People keep asking me why I'm taking the train to Portland. Instead, I suppose, of a plane.
I could explain how planes are a necessary evil, this trip is neither of those things, but rather a chance to relax and have fun.
I could explain that, when traveling alone, it's nice to be able to talk to the people around you, maybe get into their heads a little, without being suspected of any and all sorts of bad intentions.
I might even explain that you just never know if you might find a friendship or a romance on a train, along with a chance to think things through.
When they were originally deployed, cluster munitions solved a serious problem. It was impossible to use unguided iron bombs from fast - moving ground attack aircraft against small discrete targets like tanks, or to effectively deliver ordinance against larger area targets like airports or massed vehicles. Even the guided missiles of the period lacked the accuracy and power to be effective.
At that time, the primary anti-tank aircraft, the A-10, designed specifically to kill Soviet tanks crossing the Fulda Gap, was designed around a special 30mm cannon as it was well known that no aerial delivery weapon could be delivered with the necessary accuracy and power.
The solution was the Cluster Bomb. A large bomb would be dropped on target, and on it's way down it would split open and distribute hundreds or even thousands of "bomblets" over a given area. Tanks, vehicles, distributed buildings, massed troops, all of these were effectively destroyed by the Cluster Bomb.
Of course, the downside of the Cluster Munitions concept was that after all was said and done, you had thousands of unexploded bomblets just laying around, waiting for someone to disturb them enough to cause them to explode. And they might very well lay there for years, even decades. And who's likely to find these fascinating little lethal bits of half-buried technology in the middle of nowhere a few years after the end of hostilities? Pretty sure you can expect that to be children.
So now over one hundred nations of the world have gotten together in Dublin, Ireland and, at the end of an extended process, adopted a treaty banning the manufacture and use of cluster munitions. The kind of decision that spurs hope, that makes me think that just perhaps the human race might survive it's own bloody-minded cleverness.
Of course, the United States refused to sign the treaty. Along with the Bush/Cheney administration's ideological fellow travelers, Russia, China, Israel, Pakistan and India. The stated reason was that Cluster Bombs have a proven "Military Utility". Duh. Gee, you think if they didn't have a military utility anyone would use them? That a ban would be required to curtail their use? That's probably the most stupid example of recursive logic I've ever seen.
The idea here is that maybe the military has to work a little harder to accomplish it's goals. Maybe it even takes some additional casualties. Because the current decision, that the US cannot forgo the use of Cluster Bombs because it puts American soldiers at risk, taken at the proven cost of hundreds or thousands of dead and maimed civilians, mostly children, is as ugly and disgusting a choice any nation could make. What kind of heartless military/police state would make this decision? The world becomes more sane, tries to find a way to edge away from humanity's most base tribal urges, and America becomes more militarized, more inhuman, more inhumane.
Nations ban capital punishment. They find ways to do law enforcement without torture. They make it an important goal that their citizens get health care. When natural disasters strike, they don't see it as nothing beyond a profit opportunity. And now nations begin to try to move to a post-warfare age. But the US won't go. Ban land mines? Nope. Cluster Bombs? Not a chance. We need to continue to build as many fiendishly clever machines of death as we can possibly invent, for there are more wars looming, more nations to invade, more regimes to be changed, more bombs to be dropped in the failed application of nineteenth century coercive diplomacy.
The more America lashes out, the more she isolates herself and declares that she will go her own way under force of arms and bellicose threats, the less sustainable a path we find ourselves on. When finally, economically, politically and morally bankrupt, the US finds herself prostrate at the feet of an angry world, there's going to be a cost required of her. And that cost only gets higher.
Some people just live right or something. I don't know from Portland. Been there a couple times, always had some other things on my mind, like bikes and weapons and money and, well, you know.
So I check out the recomended hotels. The Ace has this cool vibe. I'm not even sure where it is, but it's got the flapdoodleing kind of sensibility that just seemed right, so I didn't give it a second thought.
I didn't know where the actual Sadly meet-up was going to happen, but people kept telling me you can get around Portland easy, don't really matter.
Hokay. I'm in.
So then the decision gets made. It's Ringlers. Hey. Works for me. So now I plug the addresses into Google and imagine my self-satisfied smirk when I saw that the Ace Hotel and Ringlers Pub are all of three blocks apart. This is going to not only be fun, but easy.
And I couldn't have done a better job of it had I had one and a half clues about what I was doing.
I know I'm late, but I want to talk about Sean Bell. For a while, just thinking about it would leave me in an impotent rage, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed that the community hasn't reacted to this brutal authoritarian miscarriage of justice at all strongly enough, but with a little distance I think now I can have my say in a way other than screaming obscenities and hurling rocks and bottles.
I'm sure you know the story as well as I do. Sean and his friends were out on the town the night before his wedding. Unarmed, just a couple young guys hitting a strip club and partying before the marriage. A more innocent, American story you cannot tell.
Something happened. There was a confrontation with plainclothes cops, somebody panicked, and FIFTY rounds were fired. All by the police at a car full of unarmed citizens who had every right to be there. Sean Bell was killed, two others were wounded.
Three of the cops went on trial. Surely there must have been something criminal in their actions. On the face of it, strafing a car full of the very people they are supposed to be protecting, slaughtering an innocent civilian, it's clearly a case of lethal misconduct.
The Police Officers were acquitted of any wrongdoing. Walked out the courthouse door, back to their lives. A life Sean Bell no longer had, and a life Nicole would have to find a way to put back together.
Now this happens far too often in America. The cops get a pass for guessing wrong and killing innocent and unarmed citizens because they were frightened, because they THOUGHT the victim had a weapon, because something startled or distracted them, because they were enraged. Fear and anger, never a justification in it's own right, have become the perverted cover story that allows court after court, judge after judge, to allow murderers and thugs to walk free.
This is clearly wrong. Yes, that job is inherently dangerous. But we must be honest here. The attraction of the job to young men and young women is the excitement, the action, the adrenaline. Car chases, foot chases, shootouts - this is the stuff of storybook cops and robbers, and part of the draw. The Police must NOT then be permitted to unleash deadly force on someone who frightens them. They need to ACCEPT the risks and wait it out, knowing they are exposed, knowing they are at risk, and make the right decision EVERY TIME. If they are unwilling to accept that risk, they should find another line of work.
Just as cops cannot be judge and jury, they cannot take someone's life just because he makes them feel at risk. They wear body armor, carry a variety of weapons and have a lot of support. They need to make sure that if they deploy deadly force, they are killing someone who poses a GENUINE risk to themselves or others. That there was not even a gun in Sean Bell's car, that NO rounds were fired by anyone except the police makes this such an egregious case of homicide under color of authority that the acquittals are bitterly laughable.
The other point in this case is the ridiculously excessive firepower deployed. Fifty rounds. Fired by three cops from three angles, into a car. Fifty rounds. Sometime stop by a shooting range and listen to the gunfire, counting fifty. You'll be appalled at what fifty shots is, what it means.
One cop fired 31. Let me translate that number for you. The double action autos they carry, whether they be Glocks, Sigs or Smiths, carry a double column magazine that holds 15 rounds. These magazines are now illegal for you and I to own, but the police get an exception. Along with this fifteen round mag, there is a round in the chamber. So when that cop drew his weapon that night, he had sixteen rounds hot and ready to go. So the shooting starts. This cop runs through his entire first magazine. Now bear in mind, he is NOT under fire. There is no hostile fire at all. Nonetheless, does he stop, evaluate, consider? Does he shout, holler, ask questions, try to determine the situation? Nope. He slaps in a full fifteen round magazine, releases the slide and pushes all additional fifteen rounds downrange into that car full of young black me, out for a night's bachelor party the night before the wedding. 31 rounds. Two full mags, with a reload. He was acquitted of any wrongdoing.
Our country is at grave risk today. At risk of becoming something else. An authority worshiping, highly militarized police state. And so many of our institutions are contributing to the slide. How can we look at Sean Bell's death and not just KNOW this is wrong. This is not us. This MUST not be allowed to stand. How can we allow a judge to make such a biased judgment to support law enforcement over the very people law enforcement is supposed to be protecting?
Sure. Sean Bell's case is just another symptom of what's wrong with America in the early years of the 21st century. But when the symptoms get this bad, this ugly, the disease may very well be terminal...
So yesterday it occurred to me that I would be in mid-Flapdoodle when election day rolled around. See, California only moved it's presidential primary up on the calendar. The rest of the election, still called "The California Primary" because to call it "The guys who are too inconsequential to care about election" would have been politically incorrect in every possible sense, remains on schedule for the Traditional first Tuesday in June.
Well. Imagine my consternation. What's a Flapdoodler to doodle doodle do? I got on the blower to the Registrar of Voters, expecting a bureaucratic runaround, but instead was immediately offered a solution: Early Voting. You can go to the Registrar's office during business hours, even on weekends, and cast your ballot! What WILL they think of next? So, in my daily travels, I stopped down on Berger in industrial San Jose this morning.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I was struck by an ominous sense of deja vu. But it was real. I HAD been here before, and not in a good way. See, the same complex houses the county "Department of Revenue" where you come to negotiate and pay fines, probation costs, reperations, any of the economic sanctions that can be levied by the county or state.
I shook off that ugly sense of impending interaction with the county criminal justice system and strolled into the registrar's office. It was a busy place, as you'd expect one week before an election, but as it turned out I was the only person there for the early voting. And as they were doing lots of pre-election training, there were a large number of people to assist me.
And that was it. In and out in ten minutes, my civic duty done, I can now proceed down the path that beckons me, the path of Flapdoodle...
I'm calling this trip "The Great Oregon Flapdoodle" in honor of Gavin and all that has gone before. I'll be taking the Amtrak "Coast Starlight" up to Portland, or "PDX" as all the cool kids say, and then enjoying the company of many PacNW Sadlys, and any helpless strangers and small animals that happen by.
How did all this come to pass? I'm not sure. I was planning a train trip to Seattle to get my head straight and just get out of the freakin valley for a while, when this opportunity arose.
Y'see, I've met a lot of people out there in Left Blogistan. And some of them are pretty special. And I've really valued the opportunity to interact without having to reveal my sadly mundane, truly banal self. But there's one. Gavin. Probably the BEST fucking writer operating on the 'tubes in complete anonymity, Gavin can do things with the english language that will make you laugh, make you jealous, make you understand and give you a righteous boner.
Gavin is the other side of the coin I occupy. Gavin is a bright, clever dancer, a fencer with words to my blunt instrument. I always felt we were finding different ways to say the same thing. And Dr. Ms. soontobemrs Marita. That's a woman to address politely, and with a respectable amount of awe.
So, whatevs. I can't pass this up. Train leaves on 5/31. Stay tuned, kiddies. This might just be messy, and madness always lurks just outside of sanity, but the Flapdoodle is ON, and the train keeps rolling all night long...
It's from Houseman, fer crissakes. People really should read more. Much of what you see here is opinion, but unlike many Americans, my opinions are at least loosely based on facts.
People keep asking me why I'm taking the train to Portland. Instead, I suppose, of a plane.
