Politics Plus

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there are many more which I can't include.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

I'll start with a case in which no one was physically hurt, yet it just gets under my skin.  The parents of a child, now a fifth grader at a different school, but then a fourth grader at Katherine Gallegos Elementary in Los Lunas, NM, are in a legal battle with the District because, they say, a fourth grade teacher humiliated their child so badly they had to home school him.

Last fall, then 9-year-old Diego Ortega did everything he could do to get out of going to class at Katherine Gallegos Elementary.

“He was starting to make excuses, my head hurts, my stomach hurts,” Diego’s mom, Alexandria Lente, said. “Crying in the morning, not wanting to go to school.”

His fourth grade science teacher gave a talk in class about bullying.  At the end of his presentation, he asked each student to write an essay about Diego "being a bully."

There are some quotes from the essays in my linked article.  His own essay says he feels his own teacher is bullying him .  When his mother went to pick him up from school that day, he was in tears.  It doesn't appear he told her the whole story at the time, because he then started to try to avoid school. 

When she did get the story and went to confront the principal, she was told it was a learning assignment and was “OK.”

The current legal issue is less about the actual incident but about the months and legal fees the family spent trying to get copies of the essays legally under a freedom of information request, while the District dug in its heels, in violation of the law.  The teacher is not named in the suit nor in any complaint.

In one of my sources for this story, I left a comment, "I don't care if the kid is an ax murderer, you DO NOT get the rest of the class to write an essay about him/her."  To which someone responded, "Let's all feel sorry for ax murderers." I thought that royally missed the point.  If a kid is a danger to the other kids, on whatever level, you deal with it for the safety of the class.  But if you have other kids write about one kid – well, it's a learning activity all right.  What they learn is that it's perfectly OK to gang up on someone they don't like.  This is destructive and demeaning to the entire class, not just one person.  I find it unacceptable.  What do you think, Megaera?

This next story actually shocked me.  It happened on December 21, but it took over a week and a half for it to get into news sources I see, so I didn't have it last week.  I've been trying to follow up, but there doesn't seem to be much updating happening.  The newest news I could find is that the autopsy took four hours and the results are expected about a week from now.  The investigation is ongoing.

About seven in the evening, the concealed figure you see on the right of the picture entered the convenience store where David Wicks, the gentleman you see on the left, was working.  News reports say that the suspect – I'll call him that – or her – how can you tell? – "sprayed" a flammable liquid around the store and onto Mr. Wicks, but according the the Sheriff's office, "splashed" might be a better description – it appeared to be an open container.  Regardless, the suspect then set fire to Mr. Wicks and the store, and left – on a bicycle.

When authorities arrived, Mr. Wicks was only able to answer one question – "Was this intentional?" – to which he nodded "Yes."  He died en route to the hospital.

This was in a small town – well, not really a town – an unincorporated area, pop. 3154 in 2010 – Burney, CA, in Shasta County. northeast of Redding.  Mr. Wicks was liked by everyone – or so everyone thought.  He was 54, and leaves behind his wife, Sonja, who also worked at the store.

They are calling that hooded figure in the photo "the suspect," but since no one knows who – or what – that figure might be, I don't see that there really is a suspect.  But just on the facts we do have, it looks like vengeful destruction to me.  Tisiphone, maybe you can find something out.

But wait – there's more.  In Texas, the Texas Education Agency's handling of assigning children to receive specialized instruction has come under fire for denial of Special Ed to children with such disabilities as dyslexia, ADHD, and speech impairments.  But at one time, at least, it was fairly automatic to grand Special Ed assistance to Down syndrome children.  Not in Texas.  Not now.

[Melissa Ferrell]'s … son Sam had Down syndrome. He did not always speak in complete sentences. He could not hold a pencil. He had trouble going to the bathroom.

And yet the Austin Independent School District was claiming that he did not qualify for special education services.

"Specialized instruction is not needed," the evaluation report said.

She had expected to be fighting for there to be some inclusion in the regular classroom for Sam, who, like so many Down syndrome patients, is "unreservedly friendly."  She had not expected to need to get a lawyer and spend a year convincing the school district to provide "robust services." 

Other school districts are also denying special services to kids who would appear to obviously need them.  In Fort Bend, Evan Seargeant has binaural moderate-to-severe hearing loss.  What he doesn't have is special ed.  Oh, yeah, and he also doesn't have the good grades he used to have in California, where he was getting special ed assistance.  Sophia Salehi is legally blind.  She cannot read anything more than three inches from her face – and that is with the best glasses she can get.  This time it was the Houston ISD which turned her down for special ed.

The article I link to is one of a series of six numbered and two unnumbered articles, which should suggest that this is part of an unceasing problem.  Good luck, Alecto.

One last reference I am not going to cover in detail comes to us from McCrorystan, where, as the Fartfuhrer and the other Republicans were plotting their coup – well, it sounds like the beginning of a bar joke, doesn't it – "A crying grandmother, a breast-feeding mother, and Santa Claus walked into a" – State House.  Needless to say, they were all arrested, along with an unrevealed number (but, over the course of the week, more than 100) of others.  In an unusual twist, the protesters were all thanked profusely by the administrative personnel who were doing the booking (and of course thanked them profusely in return.)  Most of the charges have been dismissed since.  Thank God.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4029941

As I have said, you may assume that I have cut the stories down; that there are more which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them, but I can't feature all of them, even all of them which are underreported.  Because it's going to continue to be true for the foreseeable future.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

Let's start with a little update.  Back in May I asked the Furies – all of them – to track down John R. K. Howard of Texas for an incident in Idaho.  Well, the criminal charges have been resolved (no word that I am aware of on the civil suit), and it appears that Mr. Howard will serve no prison time.  So, whatever counseling he received or is receiving from the Furies appears to be all he is going to get.  Barf.

There are, of course, plenty of new things going on.  Just last Saturday, on Fox News, for example, "Judge" Jeanine Pirro blasted Michelle Obama.  (BARF BAG AERT)

How she managed to get the education she has without learning anything – well, she is not the only one, and I don't understand any of them.  Just one point, how she can say with a straight face "America rejected you" when (a) there was no one named Obama on the ballot in any state, and (b) Hillary Clinton received almost 3 million more votes than the Cheeto-faced ferret-wearing Not My President is appalling.  Of course, it's Fox, so no one questioned a syllable.  Megaera, you want this one?

Then in Little Rock, AR, there was a road rage story with a child getting shot.  No, not the eight-year-old that was shot in the foot, this is a different one (I know it's hard to keep them straight.)  This was a three year old boy, and he died of it.

Acen King and his one-year-old brother were in the back seat going shopping with Grandma when she stopped at a stop sign.  Behind her, the driver of a 2003 Black Chevrolet Impala honked at her.  Instead of gunning the engine for her life, she honked back.  That's when the driver of the Impala got out of the car and opened fire.

Grandma (Kim King-Macon, to be precise) did not immediately realize the child was hit, so drove the the shopping center and called police from there.  Acen was taken to a hospital, where he died.  Incidentally he was the second young child killed in a road rage incident just in Little Rock, just in the last few weeks.  (The other one was not the girl who was shot in the foot either – she is still alive).

The police (who I must admit from the story sound very distressed about this) are still looking for the Impala and its driver.  Tisiphone, I'll bet you can make some progress here.  And if and when you do, you might consider, instead of tipping the police directly, instead giving the tip to someone who could really, really use the twenty grand reward which is being offered.

Unfortunately, not every community has police officers who are in the least concerned about children of color.  In Fort Worth, Texas, for example, this happened –

Posted to numerous social media sites late yesterday was this video of a woman and her daughter being arrested by a Fort Worth, Texas police officer. Their crime? Being angry at police officer for not confronting the subject of the complaint: the white male adult who had allegedly choked the woman’s seven-year-old son.

(For an adult to choke a seven-year old is totally illegal, BTW)

Mom tells the officer that the white guy said the kid had "defied him."  (The choking is still illegal.)  The guy says that "the kid threw some paper on the ground—he littered—and when the man asked the kid to pick the paper up the kid didn’t and so he choked him."  Mom also explains that she and her kids have lived in the neighborhood for years, and the guy knows them and where they live, and he should have come and told her.

Then the cop says this:

Why don’t you teach your son not to litter.

Anyone besides me think this sounds a lot like "Why don't you just dress modestly?"

At which point Mom stated to raise her voice.  There is some escalation, all verbal.  Eventually the kid's older sister steps in fron of Mom (not towards the officer), which he decides is justification to tackle and arrest them both.

There is virtually no follow up available.  The officer has been placed on "restricted duty" (=paid vacation).  The department has this video as well as the officer's body cam, but that have a law there which "limits the information that may be released, including the officer's body cam footage" in an internal investigation.  It would be nice to learn whether the Mom and daughter are still stuck in jail or even hospitalized.  But no.  That is not available.

Someone in the comments stated that this happens all the time.  Someone else responded that it is not all the time but it is still too much.  I submit that, even if this kind of thing does not happen in every single interaction between law enforcement and persons of color, if it happens at least once a day to someone somewhere in the U.S. (and it does), the use of the expression "all the time" is justified.  What do you think, Alecto?

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4028048

From this week on you may assume that I have cut the stories down; that there are more which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them, but I can't feature all of them, even all of them which are underreported.  Because it's going to continue to be true for the foreseeable future.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

Last week I mentioned the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, and how it made homeless not only whoever may have survived it, but also a lot more people who have been trying to live and create in similar spaces (not only in Oakland, incidentally; other cities elsewhere in the country are cracking down on anyone who is using this kind of housing).  If you thought that was rock bottom, think again.  As of Monday, December 5, 36 had been confirmed dead but only 11 identified.  A chaotic situation for friends and relatives of residents.  On Facebook, a "Memorial Page for Oakland Fire" was set up, and survivors could post requests for information.

One survivor, Anna Mendiola, posted a photo of her sister in law, Jenifer (Mendiola), who also used the name Alana Kane, requesting any information.  Some friends also posted, and they tagged her Facebook page.  So, naturally, an uncounted number of trolls ran right over to Jennifer's page and started trolling like mad.

Mediaite will not post a link to the Facebook page out of respect.  But they posted a couple of examples.  Under a post urging friends to sign a petition that would encourage universities to cooperate less with ICE concerning undocumented students was posted  "sanctuary schools?  fuck no.  rip.  Trump 2029"

Under a call for Oakland residents to protest the election of Donald Trump, there are at least three comments:

"Worst post ever on FB.  You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Trump2020"
"All these anti-TRUMP anarchists are burning in HELL.  quite literally I'd say!"

Or, as Mediaite sums it up:  "A woman is missing — and, judging by some of the comments on the page, presumed dead — and trolls have taken to her page to criticize her for not supporting Trump. Her friends and family can see these comments."

I don't think you are going to have any trouble finding them, Ladies.  Like the old saying:  "Fools' names and fools' faces/Are often found in public places."  Apparently FaceBook is one of those places.  You'll track them down.

Nazareth College, in Rochester New York, "despite what the biblical name might evoke, is not a religiously affiliated college; it dropped its Roman Catholic affiliation in the 1970s…. Instead, the college picked up a commitment to religious pluralism: Every undergraduate is required to take a religious studies course, and engage with faith traditions other than their own."

The most obvious way to so engage is to attend the religious services of another fairh, introducing themselves as students, and asking questions like: "What are your core values? How do you see them as the same or different from those of other religions?"  This is what a couple of  Muslim students did, picking the evangelical Browncroft Community Church.  Their first visit was so successful, they returned for a second visit, during which they also went to the coffee hour and talked to members.  They felt that the second visit went at least as well – a rich, positive learning experience.  Some of the church members hugged them as they left.

But, after they left, a "concerned congregant" called the Department of Homeland Security (who went to the state police, who went to campus security, who called the Religious Studies Department Head) because apparently their homework assignment had become a "cause for concern."

You will be happy to know there is going to be no protesting over this.  The college officials, the senior pastor of the church, and the students, as well as the Muslim Student Association, don't want protest, but they do all want dialogue.  The President had a good conversation with the senior pastor, as a result of which a metting was set up between the course teacher and another pastor, and all have hopes that good will come of it.

All, maybe except Concern Troll.  So, Ladies, I think you need to look up Concern Troll.  And – an expression I don't use lightly – put the fear of God into him or her.

But, speaking of the fear of God, maybe Pastor David Grisham in Texas is not the guy to emulate. 

He strolled into a Texas mall, found a bunch of kids and parents waiting in line to take a picture with Santa, and started to YELL.  (He would probably call it "preaching"; most people would call it a "rant"; I would think almost anyone would call it rude and uncalled for.)

Some of what he said: 

"… When you substitute the lie of Santa Claus in the heart of your child for the truth of Jesus Christ, you are bearing false witness against God. Don’t lie to your children and tell them there’s such a thing as Santa, when you know in reality that there are no flying reindeer, there is no workshop at the North Pole, there is no elves making toys, that you buy all the gifts and put ’em under the tree.

That’s all the truth. And there is no real Santa Claus. There is no Santa. It is not your place to lie to your children. Tell them the truth about Jesus Christ."

He then went home and posted a video of the rant to Facebook, claiming he had been "assaulted."  Yeah, right.  Someone coming up to you and asking you to stop yelling is not assault in my book.  (The video is at the link, so you can judge for yourself.)  His teeth looked like that BEFORE he started yelling.  They do look like Trump voters' teeth, though, don't they?  I think he needs to be schooled by you Ladies.  Draw straws or flip a coin for who goes where – these people are all so pathetic that it's hard for me to say.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4027075

This week I have cut the stories down again; there are more which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them, but I can't feature all of them, even all of them which are underreported.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

There is so much going on, and I am sure there are stories worse than what is happening to Jahahara Alkebulan-Ma'at in Oakland, CA, but it's a story that bears on a bigger problem, one affecting many more people, as I will touch on.

Alkebulan-Ma'at moved to Oakland from Chicago in 1995, roughly 21 years ago.  At that time he quickly found the apartment he has lived in since.  Of course, then, Silicon Valley was just starting, and gentrification and impossible housing costs were still in the future.  His (now former) landlord always kept his apartment affordable, so when in 2014 he retired due to disability, his social security check covered the rent.

But in May 2016, his former landlord sold the building, and the new owner is evicting him, effective December 25.  Charistmas Day.

The East Bay Express interviewed both Alkebulan-Ma'at and the new landlord (well, the man behind the "Redevelopment Group").  Certainly Mr. Gorelik thinks he has tried to be fair.  He offered Alkebulan-Ma'at a buyout of $3,646.00.  Which I would roughly guess, in now gentrified Oakland, might last two months.  Alkebulan-Ma'at is on a waiting list for senior housing – but the wait can take years.  Years which he now does not have.

Adding insult to injury, shortly after November 8, Mr. Gorelik put up a huge Trump "Make America Great Again" sign in the property's front yard.  It was attached to a couple of trees, high enough so drivers on Interstate 580 could see it.  It was stolen, so Mr. Gorelik replaced it with one attached to the building itself, surrounded with barbed wire, and floodlighted.

Many of Popular-Vote-Loser Trump's supporters are making a big thing about how committed Trump is to urban renewal, and how wonderful this is going to be for people of color living in inner cities.  The reality is the experience of Mr. Alkebulan-Ma'at.  He now has no home and no place to go that he can afford.  He is disabled and lives on Social Security.  And he is not alone.

You may remember that Oakland was recently the site of a huge warehouse fire – at least, a building which was once a warehouse, which had been converted to varioua uses by artists, including, for some of them, housing.  The East Bay Express has numerous articles related to this situation, not the least interesting of which is An Open Letter to the Community from the Former Residents of the Recently Closed LoBot Gallery.  One excerpt:

We are just a few days into a nightmare that is still unfolding. Bodies are still being carried from the warehouse that many friends called home, but already people outside of this community are calling for a crackdown on art spaces. This threatens our ability to survive and create in a rapidly gentrifying city that we helped build.

Note that the LoBot was NOT the building which burned.  That was the Ghost Ship.  But the LoBot is still a casualty of that fire.  Another excerpt:

At LoBot, a fire inspector visited following an anonymous “concerned citizen” complaint. Even though we prioritized fire safety, and were not cited for any violations, our landlord told us to leave, and refused to negotiate. The art space we spent thirteen years cultivating was crushed in a matter of weeks, our home destroyed, our ability to create pushed further into the margins.

"We want safer buildings," say the LoBot evictees.  "But please listen to this community before you try to protect us."  Well, it is certainly gracious of them to be so charitable about the mortives of that "concerned citizen."  I don't know whether I could be that gracious myself.

So what to do?  Well, for starters, Tisiphone, maybe you could track down and sit on all thise "concerned citizens,"  who, I am convinced, have decided that what I would call art and creativity are actually sin and degeneracy.  Megaera, you may want to look up that landlord, his wife (who is also his business partner), and their lawyer, all of whom are named in the article, at least, and educate them on what it really costs to find a place to live after gentrification. 

And Alecto – OK, this is a stretch, but it seems like every time I comb through these happenings I end up saying "s**t."  And, well, s**t is kind of timeless.  It has been around forever, and will be around forevermore.  So maybe you would look into the episode of the "s**t sandwich."

So.  This Officer with the San Antonio, TX Police Department decided, last May, that it would be really cute to make a s**t sandwich, with real bread, and real s**t, and put it into a styrofoam container and give it to a homeless person.  So he did.  This guy must be just a barrel of laughs.   Several officers had knowledge of the incident and eventually reported it.  And the officer, Officer Luckhurst, admitted it.  But he said, he was really, really sorry.  Mm-hmm. 

So, in October , he was fired.  But, in San Antonio, they have a binding arbitration rule.  So, if an officer who is fired wants his job back, he and the department can go to arbitration.  The process is open to the public and to the media – but that may not mean that anyone can testify, just that anyone can watch.  And if the arbitrator says the officer gets his job back, then he gets it back.  Period. 

The police chief can attach conditions to his re-hiring/  For instance, in 2012, Officer Michael Garza was fired for shooting and killing his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend.  In 2015, an arbitrator ruled that he could get his job back.  I am not making this up.

All the Department could do was to ensure that he would never be in a position where he could interact with the public.  Well.  That sounds to me like he probably has a sinecure now.  It's probably too late to do anything about that now, but Alecto, if anyone can, it would be you. 

But I suspect the first thing is to make sure that the Luckhurst case does not get assigned to a wacko arbitrator.  Luckhurst may not have thought his action was so serious – I say that because there is a name for his facial expression in his picture ("a s**t-eating grin") – but the rest of us have plenty of outrage here.  Good luck.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross-posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4025947