Stevie Wonder - Signed, Sealed, Delivered

It's a sign

On not one but two occasions yesterday we saw people holding up cardboard signs asking for money.

The first time was when we were exiting the Target parking lot. The woman’s sign read, “Anything helps."

The second time was when we were leaving an Apple Butter Festival at our local nature center. It may have been my imagination but the man really seemed to have a look of desperation in his eyes. His sign said, “My family’s hungry. Please.”

According to an article in yesterday’s Detroit Free Press:

• About 41,000 people statewide will likely lose cash assistance payments starting November 1.

• According to the state Department of Human Resources, 43 agencies – food banks and soup kitchens – have been cut from Emergency Services funding for the fiscal year that began October 1. Last fiscal year, they received a total of $1,261,659 in funding.

• William Long, interim executive director of the Food Bank Council of Michigan, said there has been an overall 30% decline in food help from major sources – federal, state and private.

Yet we cut taxes on rich people and businesses at the state and national levels while spending over a trillion on purposeless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and politicians beholden to Wall Street gather to make additional cuts to programs on which people rely.

I’ve been reading a lot of signs lately. There were some good ones at last Saturday’s Occupy Lansing rally, including “Out of a Job? Join the Occupation” and “I’m Here Because I Can’t Afford a Lobbyist” and “Stop Corp. Greed” and “People over Profits.”

Occupy Wall Street protesters have been photographed holding signs that say, “Screw Us and We Multiply,” “Lost My Job, Found an Occupation,” “America! Wake Up!,” “One Nation Under Greed,” “Up Against the Wall Street,” “It’s Class Warfare and We’re Losing” and one of my favorites: “Dear 1%, We Fell Asleep For a While. Just Woke Up. Sincerely, the 99%.”

You think it’s a drag to always read about the b*llsh*t going on in Lansing and Washington? Well, it’s a drag to always write about it too. But it’s also a drag to have to explain to my kids why we can’t drive around town on a sunny Sunday afternoon without seeing hungry and homeless and desperate human beings holding up signs and begging for help.

It sure would be cool if all these signs became as unnecessary as the wars we’re fighting and the games our politicians play.


Source: Detroit Free Press.

This stuff doesn't write itself....

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The Gap Band - You Dropped A Bomb On Me

Sunday poetry

The terrorist, he watches

The bomb will explode in the bar at twenty past one.
Now it's only sixteen minutes past.
Some will still have time to enter,
some to leave.

The terrorist's already on the other side.
That distance protects him from all harm
and, well, it's like the pictures:

A woman in a yellow jacket, she enters.
A man in dark glasses, he leaves.
Boys in jeans, they're talking.
Sixteen minutes past and four seconds.
The smaller one, he's lucky, mounts his scooter,
but that taller chap, he walks in.

Seventeen minutes and forty seconds.
A girl, she walks by, a green ribbon in her hair.
But that bus suddenly hides her.
Eighteen minutes past.
The girl's disappeared.
Was she stupid enough to go in, or wasn't she.
We shall see when they bring out the bodies.

Nineteen minutes past.
No one else appears to be going in.
On the other hand, a fat bald man leaves.
But seems to search his pockets and
at ten seconds to twenty past one
he returns to look for his wretched gloves.

It's twenty past one.
Time, how it drags.
Surely, it's now.
No, not quite.
Yes, now.
The bomb, it explodes.

~ Wislawa Szymborska

The Hollies - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

We Occupied Lansing But Skipped the T-Shirts

I took Bryant, Maya, Ben and Jerry to the Occupy Lansing rally today at the State Capitol Building. It was windy and gray and there weren’t as many people there as I had hoped – at first. The crowd soon swelled to hundreds, young and old, hippies and professionals, and everybody chanted and applauded and responded to the speakers as if they had stopped at Biggby’s Coffee beforehand and primed themselves with double cappuccinos and triple lattes because they knew they were a part of something big even if Faux News didn’t agree.

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero was first, introduced by talk show host Tony Trupiano. Using index cards and a bullhorn, he fired up the crowd and introduced his elderly father as an example of those held in contempt by the Richest One Percent. Bryant and Maya clapped, more out of respect for the nice old man, I think, than from agreement with America’s Angry Mayor. He wasn’t at his best this morning but it could have been worse.

A young woman who had screamed herself hoarse at Occupy Wall Street for a week, had been arrested and molested, and had returned home more convinced than ever that this fight was right spoke next. Although she seemed like a professional activist who had carefully chosen her wool cap and ensemble, her words resonated with the crowd and her smile was contagious.

An activist from Rochester was up next. He read his lengthy speech about the evils of ALEC – the nefarious American Legislative Exchange Council, which works with conservative Republican legislators across America to screw the rest of us – word-for-word and plugged an anti-ALEC website.

A 37-year-old woman who had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis her whole life followed the anti-ALEC dude. She started out slow but found her stride and riled up the crowd with her story about struggling with insurance companies, depression and chronic pain. Her plug for medical marijuana was met with scattered applause, and when she decided to put the faulty bullhorn down and project her rage to the sympathetic crowd, I became her fan.

Although an odd-looking SUV with “Homeland Security Federal Protective Service” emblazoned on the side cruised slowly by as we were walking to the Capitol, there wasn’t much of a police presence. I counted just two police cars, and one of the coppers even smiled at my dogs.

The crowd was attentive and supportive. I didn’t see any bare feet, hackey sacks, skateboards or marijuana; although I did run across an older, clean-cut guy carrying a bongo drum, he didn’t play it. No one objected to my blocking their view as I stood in front of them to take a photo. Even though today’s event was all about “us vs. them,” I felt the same sense of community, of connectedness, that I felt back in February when I attended a worker rights rally with a few of my kids. We’re not alone. Other people are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore.

We left after the arthritic woman finished speaking because the kids were getting antsy and had “seen enough of history being made.” (On the way downtown, I had explained what Occupy Lansing was all about, why more than 1,000 rallies were taking place around the world, and how they were helping to make history by turning off their XBOX 360 and joining me.) It was time to switch our focus from class warfare to the gridiron rivalry between Michigan State University and the arrogant boys from the Big House in Ann Arbor.

I’m rooting for the Spartans. And I’m rooting for the 99 Percent.