Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 31

MLK Day.

Of course, it wouldn't be MLK day without stuff like this:
Though at least every single reply is in the realm of mocking it for not mentioning how they were the ones that purposely tried to get him to kill himself and made sure he did die. 
So it goes. To that end, read this speech of his:

Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy in his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest friend and associate say something good about you. And Ralph is the best friend that I have in the world.

I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.

As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" — I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom I'm named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a away that men, in some strange way, are responding — something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same — "We want to be free."

And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we're going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demand didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.

That is where we are today. And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period, to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.

I can remember, I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.

And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.

Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.

Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers were on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.

Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be. And force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: we know it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do, I've seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round." Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on." And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denomination, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water.

That couldn't stop us. And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing "Over my head I see freedom in the air." And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, "Take them off," and they did; and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now and then we'd get in the jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham.

Now we've got to go on to Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be with us Monday. Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.

We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful tome, is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and say, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow, the preacher must say with Jesus, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."

And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. Rev. Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I want to thank them all. And I want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry.

It's all right to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's all right to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preachers must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.

Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people, individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively, that means all of us together, collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."

And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy—what is the other bread?—Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.

But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank—we want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. So go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to follow what we're doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."

Now these are some practical things we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.

Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But with him, administering first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother. Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to church meetings—an ecclesiastical gathering—and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effort.

But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?"

And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood—that's the end of you.

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."

And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream. And taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, been in Memphis to see the community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.

And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."

And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

Wow, 10 years! Since your "irreverent" author started his journey.

Since the Struggle was written, since Satan's Plea (easily my most popular work, reply if you want a free audiobook code, btw) was written as well. Same with a whole slew of shorts like "Clara". Next month will start the t10en year anniversary for my other longer works like CityMuse, Struggle trilogy, and Gods Fail. The other novels come later, then, mysteriously, stop. Yeah, reader, it's been a minute since I've put something out there. Something long. For now you'll have to settle for the collection and maybe something else soon after. 
But still, just thinking about what I had expected back then, the hopes and so forth, while knowingly putting out things that were not like anything else (that I saw then or have seen since). Some were shopped around and I got plenty of good feedback, but mainly it was in the category of "great, but can't market this" and, though I tried my hardest to prove them wrong, it would appear that they ended up being right. 
A failure on my part, I suppose, and one that eats me up to this day. To some extent going directly to the readers was interesting and I got a lot of good feedback and plenty of readers who liked what I put out there. With novels like Gods Fail, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. [1] Some, after a while, gave me first hand experience with how a text can live an entire life of its own. 
The struggle had some people reading it as the 3rd Gulf War geared up (to learn about the place), while some seemed to think of it as a reason to hate Shia [2].
Mainly, though, I watched as most readers were quite taken by the stories, as I had intended. Some listened to Satan's Plea many times, finding new things to like each time. Again, that kinda thing really keeps me going. 
As for the shorts I've written and my fabalist and Borge-tinted tendencies, those too have some fans, though not as many as the long form ones. With these I'm considered irreverent (I'll take it):

Well that explains the lack of respect for some readers. 😔 
And I'm guessing I might continue gaining fans of one sort or the other. So be it. I do remember a whole bunch who were interested in my books. but couldn't get them at libraries and the like (and, apparently, they refused to entertain even getting them). These would be fans then went and torrented the ebook. Sigh. I mean, I understand, but it's not optimal. Maybe I should have asked for bitcoin back then. 
Any how, that's a quick run down of this last decade. Crazy stuff. Never thought I'd write as much as I did. And for all the failure that falls on my lap, there is the success of reaching many people who are moved, or understand what I've written. That part still matters to me, even in this crazy world where werewolf erotica reigns supreme. 
And you, Reader, your thoughts?
[1] One person did say that I was "punishing" my readers. I dismissed this back then, and thought the reader (a fellow veteran, as it were, though an officer 👮‍♀️) couldn't handle the truth. I was writing (and still do and still will) as close to the truth as possible, as most novels and books seem to speak to a kind of nation (or world) Wide propaganda and I wanted nothing to do with that. Of course, later, reading about how the CIA infiltrated and infected the MFA world (and thus the publishing world) by telling it to write in details but never politically, I came to see that my instincts were right. So in that sense, I'm glad I pulled out of that world, but that doesn't excuse my failure. And circling back to the readers I was punishing, well, if they were used to that odd soft propaganda, then I'm fine with it, failures and all. {1}
[2] That is an odd feeling, to see people misuse your original intentions for hate. Huh. I mean with Gods Fail there was a complete misunderstanding (you know my creation story for that one), but that was different than seeing how Struggle was misconstrued. 

    {1} Though I do understand the need to create a better Trojan horse in the form of fiction to defeat that cultural wall, you know?

Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

NFTs and am I old and don't get it, or am I simply unwise?

Reading about NFTs makes me think grift, though I do admit the idea of allowing singular digital art (much of what I do is digital) a kind of mark of originality is fine by me (and many are super big, so whatever is online will never be the same quality as the OG). So like crypto, as a ledger, it seems really legit and has good uses. But the more I read about it, the more it seems like a grifter's paradise. Or at least another financial instrument for the rich to evade taxes and such.
People's work gets stolen. 
Also my stuff isn't meme worthy and so I'm guessing it will never make it in that market (I'm fine with that, and think the meme stuff is interesting, you know? It certainly plays into what humans like). Anyways that marketplaces for NFTs are making ~3billion dollars a month is something I simply don't understand (out side of the money laundering views). 
Also artists are being contacted to make close to 1000s of pieces of art to turning NFTs. The hustle is on. IG got into it (and artist hate it), and others did too. 
Well that's the artist view: lots of theft. But I looked up Cardano for an NFT and found out about Verlux. First google result. okay, seems fine. But discussions online make it seem like a complete scam. None of the developers etc are known. Yet the site looks sooo nice it almost fooled me. 
And I go to Cardanonft sub and it seems all promo, you know? So I'm sticking to r/cardano but still... do I know if what it lists is legit?
In this thread we have a list of places. A posted these (and they seem to post in a variety of places so not entirely bottish or at least not dumb bottish:

https://Cnft.io

https://Jpg.store

https://genesishouse.io

https://Tokhun.io

https://Nftjam.io

So I might give these a try. JPG.store is one. Spacebudz Artano also gets love. The Jpg.store and CNFT(dot)IO and tokhun.io gets validated in another post. Huh, we'll see. like I said, mainly memey stuff, and that's fine, but not mine. 

That being said, apparently I have the use of NFTs all wrong. It's not for verification of digital art. PGPs can be used for that. So, yeah, still wondering why this money laundering scheme is so out in the open. 

Okay now I'm seeing betting NFTs and that seems interesting to me. 

Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

Damn

The news drips on, dystopia creep, a fire that sounded just like a fire that just happened. Except it's not. Previous one was Philly, this one is in the Bronx. 19 dead. 9 kids. Reminds me of the fire in England, the one that killed 72 people. That one was easily blamed on austerity (Tories, but I'm sure labor neoliberals played some part), a fire like this less so, though in that thread some speak of over crowding caused by shitty housing that keeps rising. This is certainly a Dem (yes Dem, even if conservative, in these blue cities, like Seattle, it's really too hard to build and not enough affordable housing etc) thing and one that has yet to be fully rectified [1]. 

I do remember a similar fire about 5 years ago, or a few years ago. The one in Oakland, also many who died and in overcrowded conditions. Pretty sure nothing came out of it. And so, one by one, people get picked off and die off as well. Just sad and, yes, crazy. 
Like I said, a dystopian creep or dystopian drip and it's gonna be this way, not an all at once death blow (like in the books, because that's just a very good plot method), though I'm sure all the tensions being raised will make something like nuclear war happen. 
Meanwhile the pandemic continues apace, people now fully giving up, even if the medical field has points like this, where they are shocked at how many people don't care. Indeed, there are some issues with this being a milder variant (but still, if it's 5x more infectious, that means even if 1/2 as deadly it will cause many issues, nevermind long covid etc), but not doing the bare minimum is nuts. 
Again, dystopian drip that you get used to. 
But not flattening the curve will not be good for any of us. That thread shows how bad things are getting (though note that insurance companies etc made plenty of $) in terms of who's winning (money) and who is actually putting in work to keep the system alive. Mere positioning makes the difference, not the actual work done or the "importance to society". Essential workers in grocery stores know this. They could have striked in the middle of the pandemic but unlike the superrich they aren't sociopaths. 
And since 08, when those who caused the crisis were rewarded while others were punished, we've been getting this in very very obvious doses. I sense, also that the older generation who bought the propaganda (and actually had social democracy for themselves growing up) are leaving us, thus making those who don't believe the lies all the angrier. 
For example, in that thread (hospital workers leaving to work at Walmart):

Honestly its time for the current hospital model of administrators as middlemen making millions to symbolically get covid and die. 

Something new needs to be created. This can't continue.

Banner ceo makes 11 million I think

Doctors and nurses care about others. They will always go the extra mile for their patients. This can be exploited for profit. If we tie reimbursement to patient satisfaction they will work even harder. It's all pure profit. We'll use computer algorithms to "decide" that low pay is necessary for health care to break even. They'll use this across the nation to uniformly suppress wages. 

Every so often give them a t-shirt or water bottle with a "hero" emblem printed on them. They love that shit.

Travel nursing reveals the deception and shows the true wage. Don't worry about physicians. They've been anchored with $500,000 debt. They can't leave the profession. Make sure there are patient abandonment laws in place. Just in case.

The thread goes on to give examples of people (nurses) leaving for other jobs. And even I can add a nurse I know who left. Like wtf are they being treated like shit during a pandemic? Makes no sense. Made no sense before and doesn't now. The rest of the thread talks of CEOs and admin making far too much money. Whatever those are (legit solutions vs anger) it does speak to the odd ethos running through the country. Remember how trillions were printed and given to the superrich at the start of this thing (and billions in corporate debt wiped out, nary a single article against that, while other forms of debt aren't given such leeway *cough* student debt [2])
I've mentioned this before, but the cries of a bureaucracy that works for a god or ideology that does not match up to reality reminds me of socialism and how there institutions seemed completely unable to react to reality and collapsed. Here we're talking money. Money makes things happen but something has been lost along the way in the way someone is making profit from the panic, specifically in health, but not those who are actually doing the real work of saving [3] people in the pandemic. 
Now, there's plenty of money that the system, our system, to keep it hobbling along, but the "after us, the floods" attitude of our rich, their broad daylight robbery of everything might get to be too much, morally speaking, and we'll see something snap (more so than even the BLM protests we saw). 
I don't know, reader, I know this blog has devolved from something about writing and what I've read and the chemical reaction between those two things and reality... gone from that to something like a rant about our horrid reality, but that is something that slows me down, you know? That the reality is much crazier than the fiction I've written. 
For example, a short story I wrote 3 years ago was relevant and beautiful and dark and prescient and I keep sending it out and now it's almost yesterday's news. You dig? Watching that happen over and over is annoying af. Not like it changes anything, right?

trying not to be misanthropic, either, but man are we a set of crazy apes. Then, I see a fan being used as above (to blow bubbles) and I think, well maybe there's hope. Yeah, short story collection and stories coming at you soon. 
peace. 

[1] Too bad the GOP isn't a legit party and only wants to be insurrectionist cause they could easily win if they had decent policies and not go bat shit all the time.
[2] And so when ^%$^%holes like Summer try to cry about student debt being canceled, know why they were silent before and not now. 
[3] Apparently if you become a travel nurse you can get plenty more (upwards of 3-5xmore) but not if you stick to a single place. Odd thinking, again, that doesn't seem to make sense. 
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

More Minutes of Hate

Not going to go through the details, but here, in this thread, there is some real minutes of hate shit going on. Not only the usual Putin=Hitler crap (no, not even close), but the "their troll farms are the reason for our disinformation" [1] and blaming just about everything else on the Russians. 
Pretty fucking sad. But YT actually recommended a good video and here it is:

Seems like a solid breakdown of what happened. 
Again, imagine China decides to put missiles or troops or enter in a military alliance in Mexico and claims they are for someone else. JFC we'd be going ballistic. 
And this professor is no leftie or even all that liberal, tbf. You could probably argue whether Russia is right (morally, especially) to want to just break the country, but we did start it here. 
And you know my view: that CC and nukes are of the utmost importance, so we need to make sure tensions are down and actually work together (in that sense I disagree with the professor, in that I don't think 19th century thinking is needed... maybe when we're meddling elsewhere it is, but not with the real problems we face). 
Speaking of geopolitics, I was looking up what Mearsheimer thinks about the pandemic and I came across this. Some good thoughts throughout that on covid, the nation state and the international order after that (for example how South Africa was punished for being rational and telling people about Omicron). 
It really does seem like, here and in other places, even our ostensible enemies, the emotion of power  rule the day (nevermind the different outcomes) and that power is usually shored up by stupidity of looking powerful (travel bans, not doing as Taiwan did, which is with a quarantine for all who enter etc). And yes, Biden gets a dumb stamp for what he did there, as he will for raising tensions with China and Russia and starving Afghanistan (and yeah, better than Trump and all, but damn not by much). 
Very few adults left, folks, just those who are into power theater (but with deadly consequences)


[1] All I see are our oligarchs, especially the right wing ones, doing this and our right wingers doing what they've always done. I'm sure Russian troll farms are a thing but it's minor compared to reality, of who lives with us, tbf (nvm how many other nations have troll farms, disinformation, etc etc). 
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

You're not gonna believe what happened to me.

Now this here is a great rap song. What I love most is the story told, then the story he tells his friends. About the basketball player who came home early (from a game ostensibly) "Musta been rained out or something." I've always hyena laughed at that one. 
Any how, been depressing here this winter. And I mean way more than normal. Glad to see others think the same. The rain started in October and basically hasn't let up even once. Of course I haven't lived here as long, but even the old timers are saying the same:

Lived here my whole life of 50 years and I can’t recall a Winter that has been so dark and dreary and just dead feeling. I think part of it is that normally I wake up and go to work. Now that commute time is spent looking outside thinking how dark it is. IDK
Born and raised in Seattle and this winter is the first time I’ve been seriously looking at other states to move to.
You can. I'm 30+ years here, this is fucking awful trust me. I mean...this might just be climate change, but this is also a la nina year so I don't think this is an every year occurrence. It seems the awful years are going to continue to be more awful, but most years aren't awful. Worst case scenario, you get a Boba Fett costume and pretend you live on whatever that planet is. Also, it seems to rain a lot in batman so maybe we just don't have enough flair for the dramatic here. Maybe we aren't living our best lives.
I've been here for sixty years and this winter has seem extra dark to me.

Well, it appears as if the old salts of Seattle have spoken and decreed that it is, indeed, a cold and dark and rainy winter here. That and covid hitting us full speed (10k deaths in WA) is part of it all. 

Just look at that curve. Of course, I don't know where exactly that death curve will go. Even though I will note again, it has basically been hovering at around 1k deaths a day. A day, and rising only slightly (1.4k a day give or take). I sense that, like I said before, the wave will end up being worse than thought. Do stay safe out there. 

As for stories, just read this one on the Kalahari Review. Solid stuff. You should check out more of what they put out. This one in The New Yorker, by Thien, is downright brilliant. Gonna go check out her other work right away. 



Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

Webb Telescope

Is gonna be amazing. Serious good use of tax dollars here. Check out the NASA web site and bask in its glory. 
So in ode to that, here's a short I wrote about aliens in the distance. Maybe that should be longer... 🤔 
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

On Masks

The Anti-maskers have been an odd lot (I mean there are some who go too far the other way, especially outdoors, but that's another story) but here's a pretty good breakdown of mask wearing and how useful it can be (the different types etc)


Also is this a thoughtful piece on Criminal Justice? Just wondering. 
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

Plenty of Idiots Screaming, Not Enough Nuance.

People screaming about one the schools no matter what vs some odd zero covid stuff that seems to say vaxxes don't work ( yeah breakthrough cases are possible but vaxxes are important too, right?). Anyhow, more trust ripped from the fabric of our society. But good to hear from a teacher friend stating that it's very level headed. Many understand how bad remote learning is but are also testing and shutting down if need be. 


[Above, the state of the discourse. Just absolute crap]

This here from a student at the NYC, talking about just how bad it is. Ends it with:

"I've been adamantly opposed to remote learning for a while, and thought that it was overall an unmitigated disaster for the learning and mental health of students. At the present time, however, schools cannot teach and function well enough in person. We must go remote. 

I should note that I wrote this on Wednesday. 

Edit: I’ve removed the name of my school as it made me uncomfortable sharing such information, but I’ll say that it’s a specialized high school. This is occurring everywhere. I’ll probably reveal it on comments but I’d prefer for it not be in the body of the post. 

Edit 2: NOTE — NOT TRYING TO BE DAMAGING TO THE SCHOOL FACULTY AND TEACHER STAFF. THEY ARE DOING THEIR ABSOLUTE BEST WITH THE CARDS THEY’VE BEEN DELT, AND ALL STUDENTS ARE APPRECIATIVE. ITS DIFFICULT FOR EVERYONE AND TEACHERS AND STAFF ARE REMAINING SAFE AND SUPPORTIVE."

Of course, the screaming on both sides doesn't help anyone, but man, I think it will help the right (and certainly the powerful) if they get distrust in public education up, just so they can strip that as well. 
And what about "normal"? Or being normal again. Well, for one I hope that never comes true in terms of the systems of oppression and iniquities we have, but as far as living your day to day, I think perhaps this virus is more tricky than many thought. Even if we can combat it pretty well (vaxx, and even treatment-wise), it can overwhelm our systems pretty easily. 
Will there be a normal? This thread gets into it, specifically from the medical POV:

I have accepted that COVID-19 is endemic and will be with us for the long haul.. but are we just going to be dealing with surge after surge until the end of time? Do any of you have hope of us getting this under control so we can get some semblance of normalcy again? I’m sick of this and scared I am wanting something (normalcy) that we will never see again.

Read it. Plenty of places haven't had a respite (other things besides COVID doing that) and another wave will start breaking the systems (already fragile from being attacked by Neo-liberalism) we have here to protect us.
And another point made on that thread:

Likewise - 18 months ago my one hope was that we would learn from this and recognize we need to be vigilant and aggressive with contact tracing up front, quarantine effectively at the start and follow our public health leaders. 

Instead, we've seen how selfishness and anti-intellectualism has won. 

The next pandemic - which is a matter of when, not if, will be worse because the right wing wingnuts across the world are going to dig in their heels even quicker. They will say, "look at how wrong Fauci/WHO/etc... were with covid, so we should not listen to them." 

And so with the next pandemic, if it is something that has a higher case fatality rate, we are going to be thoroughly fucked.

Yeah, I agree. People might just be burned out from the current minimal measures that a real virus will burn through everyone. Oh, but this story is something to behold:

I had two unvaxed, COVID existence deniers patients. They are a couple. They wanted to be able to wander back and forth between rooms to visit each other. They wanted us to MARRY THEM immediately in the hospital before one was intubated. MARRY THEM! I told the nurse to call Meredith Grey to arrange it. I’m OVER it. This is it. This is peak COVID for me. All out of sympathy. 

I'm thinking with each successive wave, people get more tired and want things to go back to normal, want contact with other humans not to be some death warrant, but that doesn't matter. The virus is not a moral agent (TVINAMA) and I can see how pandemics (over years or decades even) in the past really weren't usually an "all at once thing" but something that just beats at the population over a long period of time. Like a siege. 
This thing really is spreading like crazy. 
And some good points in that thread:

What's to say that immunity from Omicron infection will provide adequate protection against a future variant?

In my opinion, it won't. Same behavior is to be found in pre-existing endemic coronaviruses. COVID should be expected to behave similarly, and in my opinion should be treated similarly either now or very soon in the future (like when the % of delta variant reaches zero).

Does Omicron have sufficiently high seroconversion rates? 

In my opinion, it is reasonable to assume asymptomatic infections may not seroconvert. Again, this is known behavior in other common respiratory viruses. Functionally, it doesn't really matter.  So long as someone is regularly exposedthen by the time they are old enough or morbid enough for the virus to begin to be a problem, they will develop symptoms and seroconvert. This is the common cold model as I was taught.

Another issue in my opinion is the question of how durable will antibodies actually be? I know there are promising studies on SARS/MERS but this is a different virus and we know humans don't reliably make durable antibodies to this family of viruses (one of the reasons coronavirus vaccines have been difficult to produce in previous decades).

I also wonder about antibodies to other common URTI viruses? As mentioned, we don't make reliably make durable antibodies to rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, or coronaviruses. If lockdowns and isolations are lifted, will be face a significant respiratory disease burden as we again share all these viruses with each other?

I do not think omicron will immunize enough of the population to prevent future waves. 

I do think that omicron is now transmissible enough that the only realistic option is clean-up. A fully airborne virus with an R0 > 5? Already widespread in a population either locked down to the maximum tolerable amount in democratic society, or outright refusing to lockdown? Achieving widespread vaccine penetrance with no updated vaccine already on the roads to our clinics and hospitals? In my opinion this is game over. The only option left is triage existing resources. If medicine is your job, it's just a job, go home at the end of the day and take care of yourselves, so you can come back tomorrow and help pick up the pieces.

All my opinion. Hopefully omicron is not a surprise nightmare.

Be safe out there. 
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

Your Life Matters Not. Holmes, part N.

In case you needed more proof that our current Neo-feudalism is just doing victory laps over the Republic's body (while keeping us all distracted with culture wars), the Holmes verdict should dissuade you of any dissenting thoughts [1]:

Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO and founder of failed blood testing startup Theranos, was found guilty on four charges of defrauding investors, capping off the stunning downfall of a former tech icon. 

She was found not guilty on three additional charges concerning defrauding patients and one charge of conspiracy to defraud patients.

Yeah, you heard that right, you take money from rich investors and we will end you (especially if you embarrassed them and made them less than the gods they tried to be... in fact for this part, I think Holmes is a hero. Period). Hurt patients? Naw, that's part of business. In fact if we prosecute for that, many other rich people would have to go to jail. Can't set that precedent. 
And on this cycle goes. I really sense that things like this, and the Covid, let the poor die, stances have driven much of the psychosis we see in our nation. If such things are hidden, people can lie to themselves. But if they're not, then that reality proves to be too much.
Your thoughts?


[1] Whatever you want to call this. Neo-feudalism, techno feudalism. Both of those, creeping into eco-fascism. 
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.