Barry Graham's Blog, page 121

Explorer Scouts: Paramilitary Thugs in Training

This article about about how Explorer Scouts (an affiliate of the Boy Scouts) are being trained by the Border Patrol is the latest example of the paramilitary measures being taken to fight illegal immigration, a problem that doesn’t exist.

A year ago,in Southern California, I was stopped at two La Migra checkpoints. In both cases, it was National Guardsmen rather than Border Patrol officers.

At the first one, they just had a drug-sniffer dog check out the car for around 30 seconds, then w...

Only Suffering

Only Suffering:

When we don’t get what we want, we suffer. When we get what we want, we suffer. But there’s another possible way…

Violence, Fear and Uneaten Food

So much of the meaning of what we read is derived from our own conditioning. Growing up, I often didn’t have enough to eat, and, though I think I’m unlikely to go hungry again, my conditioning says otherwise.

In the novel I’m reading, there is a scene in which the protagonist, waiting for a friend in a small restaurant, orders two hot dogs, one for him and one for his friend. He realizes that his friend is being attacked nearby, and goes outside to help her. Mayhem ensues, af...

In Phoenix, Public Transport Will Only Work If We Have Shade

Image:dustinphillipsvia flickrCC license

Here in Phoenix, the predicted high temperature today is 115 degrees. On Sunday morning at The Sitting Frog Zen Center, we discovered that all the candles had melted in the heat.

The light rail (We built it, you bastards, as Jon Talton is fond of saying) which opened at the end of 2008, has been a success, and has proved the potential of an efficient public transport system - something that, however addicted you are to your car, is becoming increasingly...

Here’s me with Lee Harvey Oswald at Paul Wilson’s...

Here’s me with Lee Harvey Oswald at Paul Wilson’s fantastic show at Willo North Gallery in Phoenix last Friday.

Poor People Are a Lucrative Commodity for Capital

Daily Kos saysbeing poor is becoming a criminal offense, and debtor’s prisons are making a comeback.

This should be no surprise. It is only the latest in the U.S.A.’s war of enslavement on poor people.

The most cruel reality of poverty in America is that it’s expensive.In fact, it is so expensivethat, in order to afford to be poor, you would have to be quiterich.

When you bounce a check or become even slightly overdrawn, there is a charge. Try explaining to the bank that if you could afford to p...

Mallory Rogers - Boxer and Beauty Queen

The other day, a friend told me aboutMallory Rogers - a boxer and beauty pageant winner who teaches yoga to recovering drug addicts.

I just watchedher first fight. She’s a good pressure-fighter, and, unlike most novices (and quite a few veteran fighters), she understands the importance of body-punching, and she knows how to do it.

The U.S. Is Not A Free Country

The U.S. Is Not A Free Country:

Something I wrote on this day a year ago…

Killing Them Politely

In his insistence that condemned prisoners refrain from criticizing their captors and killers,AZ Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryanis historically typical. The people who officiate at executions seem to value politeness. The executioner never seems angry. The prisoner is killed, but the killing is strangely passionless. It just seems to be the end result of a bureaucratic procedure, something that the rules demand.

After witnessing the killing of Mary, Queen of Scots, Robert Wynkf...