Month: March 2013

I was so hopeful when the FBI announced its initiative to work on cold cases from the civil rights era. Even though I watched from very protected eyes, the horror of that period has never left me. I was raised a strict catholic, and I thought everyone believed what I had been taught. From about ages 9 to 12 years old I saw hoses turned on black people, the pictures of the Little Rock Nine on the cover of Life, I learned about lynching, all the murders, Emmett Till, the murders of the civil right workers. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, to see just how many people didn’t think that it was all that horrible, and that the murderers of Emmett Till for instance, were never brought to justice, and that people like Carolyn Bryant (the woman he was “accused” of flirting with and who is still alive) have never expressed a single bit of remorse.

So this article in the New York Times about the results was heart breaking. It’s like I’m still that kid, looking around thinking, “what the hell,” and wondering how people could do things like this and how a jury of their peers could basically say it’s okay.

I spent yesterday morning researching Cal A. Hall, Jr., the murderer of farmer Hosie Miller, one of the cases the FBI picked up and which was covered in the article. I was looking for justice in some form, some shred, however small. I wasn’t able to learn a thing other than the fact that he died in 1976, his wife in 1994.

The worst part was learning that Hosie Miller’s daughter is Shirley Sherrod, who was forced to resign her position with the Department of Agriculture because blogger Andrew Breitbart had edited a video of her to make her look racist, when in fact she had transcended what happened to her father and grew up to help farmers both white and black. From an LA Times article, “You don’t fire a black woman from the South like that,” Wilburn said. “Don’t you know she had to go through something to get to where she is?” It makes the sins against her that much worse.

Breitbart is dead, he died very young, but this is never the justice I want. I want people like this to truly become aware of the wrongs they committed and to atone for them, to live a life making the world better. The justice I want is for bad people to become good.

St. Patrick Day balloons. I took this from my veterinarian’s office yesterday. A weird juxtaposition I know.

A few weeks ago I was feeling happy about Finney because I’ve been trying for at least two years to get him to lose weight, and he finally seemed to be getting a little thinner. I attributed that mostly to Bleeck who has been forcing him to be more active. He also just seemed happier, in spite of the constant workout due to the hurricane force-Bleeck.

But yesterday I picked him up and noticed he’s a lot lighter. He’s probably still bigger than most cats, but he’s definitely losing weight at too rapid a rate. Something is up. Also, his eyes look a little runny in this photo that I took just now.

Pulling back, you can see that not far away is poor Finney’s constant shadow, the baby Bleeck. Finney is such a good cat, he is mostly tolerant, but Bleeck so desperately wants Finney to love him more. I feel for them both. Finney is in Buddy’s old spot, by the way. Maybe Bleeck is thinking entirely different thoughts. Maybe he’s just biding his time until that spot can be his. Anyway, we have an appointment at the vet this afternoon.

I was remembering how sad Hudson Street had become, with all the empty storefronts. I’ve probably said this a million times before, but knowing what goes into starting a business I can tell you that for the people who started them, it’s terribly personal and painful when they fail. Imagine that scene from A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge and Marley are moving into the offices of their former employer Fezziwig. Fezziwig watches them from a carriage, looking like he’s going to die of a broken heart.

This is how Hudson Street looked before, in February, 2010:

And this is the same corner now. This was taken on a chilly day, by the way. I don’t know what is up with all these people eating outside! The place across the street which was also empty has a restaurant now. I believe there isn’t a single empty storefront on Hudson Street anywhere anymore (in the Village).

I just read this in the Times, about the Muslim Brotherhood’s position on women.

“A woman needs to be confined within a framework that is controlled by the man of the house,” Osama Yehia Abu Salama, a Brotherhood family expert, said of the group’s general approach, speaking in a recent seminar for women training to become marriage counselors. Even if a wife were beaten by her husband, he advised, “Show her how she had a role in what happened to her.”

“If he is to blame,” Mr. Abu Salama added, “she shares 30 percent or 40 percent of the fault.”

About a proposed United Nations declaration to condemn violence against women, “the Brotherhood said that wives should not have the right to file legal complaints against their husbands for rape, and husbands should not be subject to the punishments meted out for the rape of a stranger.

“A husband must have “guardianship” over his wife, not an equal “partnership” with her, the group declared. Daughters should not have the same inheritance rights as sons. Nor should the law cancel “the need for a husband’s consent in matters like travel, work or use of contraception”

Last week I watched Makers: Women Who Make America. In 1995 at a conference on women that was held in Beijing, Hillary Clinton said, “Let it be that human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.” I remembered how for years, decades I believe, women tried to get our government to do something about how women in Afghanistan were being treated under the Taliban regime. Not our problem, was the attitude, when it soon would be. When you have a group of people who do not respect human rights and treat people like they are less than people, one of these days that group is going to be your problem.

If I’m remembering correctly, Makers ended with the point that the next battle for women’s rights would be fought on a the global stage. The complete Times article is here.

And on a ridiculously lighter note, I passed by this film shoot a week or so ago. These guys were shaking this bus while others filmed what was happening to the people inside.

You know how they say you should walk 10,000 steps a day? I always figured I must be walking that much every day, at least. Many years ago I decided to stop taking the subway and to walk everywhere I go. This isn’t as big a deal as it sounds, I don’t usually go all that far, but I walk even if I’m going to the Met (way, way uptown, like 80 blocks away, plus I have to head east).

I didn’t walk to my appointment at Mt. Sinai yesterday (101st Street and Madison) because I would have had to start walking too early in order to make it on time. And, when I was walking home afterwards, I got on the subway at 42nd Street. I was tired.

Even with cutting my walk short though, it was a ton of walking. Maybe an hour and a half of walking? Out of curiosity, I just calculated exactly how much walking I did yesterday, all told, and it came to 5.5 miles. How many steps was that? I just looked. For most people, a mile = 2,000 steps. So I made my 10,000. But the thing is, that was not a normal walking day for me. I figure on most days I walk around 2 or 3 miles. The website I looked at called that sedentary. You gotta be kidding me. On what planet??

I took this when I got on the subway. These are all the people who, like me, are going to die young due to our sedentary life styles. Those people who are sitting can just forget about it. Oh my god, I just noticed, there are no older people in this picture.