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Occupy America
I didn't do anything Sunday, which is my God-given right.
I thought previous to not doing anything that I might do something, and that consoled me against any guilt I might feel for lack of accomplishment. I repeated this formula throughout the day to arrive at this point in time, at which I feel comfortable talking about it.
With things as they are in the world, or more accurately, as things are exacerbated by the carelessness of an evangelical inspired world leader, I feel it almost a responsibility to watch from this Central Standard Time, Chris Matthews at 7 a.m., to Stephenopolous signing off at 11:30 a.m., all I can stomach of everything offered on a Sunday morning regarding world affairs. I honestly think this is me taking queasy comfort in the fact that to whatever degree I am myself a hopeless fuckup, at least I have never aspired to be it on such a level as to inflict the entire goddamn world with my insanity. Let me suggest that when George Will is finding fault with the Republican vision, things are dire. And speaking of dire.
I bought the Sunday paper this morning to see who it was that got killed walking back alone from Jazzfest Saturday night, near the Bayou St. John, but all I can tell you about it from the words offered is that he was fifty, with white hair and beard, and that he wore a fanny pack, and that he was shot in the head, and lived for a couple of hours at Charity Hospital, and was announced dead slightly before 10p.m.
As if life is not absurd and brutal enough, I watched today for the first time, this is to underscore my earlier admission of not doing anything, an entire episode of the television phenomenon known as Friends. It is part of my ongoing attempt to embrace that which horrifies me. I am now invested, and can speak knowingly and nod sympathetically at those events in the future which require an understanding about things I could care less about. I will add with not one drop of irony that Rachael and I have birthdays one day apart. I can even hear from this past in which I sit the bubbly incredulity of response to that bit of birthday trivia.
I am not a snob against popular culture and I can see how the show might be a comfortable way to spend a few minutes every week (or as will be likely with future syndication, every day) but there is something about the smooth, warm, yet occasionally grating chemistry of that cast which makes me feel just a little bit nauseous.
There has been intense local coverage of the Jazzfest shooting victim over the last few days. Three of the four youngsters, ages 14--16, recognized the undercover cop car parked in the block, but the 14-year-old was walking behind his three friends when he demanded the 57-year-old man give him money. Allegedly, the man said he had no money and then told the kid to scram. The kid then, according to his friends, approached his friends, expressed contempt for being dismissed like that, said he had a "gat," and then scooted back up the sidewalk and perfunctorily shot the man in the back of the head. The cops were nearby and gave chase. Within 48 hours all four youths were in custody, the 14-year-old alleged shooter having turned himself in. Community response is predictable: horror, sadness, and finger pointing.
The mayor and the chief of police tell us crime is down and yet most every citizen of New Orleans speaks of crime as the foremost problem in the city. Is perception truth or is truth something that can be measured as a statistical certainty? One truth is, crime will often be down in New Orleans because of the relative spike which precedes a so-called (yet literal) downturn. But just to pick an arbitrary time period, say, the ten years I have watched, crime, measured statistically or perceptually, has never, ever, been down in New Orleans. Not to the point where you could sigh that sigh of relief and say--good fucking job fellow citizens, we put our heads to the problem, got a little dirty, and created a better place.
It’s a pesky problem, these 14-year-old killers. They are, like those "bands of thugs" in foreign countries you try to occupy, a difficult nut to crack. They are, by far, a minority as related to the general population. But in many cases they are barely distinguishable from "good" boys. It's hard to know with any certainty who will step over the line.
I am writing all these words as a way of searching for something that approaches constructive criticism of a problem that doesn't appear to be going away. Very unscientifically speaking, the ages of those willing to kill is getting younger and younger. I'm just wondering if we couldn't divert maybe a billion or two of our war fund into a tamper-proof account, make misappropriation of that money a capital offense, bring in volunteers, pay volunteers, re-educate our troops so that they could actually rebuild schools like some imagined they would be doing in Iraq. Refurbish a couple thousand (of the reported 70,000) of this city's blighted houses, pay people to live in them as mentors of the block and offer the full range of educational material available on this planet. Bring in 10,000 troops or so, forget the frisbees but put a portable hoop on every block, engage the children in sport, escort them to school, sit in their classrooms, encourage them. Bring in the ACLU, consult with them, learn from them. Then take chances. Set up boot camps for the hopelessly disruptive students. Often the disruptive kid has amazing talents, well worth developing. I bet there are not 2,000 or 3,000 truly disruptive kids in this whole city. They need one on one attention. Bring in more troops. I shouldn't have to mention this but I will anyway. Be respectful, never sodomize someone with a broomstick. Teach girl children benefits of postponing pregnancy. Or make mandatory classes for teenage mothers. Mandatory learning. Consult again with ACLU.
I haven't even gotten all that ridiculous and this already sounds ridiculous. Until I refocus on current events in this city and in the world, then it just seems kind of thin and not all that well thought out. But I mean, fuckit, let's Occupy America.