Does anyone in the U.S. really care that Prince William and Kate have had a newborn baby?

I have great respect for British culture--after all, it brought the world Shakespeare, Newton, Dickens, Oxbridge--and loved "Gosford Park" and "Atonement" and admired "The King's Speech."

But where I draw the line at "the royals."   I have no interest in the House of Windsor (though Diana Spencer was a gem who wed into that family), except perhaps to note how they are related to Kaiser Wilhelm.

And even less for William and Kate.

Who really cares?

Of course, it is at once a brilliant touch of mass communication to be able to elicit so much "love" (adoration) from the British public at large and, I suppose, much of the world.  Or is a greater tribute to the extent to which adults remain fixated at the fairy-tale trappings of the Royals?

One thing:  there's not much drama in the whole thing.

Princess Diana was a real person who stepped out of a boring and scripted role.   And Queen Elizabeth II has to be respected not for simply being the richest woman in the world but for having survived more than half a century as monarch.  She is living continuity with the twentieth century and its last terrible world war).

President Obama's demagogic statement on the outcome of the criminal trial of George Zimmerman

A case of tacit collective amnesia.  In Seattle, don't look back:

James Paroline, The Traffic Circle Gardener of Rainier Beach, killed 2008.  His killer was charged with assault--a sucker punch to the head--by homicide.*

Edward McMichael, aka"Tuba Man," beaten to death by a crowd of African-American teen-agers in 2008 by the Seattle Center.

Danny Vega, kicked and beaten to death on Rainier Valley Avenue South in 2011.

Kris Kime, stomped to death in Pioneer Square in 2001, by a group of young blacks.


If only President Obama had come out and commented on the murders above.

* * * * *

From The Stranger's usually salacious, tasteless, and jocular Last Days this week (July 24-30, 2013):


FRIDAY, JULY 19 The week continues in Washington, DC, where today President Obama delivered a surprise address on the Trayvon Martin verdict and his experience as a black man in America, which we will now excerpt at length: "You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago... There are very few African American men in this country who have not had the experience of being followed when they are shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are probably very few African American men who have not had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me—at least before I was a senator... Now, this isn't to say that the African American community is naive about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they're disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It's not to make excuses for that fact—although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history... And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these 'stand your ground' laws, I'd just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws."


I am surprised that President Obama believes that he can speak for the more than 30 million African-Americans, know their shopping experiences from Washington State to mostly white Iowa to mostly black Detroit and D.C. to Maine and state that the majority have been followed in a department store.

Maybe he knows that even black taxi-drivers often won't pick up black pedestrians in New York City.

If whites, Hispanics, East Asians, South Asians, African immigrants, many African-Americans themselves, Muslims, etc. are indeed afraid (and, hence, "racist," by the logic of The Stranger), it might have to do with the fact that young black men are 7-10+ times as likely to commit violent crimes than members of other groups, leading to a vastly disproportionate number in prison.   (This is not to say, however, that all who commit violent crimes are ever brought to justice.  There are many running around who never get caught). 

President Obama's logic is faulty.

"And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened?"

The man we elected president in 2008 and re-elected four years later knows very well that Mr. Zimmerman's situation was vastly different from Travyon Martin's.     Zimmerman's following Travyon Martin was not a threat to the latter's safety until a fight, and probably a pretty terrible one, broke out between the two.

It's unlikely Zimmerman shot Travyon Martin because the young man called him a "bean burrito" or loudly refused to leave the compound (unless the person examining the case and passing judgment is a Jen Graves, Charles Mudede, etc.).

By Obama's logic, then, Hispanics, whites, and others would be shooting up young black men by the thousands whenever they encounter the latter wearing hoodies in their neighborhoods.

No one in their right mind pulls out a gun and shoots someone else--of any skin color--because of a disagreement or argument.

I don't know what study President Obama can point to that establishes a direct cause-and-effect relationship between American slavery and the condition of poor blacks.    Blaming other groups (whites, Hispanics, Jews, Asians...) for their own failure to work hard to make positive changes, including inculcating strong moral values and a sterling work ethic, will not ameliorate their situation.

Cycles of hate, blame, and resentment breed only more hate and resentment, and too many African-Americans have been taught an ideology of hate, anger, blame, and resentment and not much else.

As it is,  George Zimmerman's life is and will be in ruins, and he will never feel safe.  Some people have made sure of that. 

Condemning him through the court of popular opinion  makes no sense.   

None of us was there that night.   

I don't think we should try to pretend that we know what really went on.  We don't.   But the whole affair smacks of little or no concern for fairness or objectivity, especially on the part of those who have condemned Mr. Zimmerman's actions without actually knowing with any certainty what he did that fateful night.

* * * * *

I wonder why Obama was forever clueless as to why his own (white) grandmother had a visceral fear of black men beyond "prejudice," crime statistics apart.   I think even animals have a built-in sense of danger.

Suspects Wanted For Spree of 10 Robberies In Less Than A Week 

Seattle, WA

August 7, 2013

SPD robbery detectives are searching for a group of men suspected in a series of increasingly brazen armed robberies over the last week in each of Seattle’s five precincts.

The string of 10 cases began just after 9 AM on July 31^st, when a group of six male suspects cornered a teen in an alley behind the Beacon Hill library. One of the suspects lifted up his shirt, implying he had a gun, and stole the teen’s backpack, phone and bankcards.

Early the next morning, at 1:40 AM on August 1st, a car full of men a drove up to a woman near 56^th and Latona and demanded her purse. When the victims refused and kept walking, the suspects got out of the car, pulled a gun on the victim and stole her purse before fleeing.

That night, around 11 pm, the suspects pulled a knife on a delivery driver in Holly Park and stolefour pizzas. A half hour later, the suspects struck again in West Seattle, where they surrounded a man in the 5500 block of 16^th Avenue SW, shoved him to the ground, rifled through his pockets and stole his iPhone at gunpoint.

Again, around 3:30 AM on August 2^nd, the same suspects grabbed a 28-year-old man near Harvard Avenue and E. Thomas Street, put him in a headlock and stole the man’s iPhone and wallet.

Almost exactly twenty-four hours later, two suspects—accompanied by a lookout— approached two men near 11^th Avenue and E Pine Street, across the street from Cal Anderson Park. The suspects pulled a gun on the men, demanded their wallets and phones and then ordered them to walk away.

Half an hour later, around 4 AM, two of the suspects climbed into a victim’s car outside a Central District hookah bar, drew guns, and forced the victim to drive to Renton, where they pistol-whipped the man and stole his wallet before fleeing.

Detectives believe members of the same group snatched a woman’s purse at near Seneca and Broadway at about 3:45 AM on August 4^th, and jumped into a waiting getaway car.

The same day, just after noon, one of the suspects ran up to a 13-year-old girl and stole an iPhone out of her hands near 60^th Ave SW and Alki Ave SW.

Finally, detectives believe several of the suspects followed two women down the street near 52^ndand 15^th Ave NE around 1:45 AM on August 5^th, demanded their purses at gunpoint and fled.

The suspects in all 10 of the cases are black males between 18 and 25 years old. Following several of the recent incidents, detectives received information that the men may be East African or Somali. In one of the incidents, the suspects were seen fleeing in a green Toyota Camry.

If you have any information about these incidents or any other details that might help detectives track down these suspects, please contact SPD’s robbery unit at (206) 684-5535.

http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2013/08/07/suspects-wanted-for-committing-10-robberies-in-less-than-a-week/

This news will probably not appear in The Stranger's "Last Days" and if does the race of the victims and that of the attackers will be expunged.

* Some Seattleites claimed James Paroline had "only been asking for it."
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Two-men-killed-by-fists-but-2-different-1295331.php#photo-708632

The open-mindedness of Jen Graves, art critic at The Stranger (or: What does a white girl like Jen Graves know about racism? )

Here is what Jen Graves, art critic at The Stranger has to to say about the outcome of the criminal case against George Zimmerman:

"...George Zimmerman's "heart was in the right place," referring to the man who, when all is said and done, racially profiled, then without cause and against warnings approached, then shot and killed a black teenager—in his words from when he first saw the young man, just a "punk"—for being there in his gated community.

It is Graves who jumps to the conclusion that he killed Martin just for being in his gated community.

I seriously doubt that that happened or that Zimmerman killed Martin because he was wearing a hoodie, was in the gated community, and was black.

But Graves acts like she knows.  For she was there the night of the killing, beaming down with the Eye of God on her side.

But maybe this sort of thing is what readers of Ms. Graves should have become used to.  After all, someone, even as young as Ms. Graves, who mistakes the thousand-year -old Byzantine Empire for the Ottoman Empire in cross-cultural currents that influenced Venetian Art, cannot be bothered to wish to be constrained by logical inference and cogent (rather than emotional) argument.

And this is the same writer who boastfully and rather frighteningly believes as a competitive college swimmer she "literally swam across the United States."

What does she actually know of the Mardi Gras riots in Pioneer Square in 2001, much less of the '60's in this country?*  

I am not sure if we are to take seriously, at any rate, someone in her late twenties who seems to believe that she understands the Civil Rights Movement of the '60's from books, rather than from actually having lived through that era and looked at it from more than one angle.

Why should she make any attempt to see an event through the eyes--and guts-- of someone else other than her own (for instance, George Zimmerman's, the jurors', Latinos', the residents' of the gated community, the police's, those of James Paroline, Manish Melwani, Tuba Man, Danny Vega, etc.) when she can a priori exclude these other viewpoints since she is omniscient?

Ms. Graves undoubtedly knew what had happened that fateful night even before the trial ever began.  She didn't need to weigh the evidence or hear the testimony, least of all of Mr. Zimmerman's.

She knows exactly what it's like to be a heavy-set working-class middle-aged Latino man in Florida, even though she is a young, hip, ostensibly well-educated white woman in Seattle.

It makes no difference to her who George Zimmerman is, where he has been in life, how he has lived the past year, his mental state of mind.  She is not in the least interested in him as an human being.  He is a symbol, not a human being, for her.  A symbol of white oppression, even though he is not white.

Just as, for Ms. Graves, Venetian art was the inheritor of Ottoman art traditions, even though it was not the art of the Turks and the Middle East but that of Byzantium (the Eastern Roman Empire).

 * * * * *

Why bother trying to get into his head when Ms. Graves'--with respect to Travyon Martin's--is so much more compelling.

There is a victim and a perpetrator, and this was decided well in advance.  Black and white, or rather, white-on-black.   Nothing else exists or is important for her or for others of her mindset.

Ergo:  Of all the benighted white people in this country, she must be the most enlightened.  

She is not prejudiced.  She thinks she is not racist.

Ms. Graves can't stomach or even entertain the thought that George Zimmerman on that night  may have only been fighting for his own life.

In her wisdom and maturity, Ms. Graves knows that only some people and only some races deserve compassion.  

But if she is truly interested in saving the lives of young black men, she and her cohorts ought to organize anti-violence workshops in the African-American community, since over 90% of the murders of black people each year are committed by other black people (rather than focus on a disproportionately small number committed by non-blacks).**


* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Mardi_Gras_Riots

** Crime statistics from the U.S. government are not hard to be found on the Internet.

Where was the national outrage over the murders of James Paroline, Kevin Kime, Tuba Man, Manish Melwani, Dien Huynh...?

In the news for the past few days there has been coverage of the protests across the country over the acquittal  of George Zimmerman.   I viscerally feel the outrage of the indignant, and I note President Obama's reaching out to the family of the slain Travyon Martin in their grief.

What I do not understand is why no national attention was paid to the savage unprovoked murders, all in the Seattle/Tacoma area, of James Paroline ("the Traffic Circle Gardener"), Danny Vega, Kris Kime, Michael Travis Hood ("Tuba Man"), Manish Melwani*, the four Lakewood officers*, Dien Huynh**, all except Melwani and the police, beaten to death by young black men. These men all had family and friends who grieved as well over their senseless losses.

Why weren't these lives worth as much as Martin's?




* Melwani's family moved back to India several months after their son was shot and killed in a Ballard convenience-store by a young black man.  No media attempted to interview the family before or after, from what I have been able to glean.

** Dinh, a Buddhist monk and scientist, was repeatedly struck in the head with a hammer by his young black assailants just outside his porch.

"...the three teens surrounded Huynh, who was much smaller than the teens, and tried to grab him. He tried to get away, but was caught and was repeatedly struck in the head by Walrond with a wallboard hammer."

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2002986353_tacomateens11m.html

LIndy and Matthew

He took it very hard.

Daniel:  "Hi.  Would you mind if I worked in one set?"

YMCA member*:      Silence.  A short pause.  (In a soft voice)  "I was just preparing to do another set."
      Another short pause.  "(And) You should have asked me a minute earlier."

Daniel:  (Stunned)  "You're supposed to let other people work in when you're doing multiple sets."

Mike:     (Taunting and still softly spoken) "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

* A neatly dressed middle aged man, well-built, serious about his physical regimen whom Daniel has noticed vaguely before at the YMCA but never actually spoken to.  Later, Daniel finds out his name is "Mike."

* * * * *

All Daniel had wanted to do was to work in one set of reps on the exercise machine that the other guy had been already been on for already perhaps five minutes, resting a long time between sets.

Afterwards he felt confused, in a tangle of anxiety and anger.  He got little or no empathy from the staff person at the front desk of the YMCA.  For her, it might as well have been he that had been unreasonable and rude.  In fact, he got a small earful of how the guy not allowing Daniel to work in was no different from his own spending three hours swimming in the medium lane (This logic, in retrospect, did not seem to "hold," unless she meant that he stayed on the inner side of the lane, leaving the wall-side to a new swimmer, which seemed to be the "custom" anyway, one he respected).

Yes, it had to do with Daniel's personality.  He didn't like being told what to do, especially when it was a reproach or criticism.

And when he was being taunted and "not taken seriously."  The other guy had spoken to Daniel in a tone of casual derision, confident and sardonic.

He took it very hard.

If it had been decades earlier, he would wanted to tell someone not only what had happened but how he felt crushed and humiliated.

A lesson in manhood.  And humanity.  He had grown up with it.

And, in fact, no one could "make it right" for him.

People are forgetting: George Zimmerman is not a white man (no more than Barack Obama).

People are forgetting:  George Zimmerman is not a white man (no more than Barack Obama).

Whatever you think of George Zimmerman--his culpability or his innocence--, it is a curious fact that while African-Americans have been extremely vocal about their feelings about Zimmerman and the killing of Travyon Martin, the Latino or Hispanic community in the U.S. has been strangely silent.

In fact, members of the African-American community have decried the outcome of the trial as an example of racism perpetrated against a black man.  But it is not a white man who has allegedly murdered a black man (and not in self-defense).

Zimmerman, despite his surname, is a Latino, and certainly from his physical appearance, no one would mistake him for a white man.

(In Europe, news broadcasts mistakenly spoke of him as a white man, perhaps dueto the fact that U.S. media downplayed his being Hispanic/dark-skinned).

Why won't Latinos support George Zimmerman?

So will the members of the African-American community blame (all) Latinos for what they see as a racist murder?

* * * * *

Only one man knows for sure what happened the night Trayvon Martin was shot:  George Zimmerman, even though millions have already judged and condemned him.   President Martin has likened himself to Martin on at least two different occasions.

No, I don't think the reason Martin lost his life was that he was wearing a hoodie and that he was black.  He and Zimmerman were fighting--desperately for his very life, Zimmerman asserts.

Zimmerman faces an even greater ordeal/hurdle when he will have to face a civil lawsuit against him brought by Al Sharpton, the parents of Martin, and others.  It's hard for me to believe that he intentionally killed Martin.  Anyone with a brain would have known that killing the young man would bring with a firestorm of protests and an unending series of legal battles, as well as condemnation and intense guilt (which he has already publicly expressed).

No, white people who kill black people do not get off scot-free, with impunity, contrary to what many believe.

(Hispanics are now the largest minority in the United States and their numbers continue to grow at an astonishing rate).

* * * *

Charles Mudede in The Stranger (July 17-23, 2013) bemoans the "fact" that "if Travyon Martin had been white, he'd have made it home alive."  Mr. Mudede has a right to an opinion.  No one knows with certainty what might have happened in that case.  If Martin had been white and had Zimmerman on the ground and was punching him, I believe that it would NOT have made any difference.

Perhaps Mr. Mudede could be persuaded to comment on what might have happened if James Paroline, Danny Vega, Tuba Man, and others had had a gun when they were beaten to death by young African-American men.  Or the Buddhist Dinh Huyn in Tacoma chased by some young black men, who, when they caught up with him outside his own porch, repeatedly struck his skull with a hammer.

* * * * *

Sometimes I think that people like Mr. Mudede simply will not or cannot see beyond their own the tip of their own prejudices and ingrained beliefs.  He cannot see the irony in his constant reiterations that he, like most African-American men have a fear of  (white) police while conveniently forgetting the murder in cold blood of four white Lakewood policemen in the Central Area a few years ago.  (Rodney King was unfairly and brutally beaten; these four persons lost their lives for nothing they had done to their murderer).

People of any color of skin if they are perceived by police--in almost every country on the face of the planet--as being uncooperative, aggressive, and/or dangerous are "asking for it, " to use a favorite Seattle phrase.

* * * * *

I recall hearing on NPR (home of Travis Smiley, among others) several years--and I don't think that there is any reason to think that things have changed drastically--one in ten African-American men under 30 is in jail or has served a prison sentence.

There is a larger context, and that has to do with the very high rate of violent crime within the African-American community.  More than 90% of murders of black men are committed by other black men, not whites.  Instead, we are told to focus on the issue of (possible) racism.

Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables": the ending of the novel, not the musical, not the movie

Chapitre VI – L’herbe cache et la pluie efface

Il y a, au cimetière du Père-Lachaise, aux environs de la fosse commune, loin du quartier élégant de cette ville des sépulcres, loin de tous ces tombeaux de fantaisie qui étalent en présence de l’éternité les hideuses modes de la mort, dans un angle désert, le long d’un vieux mur, sous un grand if auquel grimpent, parmi les chiendents et les mousses, les liserons, une pierre. Cette pierre n’est pas plus exempte que les autres des lèpres du temps, de la moisissure, du lichen, et des fientes d’oiseaux. L’eau la verdit, l’air la noircit. Elle n’est voisine d’aucun sentier, et l’on n’aime pas aller de ce côté-là, parce que l’herbe est haute et qu’on a tout de suite les pieds mouillés. Quand il y a un peu de soleil, les lézards y viennent. Il y a, tout autour, un frémissement de folles avoines. Au printemps, les fauvettes chantent dans l’arbre.

Cette pierre est toute nue. On n’a songé en la taillant qu’au nécessaire de la tombe, et l’on n’a pris d’autre soin que de faire cette pierre assez longue et assez étroite pour couvrir un homme.

On n’y lit aucun nom.

Seulement, voilà de cela bien des années déjà, une main y a écrit au crayon ces quatre vers qui sont devenus peu à peu illisibles sous la pluie et la poussière, et qui probablement sont aujourd’hui effacés :

Il dort. Quoique le sort fût pour lui bien étrange,

Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n’eut plus son ange ;

La chose simplement d’elle-même arriva,

Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s’en va.

Ange de Reims

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/angedereims