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Friday 9 July 2010

We All Goin' Bleed


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BART Trial Oscar Grant  Johannes Mehserle





Nothing is gained by rioting, nothing, says a Person of Some Wisdom.

Not all human conduct is directed by a desire for gain, say Experience and Common Sense.





We all goin' bleed: from Little OG by J-Park

Oscar Grant, shortly before being fatally shot by San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle, New Years Day, 2009: photo via Associated Press (Los Angeles County Superior Court)

11 comments:

~otto~ said...

This twists and turns and does it again in my head, like a mobius strip. I like, I like.

John B-R said...

Nice, Tom.

The Men Of Wisdom always know we should just sit down and shut up.

TC said...

Otto,

Had you in mind while doing this. For you, here's J-Park: Little OG.


John,

It gets stranger. The Person of Some Wisdom is not even a Man.


And for the Exercise Class... the street, last night.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

This rips the heart out ... and enflames the mind.

"He claims that he mistook the gun for his taser as he aimed it at a struggling Oscar Grant and fired."

"Not all human conduct is directed by a desire for gain, say Experience and Common Sense" ...

Instantly, I'm back in Newark in the 60's.

Sometimes, it seems, there are no words.

TC said...

Don,

Thanks for getting this. Yes, words do fail us. Harrowing times.

Anonymous said...

when was the last time
you faced one of the crazed?

changes your perspective

TC said...

Two things. First, there is a reason why many blogs do not allow Anonymous comments. What someone has not the courage to say in their own name, they should not be saying. I've always stretched tolerance to its reasonable limits of leniency on this point. But this comment makes me think I've been a fool.

Second, if the implication of the comment is that, upon encountering someone one regards as crazed, one should kill that person, a novel form of social justice is being proposed, which would make the Old West look like a sewing circle in comparison.

I have seen far more of the crazed than I would wish to have seen. This is a crazed city in a crazed society. I live in it, unwillingly. I am afraid.

The point of this post was not to justify craziness any more than to justify killing. One would like to believe there is a middle way between craziness and killing.

I suppose that qualifies me as one of those sissy Liberals fashioned by the Creator as pincushions for dyspeptic lunatic fringe blog comments from the Bible belt.

But hey, as it says in Isaiah, Watchman, What of the Night?

A bad night in thin times has just been made that extra little bit more unpleasant by this comment. Who needs crazed when I have my blog audience.

Jeez, I'd just like to be alive in the morning.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

First, thanks for posting the anonymous comment and for your response.

I look back at the original post and can only ask:

Which crazed one?

We are surrounded by suffering. We choose how we response, personally and societally. To choose to perpetuate the cycle will do just that.

The push, the pull. The struggle.

You, your work, and this blog are cherished. Here's to the new day. May it be a better one.

Bless the crazed, on all sides.

TC said...

Thanks, Don, for restoring the sane perspective.

We needed that.

Elmo St. Rose said...

I just hit the wrong button, it
is I Elmo St. Rose who made that
comment about facing someone who
is crazed.

I've been there in the Emergency Room
on the side of caring
for those in one type of pain or
another and those who are crazed
intoxicated, violent etc...

It is presumed by the press, and
juries, and poets that the world
in these instances is more perfect
than it is. It is also presumed
that training is perfect that
mistakes won't happen, that fear
and weaknesses within the persons
charged with publicly safety won't
take hold of the moment inappropriately.

It is presumed in many circumstances that I the observer
had the moral and physical constitution to succeed appropriately in these moments.

My point is that it is harder than
it looks on TV or U-tube, ie when
you're actually in the middle of it
which the poets are generally not,
facing a physical rage.

Sincerely yours,

Elmo

TC said...

Elmo,

Thanks for popping back in, brother.

Kill and overkill, human error all round, when guns are on the scene, nothing good is going down.