Black Soliders In 1942 Memorial Day Parade

Above are black soliders on horseback marching down Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C in a 1942 Memorial Day Parade.

The picture was taken by Royden Dixon.

These people were willing to serve and fight even though they did not have their rights in the United States.

Wife Has Nightmare About Husband’s Clothes Shopping

Two days ago I went to the department store to buy some clothes for myself.

( Above–Petersdorff Department Store in Warsaw, Poland.  Here is a link to a good photo of this building in the late 1920’s.  Here is history and pictures of department stores in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere in the nation.)

My wife let me go on this shopping trip alone, but she was very concerned.

Before I went to the store, the wife told me that overnight she had a nightmare about my shopping trip.

She said she dreamed that I bought myself ugly clothes and that I had come home with a pair of ugly shoes for her. She also said that in the dream I purchased for her three ugly purses.

I’m not sure I could have messed up my shopping expedition. I buy and wear the same clothes year after after year. Even a fathead like me can get something right when doing it the 20th time. 

Not only that–I’ve been reading a book about the history of fashion. I know about fashion.

I’ve almost finished reading Costume And Fashion—A Concise History by James Laver. Mr. Laver had an active mind. Please click here to learn about his life.

Costume And Fashion covers fashion from ancient days up until the 1990’s. Here  is what it says about punk rock fashion in the 1970’s—

“The anarchic punk style. which appeared on the streets of London in the 1970’s…was to have an enormous impact on both streetwearand high fashion. It was a style that consciously sought to shock, combining–for both sexes—black tight trousers and striped mohair sweaters with customized leather jackets and heavy-duty Doctor Marten boots….Fetishistic leather and rubber were an integral part of the punk look….Clothes were slashed and ripped, embellished with safety pins, zips and studs. T-shirts were printed with aggressive anarchistic slogans….”  

Below you see some punks. They are burning a U.S. Flag for extra measure.

With these ideas in my head, how can the wife figure I’ll come home from the store with something crazy?

( Please click here for my greatest punk rock moments. I did not dress like the people below or burn flags. My attitude was sufficiently hostile that I felt no need for affectation or gestures of excess.)   

Houston Police Chief Says Real Crime More Important Than Immigration Checks

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt says his police officers have more useful things to do other than checking people’s immigration status. 

Here  is what the Chief said as reported by the Houston Chronicle—

“Immigration enforcement by local police is counterproductive to community policing efforts. It undermines the trust and cooperation of immigrant communities, could lead to charges of racial profiling, and increases our response time to urgent calls for service,”….”I don’t want my guys out on the street trying to determine which of 32 different visas” an immigrant might be issued is valid, Hurtt said. “I want them to concentrate on keeping Houston safe from thieves, drug dealers, sex offenders, and making sure we maintain the trust and support of everybody who lives in Houston, and that means members of the immigrant community we serve”

I can’t add much except to say we allowed undocumented  folks to come to the United States to do our labor for us and to make sure we can get cheap services and products. At the same time, we want to bust these folks out of the country.

Let police officers go after real crime. If we reach the point where we want to start arresting all of us who have profited from illegal labor, then we can all go turn ourselves in at the local station house.