Here is a picture I took in Cincinnati last month of the McDonald’s golden arches brought low.

This was in the East Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati.

Taking this picture, I imagined that the people of this community had finally become enraged they were being poisoned with the unhealthful Big Macs and McRibs sold at the McDonalds.

I imagined the people had come and torn down the golden arches like liberated people tearing down the statues of dictators.

Sadly, I don’t think this was the case.

Here is a review of the book Fast Food Nation which discusses the fast food industry.  It is not a fully flattering picture.

Here is the Fast Food Nutrition Explorer.  It seems that the Hardee’s 2/3 pound bacon Thickburger is not very good for you.

Here is the link to a picture I took last year of a giant Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket. This post gets hits every single day. I’m not sure why, but it does.    

Here are some Texas notes political and otherwise—

U.S. Customs will be checking the citizenship of people evacuating the Rio Grande Valley area in advance of a hurricane. Undocumented persons will be taken to separate shelters.

It’s clear that people will choose to ride out the the storm and take their chances. 

What an mean, dangerous and not well thought out policy.   

The website of the Harris County Democratic Party still leads of with the good news of the announcement of Bill Kelly as chair of the countywide coordinated campaign. I’m certain he’ll help lead Democrats to victory this fall.

It will be good when some news of events is posted to go along with the $500 a plate breakfast promoted under Mr. Kelly’s appointment. I hope Mr. Kelly gears campaign efforts to as much inclusion as possible.   

The new chair of the Travis County coordinated campaign stated right off the bat  with the goal of registering 50,000 new voters. It will be good to see the goals established by Mr. Kelly.

Two polls now show Texas Democratic Senate candidate Rick Noriega well with in range of incumbent Republican John Cornyn. I feel this is about party preference right now more so than any real insight into Mr. Noriega or Mr. Cornyn.  Many Texans are ready to move on from the Republican Party.

The difference between the forward-looking Mr. Noriega and the deeply right-wing Mr. Cornyn should help sell the change in party identification with Texas voters. Learn more about Mr. Noriega by clicking here.

The Galveston Beach Patrol treated over 100 jellyfish stings last Sunday. I find nature good to read about and watch on TV. I’m scared of it in person. I don’t go in the water at any beach I visit. The water is full of creatures. 

Flooding the area with vinegar where you’ve been stung and being careful in removing the tentacles is important in treating these wounds. Click the link below for more.

Here is some good information about jellyfish from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

The Financial Times reports that some South Africans are brutalizing and running off immigrants from troubled Zimbabwe.

From the story (Here is the full article)— 

Isaac Moyo fled to South Africa from his impoverished and repressive homeland Zimbabwe six years ago. He has carved out a new life as a painter in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, enabling him, like many other Zimbabwean exiles in South Africa, to send home much-needed money to keep his family going.

But on Monday night his new, more hopeful, life came to an abrupt end when a mob of machete-wielding South Africans yelling xenophobic slogans smashed down the door of his shack and forced him and his three brothers to run for their lives. Clutching a small mirror and a bucket of old clothes, all he could grab with him as he fled, he is now camping at the local police station and planning to return to an uncertain future in Zimbabwe

“We were preparing food [on Monday evening]. Then we started hearing guns and shouts of people celebrating they’d been chasing foreigners back to Zimbabwe,” he said. “They came to our house. They took everything, our bicycles, sewing machines, blankets, saying: ‘You didn’t get this from [President Robert] Mugabe. This is our property.

“They were shouting: ‘Go back to Zimbabwe. We don’t want to see you here. You’re taking our jobs’

I read this while eating lunch today. I just shook my head. You’d figure longtime victims of Apartheid would know better than to harass and attack people.

But the truth of the matter is that down-and-out people and victimized people possess no inherent nobility. 

We saw this in economically messed-up West Virginia this week where many Democratic primary voters openly cited race as a factor in their votes.

Everybody counts in this world. Yet this does not mean we have to romanticize people or patronize people with the idea that suffering brings some sort of wisdom or dignity.

I think sometimes liberals are guilty of this. 

People of all kinds are good and people of all kinds are lousy.

Former Presidential candidate John Edwards has finally endorsed someone for President.

Glad he could find the time.  

He endorsed Barack Obama.

I mention who he endorsed in the third paragraph of this post because the real story is that Mr. Edwards endorsed anybody at all.  

The race is was already pretty much over.

Mr. Edwards was slower than the above pictured snail in making his endorsement.

Why not have made the choice when it was hard instead of when the nomination seems to be a done deal?

Here is some good information on snails.

The painting above is called Classic Landscape. It was painted by Charles Sheeler in 1931.

What is portrayed here is the massive Ford River Rouge plant in Michigan.

Here is how the painting is discussed in American Art And Architecture by Michael Lewis—  

“….at the end of 1927…Ford unveiled the new Model A…to riotous crowds. Ford carefully planned its advertising campaign, engaging Charles Sheeler to photograph the complex at River Rouge where it was manufactured. His role was purely that of a  commerical artist but the immensity of the site and factory overwhelmed him. Sprawling over 1,100 acres, it had a sense of colossal scale like that of the Egyptian pyramids or the cathedrals of medieval Europe. And like those monuments, the factories seemed to embody physically the great social forces of the age….He soon began to make paintings based on his photographs, imitating not only their compositions but their photographic character: their crispness…and..abstract geometric forms in almost airless space….adopted the values of the machine—clarity, precision, razor edges, and clean form. (This) became known as Precisionism, the leading school of American realism in the art of the 1920’s and 1930’s. ”     

I like Classic Landscape, though I find it a bit dry. It does indeed have the “values of the machine.” While I would enjoy seeing this painting in a museum, I think it would depress me if I owned it and saw it all the time.

I think we do best when we are only as precise as we must be. Not in terms of honesty, but in terms of conveying the right facts within the larger context to best explain the issue at hand. 

A measure of symbolism in this painting, such as some hint of movement, might have suggested this was an auto plant.  

The railroad track is a suggestion of movement, yet the tracks seem abandoned. Nothing is moving.

The clouds and shadows also imply movement. But the clouds are gray and motionless. And the shadows are reflecting off the landscape created by the factory.

The idea could be that the factory is the mover of things and not part of an interconnected world. Since there are no people or animals in the painting, it’s almost as if the factory created itself and now directs the world according to it’s own plan.

Yet the natural world, people, and, in modern times, machines, all help make the world. At least they do for the brief time human beings will be on the Earth.

If I had artistic talent, I would paint a picture suggesting harmony.

Not harmony in the sense of everything moving towards the same end or goal, but rather the measure of harmony I feel we can discern in the controlled disorder of our world, universe and all existence. 

These things said, Classic Landscape is a helluva painting by a talented guy.

The Houston Astros baseball team has introduced all you can eat Thursdays.

On Thursday home games you can pay $35 and, in addition to a seat, get unlimited hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, soda and water.

Maybe this is being done in response to concern by the team that the rise in gas prices will hurt attendance this year.

Another option the Astros could consider is allowing fans to bring their own food in the stadium. This would lower the cost of going to a game. Other teams allow outside food.

In any case, this new offer is disgusting.

And meanwhile, much of the world is being impacted by increases in the price of food.

I’m not suggesting we poison the world with stadium food. Or that a person eating a meal of four hot dogs and three trays of nachos is denying a hungry person in Cameroon a meal of hot dogs and nachos.    

But what if the Astros donated $1 from each ticket on All You Can Eat Day to world food relief efforts? 

This would at least acknowledge that some people don’t have access to things like All You Can Eat Thursdays.

Above you see a picture of the world’s longest hot dog. Maybe instead of many hot dogs, All You Can Eat customers could be served a four or five foot long hot dog.   

Below is a picture of Zam Zam Cola. This brand is produced in Canada and is popular in Iran and in parts of the Arab world. I will have a Zam Zam with my five foot hot dog.    

I recently listened to a song called Mamavtu by a singer named Susheela Raman that has the following lyrics— 

Saraswati

you who reside in the temple of Kamakoti

rescue me

bearing lotus and veena

in your beautiful hands

you give truth to speech

your feet are worshipped by Emperors and kings

your eyes are as wild as Rajiva flowers

and your beauty bewitches.

Garlanded with gems

you fulfill the desires of the good

Indra himself bows down before you

I, Vasudeva, am your servant

for you are the divine word in its essence. 

I like these lyrics for two reasons.

The first reason is that they are clear and direct.

The ability to communicate in a clear and direct fashion in a complex world is excellent.  

Communicating in such a way is something we all have the ability to do with the application of some discipline and some and thought.

The most complex, simple and important things are always within the grasp of all people.

Direct communication is a complex, simple and important thing. 

Complexity and simplicity are kindred.

How can we grasp difficult things if they are not communicated in a way we can understand?

This is a task of someone trying to reach others—The communication of difficult ideas in an accessible manner. 

The other thing I liked about the song was that though the lyrics are straightforward, I had to do some research to see what they meant. 

Saraswati is the Hindu Goddess of music, knowledge and the arts. That is her pictured above.

A veena is the instrument she is holding.

Indra is the king of the Gods. Yet even he bows down before Saraswati.

Direct, simple and complex communication leads people down a path of learning and understanding.

This is the path we need to be following.  

It’s a path open to all. 

Things open to all are the things that are best. 

Above is a picture of the planned Martin Luther King statue for the Martin Luther King National Memorial on the Mall in Washington.

(Here is my Martin Luther King Reading & Reference List.)

The man you see in the photo is sculptor Lei Yexin.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which must approve all statues for the Mall, has said it does not like the statue.

From a Washington Post story— 

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks “the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries,” commission secretary Thomas Luebke said in a letter in April…..

It is the second time in recent months that the memorial to the slain civil rights leader has come under fire. Last year, critics complained after a Chinese sculptor known for his monumental works of figures such as Mao Zedong was selected to create King and other elements of the memorial in China.

The $100 million memorial, which is being built largely with private donations by the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, is planned for a crescent-shaped four-acre site among Washington’s famed cherry trees on the northwest shore of the basin. Construction is expected to start this year and end next year.

The centerpiece is to be a 2 1/2 -story sculpture of the civil rights leader carved in a giant chunk of granite. Called the Stone of Hope, it would depict King, standing with his arms folded, looming from the stone. At 28 feet tall, it would be eight feet taller than the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.

I imagine the statue is not the soft image of Martin Luther King that has become the myth of his life with some. And I do see how the sculpture could be taken as something out of a dictatorship.

Still, I hope that whatever design is finally approved retains some of the discipline, and even harshness, found in King’s message of non-violence and divine review of America’s actions at home and in the world.

I also hope these objections are not a way at getting at the ethnicity of the artist. There has been controversy over the fact that Lei Yexin is Chinese. Martin Luther King would have accepted a sculptor of any race to honor his life’s work.      

( Blogger’s Note— This is the start of what will likely be a 51 part series for this year’s election.)  

How will Alabama vote in the 2008 Presidential election?

The odds are good that this deeply misguided state will cast its nine electoral votes for the Republican candidate. 

( Above you see a marker with the state motto of Alabama. Make of it what you will.)

It is not for me to give up on people. I don’t have any final call on who can be redeemed and who can not.

But I must say that Alabama is a place I have largely given up on.

This is because of a 2003 statewide referendum in Alabama.

In this vote, the people rejected a proposal by conservative Republican Governor Bob Riley to provide more funding for education, bring about a more equitable state tax scheme, and raise taxes on some people, though not all people, in Alabama. The initiative was also supported by Alabama Democratic Party.

Governor Riley cited a New Testament instruction to “take care of the least among us” as part of the reason he supported this measure.  

The plan was rejected 67% -33%. 

Do you imagine that Alabama has good educational results and a fair tax structure?  

What can you do with such a place? The people made the call about how that want to live and what values they have.

There are many good people in Alabama I am sure. I am sure these folks are tying their best.

Still, Alabama it’s John McCain territory all the way.

For many years Alabama voted Democratic as part of the “Solid South” of former Confederate states.

Alabama switched to supporting Republicans in seeming response to the Civil Rights movement.   

In 2004, whites in Alabama voted 80% 19% for George W. Bush while blacks voted 91%-6% for John Kerry.

It’s a clear and unfair simplification to say all whites who voted for Mr. Bush in Alabama are racist.

Yet the history of this state is there for all to consider.

Here are some basic facts about Alabama in Presidential elections—

2006 Population Of Alabama—4.599 Million, 23rd in population, 70% white, 26% black, 2% Hispanic, 1% Asian.

Here are some basic facts and history about Alabama.  

Recent winners— 2004–G.W. Bush 62%, 2000– G.W. Bush 56%, 1996– Dole 50%, 1992– G.W.H. Bush 48%, 1988– G.W.H. Bush 59%.

Last Democrat To Carry State—Jimmy Carter 1976.  

Last Non-Southern Democrat To Win State-–John Kennedy 1960. This was at the end of the days of the Democratic Solid South.

Presidents From Alabama—None. 

Vice Presidents From Alabama—William King. (Above) Served only in 1853 as he died the year he was inaugurated. Vice President King was the running mate of Franklin Pierce.  Mr. King’s profile on the U.S. Senate web page shows a long career in the Senate. He was not a major player, but he saw a lot of history. The profile also hints at what I’ve read elsewhere. That Vice President King was gay and that he was involved with his one-time roommate and future President James Buchanan.     

Candidates For President From Alabama Winning At Least 3% Of The Popular Vote In A General Election—George Wallace,1968. Governor Wallace won 13% of the vote and carried five Southern states. His third-party states rights campaign is seen by some as a bridge for white Southerners from longtime allegiance to Democrats to the current Republican status quo.  

The house below is part of the de Tonti Historic District in Mobile.

A few days ago I ran a post with a hazy picture I had taken of the Mississippi River from an airplane.

Not long after, I saw that my friend Nita at A Wide Angle View Of India had run a photo essay of hazy photos of Mumbai she had taken from an airplane.

Nita was nice enough to allow me use one of her pictures.

My picture was hazy because it was a hazy day.

Nita said that her pictures were hazy because the windows of the airplane were dirty.

The picture is of slums in Mumbai. This is what Nita reports in her excellent post. 

Mumbai is the former Bombay.  

Here is a history of that city along with much other information about Mumbai. 

Isn’t it something that we can fly up in the air and that we can communicate over distances such as India to Texas?

Isn’t is it excellent that we have the ability to communicate at all? It’s a gift we all have in this life. 

Above is a picture I took two weeks ago of the Tyler Davidson Fountain in Cincinnati’s Fountain Square.

Regretfully, the City of Cincinnati contracts with a private firm to run the square.

While Fountain Square does remain accessible, its symbolic importance to Cincinnati is such that it should be a fully city owned and operated place.   

While visitors to Cincinnati should go and see the well-known fountain, it does seem that in the modern day everything has become a racket. 

Here is some history of Fountain Square.

I’ve recently read, or am in the process of reading, three books about being Black in America in the years leading up to and following 1900.

A book I’ve finished is Sport Of The Gods by Paul Laurence Dunbar. (Drawing above.) This is a novel. It is the story of a black family in New York City at the beginning of the last century. It is bleak.

Sport was published in 1902.

The book is short and reads like the history of a time and place. It is worth the reading.  

Here is information about Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Here is an excerpt from this profile–  ”Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American to gain national eminence as a poet. Born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, he was the son of ex-slaves and classmate to Orville Wright of aviation fame.  Although he lived to be only 33 years old, Dunbar was prolific, writing short stories, novels, librettos, plays, songs and essays as well as the poetry for which he became well known. He was popular with black and white readers of his day, and his works are celebrated today by scholars and school children alike. His style encompasses two distinct voices — the standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn-of-the-century black community in America. He was gifted in poetry — the way that Mark Twain was in prose — in using dialect to convey character. ” 

I’ve also been reading Unforgivable Blackness by Geoffrey Ward. This is a life of Jack Johnson. Johnson was the first black heavyweight champion.  

Here is a review of Unforgivable Blackness.

It was published in 2004.

From an ESPN article about Johnson—

“He transformed himself from the docks of Galveston, Texas, to early 20th-century glitterati. He had his own jazz band, owned a Chicago nightclub, acted on stage, drove flashy yellow sports cars, reputedly walked his pet leopard while sipping champagne, flaunted gold teeth that went with his gold-handled walking stick and boasted of his conquests of whites — both in and out of the ring.

Johnson was also a fugitive for seven years, having been accused of violating a white slavery act with a woman who would become his third wife. ”

I’m about a third of the way through this book. I feel it could be shorter. Once you get the idea that white champions were reluctant to fight Mr. Johnson, you don’t need to read about every detail of that resistance.

Still, the book is holding my interest well enough and I enjoyed learning about Mr. Johnson’s youth in Galveston.

Everybody should should visit Galveston, Texas.  

The last title is The Souls Of Black Folk by W.E.B Du Bois.

Souls was written in 1903.

Here is a little bit about Mr. Du Bois—

“William Edward Burghardt DuBois, to his admirers, was by spirited devotion and scholarly dedication, an attacker of injustice and a defender of freedom. A harbinger of Black nationalism and Pan-Africanism, he died in self-imposed exile in his home away from home with his ancestors of a glorious past—Africa.

Labeled as a “radical,” he was ignored by those who hoped that his massive contributions would be buried along side of him. But, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “history cannot ignore W.E.B. DuBois because history has to reflect truth and Dr. DuBois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded disclosed the great dimensions of the man.”

I’ve only reached up to chapter three in Souls. In chapter three, Du Bois is going to discuss Booker T. Washington and others.

The famous line from the book—”The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line”–is the first sentence and the last sentence of chapter two.

Du Bois says this ongoing issue is a “phase” of the same issue that was the cause of the Civil War.

Isn’t a bottom line of our 2008 campaign the question of will America elect a Black man named Barack Obama President?

The “race question” goes on and on.

At least so far.

Chapter two is in full a history of the Civil War years and Reconstruction efforts up until 1872.

Du Bois talks about the way the Freedman’s Bureau was doomed to fail from the start in the effort to help Black Americans gain some measure of equality after the Civil War.

I look forward to making it past chapter two and writing more blog posts on this great work of our American history. 

A new ad produced by the Democratic National Committee rightly criticizes Senator John McCain for his support of endless war.

You can see the ad by clicking here.

However, the commercial misses the mark in an important regard.

A graphic in the spot references “Over 4000 dead.”

Just over 4000 U.S. troops have died in the war.

What’s left out is the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed. 

Iraq Body Count suggests that number is over 85,000.

Without forgetting that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, it’s clear that the number of innocent Iraqis who have died is high.

Every life has equal value. One person does not have more value than another person because of where they were born or where they live. 

This is a value that should be reflected by our party of the left.

This unwillingness to give equal value to all persons is consistent with the lack of conversation by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama about the ongoing world food crisis.    

In Philadelphia, a number of police officers recently beat three drug suspects in an excessive manner.

Here is a story about the beating. Above is a picture.

Being a police officer is a hard job.

Yet uniformed officers must have discipline.

My feeling about police officers is that you always respect them, you call them when needed, and you avoid them otherwise.

Police officers can be very helpful. If they help you they deserve your thanks. 

We should never forget that police are human just like anybody else. 

At the same time, police officers can get away with a lot.

They can mess you up if they choose.

When confronted with the facts about bad deeds that they or other officers may have committed, they do not always tell the truth.

Police officers should be well paid and receive good benefits.

They should also be under strong civilian control and always be respectful of that civilian authority.

People with weapons and the authority of the state behind them need strong personal discipline.

The Philadelphia police officers in this case seem to have failed the public, the profession and themselves. 

I took this picture of the Mississippi River last week from the window of an airplane.

The picture came out hazy.

Looking at the Mississppi River got me thinking about the Mark Twain biography I’m currently reading.

While Twain’s riverboat days were only a small portion of his life, I find them interesting. 

I think part of that comes from my years living in Cincinnati along the shores of the Ohio River.

I’ve wondered what it must have been like when Cincinnati was a river town.

I’ve thought I might have been able to function in a frontier society that placed a value on self-creation. ( At least if you were white.)

When I read about Twain’s time on the river, I get an ill-defined longing for a different place and a different time. 

It’s a hazy notion that well compliments this hazy photo. 

I think we all have half-formed ideas in our minds of places we would like to visit and times we wish we could go back and see.

It’s a good thing we have books and imaginations that can partially take us to places we wish we could visit or recreate.