There Is No Place For Us by Brian Goldstone

There is one common thread when reading about homelessness in America--it is always gut wrenching and unfair. This is no exception. The twist is that the five families that the author follows in Atlanta are all working. The people in this book work a lot, and earn very little. Sleeping in cars, crashing with friends or paying for a decrepit room in an extended-stay hotel, they are trapped in an endless circle of poverty and uncertainty. Politicians have been incentivized to define homelessness narrowly, including only people living in shelters or on the street. A true measure of homelessness in America would be six times the official figure, pushing the number up to more than four million. It always leaves me wondering how you can feel exceptional when as a country you step on the most impoverished amongst us. The allowance for wages that do not add up to being able to feed, cloth, and house one's family is what underlies this tragedy. That things like food stamps and Medicaid serve to make people depend on government subsidies when the companies that employ people should be shouldering that burden.

The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots by John Swanson Jacobs

The story behind this publication is in some ways cooler than the book itself and perfect for Juneteenth. Schroeder, who wrote the biography of the author that is included in this publication, is a literary historian, and he knew the story of Harriet Jacobs, the abolitionist who famously wrote about her life and abuse while enslaved, her secret relationship with a white politician and her escape to freedom in the 1800s. Schroeder searched a database of historical documents for details on Harriet's son. He wasn't getting far, so he tried another search term focused on Harriet's brother, Johnathan S. Jacobs. That is how he stumbled upon an autobiography by John Swanson Jacobs, first published in Australia in 1855 and largely lost to time - until now. Six hundred thousand despots is a reference to the number of slave owners in the U.S. at the time. John Swanson Jacobs was born in 1815 in Edenton, N.C., and he was born a sixth-generation slave. Today, he's a footnote in the life of his older sister, Harriet Jacobs, who is the best-known Black female author of the 19th century. He was an abolitionist in the U.S. and U.K. He was a gold miner in California and Australia. He was a sailor on four oceans and four continents. And he was an expat for nearly all of his free life. He had become a gold miner after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. He left the U.S. for California, and then for Australia, which was going through its own gold rush at the same time as America's gold rush. And he eventually struck it rich or at least did well in the Australian gold rush. And that gave him a rare moment of time off from the kind of labor that dominated most of his life to go to Sydney and to finish the life story that he had begun practicing in the 1840s as an abolitionist in William Lloyd Garrison's Boston and Frederick Douglass' Rochester. This is a recreation of his autobiography, and then a biography of what we know about him now with the help of time.

Your Body, My Choice

This is the mantra that flooded X after the 2024 election, and while I hate almost everything about it, the thing I love is that it makes it crystal clear that the agenda is NOT "pro-life" or even "pro-birth" (because afterall, the GOP agenda is about not supporting life after birth), it is about power and control over women. Period. Any talk of when life begins and what various religions might and might not support or prohibit is just a distraction, a way to put a pretty bow on an ugly message, which is that men who are attracted to the GOP messaging want to have power and control over women. No wonder it is causing trouble in people's homes. Nobody wants to be a slave to anybody, and the impulse to control people is in itself very unattractive. But at least now it is out there on the table for all to see. This is what you voted for and this is what you want. Is it any wonder that many of us are upset to find out that over half the voting public wants this?

The Burial (2023)

I think when all is said and done that this is a better storty than it is a movie. Here's the story--a southern gentleman who has a string of family owned funeral homes is in deep financial trouble because he made some bad investment choices, lost a lot of money, and while he avoided going to jail, the person he invested with did not, and he lost not just his money but also other peoples. He had thirteen kids and he is trying to save the business he inherited from his father so that he can pass something on to his kids. So his lawyer, who is unlikable in the movie and probably in real life, a privledged southern good old boy who wears his racism front and center, hooks him up with a flashy potential buyer of three of his nine funeral homes, so that he will again be liquid, not loose his ability to sell funeral insurance, which is where he makes most of his money, and all looks to be good except for one thing. The big corporate saviour doesn't sign the contract, and drags everything out so that the southern gentleman is in danger of loosing it all. He doesn't see it coming, but his son's friend, a young black freshly minted lawyer does and they decide to get a flashy attorney and take on corporate America. You see where this is going, and really this is not a spoiler because you can see it coming a mile away. It is a'90s inspirational courtroom drama pitched to extreme comedy, and it comes as simple and sweet as a cool summer breeze when flashy personal injury lawyer Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx) arrives in Mississippi to defend the mild-mannered Jeremiah O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones). These two heavy hitters portray both a battle and a friendship that warms the heart, even if there are no surprises.

The Other America

And I’d like to use as a subject from which to speak this afternoon, the other America. And I use this subject because there are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for our situation. And in a sense, this America is overflowing with the miracle of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies and culture and education for their minds, and freedom and human dignity for their spirit. In this America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America, millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity. But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America, millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America, millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America, people are poor by the millions. And they find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty, in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. In a sense, the greatest tragedy of this other America is what it does to other children. Little children in this other America are forced to grow up with clouds of inferiority, farming every day in their little mental skies. And as we look at this other America, we see it as an arena of blasted hopes and shattered dreams. Many people of various backgrounds live in this other America. Some are Mexican-American, some are Puerto Ricans, some are Indians, some happen to be from other groups, millions of them are Appalachian whites. Probably the largest group in this other America, in proportion to its size and the population is the American Negro. The American Negro finds himself living in a triple ghetto. A ghetto of race, a ghetto of poverty, ghetto- Is to deal with this problem, to deal with this problem of the two Americas. We are seeking to make America one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Take PRIDE

I cannot even say just how much I love this photo, featuring Dr. Kevo Rivera! I am so proud to work with them! So many great things have happened in my work place this year, and all in the year of COVID, which was very bad indeed, so a true rainbow, sun shining through clouds as the rain storm passes. My only regret is that it has taken me this far into June to say how proud I am of what has happened in my life time to protect the civil rights of LGBTQIA+ Americans. Writing this on the heels of Juneteenth, and seeing where we are vis-a-vis the civil rights of the descendents of slaves, it is sobering how poorly we have done in that realm, and even more impressive the strides forward, all the while recognizing that it took altogether too long. I know that I make mistakes, I use the wrong pronouns sometimes, I am not always aware of my biases and how my language affects others, but I am working on it and I am excited to see what is coming. I know it will be colorful.

The Devil's Highvway by Luis Alberto Urrea

This book was published almost 20 years ago and describes how the immigration system in the US is broken on every level. He describes a particular crossing of a dangerous part of the border in a desert with no shelter or water that lead to multiple deaths and for those who survived, a costly rescue and resuscitation effort. The author is best known for his depiction of the border country. He portrays the Coyotes as people who exploit immigrants for money; for them, the goal is to get people across the border under whatever conditions are convenient. This includes packaging people in trunks and leading them into hazardous terrain, all while simultaneously extorting most of their money and savings. Ultimately, most immigrants have limited education and understanding of the border, and can’t find other options for entry. The amount of money that is spent rescuing people from the desert could be better spent on improving the circumstances in Central America and decreasing the situations that lead to the desperation that sends people northward .

Justice for George Floyd

I am going to let others speak for me. This week was one tiny dtep in the right direction. "The jury's verdict delivers accountability for Derek Chauvin, but not justice for George Floyd. Real justice for him and too many others can only happen when we build a nation that fundamentally respects the human dignity of every person. The trauma and tragedy of George Floyd's murder must never leave us. It was a manifestation of a system that callously devalues the lives of Black people. Our struggle now is about justice—not justice on paper, but real justice in which all Americans live their lives free of oppression. We must boldly root out the cancer of systemic racism and police violence against people of color." --Bernie Sanders "True justice requires that we come to terms with the fact that Black Americans are treated differently, every day. It requires us to recognize that millions of our friends, family, and fellow citizens live in fear that their next encounter with law enforcement could be their last. And it requires us to do the sometimes thankless, often difficult, but always necessary work of making the America we know more like the America we believe in. While today’s verdict may have been a necessary step on the road to progress, it was far from a sufficient one. We cannot rest. We will need to follow through with the concrete reforms that will reduce and ultimately eliminate racial bias in our criminal justice system. We will need to redouble efforts to expand economic opportunity for those communities that have been too long marginalized." --Barack Obama

MLK-FBI (2020)

This is the year, when George Floyd was killed in front of three other police officers who did nothing to stop him and an onlooker who filmed the whole thing so that the rest of us, particularly white America could see irrefutable evidence that the police brutalize black Americans and sometimes do not stop at humiliating them, but go all the way to killing them in cold blood on the street. This year we are also reckoning with other abuses of law enforcement from the past. Hoover sees MLK as a threat, and he also probably sees the civil rights movement as a threat. He attacks King on two fronts. One is his association with Stanley Levison, a white Jewish lawyer and CPA who had a history of association with Communist groups. The FBI, still embroiled in the war against Communism, saw the presence of Levison as a red flag, a sign that the Communist menace was embedded in the struggle for Civil Rights. We see a fascinating clip of King, in a television interview with Dan Rather, saying that he thinks it’s one of the miracles of the 20th century that so few African-Americans have turned to Communism, given their history of desperation and oppression. Nonetheless, King is warned off Levison at the highest level of government. Then there is the wiretapping and the bugging of King's hotel rooms. Through this activity the FBI learns that King is not monogamous, and they seek to humiliate him using this information. They alert church leaders and other influential people, including his wife, in the hopes that he would retreat. Through it all, King marches on, and is living with the daily anxiety that he’ll be exposed. Yet in no way does it tamp down on his activism. The film captures how radical the stand King took in 1967 against the war in Vietnam really was. He was willing to make enemies and to risk his personal reputation for his beliefs. In the end, it is hard not to see a role for the FBI in the end game. The FBI killed Fred Hubbard, the head of the Black Panthers, and they may also have led to the assasination of MLK.

White Supremacists in Law Enforcement

The fury in the response of police officers to protesters across the nation is shocking to me.   The kettling of protesters so as to shoot them with rubber bullets and gas is purposeful and malicious.  The use of chemical inhalants meant to disable people in the time of a respiratory pandemic with no treatment or cure is in and of itself a crime, in my mind.  Video after video of police officers approaching kneeling or with their hands up, ripping their masks off, spraying them directly in the face, pushing them over is so violent and unnecessary in the use of force makes it very hard to believe that these officers in uniform are working for the community they are employed by.  They appear to be acting like hired gangsters.
Why is this happening?  The police I work with would work assiduously to de-escalate these situations, not throw gasoline of them and throw a match.  The answer has been known for quite some time.  The 2006 report by the FBI describing the systematic infiltration of law enforcement with white supremacists being a pervasive problem to be addressed has been ignored.  The current administration encourages and glorifies the demonstration by white nationalists of violence as a means to an end.  The time has come to look at other ways than policing to address the enforcement of laws in cities across the nation.  Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and New York City are already moving in that direction, and there needs to be more decisive action in this arena.

White Coats for Black Lives

Today is the day that we kneel.
Health care workers see the societal issues that lead to health care disparities in the African-Americans in  America.  We are emerging from a pandemic where people of color have been disproportionately affected than whites.  The lack of insurance, the effects of poverty on health, and the lack of access to health care are all factors that lead to pre-existing risk factors.  In my state, where the majority of the meat in the United States is processed, workers are working shoulder-to-shoulder without PPE and they have tested positive for COVID in astounding numbers.  These workers are immigrants with brown and black skin.  These things existed before George Floyd was brutally murdered by a police officer in uniform, while three other officers looked on. 
In that one shocking event, which comes heaped upon many others, but in close proximity to a video that demonstrated white vigilantes gunning down a black jogger, and a white woman on video threatening to call the police and tell them a black man was threatening her because he asked to to leash her dog.   It is just too much, and so today, we kneel.
Tomorrow we continue to work for social justice, but today we take a moment to kneel, to mourn, to pray, and to acknowledge the pain of those that we provide medical care to.

Just Mercy (2019)

I chose this as the movie to watch for Mother's Day.  I think the thing that I hope for as a parent is to raise children who are good.  The more we know about injustice the better we are able to articulate why it is wrong, why we fight against it, and that knowledge is power.
This is the story of Bryan Stevenson, who started the Equal Justice Initiative and ultimately the museum and memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.  The powerful thing that happened to me there that was part of the living aspect of the experience is that there were bus loads of African American family reunions coming to see these two sites, as well as the church where Martin Luther King preached.  The museum demonstrates that prison is the new slavery, and it isn't about justice for people of color in the American South.
So I was happy to see this movie, with some heavy hitting stars playing the key figures in the story.  It is emotionally powerful, as you would expect a movie about people unjustly incarcerated on death row to be, but ultimately a step in the right direction.  As we watch angry white men armed with assault weapons storm state capitals around the country, it is very clear that they are the terrorists that we need to fear. 

The Ingredients of Genocide

Lets not go back to the Holocaust to look at the beginnings of genocide.  Let's look at a more modern genocide to see where we are here, in the United States, with the current immigration policies that have separated families and left people dehumanized in cages.
Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days.  Most of the dead were Tutsis - and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus.  The genocide was sparked by the death of the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994.  Whoever was responsible, within hours a campaign of violence spread from the capital throughout the country, and did not subside until three months later.
But the death of the president was by no means the only cause of Africa's largest genocide in modern times.  There was violence and ethnic tensions that went back to the 19th century.  There were many ingredients that are listed above in our current administrations treatment of Central Americans seeking asylum.  And let's remember, until the mid-19th century, all the border land in the US belonged to Mexico.  We took the land and then appear surprised that there are Mexicans living on it.  This is no more excusable than the slaughter of Rwandans 25 years ago.

White Supremicist Terrorism

I continue to be overwhelmed by the fire hose of bad news that spews from this corrupt administration and the efforts of foreign assets within our own government, like #MoscowMitch, who continue to block efforts to make change in government, or to even have a vote on it, so that the voters can see where their elected representatives stand.
Here is the thing though.  You reap what you sew.  When the administration is run by a misogynistic, xenophobic white nationalist who constantly spews hate speech meant to incite violence, why is anyone surprised when that happens?  The characterization of Central Americans as being beneath human, caging them, separating children from their families, allowing sexual abuse of minors on a scale that I do not remember in my lifetime, it matters not that he denies that is what he meant. 
And there is another thing: our border with Mexico is one that we made through war.  It is an artificial border of our own creation, with the people born above it being here entirely legally, going back to before the Civil War.  It is has been more theirs than ours for centuries, and yet this hate and violence spewing from White Supremacists continues unabated and even encouraged from the highest reaches of government.  It is patriotic to question government when it breaks the laws of man and god.  There is evil afoot and it must be called out.

Everyone Should Be Able To Vote!

 Happy MLK Day! I was recently in Birmingham, Alabama, which has a checkered past when it comes to race.  MLK wrote the famous Letter From The Birmingham Jail here.   The city was the site of much bloodshed and strife as civil rights leaders faced strong opposition and the attempted destruction of their churches and meeting places. Birmingham struggled to shed the stigma of violence and injustice, and today is home to several memorials and one of the country’s premier civil rights museums. A visit to Birmingham offers a sobering and reflective experience for anyone interested in this important era of American history.

At one point in the museum you look out onto the 16th St. Baptist Church, the bombing of which was a part of the turning of the tide for national attention in a bad way on Birmingham.
The right to vote is being suppressed nation wide, a phenomena that also includes the South.  I believe it is time for a tide of voter registration in anticipation of the 2020 elections, to be able to give everyone the opportunity to voice their choice for elected leaders. 

White Sister by Eva Merriam

Oh, when will she know
That even though
Her sins are white,
The master double-deals her left and right?
Same master deals us black and white ...
Take up your hand  — what do I find?
A pair, sister — we're two of a kind.
White sister, white sister, why can't you see
Into yourself when you look at me?
(You stare through me as though I'm a wall,
But you need me to catch you when you fall.)
White sister, white sister, blind as you pass,
Take a look at me in your looking glass!
Back stair, front stair, oh look either where,
Neither has yet our full womanly share;
I've been taken downstairs, but you've been taken, too.
Face up to your mirror: you know that it's true.
I've been kicked down to the ground — mud smeared in my face.
You've been shut away upstairs — set on a wobbly base,
How quickly you can fall from a pedestal base.
Feet firm upon the ground makes a lot safer place.
Don't spend all your mind on making up your face,
Pick yourself up clear and wipe off your tear-smeared face;
Set yourself straight and take your proper place.
White sister. White sister, still blindly you pass,
Gazing alone in your looking glass ...
White sister, white sister, you'll never see
Through to yourself while you look through me.
White sister, white sister, why can't you see
You're seeing yourself when you look at me?
On all woman's flesh is the master's mark,
And the heel doesn't care if it's light or dark.
White sister, white sister, why can't you see
Into yourself when you look at me?
White sister, white sister,
You'll never he free
Until you take
A good look at me.

I Have a Dream (MLK, August 28, 1963)

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

May Day, May Day

 May Day! May Day!  I say this not so much in celebration of the workers who fought so that we (largely) have an 8 hour work day and a five day work week.  I say it as an SOS related to people who are not in the 0.01% having a say in the way our country is governed.

Here is the worry.  The Supreme Court lifted the cap on how much an individual can contribute to a politician's campaign coffers.  That means that it theoretically became easier for individuals (in addition to corporations) to own politicians.  While this is by news a recent phenomena in our country (I have just finished reading 'The Bully Pulpit' which delineates the depth and breadth of political corruption at the turn of the century--we did not invent this problem, it has been here for quite some time), the potential pit falls of those of us without deep pockets to have an equal say in government just multiplied.

The only real ray of hope is that in the last election money did not buy the election--we ended up with a very dysfunctional Congress and it remains to be seen if we can manage to vote our way into a more moderate form of government where compromise is not a dirty word.  It may not be true for the next election, where big money is already shaping the candidates for the 2016 election.  I think it will be okay so long as more people vote, especially young people.  It would be even better if people voted for what benefited them, but that seems to not be the American way.

Celebrating Five Years of Same Sex Marriages in Iowa

This map is slightly behind the times, but I still love it. The federal district courts are starting to play havoc with states where the legislative agenda would never allow this to happen (Utah, did you see that coming?), but in any case, it has been an eventful five years since the first couples in Iowa who share not just love but also a gender could become not just happily but also legally married.

In many ways the title says it all--at this point marriage equality is becoming a part of the fabric of the state, and remarkably, the same thing is happening in almost domino like fashion around the country.  When talking about change within an organization it is said that when 15% of the workplace share something--a race, a gender, an idea for change, whatever it might be--that then they have the power to be heard.  Since 2009 marriage equality has been legalized in enough states that it has the power to be heard.  Unfortunately, the South is nowhere to be found in thiscascadeof change.  They remain first in poverty and last in civil rights.  The only hope is that companies in the future will seek out states where civil rights are clebrated rather than reviled.  I also hope that the reprisals against judges who uphold constitutional rights are not successful in the future.

Donald Sterling Isn't Very--But Then, It Isn't Actually His Name Either

I really have nothing to say that isn't obvious and doesn't go without saying, but I am so incensed that I feel compelled to say it anyway.  First of all, if Donald Sterling doesn't bring any black people to the game, there is no game.  He has no team.  So he is both a racist and not very bright.  Or maybe, at 81, he is cognitively impaired and disinhibited.  Or intoxicated.  Or does this reflect the trend of open disdain that the super rich feel for those who are not? Whatever the reason, may he reap what he sowed.  Sell the Clippers, change Sterling back to it's original Tokowitz, and get out of LA, a city known for its multiethnic culture.

The New York Times today reports that Sterling is well known for his racial intolerance.  In 2009, Sterling paid a $2.725 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department accusing him of systematically driving African-Americans, Latinos and families with children out of apartment buildings he owned.  He has been sued by two former coaches, one of whom declared that Sterling strived for a "Southern plantation style" organization. 

In the 21st century, where everyone's phone is a video recorder and there is a 24/7 news cycle to fill, you have to know that what you say publicly is just that.  Public information.  You have no expectation of privacy in a basketball arena even if you feel that you own the place.  The man is an attorney, after all.  No excuses to be had, and no excuses for being bad.

The worst part is that I am not impressed with professional sports holding players responsible for their actions, so I am not holding my breath that there will be any higher standard for the owners, but here's to hoping that I am wrong, wrong, wrong about that.