The Scrapbook

One day when I was nine years old, I was hanging out with my buddy Demontrion at his house on a Saturday afternoon. In the far corner of his room near the window was a closet which he scarcely opened back then. Years later when we were in high school and he became the clothes horse/ladies man he's notorious for being now, it would simply be the closet that was too small to accommodate it's fair share of his trendy clothes which seemed to go in and out of style as quickly as he put them on.

The houses in South Park where we had grown up had been "G.I." housing. By G.I. housing, I mean that at the end of World War II when the veterans returned home to the heroes' welcomes they'd earned along with G.I. home loans, men with expanses of land built neighborhoods with similar floor plans and sold them to returning soldiers, sailors, pilots and Marines. If you were to drive through my old South Park neighborhood you would note that most of the streets are named after generals and battle fields. The streets have names like "Doolittle" , "Iwo Jima", "Tarawa" and "Ridgeway."

Demontrion's grandfather whom I'd never met served in the Navy in the second world war and made a career of it and Demontrion's uncle Johnny did the same. His dad on the other hand had joined the Marines. He never talked about his war experiences when we were coming up, but as we grew older and learned what happened over there, we realized that we'd been reading the war on his face our entire lives. He was a quiet man who didn't speak unless he had something to say. Honestly to this day when he talks I find myself listening as if I'm still a little kid. He's always been one of my heroes thought I doubt I've ever told him.

Demontrion's parents were divorced and he lived with his grandmother. The room he had, had been the one his father and uncle shared. When his father returned from Southeast Asia, he hung up the dress blue uniform that Marines seldom wear, (but always seem to be photographed in whenever they do) in a closet along with a sea-bag full of mementos, one of which being a scrap book never thinking for a moment that ten years later they would sever as curiosities to his son and his best friend on a restless afternoon. We found a worn scrapbook full of black and white photos. There were pictures of his dad, but we had difficulty recognizing him. Neither of us had ever seen him without a beard or at least a mustache.

The photos were mostly of his dad and the other Marines in the unit in which he'd spent two years. They were young men, I'm assuming between 19 and 23 who had the tired eyes of old men. There were pictures in the jungles, small villages, and bares that we all find synonymous with what we know of Vietnam, but there was one photo that stuck in my mind. My best friend's father at 19 was sitting on a big rock calmly looking into the distance and smoking a cigarette. The photo would hardly seem unusual were it not for the small khaki clad figure in the background who had been crucified. We couldn't see the man's face, but he wore khaki and a pith helmet that we would later learn had been the uniform of the North Vietnamese Army.

I found it neither funny, nor disturbing. Honestly, neither I nor my best friend had any idea what we were really looking at. The crucified NVA wasn't real to us, he was merely a glossy black and white image in a photo. We didn't understand the two men in the photo. One the victor, the other the vanquished. They were members of an odd fraternal order of mutual respect. The fraternity of men who've exchanged gunfire. Before they entered a cluster of jungle that became a battle field, they were two highly trained, well armed, teenage boys who had been armed to the teeth and sent out to obliterate one another. Their differences? One grew up a military brat in Houston, Texas his father a proud Navy man who had served in the Pacific, the other had probably been raised in Hanoi hearing about how bravely his father and possibly his mother had fought against the French in the last war.

The two boys met in a battle that probably lasted minutes but seemed like a week and in the end, one got to go home and the other was "sent" home.

I would join the Marines after high school, learn more ways of breaking and utterly destroying other human beings that I would ever care to know, but I would never be sent to test those martial skills against some other teenage "patriot" fighting for HIS country. Demontrion and I never peered into the scrapbook again. I can't speak for Demontrion, but I think on some level we probably felt it just didn't seem "right." It wouldn't dawn on me until years later that we probably didn't venture to open it again, because on some level we knew that not being members of the "fraternity" we weren't worthy.

Iesvs Christ! He's back!

Iesvs. Consider the fact that the letter "J" didn't exist in Latin and the letter "v" was used the same way that the letter "u" is. Hence the word "virtue" would have been written "virtve". That being said Lets go to today's topic Iesvs or as we spell it today "Jesus".
When ever you turn on your TV 24 hours a day there is someone telling you about Jesus. Jesus walked the earth 2000 years ago and was followed by a loyal group of guys (one of whom betrayed him) where upon he was crucified and became the basis of first a faith then a religion.
What's the difference? A faith is a belief, a religion is simply a set of actions that are repeated faithfully.
That being said whenever I turn on my TV someone or something is telling me that Jesus is my lord and savior. That's a pretty positive message. Do I believe it? Yes I do. Men and women are on my television telling me that Jesus not only loved me but died to redeem me in the eyes of the almighty father/creator of all. Do I believe this. I actually do. These men and women (a majority of whom seem to be from the American south) are telling me 24 hours a day that Jesus talks to them and wants them to spread his word and apparently (if these men and women are to be believed) enrich themselves in the process. They wear tailored Italian suits, wear $100,000 Rolex watches, ride around in limos and private jets, and surround themselves with body guards.
I find that an interesting paradox given that the disciples who actually traveled WITH Jesus while he walked the earth didn't have a horse, chariot or wagon between them. The apostle Peter who was left to spread the Gospel after Jesus ascension into heaven wasn't clad in the finest silk or traveling with body guards. If he had been maybe the Romans wouldn't have captured, imprisoned and eventually crucified him huh. Maybe televangelist do it that way because they're learning from Peter's mistake right?
Now from what I've read the book of Revelation tells us Jesus shall return in glory and usher in the apocalypse. I say...GREAT. But I have to ponder a few things. What will happen to the televangelist? Will Jesus simply take over all of their Christian broadcasting companies with a "thank you...you rewards shall be in heaven?" As they say they're doing it all "for the lord" will they relinquish their mansions, leer jets, expensive wardrobes, limos, Rolexs and other trappings that to the skeptic merely appear to be "bling" and "excess?" As they've said it's all about spreading God's word, I'm sure they will.
Will the son of God tell these men and women to walk from town to town in their geographic areas (Jesus and his disciples walked every where even though there were horses, wagons and chariots) and spread his word (without collection plates) to all who can hear them? I'm sure he would. Jesus said that following him was NOT an easy path and that his followers would be persecuted and their faith would be tested.
Would the men and women who've dedicated their lives to appearing on TV in mega-churches simply let Jesus have what they claim they built FOR him and "render onto God...that which is God's"? Of course they would. After all, they've been saying these many years that they were doing it all for Jesus Christ and his teachings.
Think of it, these men and women would be rewarded in the greatest way possible, they would be able to remember what Jesus said to a rich man about selling all he had and giving the money to the poor. They would earn the title of disciple and would live in the same poverty in which Jesus' ORIGINAL disciples did! And the best part is, all of these men and women would be both happy and honored to do so! We know this because each has told us as much. Unless of course they're liars and hypocrites who're only in it for the money, and we all know THAT isn't the case right?

The South Shall Rise Again?

While perusing the United Press International web site for some of my daily news I noticed something curious. Governor Robert McDonell of Virginia has decided to declare April Confederate history month. He claimed it was to "bolster tourism" and to "make many aware of the sacrifices of soldiers and leaders of the confederacy."
From 1861 to 1865 The United State of America was divided into two separate nations. One calling itself the United States of America, the other the Confederate states of America. Many Americans like to think that the war was effectively about slavery when in fact the war had been raging for an entire year before U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation which in THERORY freed slaves in the Confederate States. Effectively the Emancipation Proclamation said to the south 'If we're victorious...we're freeing your slaves.'
The causes of the American civil war had nothing to do with Americans in the north caring about the freedom of Slaves, but rather had more to do with economics and politics which have been the root of every war. The south's agrarian economy relied on slave labor to cultivate and harvest, tobacco, sugar and cotton just as the north's economy counted on a steady stream of immigrants from Ireland, southern and eastern Europe who were willing to work for pennies a day. The issue was not free men versus slaves but rather the congressional representation that the Southern states received from 3/5th of each state's non voting slave population.
Southern Agrarians could easily capture a majority in congress by simply purchasing or breeding more slaves. Northern industrialist who opposed slavery did so because slavery offered their Southern agrarian competitors a political advantage and not because of of some romanticized love of freedom as many revisionist historians would have us believe. Abraham Lincoln himself once said during the famed Lincoln/Douglas Debates "If I can preserve the union by freeing all the slaves, I shall do that. I can preserve the union without freeing a single slave I shall to that."
Rich men on both sides of the Mason Dixon line convinced the poor men who would fight the war of some sense of duty. Northern Industrialist talked of "Freedom" Southern Agrarians talked of a large central government interfering with "popular sovereignty". But the end result was the bloodiest conflict to take place on American soil with 620,000 Americans dying in the end.
When the smoke cleared America mended it's fences as best it could but there were resentments that simply wouldn't die. Were you to talk to the descendant of a Union Soldier he/she would talk of how his/her ancestor fought to preserve the Union. Were you to talk to the descendant of a Confederate soldier you would hear of the courage of his/her ancestor in fighting a tyrannical government bent on imposing it's will upon an angry populace. Were you to talk to the descendant of a slave they would either consider the Union heroes and the Confederacy racist, or simply view it as yet another war between men who simply saw their ancestors as chattel.
Whatever one's point of view it has to be said rather someone is a hero or villain is determined largely by geography and ideology. Should Virginians celebrate the "glorious Confederacy?" It could be said that those who wish to should be allowed to but to be true to the spirit of the Confederacy those who choose not to...should not have it "forced upon them by a tyrannical government."

Open Letter to the Tea Party:

Ladies and Gentlemen:
America was founded by men (mostly wealthy merchants and planters.) who protested their taxes being raised to pay for a war which defended them from the French. Being a dissident as part of being an American and the right to dissent is written into our constitution. While it is frequently not fair that those who dissent are often labeled as "rabble rousers" and more often than not "un-american" we should realize that our republic would not exist if everyone who disagreed with George III had simply kept quiet.
The irony attached to your party would have to be that many of you openly questioned the patriotism of your fellow Americans who protested the war in Iraq or President George W. Bush. Many of your older members considered the entire civil rights movement a Communist plot and were quite adament in stating your opposition to it.
As a young Marine I would have died for your right to disagree with me and as a fellow citizen I would still agree that you've the right to disagree with me and I with you. Ladies and gents you've fought the good fight, but now is the time to lay down your arms and come to terms with the fact that this battle is over. The court challenges will be to no avail but those of us who opposed you expect a battery of them and shall endure them all the way you endured our endless challenges of the election of 2000.
When the dust clears and the anger, bitterness and disappointment subside as ours did in 2000 you'll realize that in the great tradition of American politics you were an integral player and are part of a dance that shall exist as long as our democracy endures.
Despite his surname Barack Hussein Obama is not a practicing Muslim. He is not intent on destroying our great nation and he is not the "anti-christ" which the book of Revelation spoke of. He is merely another American whose political ideology is juxtaposed to your own and earnestly if we all shared the same ideology our republic would have become stagnant and ceased to exist long ago.
All things considered. Those of you who protested health insurance providers being able to charge you ridiculous premiums, raise your premiums & deductables or cancel your policy on a whim without reprocussions that was your right as Americans. Just as it was your right to protest any attempt at policing a self regulating industry who essentailly could tell Americans to go off and die simply because they were too great a health risk to warrant coverage, it is my right to teach you a mantra I found myself reciting in 2000 and again in 2004.

"MycandidatelosttheelectionI'mgoingtohavetogetoverit....mycandidatelosttheelectionI'mgoingtohave togetoverit." Say it until you're calm and the next 3 to 7 years may pass a bit more quickly.

Obama-care!? The Sky is Falling!

Teddy Roosevelt once invisioned a nation where all Americans would have access to affordable healthcare. It did not come to pass and the creation of the FDA didn't make him any friends in the meat packing industry.
Roosevelt's nephew Franklin was elected president during the great depression and suggested healthcare for all Americans, but it was lost in the shuffle of the various new deal programs he proposed, many of which were called "unconstituional" by his opponents.
Harry Truman proposed healthcare, but with the tail end of the second world war, the beginnings of the cold war and various other issues put it on the back burner. Joseph McCarthy was quick to brand anyone and anything he didn't like as communist so the idea of the government getting involved in any aspect of American life was as unpopular as those on McCarthy's blacklist.
John Kennedy talked about universal health care when he was a candidate but didn't introduce any legislation to back it up. After Kennedy's assasination, Lyndon Johnson proposed health care and was shot down but introduced medicare..
Richard Milhaus Nixon was the LONE Republican voice who spoke up for universal healthcare and was shot down by his own party. It was not until Bill Clinton that healthcare came back to the forefront where it was slowly beaten down by a strong Republican party.
After a century an American President has done what many thought impossible. Gathered enough men and women in congress who were willing to put their political careers on the line and pass a piece of legislation that would give greater access to healthcare to American men and women.

Rather or not one agrees with the new healthcare laws, we have to sit back for a minute and think about how monumental a piece of legislation this is. Is it "socialized medicine" No. It places caps on rate hikes that insurance companies can give the insured. It tells insurance companies that they can no longer cancel your policy because you simply made a claim. Insurance exist to pay your bills in the event that you get sick...the fact that they were free to cancel your policy when you chose to use them never made any sense. No Americans will be forced to give up the health coverage they already enjoy if they have it. The new healthcare law also gives tax credits to small businesses to insure their employees and enables peopel to keep thier children on their insurance until 26.

Any of these things sound like bad ideas thusfar? Not to me, but many in GOP see it as Socialized medicine. Far from it. This legislation will not create a slew of "government" hospitals. It will however prove beneicial to insurance companies as it will give them millions of new customers. The new healthcare bill is simply insurance industry legislation and the industry simply didn't wish to be regulated.
Martin Luther King once said that "Men with power do not wish to relinquish it easily." A Belgian Nobel Lauriat once said "There are invariably 10,000 men in the path of change." To that end change is inevidible. Should we therefore embrace change? No, change isn't always a good thing, but we should always be open to and experience it before we decide how much we do or don't care for it.
For the most part however many Americans will not notice any sweeping changes in healthcare unless they find themselves hospitalized. We as a republic shall neither implode nor collapse. The sky will not fall upon our heads and tanks emblazoned with the hammer an siclkle shall not roll with our streets escorting troops who will then hand each citizen a set of olive drab Mao Tse Tung style fatigues.
America is not perfect as much as we would hope for it to be, but we as a nation get closer to it every day. Will there be abuses in the system? There are abuses in the CURRENT system and in EVERY system, to suggest otherwise would be laughable. Will America be better off because of the legislation that President Obama signs into law today? The passage of time is the best measure.

Stay Black and Proud...except for you.

Don't ask me why, but for some reason I was convinced to attend a meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I'd avoided the NAACP because of a run in with an NAACP official several years ago at one of their conventions. He was a person of note and I attempted to shake his hand at which point he looked at me as if I were begging him for change. I noticed him posing for photos with various people at the event at which I met him and when I attempted to get a photo with him I was treated as if I'd just crawled from a septic tank. I left feeling insulted and the following day I saw the same man who had rebuffed me nearly in tears because members of MY generation weren't joining the NAACP in the numbers we once were during the 50's, 60's and 70's. I wanted to reach into my television pull the negro through it and beat him until his mother didn't recognize him for this hypocrisy.

Regardless, I was attending an NAACP meeting. The turn out was small and the bulk of the membership were men and women in their late 50s and early 60s. There were a handful of people my age, but not many. The new people were asked to give their names and say somethin about themselves and when my turn came I said who I was and said what I do during the day to pay the bills. I thought nothing of it, but when the meeting concluded I found myself being told that the NAACP's national convention would be in our city and that I of all people should come up with an idea for a business that I could shop around to some of the well connected persons who might show up.
Another older member told me that I would "find my nitch" at some point. Mind you my day job doesn't have a pension or benefits, but it's nice to know that members of my parents generation could easily overlook the fact that I:

a. Wasn't in jail
b. wasn't breaking the LAW to support myself.
c. HAD A JOB!

yet they were wondering why I and other members of my generation weren't rushing out in DROVES to join them. In the parking lot one of the older members whom initially thought was okay took issue with the fact that one of the chapter's officers was white. He went on some drawn out racist tirade about how black organizations don't need white members etc and peppered his sentiments with a plethora of racial slurs.
He then got on me when he learned that one of my closest friends is Asian by saying how my generation has so alienated itself that we have to look to "other races" because we can't befriend one another.

I know the people I met are not the ENTIRE NAACP, but at the same time I was thinking that this cross sampling reminded me why I hadn't joined the organization in the first place. I'm not saying they don't do any good. The organization was at the forefront of the civil rights movement and many of the rights I take for granted today were secured by NAACP lawyers like Thurgood Marshall, but today's NAACP needs to find leadership that looks at today's issues rather than celebrating it's glorious past and try to appeal to men and women whose generational outlook is more in keeping with the new millineum and the problems that we (Americans of every race) will have to solve.

Legacy of the Little Boy

A fair amount of time had elapsed from 8:15am August 6 1945 to a cold, late December afternoon in 2009 when a 40 year old, dredlocked, American former Marine got off a trolley in Hiroshima clad in an old field jacket. Armed with a digital camera, his mission was to capture a piece of history.
When one stands before the "peace dome" one can't help but think that mere yards away the bomb produced by the Manhattan project which was jokingly named "little boy" was dropped by the Enola Gay and detonated 600 meters above and changed not only the city of Hiroshima, but the entire world.
Co-pilot Captain Robert A. Lewis wrote in the Enola Gay's log after seeing the mushroom cloud "My God...what have we done."

The Peace Dome was one of the handful of buildings which survived when Hiroshima and the bulk of her inhabitants evaporated on that hot August morning. As a hard wind whipped your humble narrator's locks from the back of his head to his face he stood there attempting to take a photo of the building around which the present day city of Hiroshima seemed to have been rebuilt.

I stood there as my cold fingers fumbled with the buttons on my camera attempting to photograph a building which had been seen by the entire world in the 69 years since the bombing. Tears streamed down my face as I took photo after photo and thought of the men, women and children who never knew the bomb was coming and died instantly.
I thought about those who survived only to die shortly afterwards and those who survived and suffered from radiation related illnesses for the remainder of their lives.
As I ventured through the park and to the peace museum itself I saw a disclaimer from the Japanese government which said essentially that the purpose of the museum was not to place blame on the United States and how Japan's Emperial policies and it's attack on the United States meant that they could not claim to be innocent victims. The purpose of the musem was simply to show the world the consequences of war and how the losers always out number the winners.
I thought of the American, British & Australian soldiers, sailors and Marines who died at places like Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Battan and Wake Island. I thought of the Chinese butchered at Nanking, the Korean & Chinese "Comfort women" forced into prostitution to service the Japanese military and the countless Japanese civilians who died in American bombings.
Wars are started by old men, fought by young ones, but suffered by entire populations. The U.S. Department of Defense estimates that a million American servicemen would have lost their lives in an attempt to invade Japan and no one is quite sure how many Japanese civilians and military would have been lost.

The bomb had been called a "nessasary evil" but as one stands in the shadow of the peace dome, one can't help but wonder HAVE we learned anything from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The bombs in the world's nuclear arsenals destroy 10,000 times more "efficiently" than little boy and fat man did. We are just as likely now to engage in armed conflict as we EVER were and truthfully there are many who can't see beyond nationalistic furor which blinds them from seeing the citizens of a country which his own has declared "the enemy" as human.

At the end of the day as I stared out the window of an okonomiyaki restaurant on the other side of a narrow street from the peace dome, all of this ran through my tired mind. How many "peace domes" will the world know 69 years hence?