WORDS TO MEND A WORLD

SCHEDULE OF JANUARY APPEARANCES

Cecile Pineda will be talking about Apology to a Whale: Words to Mend a World and signing books during the month of January:

January 17: Silk Road House, 1944 University Avenue between MLK Jr. Way & Milvia in Berkeley Sunday, January 17 from 1 to 3 PM. The event is wheelchair accessible, but space is limited. Please call first to reserve your place at (510) 981-0700.

January 23: San Francisco Mime Troupe, 855 Treat Avenue at 22^nd Street on San Francisco, Saturday, January 23 at 2:30 PM. Space is limited. Please call first to reserve your place (415) 285-1717.

January 24: Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar at Bonita Streets, Sunday, January 24 at 7 PM. The evening is a fund raiser for the Drone 4 whistleblowers. The event is wheelchair accessible. For information call (510) 841-4824.

State of Rage, State of Mourning

Last week another Black man was lynched on the blood-stained Streets of San Francisco by a lawless enforcement posse of shooter cops who believe their office gives them license to run amok. Over 500 of such murders have taken lace this year in the United States. This time, the name to remember—which we must add to the thousands of names of those fallen, from Mamadou Diallo, felled by 49 New York City-purchased bullets to those of Sandra Bland, murdered in a Florida prison cell from not signaling before making a right turn, to Yvette Henderson murdered by AK 47—part of the “peace” keeping weapons expenditure by the City of Emeryville—is Mario Woods, a young man whose already prone body received a handy total of 21 bullets—all purchased at City of San Francisco expense.

ECONOWAR

The world is changing, and understanding of the world is changing with it.  A time has arrived when warfare-as-we-know-it is slowly becoming obsolete. Certain exceptions still stand out.  The ruination of 7 Middle Eastern Countries has taken a bit longer than the neocons’ optimistic estimate of only five years, but chalk that up to unforeseen resistance: quite inexplicably some people are not entirely sold on hosting foreign invaders.

Letter to Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Client State Japan

One thousand nine hundred and fifty-three days follwing the Planetary Catastrophe at Fukushima-Daiichi

To:  His Excellency, Shinzo Abe

        Prime Minister of Japan

Your Excellency:

Although you have declared that Japan must end its dependence on expensive imports of fossil fuels to meet its energy demands, and therefore the nuclear industry must re-start all 43 Japanese reactors shuttered following the Fukushima-Daiichi planetary disaster, your silence on the much more reasonable costs of solar energy and wind energy seems particularly puzzling in light of the recent drain on the Japanese economy resulting from the disaster at Fukushima and the resulting need of Japan to import much of its energy from abroad.

Why We Need 329,700.7 Members of Congress

“The median net worth of  a member of the 2013 congress was $1,029,505, eighteen times the worth of an average American home.” http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/28063-congress-net-worth-is-43-billion-individual-members-median-net-worth-is-1-million

American history is studded with precedents for disproportionality.  Our most stunning example comes directly from our very own Sacred Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment identifying a black person as three-fifths of a white person.

ENHANCED CARDIAC ARREST

On January 1, Popular Resistance published an article, titled, “Leading Historian on US Torture: How to read the Senate Report.” https://www.popularresistance.org/leading-historian-on-us-torture-how-to-read-senate-report/

“Perhaps more importantly [than its reference to so many iconic cesspits of human suffering,] its details have purged that awkward euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques’ from our polite public lexicon. Now everyone, senator and citizen alike, can just say ‘torture.’”  It could join that cheerful Nancyism: “Just Say No” to an advancing army of U.S. inspired anodyne remarks as in “Just Say No to Torture.”

HOPE

This is the moment of recognition that the notion of slavery can't safely be tucked away in the landscape of black people exclusively, but that that landscape itself has caught up with all of us, even the 1% who are enslaved to their own greed.