"Resident"

Granted I look like stone-washed hell,...but I'm working on it. Put on my dress uniform for the battle. Recovery continues...mostly. Eating solids plus soup all staying down so far. Still weird dizzy, a bit confused....well no change there.

Just this,...never ever. I mean not even 'ever' take your health for granted...'cause it ain't.
Taking pain meds, and barfing stopper. Mixed results...we'll see. Good news I'm detoxing from them depression meds which just made me sick anyway.
Gooder news I'm still my old cranky annoying Drama Queen self.


I think I'd make a neat President,....I mean now that we know 'anyone' can get the job.
Did I mention I'm seeing bleep at my peripheral vision?


...but I digress.


Anyhow yeah I'd be a totally insane Boss of bosses down in D.C. Unlike our current patient there I'd have fun with shit. First off I'd have my new "Department of Happy Surprises" Fed-Ex everyone nice shit. For example voter or not legal or not you get a birthday present...sorry no returns. This neat-o Department will from time to give out goodies to everyone just because it's nice to do...ya know how if ya was lucky that weird nice uncle or aunt that would just show up with neat shit for everyone...hey what's government for?


We'd have the damned Army Navy 'n Marines set up emergency field clinics/hospitals everywhere...I mean everywhere because what is this shit we're in, but not a national Disaster.
...special attention to the Black Lung victims in mining country. The opioid addiction regions. Special attention to kids, and the elderly. Make like we was just nuked, and we're putting shit back together 'cause it ain't all that different from that now.


A "Department of Chefs"!

New chefs all over the place cooking up 5 Star meals for everybody that wants or needs 'em.. That, and delivered by our Army...heck if I was a kid I'd join up to be part of this swell stuff. Imagine them new giant ass "King Stallion" choppers landing in the middle of a forsaken 'Murican" town. That and keen to serve G.I.s poring out to feed the hungry comfort the sorrowful, and heal the wounded. "Protect, and Serve" finally come to life!

(...How's this serious noise for Meals on Wheels!)

Also perhaps an "Institute of Safe Desserts. This would in league with the UN. Basically fixing it so creamy yummies won't give ya cancer diabetes or bad vibes. Figuring out how to make all the world's yummy stuff safe to eat...without killing the damned flavor! We went to the frigging Moon sent two Voyagers to the stars, and have bleeping robots fucking around on mars...I think we could do this too.
All this in the first year or so...I mean besides building the "Woodstock Stonewall Monument", and all the usual crap of running an empire.


"Yes Uncle, but how we gonna pay for all this neat bleep?"

You kidding? Most of this swell action could be brought in for the cost of three or four Super Aircraft Carriers, and the proposed fleet of F-35's...which don't work. That, and as once classified documents from the Naval Proceedings tell us. Them new carriers would have a short life expectancy in an actual war with folks that can shoot back,...say our pals Russia or China. In a 'real' war them big things live from hours to a week...max. So bleep that noise use the dough to have a good time healing caring feeding, and giving out gifts to our fucked over masses.

Btw did I mention National Health Care, and universal higher education.
No? Okay that's in the next memo.

Love,

Uncle Syd Resident of the United States of America.

Eh,...I'm not raving am I?


Stay Tuned.


"No More Mr. Nice Guy"

On the other hand. If I am not elevated to the esteemed position of  "Resident of the United States" as I propose in earlier posts. Perhaps when the Revolution comes,...and goes. I shall present myself as "Comrade Peoples Judge Uncle Syd" for the Southern Judicial District of New York.

After so grand an adventure as the founding of the Revolutionary Second American Republic. There will be no doubt much eh...um local "cleansing", and tiding up of borders to do.  After all there is the question of what to do with...Racist sexist cab drivers, and those that don't flush in public crappers subway conductors that slam the damn door in your face. 'Everybody' at the DMV. These will face stern judgment. Stern indeed.

Millennial airhead clerks in shops who when you ask for help with an item just blankly stare into space, and...wait for it. ...say, "...just what's there", and then sink their heads back into their devices...their end shall be particularly bad.

Of course lawyers landlords violent killer cops gangsters bullies the generally annoying such as phony beggars that give the real needy such bad press will face swift, and more that slightly entertaining "Justice" from my steady device-less hands.

Then there's peoples enemies in the extreme. The hard cases. The class enemies that made the peoples revolutions necessary in the first place. These the food, and water poisoning oil spilling nature murdering child starving old folks evicting immigrant deporting war profiteering news distorting butt holes of eternity...Republicans.

I can hardly wait.

They'll all...indeed 'all' offenders will receive Peoples Mercy,...with a twist.

I shall help bring Revolutionary humor to the Law!

!Venceremos!

"Dead at the Scene"

It seems a day of days. At least in this building. There was a murder here. An older woman killed by her grandson. Sounds the typical urban tragedy. Until it hits feet from you. The reasons are unclear. The details I'll spare you. They're bad. very bad. Much blood.

It's been some years since I've been this close to un-natural death. Not since my Houseless time. Of course the folks here are stunned. As am I. When this happens at close quarters the world stops. Being related or not it all stops.

That, and I had no idea it happened till I opened my door to go shopping, and found a sea of Blue before me.

Police everywhere canvassing all the neighbors. As it happens they were about to knock on my door as I opened it. I knew nothing, and they said nothing. This to not color anyone's story. They wanted fresh first hand information. Which I couldn't give them.

I went out the press was there. The local radio, and TV. I got my information from them. I ended up on Channel 12 the Brooklyn cable station. Basically giving an overview of the neighborhood's history. How it was the wild west during the crack war, and is now very quiet, and gentrifying.

So here we all are.

With an inexplicable tragedy. We have much to ponder, and now much to live with.

Stay Tuned.

"Never Again"

America as an Empire is in it's shabby dusk. As these things go it was a rather short run. Just as well. No big allience of ex-colonies wanting your blood.
On the bright side Asia will pick up the slack. Just as it will be they that takes humanity back to the moon, and develops Mars the outer moons, and the ring. We're another Portugal of history. The first to go, but then just stopped.

It looked so different just 50 years ago.

We heralded an Age of Miracles. You name it we did it on steroids. We were even with our vast injustices the best educated fed talented hopeful, and entertaining Empire in all history. Everybody 'wanted' to be like us or even better...be here.

I've never heard any mention of such about the Romans Persians Brits French or today Russians or Chinese. Ever heard anyone that didn't have an AK-47 pressed against their head say, "Golly I wish I could be a Russian!"

Right.

Well it was a short party, but one for the Ages. Now time for the old Dragons to take the world back, and usher in millenniums of dreary bullshit. But I was there. Part of the luckiest generation in history. I was American in the mid-20th century. This where Hope ruled no dream impossible. Ancient diseases conquered...poof gone. Cruel un-just laws struck down on a daily basis science taking us to the stars color fucking TV for everybody, and good jobs with futures "climbing in through the gaddamn windows". ...to paraphrase Holden Caulfield.

This will as it's starting to be. The stuff of species legend.

There was 'never' a time like it, and never...I mean 'never' will be again. Basically because the raw resources, and the 'Dream' to make it in the first place are gone.

Gone.

'But I saw it lived it swam in it.

Amen.

"Ghost Dance"

On a friend's page he wondered how to survive a possible nuclear attack. The North Koreans, and now the Chinese thanks to trump shaking their "Fiery Swords" at us. I replied in my usual jolly way.

"If you are anywhere within 50 miles of a multi warhead hit on a major city you are dead...period. This from direct blast injury from being buried under burning wreckage asphyxiation as all the air is sucked up by the multiple fire storms that will soon congeal into a vast regional blaze."

"If you are 100 miles away your chances because of the yield of modern warheads would be 1 in approx. 30. This because of panic break down of social order, and the radioactive frontal waves of smoke from the firestorms that will in a few hours reach you. Your chances increase the farther away from the burning region.

Your life expectancy increases the farther away you go.

If I had to be in a state that was hit I'd want to be at a minimum of 200+ miles from a multiple warhead ground zero. Even then I'd be on the move to get further away especially if the winds were in my direction. We must remember if a nuclear exchange between the major powers happens it will not be 'one' mere bomb from a plane. This the cold war stereotype of attack. Whole squadrons of ICBMs will be assigned to hundreds of individual military industrial financial, and yes cultural targets. This is intentional.

Understand this war for both sides is to the total destruction, and death of your enemies. The idea is to utterly destroy not just the military, and political centers, but the whole complete culture. To wipe you, and the memory of you from the face of the Earth. That is the true purpose of these frightful things.

That said you must know that each target will have 10 to as many as 50 warheads hit it. Especially if a military area or political center. For example. After the cold war when the Soviet achieves were for a short time open to western scholars we discovered that the Pentagon alone had 30+ warheads of varying strength targeted on it. One has to think in such terms if you think you're going to survive.

Bottom line...

If you can see it or hear it you are immediately dead or dead in hours. However a terror nuke is another matter. This may be "just" the spreading of radioactive dust over a distance of 5 to 20 miles. That or a low yield radiological explosion. Perhaps a quarter+ the force of the Hiroshima bomb. These are survivable for many if circumstance is with us. Perhaps more that half the population of the target city 'may' live traumatized shortened post strike lives. This of course because of radiation induced cancers in the next 10 to 30 years. That's it in a nutshell for a "Terror Bomb". Things can vary because of type of warhead weather time of day social resilience, and local ground conditions. 

"...who wants pie?!"

Stay tuned for as long as you can.

"Prayer"

All the world prays.

Whenever where-ever for whatever.

The prayers ascend through clouds past worlds even stars.

Till they fall.

They fall onto an abandoned side street.

There's an old phone booth there.

Slightly bent over from where a truck backed into it.

The phone is ringing.

These are prayers.

The rings.

Millions of them. ...Billions.

Ringing.

Unanswered.

Forever.

Amen.

1. "Oy!"
2. 
   
3. On another difficult though related matter. I'm not a trans-sexual however I am a person that believes folks should be who they are.
   So...These are my comments on the back, and forth from a friend's page.
   

   
   

   "Some feminist's are saying that Trans-folks will never be accepted, by them, as actual Women. That is those trans folks born male, but who are in fact female however 'while' male "enjoyed Male Privilege". So can never be true Women."
   
4. "Already I have a headache."
   
5. "I was born Queer, and male. I recall no male "privileges" as I had the shit beat out of me in the school yard. Endured contempt form relatives, and neighbors. 'Guess I just wasn't paying close enough attention."
   
6. "I imagine for a Trans comrades it must have be just a bit more terrifying."
   
7. "Look it's not a matter if anyone likes or understands them or not. "NO ONE" has the right to say their very existence is illegitimate. They didn't just show up in recent news-cycles. They've always been here like everyone else's identity has always been.
   
8. So no they can't be voted off the island. I remember shit like this 30-40 years ago about Queer's right to exist."
   
9. "So Tranny's will never be "Equal with Woman". "Never" say some."
   
10. "Why? ...because they say so."
    
11. "No."
    
12. "Never" is what those that have lost their argument with history most always say. I recall the whole South saying that once."
    
13. Stay Tuned.
14. 
16. 
    

    
    

You show 'em Mickey!

50 bleeping days of this demented mayhem, and counting. There's no way in this hell that it can go on for four bleeping more years!! Something has to give. A coup by the NSA/CIA, and a sweaty Keith Olbermann. A UFO invasion. a Zombie Apocalypse. A Blizzard in July,...

...anything, but what we got!!!

There's the Drip Drip Drip of that Russian stuff. His insane appointments. That Nazi fuck Bannon hovering over the whole mess. That, and his 60 Million illiterate ...superstitious Jesus nutters itching for multiple genocides.

Did I mention everything out of his mouth is a bleeping lie?!

I feel like driving in circles in a burning 1956 Desoto land cruiser singing "A Hard Rain's Gonna fall!" at the bleeping top of my lungs.

Otherwise I'm fine,...how are you.

Living with yourself.

Dante:...
YES ... I admit it .. I sometimes talk to myself.
This morning I had an argument with myself.
I'm not talking to myself anymore.

Sidney:...Well buy yourself a nice pastry to make up. You'll be speaking to yourself again in no time
...take yourself out to dinner. Have a nice talk about all your good points. You'll "both" be fine in no time. ...I'm not kidding. Life is complicated, and living with yourself is even more so.

Dealing with fake news.

If it is "fake" then it did what those things are designed to do. Appeal to what we already believe. I believe that many "Trumpers" would say what is in this piece. Some actually have. So a false post confirming thus only adds to the fire...which is the point of these things.

We just have to be vigilant about what we read. Learn to tell reality from the manufactured static meant to keep us angry, and apart.

Rudy:...I'm laying low during the occupation...me and Anne Frank.....

Sidney:...Both my attic, and basement are available for those that need.

Rudy:...it could actually come to that...history does repeat itself......

Sidney:...I know. During the Crown Heights Riots years ago I took a Jewish pedestrian into my house. He had wandered into a hostile mob. Yes I'm Black.

Rudy:...You did wellllllll....Good for u!@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sidney:...My family taught me well. I also was raised among Holocaust Survivors. So many of the adults of my childhood had those green sometimes blue numbers on the arms. The guy who ran the candy story where I bought comics the grocer on the corner, and the tailor that made my Confirmation suit. It's true my community has a anti-Jewish problem...still un-addressed. Homophobia, and sexism is also common. Being oppressed does not automatically may you a just people. One has to work at it like everybody else.

About Mugabe...my end of a thread of posts.

Sidney Smith Well look so he's a deranged murderous tyrant. That, and managed to give his country by assorted mismanagements an inflation rate of 12,875%. With an increase of 50% annually...google it. Despite all that mayhem his people love him. That, and African decedents form the Diaspora over look his little eh,...errors in judgment. So what he does for or to his nation is nobodies business. Every country has the right to go to hell if that's what they want. America is doing that right now so we can't complain. Oh, and I've been Black for 67 years if you were wondering.

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Sidney Smith That as you call it inability to reason is because it's primal. One can't be reasonable about harm to one's family. One will put up with much from one's own. However will not tolerate anything done or said to them from another. IF you're white, and I assume you are. You are in a fight you really shouldn't be in. I'm afraid it's no win for you carrying the sins of you culture as many see it. that you oppose tyranny is good, but in this case leave it be. Emotion trumps...excuse the expression reason. Issues of race class, and sex just does this.

Like · Reply · 1 · 33 mins

Sidney Smith I see your point. Time was I'd be outraged. In fact I was at this guy for years. However he seems to be what most want. Those that don't usually disappear...he does that as we know. Large portion of Africa are still in post-colonial chaos. A chaos that has for over 50 years thrown up maniacs like this guy. he'll die soon enough, and be replaced by someone just as insane. that is till in time the chaos tappers off. around the turn of the next century. At least that's what some socio-historians think. One day it'll be in the University syllabus. Probably titled the "Post Colonial African Era 1955~2120". Africa has been fucked over for near 500 years so it many take a century or so for things to cool off. Till then we have folks like Mugabe, and company. btw in long pointless arguments with my Pan African pals. Such as they will continue to support, and love the tyrants because they are indigenous. A friend from the comfort of Columbia University said he'd prefer the worse African dictator to the most benign colonial governor. So there we are.

Like · Reply · 1 · 39 mins

Sidney Smith That's why people vote against their own interests so often. One is the lingering racial noise, and other is that they actually all of us want to be rich. One is amazed to find this why poor whites vote as they do. They vote for politicians that harm them because if the dog whistle of white supremacy. They vote against their own economic interests because they believe so many of them that they or their kids will one day be wealthy. This either by their own efforts as I've read because millions of the think they're going to win the power ball, and be rich so they vote for whatever is good for that class. Insane yes, but there it is. This country would is funny if it weren't sad so desperately sad.

Sidney Smith Well there's a long history for that. A world without Kings or Bosses. In the west one could date the beginnings at the era of the Peasant's Revolts of the 14th century. There's a line from that to the enlightenment, and that movements greatest experiment the formation of the United States. An ongoing experiment with rather profoundly mixed results. Still, and again I speak only of the west. Still this nation gave rise to a rebellion against slavery. Which lead to all the movements for further enlightenment since. Woman's right labor rights public education sanitation expansion of personal freedoms for traditionally tormented communities most lately Trans-sexuals. Concurrent with that equally powerful movements of retrenchment against all this. We're in such an era now. Three steps forward two steps back. Maybe Stalin, whose quote that is didn't mean it the same way I do, but ya gets the point. If we survive a few more centuries get our heads out of our butts get serious about dealing with limiting the damage we do the very Earth, and get more with the idea that tribalism is suicide as is the nation state, and that Kings, and Central Committees are just a bunch of assholes that rob, and murder us. That as free people we can run ourselves so why don't we. There was a reason that factions of the Communist militias took time out from fighting fascists in Spain to kill Anarchist. Them sweet folks could have actually given the world it's first for real "Free" country. Something not in anyone's interest Not the fascists not the Nazis most certainly not Stalin, and his boys. ...so here we are. Much work to do.

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as

Sidney Smith Yes I've read Mr. Owen's reactions to his time in pre-WW2 Europe even Nazi Germany. Yes colonial, and later Federal America was somewhat unique in the form of slavery they practiced. However India in it's middle period did something similar their caste system is a hold over from a color based slavery. Still as I said this nation as an experiment has had seriously mixed results, and history. btw the experiment is far from over. Right now we're in what will be seen as a relatively short Imperial era. That is already fading. However our internal strivings for something better. To be a nation deliberately open, and free for all is still very much in progress. We are in the midst of history so it's hard to climb a mountain to see the whole picture' Where we came from, and where we may be headed...but we should try to. In my life I learned to do this...see connections How we got where we are, and where we 'could' go.

Like · Reply · Just now

Sidney Smith War...perhaps. There's talk of that. However when I was a child there was talk of that in the late 1950's to the early 70's. We didn't. I feel we'll hold back again...I do so hope. We all of us all the people the classes races orientation that whole shebang here. We all have so much more in common than not. A friend who travels overseas often tells me that locals can always tell an American form a mile away no matter the color or class. We're just that we are a nation of nations with a world of givens in common. On the up side we know we're all getting fucked. Both Bernie's Movement, and Trumps were rebelling against the same thing. The system kept them apart by the variations in culture. Yes the Trump folks like Nascar, and the Bernie's go to crafts fairs. Both groups of white folks, and that's what they were are e same tribe. They both wanted economic justice personal freedom, and to be left the fuck alone. Blacks Natives, and Hispanics we're on the edges this time around, but we want the same stuff too.

Sidney Smith We've inherited a particular political template. No mater left right middle...it's the same game. Some one or groups of some one's tell us what to do. Part of it is how our brains are wired. We've been tribal for near a million years...that's impressive, However we're just starting to think they may be alternatives. We've been wondering about that for several thousand years, and getting serious about it for perhaps three hundred. Cutting to the chase if we survive as a species through the current ecological crunch I think we'll eventually make a break though. Like when we started rituals, and arts during the last ice age a major breakthrough there for our imaginations. A similar leap is inevitable if we don't die out in the chaos of the major earth changes that have already started by our hand...mind you we didn't know at first it was us, but we do now. We might adapt. Nature favors not the strongest as we know, but the most "ADAPTABLE". Some feel that meeting this great challenge will be one of the sparks of that great leap to rationality. I'd love to be visit say three thousand years from now to see how we did. ..Peace my friend, and all reading.

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time, and again

"I'm Good" ...from my files.

I wrote this about month after being rescued from the streets by my family. I was still adjusting to a "normal" life of eating sleeping in a bed having a door I could lock.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++...

All my experiences from the last year, and some are catching up with me.

Hey I'm good,...good.

I'm in my new home, but I still think It's someone else's. I'm still trying to get used to being a person again. Strange. So strange is what I'd call my current life.

It's like I'm living in two worlds at the same time.

Out there, and in here.

These last year has been filled with dangers, despairs, hopes, and surreal adventures. I think I'm, supposed to be dead. I'm sure of that.

Perhaps of exposure on one of those cold nights on the streets or I was killed in that mugging.

Maybe so.

What's happened since. My being rescued by Sister finding a new home. All these things are shadows.

The reality is I'm still in that alley on the ground bleeding. That or curled up in a doorway or in Liberty Park waiting for hypothermia.

What I've lived since being found 'is' a dream within the few seconds before my death after I was attacked.

I have a fear I'll wake up at the very last moment. It will be night, it will be cold.I will be in that alley. I take a ragged breath, and drift into eternity.

'But I won't.

I'm here now. In a home that is mine. I have a life again.

*****************************************************************************

I remember you had difficulty adjusting to having a bed. You slept on the floor behind the door with your books! Do you recall that? ...my sister.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yes. Yes I slept on a sleeping bag behind the bed room door with some books set up like a wall. I listened for sounds noises. When outside you were never safe...so you listened especially when resting. One didn't go into a deep sleep...that was suicide. One napped for minutes at a time...exhaustion as well as dehydration was normal. The first night in my new home I counted 87 noises...I know because I wrote it down in one of the note-books I kept on this journey. It took months to regularly sleep in my bed, and stop listening. (Below is where I slept for a long time...behind my bed-room door. i hadn't put the books up yet. This is maybe the first week in my new place.)

***************************************************************************

That's when I began to understand the homeless psyche especially if you been out there awhile. I finally understood the spiraling down you mentioned. ...from my sisters.

Being wet, and cold. These were the worse parts...never getting dry. Looking back I'm horrified, and have no idea how I managed any of it. However being there in it I was too emotionally numb...too busy to
have rational reactions. ...from me.







Yes. Yes I slept on a sleeping bag behind the bed room door with some books set up like a wall. I listened for sounds noises. When outside you were never safe...so you listened especially when resting. One didn't go into a deep sleep...that was suicide. One napped for minutes at a time...exhaustion as well as dehydration was normal. The first night in my new home I counted 87 noises...I know because I wrote it down in one of the note-books I kept on this journey. It took months to regularly sleep in my bed, and stop listening. (Below is where I slept for a long time...behind my bed-room door. i hadn't put the books up yet. This is maybe the first week in my new place.)