Face Masks & Abortion Rights

Quote from Rabbi Sofer, in 19th C.
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
RCRC.org

Thank you, Justices John G.  Roberts, Jr.; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan for telling the state of Louisiana today that it can't place a heavy burden on a woman seeking to end a pregnancy.

“The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons,” the chief justice wrote, as quoted by the NY Times. “Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.”

May Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alioto Jr., Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch go to hell.  They supported Louisiana in requiring doctors who provide abortion to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital--though for most of Louisiana there is no abortion-providing hospital within 15 miles of a women's clinic or women's health-care provider.  That means no safe, legal abortion without access to a car, money, perhaps a motel.  That could mean a DIY abortion.

To these four justices, women's lives don't matter.  Only the embryo matters--or even the fertilized egg.  If Chief Justice Roberts had voted with them, some women would have died. 

Twitter & Instagram personality Hayley Banu @noturwaife69 expressed it this way:

white ppl be like "it’s your choice if you want to wear a mask or not” then tell you you can’t get an abortion

Yes, I've seen a lot of white males and females on the news saying "It's my right as an American not to wear a mask."  I haven't seen any brown or black people saying this (though there may be some out there).

Many of those same "my rights" people don't think women have any right to end a pregnancy.

"I can kill someone by spreading the Covid-19 virus," they say, "but you can't end a potential life growing inside your body.  Because that's murder, in my view."  

So it goes in the United States of America in 2020.

See also:

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice - https://rcrc.org/

Pro Faith. Pro Family. Pro Choice.

Abortion--My Choice, God's Grace: Christian Women Tell Their Stories (Pasadena: Hope Publishing House, 1994) ed. Anne Eggebroten (aka Anne Linstatter).

"Supreme Court liberals, with Roberts, strike down Louisiana abortion law" by David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times.  https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-06-29/supreme-court-louisiana-abortion-case

Trump's Broken Promises

This wall in Nogales was here before Trump went into politics.

Back on January 22, 2016, Jenna Johnson of The Washington Post made a list of 76 of dt's campaign promises.  

It's worth remembering now.  Use this link to hear his promises in a 2-minute video or a list of all 76:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/22/here-are-76-of-donald-trumps-many-campaign-promises/

His wall that Mexico was going to be happy to pay for?  Well, he's got 2-3 miles out of 2,000.

Nogales AZ on the left,
Nogales, Mexico on the right,
built before anyone heard of Trump.

Repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better?  Senator John McCain stopped him on repealing, thank God.

Infrastructure?  Hasn't happened.

Defund Planned Parenthood?  It's had more donations than ever, but he has led some states to reduce women's access to all PPFA health care, including contraception.

Never take a vacation while serving as president?  He's had more golf days than any president ever.

Prosecute Hillary Rodham Clinton for her email server?  The FBI's verdict that "no charges are appropriate in this case" still stands.  But he managed to break enough laws to get himself jailed for a few years after his term ends.

Let Russia do whatever it wants with Syria?  Yep.  In fact, he's letting Russia do whatever it wants all around the globe, including messing with our elections.

Bring back jobs from China and other nations?  Didn't happen, but he did stop the only N-95 manufacturing in the USA, so we're dependent on China.  

Grow the nation's economy?  Our GDP is down -5%.

Fix the mental health system and prevent mass shootings?  Yeah, right.

Make sure police get more money for training?  No, his support for police violence has contributed to the call to defund the police.

Deport 11 million immigrants who came here without papers?  Thank God, he's only been able to deport a few.

On the other hand, he did these things without giving us a warning before we elected him:  

• encourage right-wing violence, 
• dismantle the protocols for handling outbreak of a pandemic,
• throw racist labels around,
• tweet up to 200 times per day
• embarrass the US on a daily basis.

As a result of his presidency, "America Is Too Broken to Fight the Coronavirus" writes Michelle Goldberg in today's New York Times.  "No other developed country is doing so badly."

Trump Crazies in Tulsa

Who drugged these people?

There's a journalist named Cal Perry who works for NBC.  His twitter handle is @calnbc.

He went to Tulsa and videotaped a white male Trump fan singing and bouncing with six cute female Trump fans, all white.  

Cal posted his video on Twitter and commented, "Welcome to Tulsa.  People are already in line.  Also, re-election songs."  

Followers of Cal Perry tweeted various horrified responses.

It took me a while to figure out these simple facts.  I couldn't imagine why any sane person would give publicity to these supporters of the 45th and worst-ever president.  At first I thought maybe Cal Perry likes dt too.

But now I am doing the same thing. I want the world to know how bad things are in Tulsa and in the USA.

The bouncy people all wear matching Trump caps and Trump t-shirts.  They look crazed.  They look like a man and his harem.  Maybe a man and wife with their five Barbie-doll daughters.  

I've never seen anything so alarming.  After Trump's mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic and in the midst of his cold indifference to the black men lynched by police, these people are singing cute songs about giving him four more years.  

https://twitter.com/calnbc/status/1273416410283290625?s=21

Do they know that Black Lives Matter?  Do they care about the protests rocking the US?

Did they invite a Black or Latin-x Trump fan to join them?

Maybe they couldn't find anyone who would say yes.

Maybe they don't know anyone who is of another race.

Maybe it didn't occur to them to invite anyone else.  

We'll find out in November if they represent the majority of Americans, or at least enough to win the Electoral College.

Somebody give them a small sign that says "Tulsa supports black lives too!" just to acknowledge which decade they are living in.  

Oh wait, the Tulsa massacre of  1921.  Maybe the majority in Tulsa today don't care about black lives. 

"Violation of oath by public officer"

Photo courtesy of The Houston Chronicle

We've all heard that the duty of a police officer is "to protect and serve."  

Two police officers in Fulton County were each charged with four counts of "violation of oath by public officer."  

Garrett Rolfe, who fired three shots at the chest of Brooks, is in jail facing 11 charges total.  He already had 12 previous complaints on his record.  His partner Devin Brosnan has offered to testify against him.

See the article in today's Wall Street Journal as well as the article in the Los Angeles Times.

One of the charges against Rolfe is "violation of oath by public officer for kicking Brooks as he lay on the ground."  Brosnan is charged with "violation of oath by public officer for standing with his boot on Brooks."

Rolfe's kick could show malice and earn him a life sentence or even the death sentence.

Good.  He deserves it and will become a cautionary tale for other officers... if justice is served.

Here is the Oath of Honor endorsed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police:

On my honor, I will never 

betray my badge, my integrity, 

my character or the public trust.

I will always have the courage to hold

myself and others accountable for our actions.

I will always uphold the Constitution,

my community, and the agency I serve.

Rolfe and Brosnan, you each betrayed your badge, your integrity if you have any, the character you should have had, and the public trust.  

We will hold you accountable for your actions, whether you do it or not.  

You undermined the Constitution of the USA.  

You killed a man who politely cooperated with you for 40 minutes; you wounded your community and the nation.  

You brought shame on the agency you serve, causing the resignation of your chief.

A government that does its job?

Can't we just have a government that does its job?

We wouldn't be in such a mess if we had elected Hillary Clinton.

I'm so tired of having to worry about the president blocking Obamacare, pulling back environmental protections, and imprisoning asylum seekers.

I'm so angry that he withdrew the protocols for handling a pandemic and didn't do anything to stop the spread of covid-19.  Tens of thousands more people are dying than would have if any competent adult had been in the White House.

I'm so disappointed that the president can't wear a mask or utter the words "Black lives matter" or make a compassionate, inspiring speech providing leadership on either the corona virus or the systemic racism virus.

I'm sick and tired of listening to MSNBC 12 hours a day to keep track of the president's latest outrageous tweets and lies and claims and to keep track of the latest efforts to get him out of the White House.

I want to get back to my own work, my own life.  

But I need to work hard to make sure he's not re-elected.

I look back to President Obama's eight years and remember how I didn't have to worry.  He made a few mistakes, notably on handling Iran and Russia's aggression in Syria, but they were honest mistakes.  They weren't part of a pattern of lying and cheating to retain his party's power.

Today there are 139 days left until the election on November 3, 2020.

I hope and pray that after that day, all Americans can relax a little bit. 

At ease, folks!   

"the police keep us safe"??

I heard the president say it in front of tv cameras:

Americans believe we must support the brave men and women in blue who police our streets and keep us safe. 

Keep us safe?  Keep us white people safe?

The police sure don't keep African-American men safe.  

The president said this on Tuesday, June 16, four days after Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed on Friday, June 12.  

Four days after the officer who shot Rayshard then kicked him in the side as he lay on the ground bleeding to death.  The officer talked to him and made him take tests for 20 minutes before suddenly attempting to snap handcuffs on him--without saying "You are now under arrest for...."

The president said the police "keep us safe" as he signed a "Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities."  And he signed it safely.  So you all are safe, right?

Except if you have darker skin.  

The president never said the name George Floyd or the name Rayshard Brooks.  

He recited the names of nine other African-Americans killed by the police (except in the case of Ahmaud Arbery).  

He mentioned that 89 officers were killed in the line of duty in 2019.  

He did not say that black lives matter.

Some of us will survive the Trump presidency--we must work hard to make sure he is beaten in the election on November 3, 2020.

Hate crime 4 days after Floyd murder

Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2020

On May 29, four days after George Floyd was murdered, two white supremacists drove to a protest march in Oakland and killed a security officer who was guarding a federal building, David Patrick Underwood.  They injured another officer. 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-17/far-right-boogaloo-boys-linked-to-killing-of-california-lawmen-other-violence

The shooter used a gun that had been silenced.  He was apprehended on June 6--Steven Carrillo, age 32, white.  

"Carrillo used a privately made, unmarked machine gun--a so-called ghost gun--with a silencer," said FBI agent Jack Bennett.  

The security officers were shot while guarding a federal building in downtown Oakland during a Floyd protest. The pair used the protest as a cover for their plans to attack law enforcement, said FBI Special Agent in Charge Jack Bennett.

“There is no evidence that these men had any intention to join the demonstration in Oakland,” Bennett said at a Tuesday news conference. “They came to Oakland to kill cops.”

Carrillo lived in Ben Lomond, near Santa Cruz, and on June 6 he opened fire on the deputies who arrived to investigate his home, killing Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller.

Carrillo and his accomplice were part of a loosely organized "boogaloo" movement whose online presence increased after shutdowns for the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Followers of this movement want to start a "second civil war," according to the three reporters who wrote this article, Maura Dolan, Anita Chabria, and Richard Winton.  

Brian Levin at Cal State San Bernardino followed Carrillo's posts on social media as part of his work for the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism there.   

Three fans of that movement were arrested in Nevada recently and "charged with inciting violence with the use of Molotov cocktails at protests."

Devin Burghart researches far-right extremist activity at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights.  He noticed "an uptick in alt-right participation in Floyd rallies" after Trump tweeted in response to the May 30 protests in front of the White House: "Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???"

My daughter Marie considered going out to demonstrate that Friday night in Oakland, four days after the lynching of George Floyd, but she researched online to see who was organizing the march.  She found that white supremacists were posting about the march, but black organizations didn't seem to be behind it.

The Anti Police-Terror Project advised against going to the protest in Oakland, so Marie decided not to go.  She persuaded 3 other friends that this was not an event to be part of, though they all wanted to do their part to protest the murder of Floyd.  

"Should I go?" she asked herself.  "But I can't find a single Tweet from a person of color endorsing it. There's no evidence that this is organized by black leaders.  I just don't have a good feeling about it."

She also noticed that the protest was to start at 8:30 pm, dusk.  Responsible groups organize protests to start at 5 pm, she says.  

As it turned out, a white van with an armed white supremacist was driving up to Oakland from the Santa Cruz area.  At a BART station, Carrillo picked up another man he had met on social media, Robert A. Justus, Jr., and told him to drive the van.  They drove through the streets of Oakland looking for a target and noticed two officers guarding a federal building.

Then "Surveillance video showed that Carrillo slid open the van’s side door to fire his weapon, officials said, as Justus acted as the getaway driver."

Euphemisms in a scary time

fuzzy thinking  

fuzzy speaking  

Because of "the ongoing global health event," UPS says deliveries will take longer.  

It's not a global health crisis or a pandemic.  It's an event.

Just like the George Floyd incident in Minneapolis.  It's not a lynching or a murder.  It's just an incident.

Euphemisms!  They drive me crazy.

If we choose our words carefully, we can pretend these things are not happening.

People don't die from Covid-19, they pass away.  Gently...  floating up like a balloon?  

Actually, they die because they can't breathe.  It's not an easy death. 

"George Floyd experienced the global health event, but he did not pass away.  He was taken in an incident in Minneapolis...."  

George Orwell hated this kind of talk and writing.  He called it Doublespeak.  

Truth hides in subterfuges like this.

Black deaths by hanging Matter

City Hall of Victorville, pop. 122,312 in 2018

Say their names: 

Robert Fuller died last Wednesday, June 10.  Age 24.  Palmdale.   Another article appeared in yesterday's  LA Times, June 14.

Malcolm Harsch died on May 31, two weeks ago.  Age 38.  Victorville.  See this article, also in the LA Times.

These men are too young to die.  Why are they gone?  

As I weed my garden and cook dinner, I can't erase from my mind the dark image of a man hanging so close to my home.  Not in Minneapolis or Louisville or Ferguson.  Not in the Deep South one hundred years ago.  I feel depressed.  I listen to their families on the radio or the television, and occasionally I choke up along with those speaking.

Robert's death was initially attributed to suicide. 

Unnoticed in life, both men earned an article in the New York Times in death.

Both died in public places, not at home or in a hospital.

“Why was it right here in public, in front of City Hall, next to a church, in front of a library?” one woman said [about Robert]. “Why was it like that? Who would do that? No black man would hang himself in public like that.”

Robert had participated in a Black Lives Matter protest a few days earlier.

Malcolm died next to a public library and also near a homeless encampment.  

In recent photos, both men look young, innocent, and handsome, yet they faced systemic racism.  They died during days of enflamed national agony and protest over the videotaped lynching of George Floyd on May 25.

Did Robert choose a simulated lynching at City Hall as a form of protest?  Or was he lynched?  

If he was lynched by hanging from a tree an hour from my home, I am horrified.

If he was jobless and hopeless as he coped with systemic racism and pandemic illness, I am still horrified.  I grieve for this young man and for his family.

Did Malcolm hang himself from a tree, as my great-uncle did in 1933?   Immigrant Laurie Pohja was ashamed of not being able to support his wife and two sons after the foundry closed, where he had designed molds to make iron parts needed in the mining towns of Colorado. 

Or did someone lynch Malcolm?  In Victorville, an hour and a half from beautiful Santa Monica, where I live.

Palmdale, pop. 156,667 in 2018

Both Palmdale and Victorville are high-desert, low-income communities where Joshua trees grew before the population of Los Angeles crept up to the mountain passes around the city and spilled over onto adjacent plateaus.  

Palmdale has  about 157,000 people and an altitude of 2,657 ft.; Victorville is the same altitude but has attracted only 122,312 souls.  Minus one.

Many who live there commute into LA or the "Inland Empire" for work in things like construction or plumbing.  Joe Spencer, who fixes my electrical problems, lives in Palmdale.  People who can afford Beverly Hills or Santa Monica don't live there or in Victorville.  We just drive out there once a year to see the orange hillsides of California poppies.

Joe's a liberal guy, a chatty Democrat, but many of his white neighbors are racist.  Was someone who saw the protest irritated enough to follow Robert home?  White lives matter, too!  

Or did Robert owe someone money?  My mind keeps ruminating on the circumstances that could cause this odd tragedy.  

We're used to deaths by gun, and I have a friend whose sister, a pregnant teen, hung herself in her closet in Santa Monica twenty years ago.  But not from a tree at City Hall.

Although suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the US, it's the third leading cause for black males of ages 15-24.  These deaths matter.

I'm haunted and depressed by these recent, close-to-home hangings because I live on the privileged end of the continuum that causes early death for too many who are poor and black.  With privilege comes guilt unless I work for justice.  

"No man is an island, entire of itself," said John Donne. the poet and preacher who wrote Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

We have all now arrived at an emergent occasion.  The deaths of Robert and Malcolm, as well as that of George Floyd, are at least partially caused by systemic racism and economic inequality.  I participate in that system and that economy.  I haven't done much of anything to change it.

I'm involved in humankind, and I need to get more involved.  My food and clothing, computers and comforts are produced by others but not equally shared with them.  I need to open my eyes to their pain and work for change.

Searching for church on June 14

The Reverend Katie Cadigan at St. Augustine by-the-Sea

St. Augustine by-the-Sea...  What, no live service on YouTube?  Technical difficulties? No! 

Wilshire Presbyterian...  No online service?  You mean I have to drive there, masked, and sit 6 ft. from everyone?

Westwood Presbyterian...  Will try it next...

But meanwhile, a great quote from Pastor Jacoba Vermaak on the FB page of Wilshire Pres.:

Omar Geaga Escalante is feeling determined.

May 31 at 9:31 PM · 

Sharing our pastor’s post

“To my white friends, please do not post stuff like: "MLK would not have condoned this violence. " We as white people can't and have no right to appropriate MLK and claim we know what he may have thought. He didn’t speak for us. He spoke against our racism. We can post his quotes, but we cannot speak for him. And here is what he really thought, in his own words:”

Jacoba Vermaak
Wilshire Presbyterian

“The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse”

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.  - quoted in Mother Jones, April 29, 2015

"They are mainly intended to shock the white community," he said.

About this website

MOTHERJONES.COM

Here's what Martin Luther King Jr. really thought about urban riots

"They are mainly intended to shock the white community," he said.

Killing continues so protestors march!

Today's LA Times with report on hanging in Palmdale

So much bad news today--the police killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on Friday and the hanging of a young black man in Palmdale, California, on Wednesday at 3:30 am.  

But also a bit of good news.  People are marching all over the country.  Watch this video of a march of 100-200 people today on San Vicente Blvd. to Little Ethiopia on to the Fairfax and Third neighborhood.  It was sponsored by Cochran Avenue Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

https://www.facebook.com/cochranavenuebc/videos/1848366761971036/

My daughter Elle and two of her friends marched with these protestors today--though Elle has been working from home and very strict about observing the Covid-19 social distancing.

There was also a demonstration in Palmdale, at the spot where Robert Fuller was found dead, hanging from a tree.  The death was initially ruled a suicide, but now is being investigated.  

Here's one woman's point of view about his death:

“I have doubts about what happened,” said Marisela Barajas, who lives in Palmdale. After the news conference, Barajas walked over and joined a crowd gathering at the tree where Fuller‘s body was found. An American flag flew nearby.

“All alone, in front of the City Hall — it’s more like a statement,” she said. “Even if it was a suicide, that in itself is kind of a statement.”

I agree with her.  It's unlikely that a black man would choose this method of ending his life, but if he did take his own life in a moment of despair, that moment was caused by the systemic racism that includes the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others in 2020.  

Thank you all for speaking up and demonstrating!  Thank you to the LA Council members who participated in this march.  "White silence is violence."

As Pastor Charles Johnson said: "VOTE!"

Fuck the police?

 "Fuck the police," one of my daughters is shouting on the streets of Oakland.

But "the police" are not all alike.  They are not a monolith.

This story on the front page of today's New York Times shows that each of the four cops who took park in the lynching of George Floyd on May 25 is a unique person with a complicated history.

Two had been on the street as officers less than 4 days.  They both had BA degrees from the University of Minnesota in sociology of law, criminology, and deviance. 

Criminology.  When you really study criminals and deviance, you find out that the line between regular people and criminals is not that clear.  It's easy to step over into a crime, to become a deviant.  And there are a lot of factors that go into making a criminal--causing someone to consider committing a crime and maybe even "just do it."

Both of these rookies during that 8 minutes and 46 seconds told Derek Chauvin more than once, "You shouldn't do this." 

But they understood that he was their training officer, and they didn't go further to stop him.

In retrospect, I'm sure they wish they had shoved him off George Floyd.  Now they are charged with a serious crime--aiding and abetting in a second-degree felony murder.

Lane didn't graduate from high school but later did volunteer work with Somali youth.  

After stocking shelves at Target, 26-yr-old Kueng attended the University of Minnesota, as did Lane.  He is in part African-American.  He took classes in Russian and in World Religions.


Thao, a Hmong ethnically, has held a job since he was 14 years old.  He had six complaints filed against him during his eight years as an officer.

Thank you to the reporters who did the interviews and writing for this article: Kim Barker, John Eligon, Richard A. Oppel Jr., and Matt Furber.  Just as "the police" are not all evil, these members of "the media" are each working hard to give us the information we need.  

Thomas Lane

 Here's info on Thomas Lane.

Read more on the NYT website: "This Case Is Already Different: The Police Are Breaking Ranks."

J. Alexander Kueng

Instead of yelling, "Fuck the police," we could increase the educational levels, training, and hiring standards of the police.  

We could address the social and mental causes of persons breaking the law, rather than expecting police to handle everyone who steals or kills someone or causes a public nuisance or destroys public property.

We could even abolish the police--defund them partly or totally, creating other social systems to take on all their responsibilities.

But it's irresponsible just to shout on the street or on social media, "Fuck the police."

Tu Thao

Paragraphs on Thao,
and below, on Chauvin.

Derek Chauvin