tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post2630157494192286566..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Trials of TransportationUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-1704788100843387492016-04-02T20:22:43.385-07:002016-04-02T20:22:43.385-07:00Hi, Tom.
I wish more people were like you.
Not all...Hi, Tom.<br />I wish more people were like you.<br />Not all of them, of course.<br />Heh.<br /><br />This whole post of yours is apropos re: <br />(oh never mind)<br /><br />"Saturday night on earth, again"<br />That's a nice line.<br /><br />VINCENT FARNSWORTHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09840705566779483677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-28509119676245357442016-04-02T19:30:55.089-07:002016-04-02T19:30:55.089-07:00And finally, as to Byron's fate, today I hobbl...And finally, as to Byron's fate, today I hobbled round his former entryway to see if his mail had been picked up. It hadn't, and was piling up. Doubtless mostly junk mail (what other kind is there any more), but still, just saying... and as I was poking about, I noticed two big shiny newish cars parked outside, and then saw, in Byron's former doorway, two young Chinese persons, a young woman cutting a young man's hair, with a towel, bowl and scissors, yet... they were, naturally, somewhat startled... and were equipped with little to no English.<br /><br />I tried to explain, mentioning, in hopefully not too rude a way, that I had known Byron, and that Byron is now dead...<br /><br />This later fact evinced great surprise, once I had got it across. <br /><br />Then it hit me: moving new people in before the old ghost was out, where's the surprise, wonder how much the rent has already gone up on that squalid little basement hovel, here in the middle of the costliest real estate market on earth.<br /><br /><br />(And, well... here it is saturday night on earth, again... hi, Vincent!)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84041618672302044992016-04-02T19:10:45.732-07:002016-04-02T19:10:45.732-07:00By the by, as tinytown local matters have been tou...By the by, as tinytown local matters have been touched upon here... I mean re. that El Cerrito "recycling" Book Exchange -- that is, the place Byron definitely was NOT headed for, when the train hit him -- and its minor fame (petty notoriety) as a "prospect" mart for industrious do-a-dealing book scouts... there's this:<br /><br />Book Exchange Rules in Flux at Recycling Center<br /><br />Familiar complaints about aggressive book-sellers hogging the free books and intimidating other people were aired at a small community meeting Wednesday at the interim Book Exchange at the El Cerrito Recycling Center: Charles Burress, El Cerrito Patch, 12 February 2012<br /><br />The dominant sentiment at the popular Book Exchange at the El Cerrito Recycling Center was that something should be done to stop greedy book-sellers who grab large numbers of the best books to resell and who intimidate other patrons seeking volumes for their personal reading pleasure.<br /><br />The city, which is inviting public input on a set of draft rules to foster mutual respect and equal access for all users of the Book Exchange, convened a community meeting Wednesday afternoon that drew 17 members of the public.<br /><br />"I'm one who stopped using it because I got turned off by aggressive people," said one woman who came to the meeting...<br /><br />The city posted a set of rules at the interim Book Exchange several months ago, saying, for example, “SHARE ACCESS to new donations – do not monopolize.” The rules, however, gradually disappeared because they were attached to the part of a canvas canopy that was rolled up...<br /><br />The woman who said she had stopped using the Book Exchange also said she was dubious that such rules telling people to share and be nice would solve the problem.<br /><br />Another woman asked, "How do you police people who don't have common decency?"<br /><br />A man asked, "It is it a readers' community, or it is a book-sellers' access?"TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-49882252639624146912016-04-02T18:06:49.818-07:002016-04-02T18:06:49.818-07:00listeninglisteningVINCENT FARNSWORTHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09840705566779483677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-85059202130076314652016-04-02T15:03:16.529-07:002016-04-02T15:03:16.529-07:00[Helena Smith in Athens for the Observer, continue...[Helena Smith in Athens for the Observer, continues:]<br /><br />In the mayhem that had ensued, panic-stricken local authorities had been forced to divert the daily ferry connecting the island with the mainland for fear it would be stormed.<br /><br />Similar outbreaks of violence had also occurred in Piraeus, Athens’ port city, where eight young men had been taken to hospital after riots erupted between rival ethnic groups on Wednesday.<br /><br />With tensions on the rise in Lesbos, the Aegean island that has borne the brunt of the flows, and in Idomeni on the Greek-Macedonia frontier where around 11,000 have massed since the border’s closure, NGOs warned of a timebomb in the making. Hopes of numbers decreasing following the announcement of the EU-Turkey deal have been dispelled by a renewed surge in arrivals with the onset of spring.<br /><br />Official figures showed that 52,147 refugees and migrants were stranded in the country at the weekend, with 6,129 registered on Aegean islands that had been almost completely evacuated after the accord was reached on 20 March.. Last year, more than 1.1 million irregular migrants streamed into Europe with over 850,000 pouring into the continent through Greece.<br /><br />Pleas from Athens to fellow EU member states to reopen the Balkan route have fallen on deaf ears.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-81709668672971431212016-04-02T15:01:37.328-07:002016-04-02T15:01:37.328-07:00...And while we're on prejudices, and stories ......And while we're on prejudices, and stories nobody wants to know about... I take it the latest cascade of b.s. from the Je Suis Brussels fount has pretty much convinced everybody who can watch TV that those annoying migrants and refugees from those bad, bad places in the Middle East have somehow learned their lesson and gone back to those bad, bad places they came from... like, you know, just more and more of those damned homeless, trying to get our great stuff... & c.<br /><br />But, uh, this just in: verbatim: <br /><br />Greece on brink of chaos as refugees riot over forced return to Turkey<br /><br />Rival ethnic groups clash in Piraeus and 800 break out of detention centre on Chios as EU deal brings desperation: Helena Smith in Athens for The Observer, Saturday 2 April 2016 14.57 EDT<br /><br />The Greek government is bracing itself for violence ahead of the European Union implementing a landmark deal that, from Monday, will see Syrian refugees and migrants being deported back to Turkey en masse.<br /><br />Rioting and rebellion by thousands of entrapped refugees across Greece has triggered mounting fears in Athens over the practicality of enforcing an agreement already marred by growing concerns over its legality. Islands have become flashpoints, with as many as 800 people breaking out of a detention centre on Chios on Friday.<br /><br />“We are expecting violence. People in despair tend to be violent,” the leftist-led government’s migration spokesman, Giorgos Kyritsis, told the Observer. “The whole philosophy of the deal is to deter human trafficking [into Europe] from the Turkish coast, but it is going to be difficult and we are trying to use a soft approach. These are people have fled war. They are not criminals.”<br /><br />Barely 24 hours ahead of the pact coming into force, it emerged that Frontex, the EU border agency, had not dispatched the appropriate personnel to oversee the operation. Eight Frontex boats will transport men, women and children, who are detained on Greek islands and have been selected for deportation, back across the Aegean following fast-track asylum hearings. But of the 2,300 officials the EU has promised to send Greece only 200 have so far arrived, Kyritsis admitted.<br /><br />“We are still waiting for the legal experts and translators they said they would send,” he added. “Even Frontex personnel haven’t got here yet.” Humanitarian aid also earmarked for Greece had similarly been held up, with the result that the bankrupt country was managing the crisis – and continued refugee flows – on very limited funds from the state budget.<br /><br />On Saturday overstretched resources were evident in the chaos on Chios where detainees, fearing imminent deportation, had not only run amok, breaking through razorwire enclosing a holding centre on the island, but in despair had marched on the town’s port. In the stampede three refugees were stabbed as riot police tried to control the crowds with stun guns and teargas. The camp, a former recycling factory, had been ransacked, with cabins and even fingerprint equipment smashed.<br /><br />“This is what happens when you have 30 policemen guarding 1,600 refugees determined to get out,” said Benjamin Julian, an Icelandic volunteer speaking from the island. “I witnessed it all and I know that all the time they were chanting ‘freedom, freedom, freedom’ and ‘no Torkia, no Torkia’. That is what they want and are determined to get.”TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66677239950951923182016-04-02T14:51:24.594-07:002016-04-02T14:51:24.594-07:00And BTW just for the record, Curtis, no big deal, ...And BTW just for the record, Curtis, no big deal, but that EC recycling center with the well-known book exchange (where by the way I could not "amble" even were I to wish to do so, as, since being run over at the common corner where Byron and I so often crossed paths in the night, I haven't been able to amble anywhere, more like slowly shuffle along, on this same killer street) was NOT Byron's destination, on his final fatal junket. He was going in another direction altogether, west not north. His destination was the Berkeley recycling center on 2nd street, just across those sundering UP tracks. And of course he never got there. For me the saddest part of this whole terribly sad story is that Byron died in Highland, perhaps the saddest place in the world.<br /><br />Oh, and the local news-sheet kibitzer comments on the news item mentioning Byron's encounter with the UP -- it was reading these that got me to attempt my own two-bit obit -- may be of interest. I'll give a sample of comments on the dominant theme, a callous and cynical dehumanization of the victim based in the original common and hasty misconception (prejudice) re. those awful, awful homeless.<br /><br /> "Sounds like another homeless guy, from the large camp in the Gilman underpass. The police cleared it out once recently, but of course they came back within a day."<br /><br /> "...build road bridges at the crossings, a few new bike & pedestrian bridges, & better fences to keep winos, junkies & troubled teens off the tracks. It'd also be cheaper to efficiently house the homeless in vacant buildings than pay for all the ER visits, police & fire time, thefts, & homeless-industrial complex."<br /><br /> "Have to disagree about the last part because housing for the 1000 homeless here would attract 5000 more. So no, it's not cheaper. What would be cheaper is reducing services and being openly hostile. Then after 500 leave, the cost would be half."<br /><br /> "I partly agree; Berkeley's cushy reputation for non-enforcement & extra goodies (free pot!) already attracts vagrants from all over the US. Cleverly done, I think we can make it less nationally attractive & more locally humane at the same time."<br /><br /> "There actually is a 'thank god & Greyhound you're gone' program, providing a free bus ticket to some homeless people who agree to go back to the home town they got run out of, but it isn't widely known, promoted or used. SF has one too."<br /><br /> Surprisingly enough, there was also one gently corrective comment, yes, from a woman who'd actually known Byron a little bit. And I was grateful for that.<br /><br /> "I know this man, he is a blind man that I used to attend church with. He was just trying to get to the recycling center. Now he has lost his leg. Very sad, please pray for him. He is a good man."<br /><br /> "Something needs to be done to improve safety on Gilman street. He was not trespassing. He is a blind man."<br /><br />I am happy God took Byron off this street, though I'd feel bad to learn that Byron, up there in heaven, had heard me saying that -- taking the name of the Big G in vain in this way. Our disagreement on the God issue, indeed, was a serious sticking-point, beyond which our streetcorner conversations could never go. My way was and is to make a joke out of God and everything, just in order to reduce the general terrible unbearable gravity of everything. Byron hated that. But everybody has their own way.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59465312008178703352016-04-02T14:23:23.989-07:002016-04-02T14:23:23.989-07:00Thanks very much, Curtis and Hazen.
Hazen, those ...Thanks very much, Curtis and Hazen.<br /><br />Hazen, those were my thoughts exactly, every time I encountered Byron on one of his perilous shopping trips. He was on the street late at night for much the same reason I was. Trying to avoid the worst of rush hour. Traffic here is murderous. Neither Byron nor I could ever be anything but offensive clutter in the midst of the wild rush of the bigtime getters and spenders in their shiny expensive vehicles dashing up and down the hill, who get richer and more driven every year now, and are increasingly in a hurry, and who would have pedestrians banned from the streets altogether if they could, and who, given the way things are going, may well have their wish come true on that score, sooner rather than later, as the mayor and city council and other property traders see fit. <br /><br />Directing Byron on his painful progress, by a combination of shouting (over traffic loud!) and forceful physical guidance, was pretty complicated, though at least with Byron, the normal B-Town smiley face (but do a deal later) brand of lying simply never happened. He was brusque and direct to the point of what would have been extreme rudeness in anybody else; this undoubtedly out of necessity, as he was and had been for a very long time completely alone in this ever more all too hard and fast world. Neighbours were scared of him. It was supposed (lazily, because the snooty creeps who live around here never want to know anything before judging it) that he was just another crazy homeless guy. But this was not the case. He was sufficiently compos mentis to have survived the streets of Berkeley totally on his lonesome. He had a home of sorts. He dwelt in a tiny sub-unit hid away around the back of the house of an elderly Chinese man. After Byron's death I talked briefly with the landlord, who was mystified as to Byron's motive in making that long difficult trip down the recycling center, when, in fact -- the Chinese man, whose English is poor, pointed at the recycling bin in front of the house -- there was no need; there are weekly pickups. But Byron was an extremely scrupulous fellow.<br /><br />In any case, there can be no doubt he was headed to the recycling center, as it's just a block beyond the Gilman level crossing. And though it's an inconsequential detail, since I've now dared write this piece about a real person, I ought to make it clear Byron was not a book junkie, book fetishist, book dealer, or any of that, even though he lived in Berkeley (mirabile dictu). When in the end his few sad belongings were deposited in the street to be picked over by scavengers, the box of ancient dog-eared paperback works of "faith literature", surely acquired many years earlier, before he'd totally lost his sight (remember, Byron couldn't see six inches in front of his face, much less read books), were certainly of no value to anyone -- as proven by the fact that not even the busy junkpickers wanted them. I did notice that some sort of prehistoric machinery, possibly a braille typewriter, did occasion a brief disagreement among the scavengers, whose interest was plainly based in curiosity, as well as in the never absent prospect of turning some small profit. Anyhow, a day later, all trace of Byron was gone forever, and as the only persons I have ever met who recognized his humanity in any way -- some do gooders from a church group -- disappeared after that forlorn one-day excavation of his digs, I doubt he will ever be considered again, for as much as a moment, by anybody who lived here, so near and yet so far, all that very long time.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-63295226904834678682016-04-02T06:42:06.446-07:002016-04-02T06:42:06.446-07:00Great poem and homage to Byron, Tom. The world com...Great poem and homage to Byron, Tom. The world comes at us hard and fast . . .Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-61012524348279003862016-04-02T05:47:34.001-07:002016-04-02T05:47:34.001-07:00Tom:
You should amble on over to the El Cerrit...Tom:<br /><br /> <br /><br />You should amble on over to the El Cerrito Recycling Center and meet some of the regulars. They have great free books there, and lots of nice packing paper and bubble-wrap. The serious scavengers work the electronics bin. Folks drop off used kitchen utensils and other unwanted paraphernalia, like old baby carriages. I'm just a book junkie, myself. Even Bob Hawley occasionally limps in for a visit. <br /><br />It's, you know, "real" etc. Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.com