His Name Was George Floyd

I’ve been keeping a journal.  I call it, “Life During Quarantine”.  Very early on, I predicted "tremendous social and economic upheaval."  We are due.  It is undeniable, there are changes that must be made.  One of those issues that can no longer be ignored, is the issue of race.  We have a systemic racism problem here in the US.  We have a huge section of the American population who are living in a dystopia due to the color of their skin and there is a big chunk of white America that sees no problem at all due to the comfortable bubble we were gifted and grew up in. 

We must recognize this.

There are other things of note that are happening in the shadow of the coronavirus.  A man named George Floyd was murdered, on video, by a group of four police officers.  One of the police officers had his knee against Floyd’s neck.  Floyd is heard begging on the video to be let to breathe or to have some water, probably to open his throat again.  His words are ignored, and the officer keeps up the pressure on his neck.  Floyd stops talking.  Nine minutes pass.  He dies under the knee of this officer.  Did I mention that Mr. Floyd was black?

We have a horrible double standard in this country.  It exists.  There are marginalized communities from sea to shining sea and the majority of them are categorized by the color of their skin.  Marginalized for treatment under the law, for poverty, for opportunity, for healthcare, for everything.  The sad truth is most white people have no idea that there is anything amiss.  We have no idea that we are living on the bright side of dystopia.  Blissfully ignorant, tranquilly seduced into seeing that nothing is wrong with the way things are for me, so it must be alright for everyone.  This is a lie.  Suffering is real.  Racism is real.  Hate is real.  Fear is real.  We can pretend that they don’t exist and stay in our, “Live, Laugh, Love” bubble, but that is all an illusion. 

I’m no different.  I lived my life with rose-colored glasses on never suspecting once that they were on at all or that I was ever wearing them.  I saw cracks appear in the lenses when I was in my teens when I started to realize that injustice was real and that “and Justice for all”, only seemed to apply to those who could hire the best attorneys.  If you were poor, you get court appointed representation.  Then you live a little more, see a few more things, and, suddenly, deeply held beliefs in our system of law, government, and religion are inevitable to miss if your eyes are open.  It is getting harder to see through the cracks in those rose-colored glasses, but they are still on.  You are still a part of that comfortable entitlement of being white and, to a degree, you always will be—you’re white, after all.  You are not automatically thought of as a threat.  Something to fear, something to hate, something to be kept in place.  No, you have all the possibilities that American society offers splayed before you to explore.  Your future is bright, and you don’t even know how bright it truly is.  After all, it is your birthright, that blissful tranquility, that entitlement.  But life goes on, you stand on your own and you open your eyes further, there are too many cracks in the lenses to see properly now.  Since you can’t see out of them any longer, you now have a choice—you keep them on, try to buff out some of the scratches, and retreat to your comfort zone or you take them off. 

Suppose you take them off.  Time has passes, things have change, you’ve supported yourself a while now, you’ve met, worked, and befriended a host of people who are not the same shade of skin that you are.  You find that people are people, each with their own unique set of needs and desires—in other words, just like you.   You begin to hear their stories—tales of how they struggle, how they live, how they make do, how petrified they are for themselves or their children who may run into the wrong group of white people or, worse, a police officer who wants to ask them questions.  And their stories horrify you.  After all, you haven’t had the same inherent problems coming up in American society.  Why would you?  You’re white—with all the unseen advantages that brings.  What about the police?  As a kid, I was told that they were the, “good guys”, your friends—not the hand of a system designed to keep you where you are, your oppressors, or your executioners.  This is the dystopian, oppressed, reality for a large section of America.  Sure—provisos all around—but the fact is, those who enforce the law (just or unjust) are part of the machine—good or bad.  They are the enforcers and, in some cases, the oppressors.  There are good police officers.  They are the ones who, “Serve and Protect”.  The ones who want to make their communities better, safer places for everyone.  I must hope that the majority of them have this creed in their hearts.  However, I can only hope. 

The ongoing slaughter of black men is what the, “Black Lives Matter” movement is about.  Black lives that are threatened by police officers.  Therefore, Colin Kaepernich took a knee.  To protest black men being slaughtered.  This upset an entitled nation of white people.  Some of whom went bug-nuts crazy.  After all, why should an athlete who is paid to entertain me have any reason to spoil my fun?  What does HE have to protest?  A great many things, in all reality, a great many things.  White people were incensed that something as trivial as black lives could spoil their football game!  They started to take things in other directions, “It disrespects that flag, is what it does!” or, “I didn’t fight in the war just so a …football player can disrespect Old Glory!”  Ironically, free speech was one of the things that, we are told, war defends.  Oh well, Mr. Kaepernich pissed off a lot of white people.  He was followed by other players—which pissed off more white people.  It pissed off the police because, how dare the black population be upset at us for killing them so often?  The police formed the, “Blue Lives Matter” to protest the “Black Lives Matter” protest.  Then the entitlement of a white nation kicks into overdrive for a segment of society that just wants things to remain the same; people who are all too happy with their own situations to care about someone else’s.  Especially if that someone else is a black person.  We collectively forget until the next black man is killed.

Something has to change.   

We have a race problem here in America, 2020.  It stretches back beyond the slave trade, which was alive before America existed.  Our system is not set up for justice for all.  It is set up to keep those in power in power, and, shock and awe, that is a group of old, rich, white men.  It is an injustice that we cannot afford to keep sweeping under the rug.  As a society we must take ownership of the past, the evils that have been done, recognize the wrongs that have been and continue to be done.  We need to recognize systemic racism so that we can stop it.  We must check our own biases.  Realize where we are and be willing to be the people that we should be.  We need to acknowledge this.  We need make amends, and we need to move forward.  The American experiment is for ALL of us—regardless of the color of our skin.  

Peaceful protests over George Floyd’s death have escalated to, “rioting”.  I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King Jr., when he said, “A riot is the language of the unheard”.  Everyone is remembering that one now—but it needs to be remembered.  It is far beyond time that they were heard.  We are all in this together.  Let us not give in to the forces that benefit from keeping us apart.  I was moved by the pleas from Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia.  Her heart breaks for her city.

Peaceful protests have escalated to chaos all over the country.  From sea to shining sea.  I have heard community leaders say time and time again, calling for the violence to stop, and to go home, to fill out the census, and then go out and vote.   “Beat them at the voting booths”, I heard one man say. 

My rose-colored glasses are gone.  It was a collection of real-life circumstances and experiences that scratched the lenses.  I do not pretend to know what it is like for a person of color here in America.  I have some ideas—but they are only that, ideas.  I have a good imagination, but that only goes so far.  The reality of the situation is that we can no longer turn a blind eye to racial injustice.  We must recognize systemic racism and stop it.

Yesterday, in the city of Camden, NJ as the protesters approached a group of police the officers held up their own, “Black Lives Matter” signs and joined them in their march.  There was another group of protesters from Coral Gables, Florida who when they came upon police officers both the protesters and the police took knees.  There are examples of similar stories happening all over the country.  Unfortunately, there are bad things happening too.  I can’t condone violence or rioting; however, I agree with the protesters, George Floyd is where this needs to stop.  And, for the record, I am not anti-cop.  The good ones do a job I could never do.  There is so much pressure riding on their shoulders.  The good ones ‘serve and protect’ for the betterment of their communities—no matter what shade of skin the people in their districts may have.  The world is a better place because the good ones are there. 

So, how do we stop the riots?  We start living by our own ideals—understanding that, “All men are created equal”, that “We The People” make up this nation, and that everyone should have, “liberty and justice for all”.  Those ideals can’t be for the entitled few—they must be for all.  This is not an us verses them scenario.  We are all in this together—black, white, & everything in between—police, civilians, protesters, and community leaders.  Times such as these force us to grow and, God knows, we need to.  This is a time for growth.  It is long overdue. 

 

Adventures In Shopping, Part II

My wife and I ventured out for supplies.  We visited a few different places, all the while, masked and gloved.  Whilst we were out, I took some pictures of what life is like out there now during quarantine.  We started by filling up our tank at BJs.  Both the gas station attendant and I were masked and gloved.  We dropped off some books that we were getting rid of at the Better World Books bin next to the Regal Theater in Vineland and, in an empty parking lot, I took a picture of the marquee.

The marque reads, “CLOSED FOR NOW – STAY TUNED”, with the “Y” in ‘stay’ hanging askew.  It will be interesting to see how theaters, which were struggling before the appearance of COVID-19, will fare in the new normal on the other side of this. 

Our journey of re-supplying then took us to Taco Bell, which is drive through or delivery only now.  We chose Taco Bell because, to date, they are the chain who has best adapted to life in quarantine. 

They take your order, you drive up to the window, the gloved and masked server holds out the debit card reader, the customer inserts or swipes their card so no there is no physical contact with Taco Bell and the customer at all.  The card reader goes away, and the Taco Bell employee returns with your order inside a plastic receptacle—plastic box—drink holder, which the customer grabs, and takes away.  This is the most efficient, sanitary method of delivery that I have seen put in play in the world of drive-through cuisine.  It beats Wendy’s & McDonald's gloved hands down.  We made certain to thank the Taco Bell worker for being there.

After chowing down on our Taco Bell in a parking lot, we headed over to Aldi.  There was a line of people waiting to get into the store that stretched down the side of the building.

“I don’t know, should we just go to Shoprite?” I asked my wife.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Should we be taking pictures of people?  Someone’s going to kick your ass.”

“No, they’re not,” I said. “They’d have to get out of line.”

As it turns out, that ALDI line was the line that we got into next.

Going into the store, ALDI does all they can to reduce transmission of COVID-19.  There is a masked and gloved employee up front who asks you if you need a cart or not.  If you do then, with Lysol, she wipes down the handle and the two plastic flaps that are designed for baby’s butts and rolls it towards you for use.  The employee then counts who enters and who leaves, thus balancing the number of people who are in the store at one time. 

After our trip to ALDI, we had a few items that we needed so we visited our Shoprite.  My wife went after the list and I waited in a small, socially distanced line (6-feet away between customers) for my turn and when it was my turn, I asked to purchase two lottery tickets, which I did so with quarters left from laundry day.  One could make a compelling argument that I am throwing good quarters away by playing the lottery.  That it is a hidden tax and that the odds are astronomically against winning.  One would be correct on all these points.  I cannot argue one of them.  My only defense against such points is to offer up Doctor Schrödinger and his cat.  COVID-19 has changed the lottery, as well.  The Powerball has cut its payout in half, since not as many people are playing these days.  There are more important matters at hand.  Yet, there I was.  It’s more like Schrödinger’s lottery.

“Thank you for being here.” I told the lady behind the counter.  We have seen each other before, but we have never been properly introduced, so we don’t know each other’s names.  We know each other because we are part of the same community, whether we are in a pandemic or not.  “You are holding together ‘normalcy’, whatever that was.” I said.

She smiled and asked, “How are you doing during all this?”

“Oh, fine, I suppose.  How about you?”

“Well…I miss my family.” She said.  Immediately, I felt horrible for asking the question.  At least in some way work is a respite for this woman for the simple reason she is busy helping others and keeping everything afloat.  She’s so busy at it that she has time to not think about the family that she can’t see due to the self-quarantine rules.  She looked away, suddenly reminded.  I am an ass.

“Much love.” I said to her putting my hands together and bowing—hoping against hope that she gets that chance to see her family soon.  “…Thank you.” 

Thank you, indeed.  If it weren’t for her and people like her—like all of the people that we had social distanced, gloved, and masked contact with today—everything shuts down.  Seriously.  Essential workers have been carrying the early birth-pangs of whatever the new normal is going to look like on their shoulders while trying to maintain what the old normal was.  They put everything on the line to keep things moving forward.  We owe a debt to the essential worker.  They have kept the world going just by showing up to work.  Spoilers—they always have, even without the threat of COVID-19. 

There will be changes ahead.  Major changes.  Sweeping social and economic ones and that’s okay.  Change is how progress is made.  I hope that on the other side of this once the quarantine is lifted and the vaccination is discovered that the reconciliation between the old world—what was and the new world—what it will be, is more enlightened.  There is historical evidence to suggest that this may be the case.  After the black plague came the renaissance—200 plus years of reason, science, thinking, art, and creativity that ushered in the modern era.  After COVID-19?  We are due for an age of enlightenment.  An age where essential workers make a fair wage, where healthcare is no longer a business, where scientists and experts are heeded, where reason is tempered with kindness, where hope for a better tomorrow is feasible for ALL regardless of circumstance, where we shift our priorities from ourselves to others.  Can you imagine such a future?  A future that we would be proud to hand over to our children.  What a future this New Renaissance would be.  I hope I live to see it all come to pass.    

Until such time, stay home, stay safe, stay healthy. 

The curve is flattening so keep on keeping on.   

Let's Talk About Essential Employees

This morning, at 11:16 am, pandemic time, the power went off.  It is a windy, grey, rainy day and I’m hoping that it is only a felled tree.  The sirens that we are hearing whisper of other possibilities.  I pray that is not the case.  I can imagine the complications that such an emergency provides now with all first responders having to wear gloves and masks—if not full bodies Tyvek suits.  You don’t know what the person in the wrecked vehicle has and you don’t know what you may be passing to them.  Just as the pandemic has changed the rest of the sociological strata—our old ‘normal’—so it has changed, I imagine, how first responders go about their work of saving lives. 

Essential workers of any kind—are precisely that—essential.  I’m saying right here and right now $15.00 an hour for minimum wage needs to happen.  Also, the title, “Minimum Wage” should be changed to “Essential Salary”.  The person flipping burgers and serving us at the drive through is putting their life on the line doing so.  Here in NJ, the person pumping your gas is doing the same.  The cashier at the grocery store—yes, her too.  ALL of them deserve medals.  All of them deserve a livable wage.  When this is over there will be a concerted effort to forget that these days happened.  These ESSENTIAL EMPLOYEES should not be forgotten.

“How would we pay for all these people getting a living wage?”

How can’t we, after this globally shared experience.  These essential workers put everything—their safety, their family’s safety—all of it, on the line every day just by showing up to work.  I’ll go further, if it were not for these essential employees showing up society itself would collapse.  If you think a toilet paper shortage is bad, consider grocery stores being boarded up and closed.  Suddenly, the comforts that we take for granted, we can’t take for granted anymore.  $15.00 an hour is the right thing to do.  

But, not to ignore your original question, hypothetical questioner, how about this.  I work in a cube farm, in a rented floor, in a rented building.  That building requires electricity, water, heat, and upkeep.  That’s a LOT of money going out and for what—a mailing address?  A post office box could accomplish the same for a pittance of the price it takes to keep the lights on in my building.  This quarantine has illustrated that, in all actuality, half of the workforce across the nation could work from home and accomplish the same amount of work.  For both public and private organizations, in the new world order, this is a money saving, viable option.  Suddenly, you are not paying rent, electricity, water, sewer, heat, cooling, and upkeep.  Suddenly, you’re saving money just by having your people work at home.  Suddenly, you have enough to pay essential employees serving their communities $15.00 an hour.

You’re welcome, America. 

Speaking of essential employees and medals—I’m predicting that TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year will be Essential Employees.  It has to be.  The doctors, the nurses, the EMTs, the linemen (who are mobilizing right now to get our electricity up and running again. …I’m running on my laptop battery for this section of the journal), the cashiers, the fire responders, police, truck drivers, people who stock shelves—ALL of them.  They deserve that title, Person of the Year. 

So, @TIME Magazine, what do you say? 

It’s 12:15 and the power just came on.  Thank you, linemen from Atlantic City Electric.  You are essential, not only for electricity but for a functioning version of whatever, ‘normal’ used to be.  You and a host of other essential employees at this unique moment in our history are doing what you do, what you’ve always done—holding everything together.

Thank you.

 

Adventures in Shopping, Part I

The following is my 3/25/20, entry in my COVID-19 journal.  I’ve been keeping it since the beginning.  I thought that this one was fit for human consumption…

3/25/20

Dan and I went out to Shoprite to replenish some supplies.  Dan wore a Pokémon bandana as a facemask.  It was not out of fashion; nearly half of the other shoppers were wearing masks of some sort.  There were plenty of latex gloves in use, too.  Shoprite has remained a beacon of hope in the community.  Seriously.  All the grocery and convenience stores that have stayed open and continue to operate are.  After all, if the stores are open then things can’t be all bad—right?  Right. 

Shoprite has made some changes.  There are signs that say to maintain 6 feet distance in the front of the store.  They have changed their hours to 7:00 am – 9:00 pm.  Disinfectant is being used by cashiers and, the young lady who checked us out spray cleaned the conveyor belt and was wiping it down as she beckoned us into her lane.  There are plexiglass barriers between the cashier and customer now.  It is that way for all points of purchase—except for self-checkout.

“Did you find everything you were after?” she asked.

“More or less, I’d say.” I said, looking at the newly installed force fields.  “These are a good idea.” I said.

“Yes, although maybe they could be a little bigger.” She replied.  I took a look and, yes, she’s right, maybe they could.  They were erected at the place where the customer is closest to the cashier and not at the card-pad.  “How have you been making out in all this?” she asked us.

“Oh, we’ve been okay. How about you?”

“I’m the one who does the shopping for my grandmother and me.” She said. “I get home, see to things, and then go get what she needs—if we don’t have it already.”

“That’s very good of you.” I said.  She’s a good kid, doing the best she can presented with the circumstances as they are.

“I’ve seen some things here,” she stated. “I had a woman throw chicken at me.”

“That’s horrible!” Dan exclaimed.

“Yeah. I told her that Shoprite had a “one package per person” limit on certain items—including chicken.  She got so mad that she threw it at me.”

“Times like these bring out the best and the worst in people.” I said.  “That’s assault.”

“That’s true.  It’s why there are security guards roaming the store now.”

“Really?” Dan asked.

“Oh, yeah.” She said.

“They must be good,” I volunteered, “I never even saw them.”  For some reason or another, I was thinking that stealth may be beneficial at times as a member of a peacekeeping security force.  …And then it hit me how much things have changed in such a short amount of time.  Two weeks ago, these factors—the 6-foot rule, the masks, the barriers, the security guards—all of it, was to be found in science fiction and not in the ‘real world’, whatever that is.  It hit me that this was the new normal and would be for some time. 

We bid each other the best and went on our way.  She’s a good kid and, most certainly, deserves better than being attacked by a panic-stricken woman who can’t have two trays of chicken because there are other people in the world besides her.

“Thank you for all that you’re doing.” Dan said as we took our leave from her. “Stay safe.”

“You, too.” She said as we left.

So, young lady who checked us out at Shoprite this morning, thank you.  And, once again, to all the workers who are serving their communities at this time, THANK YOU.  You are not and never have been, “just a cashier”, you are a reminder of the normal that was and may be again.  You are hope and there is no price tag on that. 

To my fellow customers, remember, you/we are not the only ships out on the ocean.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we can get there together—in one piece—if we think of others as we are thinking (and shopping) for ourselves. 

Let’s be good to each other out there.  A little kindness, some reason, and social distancing will help us through to the other side of this pandemic.    

So, thank you to the common everyday people who have been deemed essential—the woman who checks you out at the grocery or convenience store, the medical staff—the nurses and doctors doing everything they can to keep people healthy, EMS workers, the people keeping the electricity going—the linemen and everyone else who stands behind them keeping the juice flowing, the fire and police, the garbage collectors, all the people that we don’t see and take for granted for the mere fact that we don’t see them.  Everyday life is ‘normal’ because of what they do.  “Normal” is a relative term, these days.  Each of those listed here have become heroes just by showing up to work.  Society works because they do.  There is NOTHING common about the common man, there never has been.

Your efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Thank you, one and all.

Stay safe, stay healthy.

Confirmation Bias

There is an excellent book review about confirmation bias from the New York Times by Michiko Kakutani concerning Tom Nichols and his book, “The Death of Expertise” (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/books/the-death-of-expertise-explores-how-ignorance-became-a-virtue.html)  The review is entitled, “’The Death of Expertise’ How Ignorance Became A Virtue”.  From the review…

“While the internet has allowed more people more access to more information than ever before, it has also given them the illusion of knowledge when in fact they are drowning in data and cherry-picking what they choose to read. Given an inexhaustible buffet of facts, rumors, lies, serious analysis, crackpot speculation and outright propaganda to browse online, it becomes easy for one to succumb to “confirmation bias” — the tendency, as Nichols puts it, “to look for information that only confirms what we believe, to accept facts that only strengthen our preferred explanations, and to dismiss data that challenge what we accept as truth.”

Citizens of all political persuasions (not to mention members of the Trump administration) can increasingly live in their own news media bubbles, consuming only views similar to their own. When confronted with hard evidence that they are wrong, many will simply double down on their original assertions. “This is the ‘backfire effect,’” Nichols writes, “in which people redouble their efforts to keep their own internal narrative consistent, no matter how clear the indications that they’re wrong.” As a result, extreme views are amplified online, just as fake news and propaganda easily go viral.

Today, all these factors have combined to create a maelstrom of unreason that’s not just killing respect for expertise, but also undermining institutions, thwarting rational debate and spreading an epidemic of misinformation. These developments, in turn, threaten to weaken the very foundations of our democracy. As Nichols observes near the end of this book: “Laypeople complain about the rule of experts and they demand greater involvement in complicated national questions, but many of them only express their anger and make these demands after abdicating their own important role in the process: namely, to stay informed and politically literate enough to choose representatives who can act on their behalf.”

“We have seen the enemy, and he is us.” – Pogo

I ran into such a situation this morning on Facebook.  This is not unique—it is one of the byproducts of social media—this “backfire effect”, as Nichols warned about.  There is a meme of one of the sons of Trump at the header with a picture of Nancy Pelosi that read something along the lines of, “Democrats are organizing a special committee to investigate Trump’s actions in the COVID crisis!”  My Facebook friend exclaimed in her repost, “These people are evil!”  Both she and the meme insinuating that democrats are obviously wrong for investigating the president’s actions during this trying time in American history.  This is, of course, her confirmation bias and the backfire effect is that she has doubled down on an exponential scale.  The facts, however, are hard to argue.  Is Trump responsible for COVID-19?  No, a molecule is.  A dangerous molecule, but a molecule, nonetheless.  Could one make a reasonable argument that he was negligent in his response in mobilizing the fight against COVID-19?  Yes.  Without a doubt (simply do a Google search for the president’s statements on the coronavirus from January through April—they’re all there and very well documented).  Should that be investigated by a committee from the House of Representatives?  Yes, indeed.  This is our system, a system of checks and balances.  If one branch becomes unbalanced, then it is up to the other two to right the ship.  This is basic civics.  If the tables were turned and there was a democratic president in the White House during this crisis, rest assured, the republicans would be forming an investigative committee, too. 

To be honest, I have had to beat down my own confirmation bias to stop myself from responding to her post.  Reason should win the day and, ultimately, in the war on ignorance.  But, if we can learn anything from the times that we find ourselves, that’s not a guarantee.  It is, at best, a 50—50 proposition.  At worse, the odds are not in reason’s favor.  Reason, the facts, and the truth—keeping with the season—are often crucified on the cross of confirmation bias.

My Facebook friend and I are on opposite sides of the isle, so to speak.  By succumbing to confirmation bias, we may just as well be standing on different planets.  Therefore, I said nothing on my friend’s wall.  There is no use in arguing with a mind that’s been made up.  Theirs or mine.  I take my shot—they take theirs and then we head to our neutral corners to have our wounds seen to before the bell rings and it’s time for the next round.  It’s ineffective, inefficient communication.  Before we start throwing around big words only designed to make each other look smaller we need to look for that common ground.  We must put aside that voice that tells us that, I must be right because this is what I believe or blindly trust in what we have been told.  We need to hold our own confirmation bias in check before we address the confirmation bias in others.  This will help us in finding common ground.  I’ll go one step further, I would hope that, once the quarantine is lifted this and similar conversations should be face to face and NOT on social media.  It’s easier to empathize with someone if they are a someone—a real person and not an avatar with an agenda that has their mind already made up.

I hope that on the other side of this we can find common ground.  Things are going to be different, but we have the capacity to work together through those differences—those inevitable changes to the world that are ahead of us. 

“How do we get through that?” 

Together.

First Contact Day! ...Early

43 years from now, on 4/5/2063, two earth shattering things will take place.  First, Zefram Cochrane will usher in the age of warp drive by pushing his craft, The Pheonix to warp one.  Secondly, this act gets the attention of another warp capable species, the Vulcans, who will initiate first contact with an alien species.  This is the day that First Contact is established.

Oh yes, 43 years from now ~ after the Eugenics Wars and the plagues.  Things will start to get better.

So, we've got that going for us.

LLAP

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

It’s Palm Sunday.  A day commemorated by Christians across the globe that marks Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem before thing go bad.  This year, most churches will not be occupied, so there is a distinct lack of palm leaves this year in church going houses across the nation. 

When I was a kid, I enjoyed getting palm leaves on the way out of the church service down at the First Baptist Church of Wildwood.  It also meant that Easter was right around the corner.  Easter is a bit of a disappointment for kids.  Don’t get me wrong, candy is nice—but Christmas is better.  Let’s face facts, wax chocolate sucks—especially in bunny or egg forms. 

Easter, coming up next weekend, is—for believers—what it’s all about.  The resurrection.  This is the largest tenant of the Christian faith—the sacrifice for sin, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Christ’s victory over sin, over death, for you and for me, and—if you believe that, then you to will share in that victory, too.  This is what it is.  The biggest tenant of one of the three biggest religions in the world. 

Some of the faithful, instead of calling it Easter, call it Resurrection Day.  Some of the faithful call this Resurrection Week, starting today.  Today, however, is Palm Sunday.  As per a quick look at Wikipedia, “Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels.”  It may be identified as a “moveable feast” but there are no decent feasts that I am aware of surrounding it.  None that I have ever taken part in, mind you.  The best you can hope for are a substandard pastry called, “Hot Crossed Buns”.  No, you’re going to have to wait until next Sunday for the spiral ham with all the trimmings.  THAT’s a feast.  Before the feast, children wake up Easter morning to see what the Easter Bunny has left them in their baskets.  This is one of the more ridiculous aspects of this whole thing.  I suppose someone wanted to exploit a religious remembrance to make a profit.  He was probably a chocolatier. 

I blame you Willy Wonka! 

Of course, I’d be wrong.  As it turns out (as per a little internet sleuthing, https://time.com/3767518/easter-bunny-origins-history/) the Easter Bunny is, probably, a Germanic tradition about an egg bearing hare that leaves eggs in a nest, called an, “Osterhase” or Easter Hare.  Behold the research…

“According to some sources, the Easter bunny first arrived in America in the 1700s with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania and transported their tradition of an egg-laying hare called “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws.” Their children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs. Eventually, the custom spread across the U.S. and the fabled rabbit’s Easter morning deliveries expanded to include chocolate and other types of candy and gifts, while decorated baskets replaced nests. Additionally, children often left out carrots for the bunny in case he got hungry from all his hopping.”

So, there you have it.  The Easter Bunny is a pagan.  Perhaps he is a Christian Pagan?  It could happen—this is, after all, the age of grace and I don’t know what the Osterhase takes on faith.

But I’m getting far ahead of myself.  This is Palm Sunday—Easter’s precursor.  The same people who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem will be the same people who scream for his blood, come Friday.  And they’ll get it.  Who killed Jesus?  We did.  Humanity.    

We haven’t really changed at all, have we?  We rail against so many things, we set up our barricades, our preconceived notions, our confirmation biases, circle the wagons, come hell or high water to be ‘right’, to be on the side of the argument that justifies our own conclusions.  Blind to the fact that we may be miscarrying the truth, justice, or subverting the basic reality of any given situation for our own gain.

“Give us Barabbas!” We’ll be shouting come Friday.  And we’ll get him.  Thanks to our confirmation bias we are completely oblivious to the fact that we are about to crucify the truth.

Fortunately, there will be ham come next Sunday.

Selah.

It's Been A While!

Gentle Readers

I wrote something recently and said to myself, “Say, this would be worth putting onto Chicken Scratch!”  So, the fates brought me back to my blog of yore.  I looked at the date of the last post and my jaw dropped.  “Thursday, March 14, 2019”, it read.

“Has it been that long?” I thought to myself.  How is that possible?  I mean, I’ve been writing… all sorts of things, really!  They just have not made their way here. “Has it really been over a year!”  Yes, it has been.

“Why is that,” you ask?

Well, there are several reasons why it has been a year since my last post.  It could be that Chicken Scratch never really found an audience.  It could be that my content stinks and the writing isn’t any good.  It could be that it is never seen to be read.  It could be that we live in a post-blogger world.  I never felt that the interaction that I had envisioned when I launched this ship back in 2005.  Most of the articles I write now are for social media, where there is an audience, where people interact, and ideas have the possibility of being shared and discussed.  Now I am, certainly, not giving social media the anointing of being the beacon of “the truth” that we have all been waiting for.  No—its user driven, and many of its users haven’t found Jesus or science or don’t believe facts or are just your garden variety, confirmation biased, assholes.  Of course, there are also those who think, who are receptive to new ideas & discussion, those who are open minded.  People those who can empathize, can be kind, can move the world towards—ever so slightly—a better place.  That was always my hope with Chicken Scratch.  After reviewing the blog, I hope that this was usually the case.  Even with the events of 2016—both personal and worldwide and the events right up to today, March 25, 2020 (why hello there COVID-19, pandemic).  Abed and Troy were right—this just may be the Darkest Timeline.

Even though, Chicken Scratch’s author, me—Evil Chicken has been horrible at blogging in the traditional sense, I believe there is still a place for it in this world.  A place to throw up the occasional article, journal entry, or idea.  Those aren’t illegal yet, right, ideas—ideas, I mean?

Well, we shall see what we shall see.

It’s good to see you once again, Gentle Reader.

Let’s see what kind of trouble we can get into…   

The 10 Films That Influenced You Challenge

True confessions.  These past 10 days have been agonizing.

“Why?”

Because there has been a challenge on social media, primarily Facebook, concerning one of my favorite things—film.  Oh, it starts simple enough, "The rules are, once a day, for ten days, post an iconic image from a film that influenced you... with no explanation necessary... feel free to join in if you would like..."  That's how it all starts.

The challenge is to post, “an iconic image from a film that [has] influenced you…with no explanation necessary”.  This challenge still lingers, which is why I had to post it right here on Chicken Scratch.  This has been agonizing for three solid reasons: 1., gathering ONLY 10 films that have an influence, 2., narrowing one’s scope to one image that fits the film, and 3., not explaining why.  I’ve been meticulous in this process.  I even set up a specific file for images, pondered films, and asked myself why these films—in particular, had such an impact on yours truly.  Meticulous, I say!  I, could not—in good conscience, let it rest…   

NOTE: if you don’t care about movies—or, more specifically, my choices of iconic films—move along.  No harm—no foul.  I’ll see you next post or so.  Thanks for stopping by.

Now then, fellow film geeks, here’s the explanation & the honorable mentions…

Day 1: “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, 1954.  This movie blew my young mind.  It was released 14 years before I was born but it runs deep.  The Nautilus was my introduction to steampunk and the mysterious Captain Nemo—his motivations & character (which are fully realized in the book by Jules Verne) captured my imagination & attention.  Brilliant stuff.

Day 2: “Airplane!”, 1980.  I’m not saying it’s the most quotable movie of all time, but I’m not saying it’s not either.  This makes me laugh.  Laugh hard.  Still.

Day 3: “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, 1981.  Pound for pound, a perfect film.  Adventure, excitement—all the things that Jedi do not crave are in abundance surrounding the exploits of Indiana Jones.  I like the sequels—in fact number 5 is slated to be in the theaters in 2020, but there will NEVER be another Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Day 4: “Blade Runner”, 1982.  There are so many layers to this film.  At first glance it’s a futuristic noir detective story—however, the more one looks at this one the more one will see.  This film is an exploration into what life is, it’s precious nature, and who gets to say what is deemed to have a soul or not.  This one runs deep.  Mary Shelley, the mother of Frankenstein, would approve.

Day 5: “JAWS”, 1975.  JAWS horrified a generation of filmgoers, me included.  I was scared to get into the bathtub after seeing JAWS.  The scene on the Orca (Quint’s boat) when Robert Shaw/Quint is talking about the Indianapolis—one of the finest character driven scenes ever put to film.  ‘Bruce the Shark’, kept breaking down so Spielberg was able to keep the genie in the bottle until seeing the shark was the most impactful.  It’s a heck of a film that can make yellow barrels being drug along the water’s surface so terrifyingly menacing.  Brilliant stuff.

Day 6: “The Road Warrior” or “Mad Max 2” if you were not seeing it in the United States back in 1981.  This film strummed all the right chords for me.  It’s a western set in a post-apocalyptic future where the cowboys ride V-8 Interceptors & motorcycles instead of horses.  Max, a lone figure from the wastelands, comes to save the day.  Shane would be proud.

Day 7: “Superman – The Movie”, 1978.  “You will believe a man can fly”, was the tagline.  Even after all these years, Christopher Reeve’s performance as the Man of Steel still has me believing.  When Clark first introduces Superman to the world, ripping open his shirt—revealing the “S” on his chest, saving Lois, and the crowd below from the falling helicopter—chills.  Even now.  Seminal stuff.

Day 8: “Escape from New York”, 1981.  I love John Carpenter. He had a distinct style and it was a style that I lapped up. The pairing of Kurt Russell and Carpenter produced some of my all-time favorite movies.  This one introduced, for my money, one of the absolute best anti-heroes of cinema—Snake Plissken.  It took me a long time to find the right image for this one.  I settled for Snake in Hauk’s office holding up his bound hands, with the American flag in the background.  It is just before he delivers the line, “Call me, Snake”, for the first time and just before he tells Hauk, “I don’t give a fuck about your war—or your president.”  Hell yeah.  Every now and again there are rumbles about a remake.  I hope it doesn’t happen—not while Russell & Carpenter still have time to make Old Man Snake.  …To the gods of film, make this happen.

Day 9: “Planet of the Apes”, 1968.  This one scared me.  I came to it after it’s release since I was born the same year it was released.  I remember getting caught sneaking into our living room to get a glimpse of the sanitized, edited for TV version, when it came to the small screen.  I was not allowed to see it.  This was probably a good call since that what I saw disturbed me—especially since I can remember at that time hearing about guerrilla wars on the evening news.  My young mind couldn’t recognize the difference between guerrilla and gorilla, so my, ‘Planet of the Apes’, horror was compounded by my own ignorance.  The stark beauty of POA is that, hidden under a thin veil of ‘science fiction’, the story pokes holes into so many tropes of our institutions—religion, government, authority, control, freedom, anti-intellectualism.  It’s from the sixties but the messages are eternal.  It still holds up. It still has things to tell us. …And then, there’s THAT ending.

Day 10: “Star Wars – A New Hope”, 1977.  This hit my generation right between the eyes.  The image I chose for this one is Luke, gazing at the setting twin-suns of Tatooine, wondering about what the future may hold for him.  He has no idea at this point—no idea, whatsoever, that he will spark a revolution that rocks the seat of power in the galaxy. No, not yet—he’s just another soul looking at the suns set, wondering about tomorrow.  Luke, at that moment, represented each audience member sitting in that theater in ’77, at one point or another in our lives—staring into that uncertain future.  Would our futures involve going to Alderaan, learning the ways of the Force, and becoming a Jedi like our father—perhaps, even, helping to overthrow an evil galactic Empire?  One never knows.  As influences go, this one was—and is, seismographic in scope.  This one changed me.  No exaggeration.  Star Wars inspired wonder and made me want to tell stories—to write—to dream.  I’m not alone in this sentiment.  Countless other storytellers were touched by this space-opera homage to Saturday afternoon serials, Samurai movies, and westerns.  They still are.  The Force is still working.    

And then there’s the honorable mentions… 

“Treasure Island” with Wallace Beery as Long John Silver in 1934

 “King Kong” 1933 

“Frankenstein” 1931

“Conan – The Barbarian” 1982—which could have easily made the top 10

“Star Trek II – The Wrath of Kahn” 1982—which is STILL the greatest Star Trek movie to date 

“Goldfinger” 1965

“Moby Dick” 1956 – with a screenplay written by Ray Bradbury 

“A Fist Full of Dollars” 1964 

“Caddyshack” 1980 

“Big Trouble in Little China” 1986– another one from Carpenter & Russell that is STILL ahead of it’s time…

I could go on, but I should probably end this here…

The agony is too great to go on.

  

Hello Oscar, My Old Friend

Gentle Reader, if you kindly would indulge me, please start humming Simon & Garfunkel’s, “The Sound of Silence”…  YES--that's good--just like that!  Now then...

Hello Oscar, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

Though your movies I have been missing

I still have hopes that story is a thing

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within my picks, for Oscars

I can’t afford the ticket price

Nor the popcorn, would be nice

But I still do love the medium

Though, self-importance still at premium

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash on a silver-screen

Know what I mean?

And thus, my picks for Oscars

The Academy bowed and prayed

To the golden god they made

And the net started a-Blog-ah-ging

And the words that they were form-ah-ing

And those words said, “The work of the artists is what this event should be about.

Haters, don’t pout”

And whispered my picks, for Oscar

<<<>>>

<<<>>> 

Now that this is off my chest, here are my picks for this year’s Academy Awards…

Best Actor: Rami Malek, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

Best Actor, Supporting: Mahershala Ali, ‘Green Book’

Best Actress: Lady Gaga, ‘A Star is Born’

Best Actress, Supporting: Amy Adams, ‘Vice’

Best Animated Feature: ‘Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse’

Cinematography: ‘Roma’

Costume Design: ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’

Director: Spike Lee, ‘BlacKkKLansman

Editing: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

Makeup: ‘Vice’

Music: ‘Mary Poppins Returns’

Original Song, “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings’ from ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’

Best Picture: ‘BlacKkKlansman’

Production Design: ‘Black Panther’

Sound Editing: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

Sound Mixing: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

Visual Effects: ‘Avengers: Infinity War’

Writing – Adapted Screenplay: ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’

Writing – Original Screenplay: ‘Roma’

What are your picks my fellow film-loving, Gentle Readers?