsible for the negligent actions of the company.

RIP Nannie Shannon. You are not forgotten.

Read about the disaster here.

Christmas 2021

This has been a hard Christmas for me. On Christmas Eve I put up my tree and decorated it like I do every year but doing so was mentally excruciating. Each ornament I added to the tree only added to my reluctance to continue. I was emotionally swimming against the tide.

Christmas Day started out fine but by afternoon I felt like crying and just wanted the day to be over. Nothing like the Christmas Blues to dampen your spirits. Why was I blue? I guess it was because of this seemingly endless pandemic, the intolerance, racism, selfishness, hypocrisy, lack of respect for the law, and deliberate cruelty on the part of members of Congress, a certain ex-president and his supporters.

This morning I woke up feeling better but still down. Again, why? I called one of my relatives on Christmas day with Christmas greetings and I think I subconsciously perceived that this relative was not going to make it to next Christmas which only added to my depression.

Acknowledging that fear this morning has made me feel sad but as I gazed at my Christmas tree, I realize that I don't have to ignore my feelings about what is going on in the world around me just because it is Christmas. Light shines brightest in the darkness.

There's A Moon Out Tonight

 

Ten o'clock PM, September 19th, 2021

The smoke from the fires burning here in Colorado and in California has dissipated. This is the first night without either a yellowish/orange moon or obscured sky cover. I don't believe how quickly I had forgotten how clear the night sky can be in Colorado or how bright the full moon. Lovely.

Belle Got A Bath This Morning

"Why am I lying here completely surrounded by no biscuits?"