Demand public toilets or live in squalor

Buenos Aires and other thoughtful cities have sidewalk toilets. Mexico has many public toilets that cost about a dime to use. The United States has newspapers and TV stations that publicize and shame homeless people caught peeing in public.  In the US, one must go into a place of business and ask to use a toilet. I duck into fast food joints, but when I encounter the need to ask an employee for the key I'm usually ok even if the sign says "For customers only." I guess I get by because I am well dressed. And white. Homeless people are in a bind and what are they going to do? Not go?
As a society, Americans are edging toward trouble. Sooner or later I think we will begin to jail more and more homeless people for unavoidable crimes. The cost of toilets is much cheaper than jailing, but since there are privatized jails and prisons, the pressure on lawmakers will be to jail ever more people. Common sense is a tough sell.
If cities would provide many more public toilets and pay to clean them daily you would see that everybody would use them -  the middle class and the rich get "caught" in need, too. It would cost some money and we have an entire class of citizens who can afford to pay more taxes. No one gets rich without society because "No man is an island." The rich cannot always avoid the messy realities of life. What kind of a society do we want and how can we possibly have a decent society without facilities for the poorest of the poor?

Sandra Bland and the curse of standing up for your rights.

It took seeing the first few minutes of the Sandra Bland ticket video for me to understand. The cop initiated a discussion about how she felt instead of simply issuing the traffic citation. Then he upped the ante by asking her to put her cigarette out. Then he simply bullied her. I don't think anything except complete humility on Ms. Bland's part could have protected her from this man. This kind of behavior can be expected more and more from the people in society who are elevated to "hero" status simply because they wear a uniform. In their minds they deserve not just obedience but also respect, not just respect but jovial politeness. Sandra Bland might have gotten away from her traffic stop if she had "yes sir" and "no-sired" the hell out of the man. Might. But her tone of voice could have become an issue, too. His attitude and her anger put them on a collision course right on the cutting edge of American racial politics.
I am reminded of a statement I read in an Eli Lilly worksheet on mental illness. According to the drug maker Lilly, "I know my rights and I will stand up for them" is a statement that indicates possible mental illness. I have already blogged about what a disgusting belief that is. It's anti-freedom; it's totalitarian, but, if you want to live on to fight another day it is an attitude you should control. Take your ticket, then go to court to fight it and make your statement there. Going one-on-one with cops is not the answer. Be polite. Then, if you must, be jovial and self-deprecating. It's wrong; it goes against your beliefs, yes. But that's how you get away to fight another day.
I've walked or driven away from police encounters with this jovial technique where I was detained and bullied for over 30 minutes, but then I'm white. The odds are with me from the start. I'm sorry to say it, but Sandra Bland would be alive today if she had "eaten crow." But then, Jim Crow is a bitter dish and poor Sandra Bland had had enough.

The Fate of Dylann Roof's Roommate

By the day after Charleston's Emanuel AME church shooting I was seeing quotes from "Dylann Roof's Roommate." The poor fellow seems to have jumped right into his 15 minutes of fame - and, I think, the police. He admitted being aware of Roof's plan for 6 months. Should he have called police? Will he be contrasted to the woman who identified Roof in North Carolina and called police?
Is the Pope a socialist? (sorry) I believe the answer to all 3 is - yes.
The man should have called police at least after Roof actually had a gun in hand. But he won't get to be an "un-indicted co-conspirator." They'll paint him with guilt beyond what the man can comprehend. I'm not in that debate.
My thoughts are running, beyond the irony of his confession, to this - will the roommate be considered part of the hate crime or even terrorism? Does a terrorism charge both enhance punishment and lower standards of proof beyond a reasonable doubt? (If this blog gets hits I'll research that myself. Better- how about you leave a comment?) And let's be more clear in our culture about the laissez faire hate language of so much of the media. Father Coughlin ain't in it. If the roommate should have reported prior to Roof's possession of a gun, then there are over a hundred more haters out there broadcasting hate to untold numbers of Dylann Roof-types. They will not be indicted.
Nor will the politicians who ignore common-sense modern solutions to gun control such as mandatory insurance tied to each gun and gun locks that only respond to the owner. They will not be indicted.
The roommate will pay a price and he earned something, but just what? Will it have an impact on friends of violent people with guns to call police? Ha. I can just see the rash of folks crushed by local right-wing, freedom-loving cops.
Every mass shooting must continue to lead to rational people speaking out about solutions. Thanks to President Obama for pointing out that other leading countries in the world don't have so many of these massacres.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
Let's insure each gun and require all new guns to be manufactured with personalized locks specific to the buyer. (The hand print technology is there.) Let's mandate police reports from whistleblower friends who hear of actual plans- and follow-up with suspects.
There will always be a million reasons why we can't do these things until - someday - we will do them and wonder what was wrong with us all along.

Were exchanges established by the states or by the State?

We The Poor of the United States await the ruling of our masters, the Supreme Court on the issue of federal subsidies for Obamacare. The line in the law that allowed the rabid nine to jump in talks about exchanges "established by the state." Thirty-four states did not establish the exchanges. Will the entire law be in jeopardy because of the lack of capitalization? To me, "the state" means individual states whereas "established by the State" could conceivably refer to the State meaning 'the government' in which case the Federal Government would meet the requirement. I think the entire mess can be laid at the feet of the Democratic Party. How could they have been so careless?! There is no room in law for careless mistakes. They will lose this decision and the culpable party will be lost in the translation. People will howl about the court and how it should not have accepted the case, but it's like giving a seven-foot-tall East European basketball player a set-up for a slam dunk. They just hang under the basket for this. They live for this. They'll cram the decision down our throats and all the yelling about subsidies for roads and disaster relief and big oil will be moot. The point is the Democrats blew it. Why? That will be the subject of many a book. How? That only takes this short blog by a long hair leaping unknown. Maybe it's the lower-case "s." Maybe it's just the use of the word "state" instead of "federal government."
I suspect that some lobbyist created this mess and the Democrats fell for it.

Four Burl Dunn songs with son Forest Arturo Dunn

My son Forest (1972-2008) and I did a lot of home recording together for a couple of years in the early century. Yeah, it was a special time for us. Forest played piano, keyboards, percussion (on whatever was at hand), and that excellent bass. Oh, he also sang his ass off in the background.
I've taken the digital recorder we used into studios to clean up the sound. Some of our work is on "Texas Socialist Infiltration Dance Songs" and now I've a digital release called "Four With Forest." I went to the fine Elephonic Studios in Albuquerque and worked with Jesse Korman on these four songs. Hear the full songs here at CD Baby or here:
The EP opens with "Williwas," a song inspired by the famous Southeastern Alaska winds and crab fishing. Hey check it out below. I'd like the song to appear on The Deadliest Catch; that'd be nice. If it does I'll owe a lot to Forest's keyboard riffs. "Gale winds 40 knots, still pullin' crab pots. Captain calls all the shots; he's dry, we're not. Willie was."

The second song is "That's Why I'm So Shook" with Forest at his honky-tonk finest. "I don't need your thoughtlessness; I've grown cold to your hard caress."

I wrote "I Didn't See You" right after my first trip to Alaska on a state ferry, the Wickersham. Dig Forest's bass line and Hammond organ. "Maybe you were in a bar in New York City or loving Louisiana living with a Bourbon Street high. Maybe you were on that same boat with me, and I passed with a far-away look in my eye."
"In the End" resonates today in ways I wish it did not, but in the end, we lost Forest and all that good music he never got to play.
It's up on Spotify, CD Baby and all the usual suspects.

A beautiful law in France

I live in the country, Navajo land where people spread out and yet turn empty spaces into flea markets and sell food by the side of the road. There are two supermarkets near me, both part of large chain store operations. One of them stocks food items exactly as you would expect to see in Phoenix or Albuquerque. The other is more strictly Navajo oriented. A "traditional" Navajo meal would include mutton, fry bread cooked in lard, corn and squash. Spam is big here. Potatoes and chile peppers, too.
When I go to the other store I find these items, but there are also massive displays of mushrooms, bok choy, expensive steaks, and so many items that are unknown to many Navajos or are too expensive. I've often felt that that chain was sending items to the Rez (reservation) as a last step before dumping them and writing off the loss on their taxes. That's the American way, right, tax breaks for the large corporations?
But now France has a law in place to force food stores to give away old-but-edible foods to charity. Read about it here. Such a simple and elegant law. If such a law were to be proposed in the US we'd hear why it would ruin the supermarket economy, why the poor don't deserve free food, and on and on with the Greed and Hatred that, increasingly, is becoming the definition of American culture.
We hear that France is a rigidly secular society, that church attendance is down, wayyyy down. We hear that America is a Christian nation, that Christian charity is "a thousand points of light." Yet we have hungry children, homeless children, and precious little Christian charity. Things necessary for decent society do not spring forth, at least not in great numbers; they must become mandated by law. Perhaps some of our more forward-looking states will pass laws similar to this French law. Feeding the poor will not bring down the empire.

It's one thing to wish Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in hell; quite another to build that hell.

That Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers are using the conditions of America's supermax prison in Florence, Colorado as a plea to avoid the death penalty for their client interests me. What is done to men there is worse than death. I think that's the point and it speaks volumes about America.
Once upon a time death was the punishment for the unspeakable crime. Now, the punishment is hell. We do not assume the role of God only when we kill. No, we now claim the right to consign souls to hell. The hell of this facility, and other, American prisons is not only in the design of incarceration, it's also in the hell what prison guards, acting the role of minor devils, can get away with doing. Who is going to say the inmates don't deserve it? They are bad people. Well, except for the reality that innocent men are punished all the time. 
If the only goals of incarceration for the normal inmate were penitence and successful reintroduction to society then we would not laugh about prison rape and other prison violence. If the only goal of a supermax prison was to avoid escape it could be achieved without solitary confinement and mental torture. What is behind the desire to inflict pain and suffering to no good end? Isn't it rooted in these two extremes of human nature: barbarous tribalism and religion? The savage human wants revenge beyond what the law allows. The religious human wants to play God. 
We are not so different from a Kabul mob beating or stoning a woman to death for a crime we don't even know she committed. The inner barbarian is happy and the religious feel their bloody hands are closer to God.
The fact of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's guilt of a heinous crime does not change my argument. I am not at this moment editorializing against the death penalty. I'm asking why do we dream up fates worse than death? And why is it that mercy in America is not being preached by the Christians? I think the inexcusable death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police is directly tied to the very existence of a prison system which does not allow mercy to exist, even unto the least of these. "Whatsoever ye do unto the least of these ye have done unto me," said Jesus.