|
Favorite Trivia – SOCIAL ISSUES
|
| “When I took Renée over to the bus we had to wait for a half hour so we listened to this rabble rousing religious show and they were praying for all homosexuals to stop their filthy habits before the AIDS spreads. Then there was a man talking about the new Homosexual Blood terrorism: salad dressing sperm terrorism: about how they were consciously polluting the blood and also sending AIDS victims to prostitutes to help spread it into the straight population.” [July 9, 1985]
The Journals of Spalding Gray |
| “Walking out of the store I saw a handsome boy and girl. Both were bareheaded and self-assured, swinging along the walk beneath the rain-laden trees. The girl looked at me calmly and impersonally, as she might have glanced at a lamp-post, and said audibly, ‘That’s a fairy.’” [May 3, 1925]
Jeb and Dash: A Diary of a Gay Life, 1918-1945 – Jeb Alexander |
| “I had a flashback to the comedienne Pudgy, whom I discovered at age thirteen. She was an insult comic hosting a Showtime special from a male strip club. She would come out and insult the audience for five minutes, introduce a stripper, then come back and do more comedy. I taped this show on my VHS and I would watch the strip routines when I was alone and show my junior high friends the comedy, because I thought she was hilarious. I acted like I only taped it for the comedy and would zip through the strippers, but what did my friends think as I was fast-forwarding though these men stripping down to banana hammocks? What was I thinking?? I’m pretty sure I showed my parents, too. And I’m pretty sure I showed everyone my hand. I am having residual embarrassment. And wondering where that VHS tape is.” [May 3, 2014]
The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year – Andy Cohen |
“The dreams we have here [Mexico] can be reality there [America],” said Alonso suddenly. “What?” “You asked why I go to cross the river… Everything you’ve got is better. If you can make it in El Norte, you’ve got it made.”
Ted Conover – Coyotes: A Journey through the Secret World of America’s Illegal Aliens |
| “It is often asked during those periodic waves of national pessimism to which we are so prone, ‘What’s wrong with England?’ I think the answer can be resumed in two words, ‘The cooking.’ Bad cooking spells discontent, spleen, under-nourishment, food fads, divorce, sundered homes, and a whole inventory of minor ailments. Brillat-Savarin’s Third Aphorism lays it down that the destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they are nourished. We are prepared to accept the axiom in its military bearing, mindful of how Napoleon’s complimentary dictum that an army marches on its stomach was verified by our undoubted success in starving the Germans into submission at the close of the last war [WW I].”
P. Morton Shand – A Book of Food |
| “… the wealthy, base-born parvenu, a figure whom Juvenal clearly found both sinister and detestable—with good reason, since as a phenomenon he directly threatened Juvenal’s own social position, and that of the whole rentier class in Rome. The rise of the freedman class forms one of the most significant elements in the history of the early Empire. These coarse, clever, thrusting ex-slaves, most often of foreign extraction, suffered from none of the crippling conventions and moral beliefs that every upper-class Roman inherited as part of his emotional luggage. What enabled them to amass such gigantic fortunes, and to force their way into positions of immense political power, was by no means only their native ability. They were cashing in on their masters’ ignorance of, and contempt for, a world ruled by commerce and industry. Since the middle-class Equestrian Order, to which Juvenal aspired, was mainly a matter of the right property qualification, freedmen and their descendants began to monopolize all the best posts which it offered.”
Introduction (Juvenal: The Sixteen Satires, trans. with introduction & notes by Peter Green) |
| “‘If power is exercised too violently,’ Foucault explained, ‘there is the risk of provoking revolts.’ Don’t send in riot cops. Send in cameras. Send in eyes. Power must be exercised quietly and continuously through surveillance, so there is ‘no need for arms, physical violence, or material restraints. Just an observing gaze that each individual feels weighing on him, and ends up internalizing to the point that he is his own overseer: everyone in this way exercises surveillance over and against himself.’ This is what happens to me in Washington Square when the cop in my head stops me from getting on my bike and riding around the fountain.”
Jeremiah Moss – Feral City: On Finding Liberation in Lockdown New York |
| “‘… having men leave to work in the States benefits us. They send money home, and now we have better houses, clothing, highways, cars. More people can afford farm animals. The parts of life that you can quantify are better.
“‘But how much of life is that? I will say it again: not since the conquest have we suffered such a disaster. And here is why. Seven out of ten households here lack a husband, a father—they’re all gone, working somewhere else. Sure, maybe—maybe—their families have more money, but the family! The men come home once a year, they make their wives pregnant, and then they leave again. The wives get so frustrated; ‘I married a man, not a letter, not a U.S. Postal Service money order!’ one said to me. The children of these families have a character that is colder than normal. “‘And, of course, terrible things happen. The men bring home venereal disease, from the prostitutes they have up there. We never used to have these diseases in Ahuacatlán; now—ask the doctor!—they’re everywhere. Or what’s worse, the men never come home at all. They take a mistress up there, and get comfortable, and that’s the last we hear. “‘…coming from the States, you will understand the desire to get ahead. It is called ambition, and it is a beautiful thing. But it is also the reason so many young people here want to leave…They hear their friends chatting—brothers, older boys who have been. Of course, even if they suffered fiascos up there, the stories they tell are pure adventure. The younger boys see their new clothes, see how girls are attracted. To them it sounds like the Eternal Paradise! And besides, they think, only sissies stay behind. What can one who stays have to compare with a tale of crossing the border, eluding the FBI, even being in prison in the United States! The men take great pride in these things. “‘So they leave school early and away they go. And six months, a year, or two years later, when they come back they are disgusted at what they see. Ahuacatlán suddenly looks to them like a pigsty: livestock in the streets, no plumbing, dirt roads. They are ashamed. And this is the beginning of their inferiority complex—they think everything there is better. They see Americans as very high, themselves as very low. Of course, they can never be American, or even pass for them at their age—it’s too late to learn English well enough. But many feel stupid because of it. And they are ashamed to be Mexican.'” Ted Conover – Coyotes: A Journey through the Secret World of America’s Illegal Aliens |
|
When I first saw Patrick Fraioli’s response to Abrahamian’s posting on Nextdoor (May/2009), I thought, that’s got to break records for being the longest response I’ve ever seen. Who’s going to read it? But, it turned out to be a very powerful and honest account about the homeless issue in Los Angeles and I wanted to record it on my site for others to see. [Patty Martino Alspaugh]
Drugged up guy in my Driveway“For all those people who say give benefit of the doubt. Well I will not. There is a smoked out guy in my driveway. I went and asked what he is doing there and he said “Shut The Fuck Up”. No reason for him to be there. I have called ACS and they are here waiting for LAPD. We called LAPD and they said they would send a car. Not sure when. I was told if the situation changes call back. This is not a way to live. So no benefit to anyone on my property who is spewing profanity at me. You don’t have any rights on my personal property.”  Patrick Fraioli·
“Neighbors. I don’t usually comment on stuff like this because it is so easy for people to get offended these days and make assumptions and it’s just usually not worth it. But something about this situation makes me want to speak up. Maybe it is because you are all right, IMHO, in some respect. Maybe it is because in my view we can ALL see what has to be done, and would do it if we could, but none of us has any power to do anything like what needs to be done. And maybe it is because I am 54 years old, have lived on both coasts and in Chicago, raised kids, and feel like I have seen enough to know what is obviously right here. Is there anyone who believes Gerald should have to put up with this? Why does he have to ‘wait for him to commit a crime?’ Trespass used to be a crime that the police would enforce. A man’s home used to be his castle. Sure, this guy is not committing a murder or arson or rape, but like Giuliani’s “broken windows theory” in NYC in the 90s, it is the little things like this that are becoming widespread and insidiously tear at the social fabric and signal to all of us that we live in a lawless society (slight exaggeration but you see the point).
“For whatever reason, and there are many, our leaders have failed us, and we are not only failing to help the Geralds of the world, we are failing to help these people. Much of the reason, sad to say, is because of lawyers (my former profession—recently retired, now in business) and people who think they are doing ‘good’ and treating people like this with ‘respect’ and like ‘human beings’ but are actually contributing to their chronic dehumanization and to our society spiraling into lawlessness and dysfunction. Those people are running all the West Coast states and big cities now. Seattle, Portland, SF, LA—they are all S-holes now, full of literally needles, 3rd world disease and human feces. Where is the ‘respect’ and ‘humanity’ in leaving this guy on the street? ‘That’s his choice’, lawyers for the ACLU told us in the late 80s and early 90s when Janice Brown sued for the right to be able to live on the street and not to have to go to a shelter on freezing nights. She was mentally ill. But they had an agenda. So, they took her off the street, dressed her up in a suit, brought her to Harvard, had her give a speech about human rights, and prevailed in their case. Then, they forgot about her. She was back on the street soon, taking money and throwing it away, burning it, shredding it, because she was mentally ill. She died not long thereafter. Look it up – front page of the NYT.
“I lived through it while in law school. Where was her ‘respect’ and ‘humanity’? Do you think they could not see that coming? What about the rest of us? Are we entitled to any respect? What about our humanity? Allowing people to live like animals on the street is not granting them humanity or human dignity. Allowing this guy to torture Gerald and his family like that isn’t giving him dignity and respect. The way to do this is to hold him to the same standard as you and me—that is truly giving him human dignity and respect. And—here it comes—if you cannot do that because he is mentally ill, fine, but then you must force him into treatment so he can then actually get cleaned up and restore his human dignity—as part of society—like the rest of us, NOT just act as though he is perfectly fine—because they are not, you said so yourself when you said they are mentally ill which is why you do not hold them to the same standards as us and arrest him for trespass.
“Yes, I said force into treatment. Involuntarily commit. The alternative is to force all the rest of us to accept needles in our parks, human feces in our streets, outbreaks of 3rd world diseases we have not seen in a century and fear and lack of safety for all of us, but especially our women and children. Where is the human dignity in that? They are living like animals and forcing the rest of us to live like animals, all because we have lost our way. We have let lawyers and looney politicians with a selfish agenda that is about power convince us that we cannot act to force these people into treatment or at least corral them into a fenced in area so that if they want to live on the street, it will have to be in one, giant parking lot on skid row or maybe 5 or 10 of them scattered around town.
“Why do they just get to plop down wherever they want just because it is the ‘public’ sidewalk, and then sleep there, crap there, urinate there, shoot up there, etc.? Gerald probably paid good money to live in Longridge Estates. You’re just going to let that value be destroyed by homeless people wandering in and deciding they like it there? Are you kidding? Why do they get to decide where to live? They have no stake in our society. They pay no taxes. They don’t even have enough investment to use a public or private toilet. There is actually an app now called SnapCrap—not kidding—for reporting human feces on the public street in SFO because it is so prevalent. I just want to stick my head out the window like Howard Beale in Network and yell ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it any more!’ But it really is not about being mad or angry. Ultimately, it is about doing the right thing—both ways. David Mills is right. We are not helping these people or ourselves. We are not doing our moral duty to our fellow human beings—call it morality, religious duty, atheist love, civic responsibility or whatever you want—it does not matter.
“We owe it to our fellow citizens (and even just our fellow human beings) to get them cleaned up and back into society—and if they refuse, then get them rounded up and go live apart from us so they do not infect us—literally—with their anti-social behaviors. That requires hard choices and uncomfortable actions. So, what? Are things good now? Is it going to get better if we keep ignoring the problem or enabling the behavior? We need to intervene, harshly if necessary. You do not break a cycle of bad behavior politely. For those who are not mentally ill, they would welcome the help because they are just temporarily displaced. Money and assistance can help them get back on their feet. For the rest, we need to have the compassion to do what we know is right even though they will kick and scream and say we are evil. Just the way a parent does with a child or an animal—sometimes if they have a fever or infection you have to hold them down to give them a shot so they can get better. Because they are acting like children and animals and will kick and bite you if you do not hold them down.
“Truly respecting our fellow human beings means not giving up on the goodness and humanity that is inside each of us but which they are not allowing to shine through for whatever reason—addiction, mental illness, whatever. Acting as though we have to just let them live like animals is giving up on their humanity. It is disrespecting them. It is disrespecting Gerald, and the rest of us who go to work, pay our taxes and follow the rules. Would you do that to your dog? Would you ignore your dog’s illness and not hold him against his will so the vet could give him a shot and antibiotics to restore him to himself? Same with your child. We have had to hold our children and do things temporarily they hated for their own good. Yes, grown adults are not children or animals. But when they display non-human, anti-social and dangerous behavior, we need to care for them enough to do what is best for them, whether they know or like it, or not.
“If you were standing next to a ‘jumper’ on a bridge or at a window, wouldn’t you try to keep them from jumping, by grabbing or tackling them if necessary? Or would you just walk away and say ‘do what you want—you’re a grown up’? Addicts will hit rock bottom and then turn around, or they will die. Anyone who tells you differently hasn’t been around addicts. The mentally ill need help, not to be ignored ‘out of respect.’ Giving a drug addict or mentally ill person what they want, to live in filth and danger, when you know it is the wrong thing and will lead to horrible consequences for them and our society, and probably death eventually of them or someone else, is not being respectful. It is treating them worse than you would treat a dog. It is enabling their addiction and abdicating your responsibility to your fellow humans—the ones who need your help AND the ones who go to work, pay the taxes and follow the rules and deserve to not live in fear and squalor. Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.”
|
1