Police Reform, and the Importance of Local Governance

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-the-federal-government-can-reform-the-police

FILLING DIRT ROADS

The road could be around 1 mile, but I only said I'd take on the bit near me. The first 50 or 60 yards away from the highway spine of the village that we live on. The material for fill is a work in progress. Of the three holes thus far filled, the first used cardboard stuff to soak into and partly fill the puddle left there by the rain. Then I topped it up with dirt from the side of the road. The other two were dry and relied increasingly heavily on cardboard fill. Thence needing mostly to overlay with sufficient dirt to disallow the cardboard to pop up and cause mischief. I've had to go back these past two days just to check, and cover up cardboard edges trying to break through. Also, when I dig out the dirt shoulders for fill, I try to do so in a way as to inhibit rain running off the higher elevation into the road. The hope is to have more water percolate into the shoulder area, producing more vegetation. But dirt for fill is the scarce element (unlike free cardboard!). I'll have to start mining our yard and the adjoining "arroyo" (or natural drainage system) adjoining the road. The latter is a PITA for this old fellow though. So, all in all, unless some of the better heeled folks around here chalk up the bucks for the back hoe guy to deliver more dirt, this first 50-60 yard might be my limit. Let's hope my start will galvanize one or more people to help. 

Mushifying cardboard or paper would be best, but timing is critical. Filling in with dirt doesn't last long, and fails in any heavy rain. I don't see that cardboard is any less durable than this. The best application of cardboard is insertion into a deep puddle, and protect that soggy stuff with stones and dirt. Compaction by car wheels probably congeal the soggy and the dirt. 

NOTE TO EILEEN

tHANKS FOR THIS SO VIVID, INTENSE AND CONCENTRATED DECLARATION. Not something many can do. I had the same questions re the young white people marching for BLM. We had a quick and efficient one in our rurAL VILLAGE LAST sATURDAY.  (Sorry for the caplock errors!) 

I thought the march would be at the fairly modest pace of our two regular annual parades. Those are a biggish deal, with bagpipes often, and the fire truck holding back the traffic. No fire truck this time, just a simple group with BLM signs. 100 strong, it looked like. So OK, there's a lot they wouldn't understand, but isn't it nice that they're out there trying to be decent? Seemed so to me.

I made a sign that took me some time. It said:

FREE AFRICA

Freedom There = Freedom Here

I did it, as always, as an art project. Not realizing how fast the group would go, I was slow to position us in the march, and we lagged behind more than was desirable. I held one end of the sign, and our blind friend held the other, which made it easy for her to guide herself by. Sandi was just a little ahead. 

It doesn't sound as if your daughter really was COVID-infected!

And maybe this is timely insight (since it literally came to me just now): In human culture there tend to be leaders and followers (whether in individual or group terms). In the Western world, white people lead, albeit heavily influenced by global minorities in their midst. In terms of human evolution, it has served well, both to prescribe and to caution. But where it has failed is where I see an African civilization (which I see as continuous with it) can try to do "better." That better is indeed to be more globally minded, more inclusive of all, more environmentally and holistically attuned. And in the African world, it must be led by blacks. So I think we blacks need, while not sacrificing who we are, to put white people first in the West, and black people first in "Africa." And balance these relations ethically and with minimal rancor. But if Africans don't have somewhere of their own they can't contribute properly (or be treated properly) in the global scheme of things. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Eileen Garcia
To: e.
Sent: Wed, Jun 10, 2020 8:25 pm
Subject: Re: Ellas song

Thanks for asking re family.

I reflected that my Jamaican family of origin, scattered across the globe now, married Mayan, Korean, Singapore Muslim, Indian, Chinese, Syrian/lebanese, Jew...we are Mostly  multiple shades of black/white mix so in one sense racial "freedom"is achieved in us already. They are everywhere on the economic structure, but mostly middle class, business types or farmers.... a global family, all blood related.

Still, I have had to turn off the news or lose all peace and sleep. Those of us with PTSD do not have a lot of room for trauma, as you will know better than I.

 My eldest sibling (victim of violence, some in Jamaica, some in Montreal) took an overdose which she survived but she has retreated into hostility at me (a safe enemy).  I understand, but it grieves me. She is like a burn victim, every move hurts and for her I am a bull in a China shop.

Even in our dozy Canadian Small-island town, on the fringe of civilization, in the middle of a pandemic, 1000 young people turned out to demonstrate re "black lives matter". I hope it makes a difference. 

I suspect most of the white demonstrators knew zero black people, although the indigenous population here needs support. We have only recently begun to have a few  migrants from Africa and they work in the bank. 

The mass of hidden "Black" labour here  are from Pakistan but they live on the mainland. 

We managed covid well here, one of the best managed places in the world, so that zero new cases in much of BC. The shut down worked for us, so far. People cooperated to a remarkable degree. 

My Korean Adopted daughter is home. So glad to have her.

Keep well.

E

Sent from my iPad

On Jun 10, 2020, at 4:50 PM, e. wrote:



Thanks, Eileen! I let it scroll to the following piece, and love how ethnically and generationally diverse it is. How are you and family managing? 

-----Original Message-----
From: Eileen Garcia
To: e.
Sent: Wed, Jun 10, 2020 2:39 pm
Subject: Ellas song

hope this brings you comfort and joy in these hard times. E

https://youtu.be/U6Uus--gFrc

Sent from my iPad

BLM and DEM FUNDING

Lidia17 says:

June 10, 2020 at 1:50 pm

It gets better: donations to BLM (including foreign donations) apparently go to the DNC:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/exclusive-donations-including-international-funding-blacklivesmatter-com-go-directly-dnc-money-laundering/

////
When you click on the “Donate” button on blacklivesmatter.com you are sent to an “ActBlue” donations page. You can even read that the donations are being made to ActBlue in the fine print. ActBlue has several entities under the overarching name ActBlue. The terms and conditions of the charity arm of the organization mention “Campaign Finance Laws”: https://secure.actblue.com/content/fineprint

When you research the expenditures of the ActBlue PAC, all of their contributions are directly going to top DNC campaigns: https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expenditures.php?cmte=C00401224&cycle=2020

While ActBlue has a charity arm, it also includes a PAC and a 501(c)4. It appears more accurately to be a funding arm of the DNC.
(Do all the individuals around the world know that when they donate to Black Lives Matter, they are also helping to fund an organization that supports the Democrat Party?)
This is just another corrupt wing of the Democrat Party.
/////

WHAT IS AFRICA?

The term Africa is used very loosely. Africa is a continent and not a nation state. The cultures and languages within the continent are very numerous and varied. So much so that high level recommendations have surfaced re dividing the continent (possibly for the purpose of congealing component parts into unified nations) into the section north of the Sahara (which is largely Arab) and the section south of it (which is largely Christian). But all of that suggests that the definition is up for grabs; it is mutable, not fixed. Some have thought that the definition and well being of “Black Africa” will determine how Black Americans see themselves and how they are regarded in the US.

NOTES TO GINA

• My favorite has a principle behind it that I like
  BUT
  The materials that would either be quite good and/or garner social and political support (unlike mine) would be wattle and daub and bamboo. Perhaps also cob or nog.
  
  Further Thoughts
  
  BAMBOO
  - fast growing
  - adds vegetation and oxygen to the environment
  - excellent for the long haul but doesn't deal with the issue of industrial waste in the present
  
  WATTLE AND DAUB
  - relatively benign environmentally, but requires excavation and a measure of deforestation, of which there is already way too much
  - traditional method that could bring back memories and yield buy-in
  
  NOG AND COB
  - solid walls that resemble (popular) concrete and also can use metal rebar
  - also would seem to require a measure of excavation, of which we already have too much
  
  MY PREFERENCE IS CARDBOARD
  - easy to manipulate--can be cut with a knife
  - good for insulation
  - soft where that is desirable--like on floors--but can be hardened by paint, and work even for exteriors.
  - can also work with metal rebar, but can substitute metal for PVC tubes
  - given away free by stores
  - precludes adding it to the waste stream
  - symbiotic with industrial proction which uses cardboard boxes for packaging and transporting
  - might be minimally destructive in terms of forestry, but to a very much lesser degree than most other building materials
  - therefore an opportunity for coordinated endeavor with stores and other related industries
  - can be as thin or as thick as desired--through the use of layering
  
  The artwork I sent you tends to prefigure my architectural approaches.

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  Trevor Burrowes Plinth to rest buildings on. No digging. Easy transport and removal.

  

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  Trevor Burrowes Cardboard Bricks

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  Trevor Burrowes

  

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GHOST TOWNS

https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/8815893953694/WN_aLEnf5otS8yUzZ1Ytk0s7g?utm_source=YAA-events&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=june_1_2020&utm_content=Coronavirus%20and%20the%20New%20American%20Ghost%20Town