Georgia NOT on My Mind

          If it looks like a peach, taste like a peach and smells like a peach it must be a peach right? Welcome to the great state of Georgia where not everything is as it might first seem. Georgia, a down home kind of place where God and guns are as American as peach cobbler, peanut farmers, Delta Airlines and the Atlanta Braves major league baseball team. What exactly do these thing have in common? Probably not a whole lot other than the notion they all likely feel a keen responsibility to look out for their own communities. No matter whose life it might cost. What are we if not a community? God bless ‘Merica. An eye for an eye. We are who we associate with are we not? There’s plenty of saying the good ole boys are quite fond of spouting off in their haste to remind us all they won’t lay down their so called 2^nd Amendment rights so quickly. In fact, they dead set on making certain Democrats, filthy liberal animals and the black guy in their White House get a big fat F- you too.

          Yet Georgia, the bedrock of the south is also a place where great statesmen and former presidents like James Earl Carter Jr. come from seems to have gone ‘plum crazy’. When was the last time a president actually fed poor children or helped the less fortunate build a home through Habitat for Humanity? A great man who unlike the majority of his predecessors and successors alike puts his money where his mouth is, dedicating his life to the service of others. A man who is deeply committed to social justice and basic human rights. Yet the Grand Ole Party speaks of this great man like an ignorant country bumpkin. There used to be so many great things to say about Georgia.

          Yes sir the Great state of Georgia has spoken! They have seen the light! They will lead the way for ‘Merica. Yet eventually reality sets in and you realize a once great state seems to have lost its cotton pickin’ mind. Even their state motto “Wisdom, Justice, Moderation” says everything about how far off the path of sanity they have strayed. Their illustrious politician’s spew their pro-American “Johnny git jer” gun rights crap while thumping the Lord’s Bible and spitting out verse and scripture instructing others how to live. They’re also fond of telling us who and who will not get through the Gates of Heaven.

          There was a time in America when laws were created to enhance the quality of life and correct inequalities and deficiencies in our society. A time now long gone. Laws these days are fabricated purely to inflate dicks and egos. Those responsible for crafting and creating legislation today are devoid of any desire to effect positive social advancement much less protect the rights of the average American for whom they were elected to work. Any benefit to society is purely accidental, any positive result without merit. One’s manhood used to be measured by hard work, doing right by loved ones, pushing on in the face of adversity and making a positive contribution to society. For the less civic minded individual the measuring stick might rest between one’s legs. Sadly, even the latter trumps today’s interpretation of masculinity which is solely measured by the size of the gun strapped to one’s hip.

          The state of Georgia’s recently passed House Bill 60, the Safe Carry Protection Act of 2014 has made it official, and America has finally lost its goddamn mind. In a world which is, out of necessity to survive, becoming increasingly socially conscious we as a society have allowed America to be reduced to quite possibly the most socially regressing first world nation on the planet. I mean let’s be honest, with politicians the likes of Georgia’s Governor Nathan Deal at the helm what else helm what else can we expect? America at a crossroads and make no mistake it’s Governor Deal who wants to put us all in the cross hairs. Georgia’s Safe Carry Protection Act effectively allows everybody and his brother to pack a gun not only in the street but in bars and restaurants serving alcohol, in the Church pews, school zones and buildings with kids present, government buildings and even airports. You read right, airports! Just imagine, the next time a TSA agent pisses you off you can just shoot him. A gun owner with a license requiring no more background check than a fishing license is now allowed to conceal carry by law right up to the gates of airport security. Even better, the annoying drunk seated next to you at the bar has one too many and decides well, he wants to shoot you, so you decide in self-defense to shoot him back, then his buddy decides to get in on the action just like back in the good ole days of OK Corral. Sound extreme? Think again.

          Remember when schools were a place to feel safe? Yep, a kid might not be allowed to wear a gay rights t-shirt, profess a religious belief or expect a decent lunch, but be sure adults can strap a gun to their hip and during school hours! After all, what’s more important here, education or raising a generation of gun toting kids? Where went the good ole days when everyone in town turned out at church because it was the House of God, a place to feel safe and protected from the evils of men? Not anymore folks those days are long gone too. Thanks to Governor Deal and the Georgia State Legislature the church is no longer designated a feel good, safe zone. Not even the preacher can protect his flock as it will now infringe on your rights to carry a gun wherever you damn well please. How long do you think it will be before some pissed off citizen strolls into a courthouse or government building to contest a traffic ticket, pay a fine or address some manner of official business and some lowly civil servant gets blasted?

          I have to wonder how all those Georgia law enforcement officers feel now knowing every character they pull over from the drunken fool who just got behind the wheel of their car to the pissed off citizen involved in a domestic dispute is now packing a piece. No doubt folks America as you knew it no longer exists. The move by Georgia and Governor Deal is nothing more than extremism in action. Their idea is not to protect the rights of Americans at all, it is no more than extremist leaders attempting to flex their muscles and send a big fat F**K YOU to the moderate, liberal and socially conscious Americans their paranoia tells them want to take ‘their ‘Merica’ away. Governor Deal and his posse effectively said ‘we will do what we want and we don’t care what America thinks’. 

          America is in a seriously bad place when we’ve afforded our elected officials the power to allow guns in schools, churches and airports. The great state of Georgia sacrificed the safety of our children, ignored the true word of God and endangered public safety all for a few votes from 2^nd amendment crackpots and NRA extremists. The irony is not lost on a passage of a bogus bill pandered to a desperate public as means for citizens to protect themselves will result in no one being safe anymore. In addition to serious the potentially deadly consequences and serious social ramifications which will sooner than later effect the good citizens of Georgia are huge legal and financial liabilities. Liabilities Governor Deals and his gun rights posse has now laid squarely on the taxpayer doorstep through his blood legislation. At a news conference he was so busy patting himself on the back while chewing his cud, pumping his fist in the air and inciting the gun toting Christian masses, “we won so screw you liberals”, his ignorance and their own was lost on the state of Georgia itself.

          Governor Deal’s gloating and self-adulation in his intentional protection of extremist gun rights activists has put every citizen at risk. Why merely stop at allowing everyone to strap on a holster? Georgia hasn’t gone far enough, let’s go a step further and bring back the age old sport of dueling to the death. Let the good citizens settle squabbles over good old fashioned state sanctioned shootout. Everybody from the gun and ammo manufacturer to local undertakers can now turn a profit, we can even have a picnic in the ole town square. This, is essentially what we have come to, turning a profit for gun rights.   

          One wonders how the State of Georgia would react if we as responsible citizens were to how to address the issue in extremist ways of our own? What if we were to turn the tables on Governor Deal and his posse through a series of economic sanctions on the state of Georgia not unlike we’ve done to Russia and other countries when we want something? Hit them right where it matters most to these people, in the pocketbook. Maybe we can begin by a boycott of Georgia peaches? Hell, why stop there let’s boycott peanuts while we’re at it! Surely the good citizens of Georgia will sit up and take note of sane Americans great displeasure especially in light of economic sanctions. While we’re at it let’s go even further and refuse to fly Delta Airlines head quartered in Atlanta Georgia or skip the Atlanta Braves games whenever they come to a city near you. Money it seems is the only motivator in America today, not social consciousness, or moral responsibility, so it’s about time we bring it to them where it hurts the most. It’s about time we get serious and get serious quick to stop Governor Deal and his Georgia pro-gun rights posse and the countless of other extremists in America or we’re in for big trouble. Trouble we may not be able to so easily turn back.

          The truth is, if we don’t do something to stop the madness that is called gun rights soon we as a nation soon we are surely destined for a great deal more pain and division than we already know. If we allow it to happen, America as we know it will quickly slip out of our hands and into the control of a much uglier, extremist element. Will we as socially responsible Americans stand and take a stand against the madness of Governor Nathan Deal and others like him? Will we take a stand against the insanity of the NRA and those who call themselves Americans? Or will we allow ourselves to as a nation to regress and watch America to slip into the social abyss in which we are headed? An eye for an eye right? Isn’t that what they say down home in Georgia?   

'Innocence Lost'

So for her I pined most of my days and late into the night
Unfamiliar with the reality of desire
Yet well versed in futility of life
Long halls cold grey walls
A young boy too quickly become a man less the intimacy of touch.
No, for me she was innocent lost and innocence saved all at once
Possibly the only innocent thing I had ever known
And soon that too would disappear and for that I fear
The only real innocence I would ever know
Yet a distant memory in my mind
Saving me from my own self and the slow death of time
We shared something silent
If only a look
That thing only two would know
Yet even it was denied me
Probably rightly so
Still it was innocence found
Innocence lost
Maybe the only I would ever know
And likely never know again
Once, I almost held it
Just when I thought I had it all
It slipped away into the night
Like shadow on glass there and gone
Fate would intervene
Like the inconsiderate devil he can be.

 

-SPC

Boogie Man

Even if it felt like hell
It raised me well
Like a child of its own
It never let me down
Kept me warm
Belly full and body covered
It raised me well
As did the streets before
Made me their own
Readied me to go on my own
Then came the they had to set me free
A freedom unlike any kind you’ve ever known
Unlike any I’ve ever known since
When I came up a boy
Scared of my own self in a mirror
Blood splattered walls
Screaming in the halls
Fists clenched in rage
Boogie man under the bed
Angel, Madonna, Crucifix or saint
Nothing could save me from my own hate
Or the monsters living inside that come out at night
Come morning they were out of mind out of sight
They who spawned me tried their best
With what little they had to work
But sometimes even your best isn’t enough
So they set you on your own
So I was grown
Before my time
Matured in body yet not in mind
Having taught me all it could
It would be only a matter of time
Before the street relinquished me
To that place that felt like hell
Yet raised me well
Behind limestone walls
Made a boy a man
Trade in a smirk for a shank
Gave me eyes in back of my head
But the boogie man under my bed
Followed me there
Telling me that though they let me down
He never would
Because he would be with me forever
He became my friend, my lover, my confidant
Taught me how to survive
And never left my side
We became one in the same
The demon I could never live without
Because all others may abandon you
But your demons never will
Even if it felt like hell
It raised me well
Even today calling out my name
It missed me so
Come back home
Just like he promised
He’ll be there waiting
For me to return home
That boogie man under my bed
- SPC
2/3/2014

There's No Such Thing as a Bad Boy

   I remember there was a time when kids could be kids. We played outside in the street with neighborhood friends in relative safety. We might even sneak off to those forbidden places most adults tell them not to go near that most kids eventually discover. I know I not only took a bite from the forbidden apple, I ate the whole thing. We were able fall and hurt ourselves and nobody got sued or get into a fist fight in the street and nobody got arrested. We could get away with minor mischief and even major mayhem on occasion. Kid mayhem that is. Kids were allowed to make mistakes. We played outside well past dark or until a parent or other adult stepped out onto the front steps and screamed your name until you ducked out and ran home. Some kids got to stay out later than others, it usually dependent upon the quality of life at home, but when you’re a kid who thinks in terms of quality? We were just trying to get by without getting beat up or picked on by the older kids. Those of us who did get to stay out later just knew we were cooler than the rest. It always amazed me that I could be blocks and blocks away and still here my mother hollering out our name to come home. Whenever I was a little further away than I should be her voice would resonate throughout the neighborhood passed on from neighbor to neighbor until someone spotted me in a pile of kids and passed the message to get my ass home. That was back in the days when I was still had fear of getting smacked if I didn’t get home. The neighbors would automatically ‘pay it forward’ back then, we didn’t have to be asked to. You look out for mine, I look out for yours. The neighborhood raised your kids.
          Sure, even back then a kid had to be careful but we were fundamentally safer because everybody knew each other or at least knew someone who knew you and your family. People just looked out for one and other. Officer friendly was a real person and cops were looked up to, not eyed with suspicion and fear. They were too busy being real cops to try making a kid feel intimidated. Like I said, kids were allowed to make mistakes. Kids were allowed to be kids.
          Back in those days even I trusted authority. I know, I know, some of you may find that difficult to believe but yes, it is true. I wasn’t always this jaded and cynical. Admittedly even I had a smidgen trust in the legal system, but I saw where that got me. You see, like many of you, I grew up with the belief that if you do right to others they in turn would do right by you. We had faith in the system and held belief that police and the court system was put into place to serve and protect and help guide you down the right path in life. A smile and a kind word got a kid a lot further than hand cuffs and nightsticks. Our role models were once authority figures.
          I grew up with what I refer to as the Father Flanagan Syndrome, that “there is no such thing as a bad boy.” For those of you who know and those of you who don’t, the good Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town in Omaha Nebraska as a safe haven for wayward and homeless boys, he would later open the doors to young females too. He was immortalized when portrayed by actor Spencer Tracy in his life story of the same name. ‘Boys Town’ was one of my all-time favorite movies. It told the story of an incorrigible young boy Whitey Marsh (Mickey Rooney) and Father Flanagan’s mission to save Whitey and other kids like him from the negative forces around him. Father Flanagan firmly believed “There are no bad boys. There is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.” In short he was saying responsible parties need to step up and lead the way, not cause more havoc in many already troubled kids lives.
          Each kid with the proper guidance, mentoring and decent role models stood a chance at staying on the straight and narrow and not get lost if they made good choices. For the boy or girl that did stray there was the youth home that provided them with a chance to get straightened out and have a decent shot at life. Instead officer friendly and our justice system now offer kids a lifetime opportunity of a criminal conviction before they can comprehend what it is they did. Our court system has abandoned any notion of child welfare in favor of intimidation tactics on kids, criminal convictions and revenue collection by way of punishing and fining kids for being, well, for being kids.
          The Audy Home (a Chicago term for the youth home) was for the juvenile that needed extra help and was a form of deterrent not punishment. According to The Encyclopedia of Chicago, “In 1899, the women of Chicago’s Hull House and the men of the Chicago Bar Association succeeded in passing legislation to remove children from adult jails and adult poorhouses by establishing the world’s first juvenile court. The separate court was part of a sustained campaign to transform the maltreatment of children by abolishing child labor, establishing compulsory education, creating public playgrounds, and strengthening immigrant family life.” For the most extreme cases of the most incorrigible kid punishment was more severe once they became an adult and still couldn’t do the right thing. These things were understood and officer friendly was put on the front lines to help a troubled kid. That all changed and the front line hero became a government salaried strong arm man and revenue collector concerned more with enriching the courts coffers than serving and protecting. Suddenly, America went horribly wrong.
         Slowly over many years we have thrown any allowance for a kid to be a kid right out the window. State, local and municipal governments and the courts set forth an edict that instructed law enforcement agencies, school teachers and officials to start viewing kid mistakes as an opportunity to invent a revenue source and they happily complied. The asinine politically correct ‘zero tolerance’ experiment took effect. Zero tolerance is essentially saying we’ve surrendered all control and are too lazy to do the job you have entrusted us to do, kids are not our problem. Why not? It took the responsible adult part of the job description out of their hands. It just made life easier, do less for more. A zero tolerance policy created by the responsible adults was placed like a bounty all on the heads of the very kids they were once entrusted to protect. A kid was no longer just a kid but instead a commodity who albeit could not even understand the very word itself had dam well better know how to act in public. If they know what’s good for them they had dam well cease being kids lest they find themselves in cuffs and behind bars amongst the ever growing ranks other ‘kids in the can’. Like adult prisons, kid jails became a burgeoning business worthy of a judge’s greed and our politician’s dirty little secret.
          A recent case that comes to mind out of the hundreds of examples I can think of is the Barrington, Illinois Middle School-Station Campus scandal in which school officials contacted Barrington police to start and investigation into ‘sexting’ or sending inappropriate images amongst themselves using their smartphones. A modern version of sneaking behind the back of school and playing ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’. Their reasoning according to Principal Craig Winkelman is that “sexting among students can affect reputations and disrupt the educational environment.” He warned that criminal charges “may also result” from the students’ actions.” This of course is all from the responsible adult.
          So let me get this straight, responsible parties (parents) give a kid the means by which to get into trouble by giving their kid the latest, greatest smartphone because everyone has one. Meanwhile the other responsible parties (school officials) allow them to roam the halls of grade school with them tucked neatly in their back pockets and training bra straps. Then, when they do what every kid since the beginning of mankind has done, explore their own sexuality, of which we force feed them an overabundance of a daily basis, the responsible adult, rather than deal with what they are paid to, turn them over to child irresponsible law enforcement agencies who force them into brightly lit, small white rooms to interrogate and intimidate them and accuse the minor children of trafficking in child pornography and charge them with sex crimes? A type of arrest mind you that will stay with a child, on their record, for the rest of their juvenile years and most likely the remainder of their lives. That arrest if turned into a conviction turns an innocent minor child into a registered sex offender for life! Sounds like a classic case of entrapment to me. Sounds rather controlling and much like a conspiracy as well. A well designed one at that.
          How screwed up are we in this country is my question? While our society allows full televised nudity, murder and mayhem along with online pornography at every turn we accuse kids of falling short on scruples and self-control? Are you kidding me? Our educators have been stripped of any ability to reach out to kids for fear of their own jobs. Yet we as the responsible adults turn a blind eye to the street corner bus stop bench or rolling public bus advertisements of scantily clad (if your lucky) fourteen year old girls and boys who look like heroin junkies in training. Why do we turn a blind eye? Because assholes call it art, greedy corporations sell it and people lap it up and ask for more while our corrupt politicians say everything’s going to be A-Okay. But somehow the kids just can’t control themselves and we continue on creating a generation of throw away kids who are convicted of crimes of invention by those they were supposed to be able to trust.
         It only gets scarier from there. ‘Kids for Cash’ was arguably the most infamous child abuse case in American history yet everybody seems to have forgotten about it, that is, except the family of the child who committed suicide as a result of his bogus incarceration and the other kids permanently damaged by it. How did it happen? We allowed it to happen.
          In 2008 two judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan who presided over juvenile courts in Wilkes-Barr, Pennsylvania were indicted and eventually convicted of accepting millions of dollars in bribes for kid’s incarceration. Brides paid to them by Robert Mericle the builder of two private, for-profit juvenile detention facilities. The very men we entrusted with our children’s well-being accepted cash and prizes to bogusly sentence kids to jail. They willingly threw many kids lives out the window for what would turn out to be very minor offenses in order increase the facilities detention numbers and profits and they didn’t do it alone. It took many more people to make this happen, many of which I am certain were never indicted in hopes by Luzerne County and state of Pennsylvania government officials that the scandal would just go away. The kids didn’t matter, not even the young man who committed suicide as direct result of Judge Ciavarella’s bogus sentence even though he was considered a first time offender but bad publicity did.  Fortunately these kids did matter to Federal Judge Edwin M. Kosik who rejected the criminal’s judges Ciavarella and Conahan plea agreement and ultimately sentenced them to federal prison for twenty-eight and seventeen and a half years respectively. Hopefully they will die there. As for everyone else, they got off pretty light, except that is for those kids whose lives were ruined and faith in authority forever destroyed.   
          Every time you open a newspaper, turn on the evening news or surf the net you find a story of kids gone bad, kids gone mad and kids arrested for the minor infractions of making the mistakes kids make. Mistakes we all made as kids and were grounded for, yelled at for, suspended from school for and even smacked around for. Now pre-teen kids go straight into hand cuffs or directly to jail for the same offenses you and I once worried we’d catch a beating at home over. We as the supposed responsible adults give them the tools to hang themselves. The lack of morals and life lessons, we offer gratuitous sex and violence in film, TV, music and every aspect of life, after all violence sells. We complain about their lack of motivation and desire for material possessions yet refuse to guide them instead dismantle their future piece by piece. Society demands you have an I-phone, flat screen and latest gym shoe or you’re a loser and not worthy of. They don’t learn this themselves yet no one wants the responsibility of showing young children the way.
          Sure there are kids that do terribly things and commit heinous offenses and they should be punished for them and remanded to mental health facilities where they can be helped. But those aren’t the kids we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the discarded kids from all walks of life. An issue once largely limited by racial bias to the less fortunate underclass, those who had few options is now a threat to every kid out there, save the elite 1% of course, regardless of socio-economic status by the simple invention of zero tolerance.
          It’s simply not enough America incarcerates more adults that any other country in the entire world in the name of profit. Recognizing the enormous potential for increased profits the powers that be allow corporations to set up private juvenile prisons and cash in on America’s children. As result of our failure as a society to place limitations on those we owe the most to and our unwillingness to lead and flat out denial of our responsibility we are well on our way to creating an entire class of sociopaths in the name of greed. What’s worse is we allow law enforcement agencies and the court system full of intolerance, indifference to perpetrated crimes and injustice against kids. It is our fault and as their protectors we have failed miserably. 
          I know a little bit about the lack of life lessons, life skills and being ill prepared for the world that leads to a lack direction. A hard life of that causes a kid to have to figure out the road map of life by trial and error, mostly error. I’m not unfamiliar with the feeling of being discarded and left to fend for oneself and I know a little about kids in jail. However, I also know there were those who tried to lead me in a different direction, there were people who cared and there were people who felt responsible. They’re still out there yet there’s just not enough of them left anymore. Our apathy and lack of sympathy in America has led us down a bad road that threatens to sacrifice our greatest natural resource.
          As Principal Craig Winkelman so self-assuredly says, “life-altering regrets and damage sexting can imprint on a young person’s future.” God forbid he take the time to do his job and make a positive imprint on their young minds. I remember the days when our kids were our greatest natural resource. Hey, what the hell, we abuse every God given thing and waste every other resource we have, why not our kids too?
          I miss Father Flanagan and the lessons he had to teach us, because even if Boys Town was a dramatized version of a great man’s good deeds, it taught us there was something to hope for, something to look forward to. I fear those days are gone. Where is the good Father when we need him?