THE JUNIOR MOMENT

We all use the ever popular "Senior Moment" to describe an older person forgetting something (particularly as in losing his train of thought smack in the middle of talking). When this happens younger listeners often look knowingly at one another and smirk out a patronizing "had a senior moment, did ya?" Well, how about introducing the concept of the "Junior Moment." This could be the instance when a mature individual has provided a younger person with some life lesson advice, which the younger person has ignored and then when the younger person subsequently falls prey to the thing about which he was warned, claims (in order to avoid an "I told you so") that he was never warned. In this instance, observing seniors could look knowingly at one another and smirk out a patronizing "having a junior moment, are ya?"

THE AFTER-IMAGE

In the old days of cameras with flash bulbs, a bulb would go off in a burst of blinding light and leave a dark after-image obscuring normal, healthy vision for a long, long time after the picture had been taken. Even if you blinked, or completely closed your eyes, the after-image indelibly remained. That's an apt analogy, I think, for both slavery in America and what is happening in Ferguson Missouri.

"The history of Saint Louis is burdened by a hyperconsciousness of dividing lines. The Dred Scott case of 1857 (that spark in the powder keg of the Civil War) began in St. Louis as a question of whether a man's freedom and human rights evaporated when he crossed the border into a slave state. In the decades since then few cities have taken a more systematic approach to racial separation. The shooting of unarmed African American teen Michael Brown and the violence that followed happened smack on one of those borders. And this phenomenon is, of course, not confined to Missouri. In 2012 Trayvon Martin was killed. Weeks ago Eric Garner, an unarmed black man died after an apparent police choke hold on him. It would be useful to know how often this happens. But that is data the United States declines to collect. The federal government can tell us how many pounds of boysenberries Americans harvest and how many hours per day the average American woman spends gardening. Yet no agency is tracking the number of people killed by police, [let alone the number of unarmed black people killed by them]" - Time Magazine.

The explosive flash of American slavery left the majority of our nation (with the exception of the victims themselves) blinded to the horrific evidence of slavery's continued consequences (in most cases consciously imposed by the white majority), and willfully ignorant about just how these consequences unfold on a daily basis, because America refuses to recognize, accept, and decisively overcome, the fact that almost one hundred and fifty years after slavery "ended", what should by now be normal, healthy vision is still woefully absent...blotted out by the dark after image of our sin.

INCESSANT TWEETING

Listening to the birds in my backyard this morning. They sound lovely. But when you actually stop and think about it, you have to ask yourself why birds chirp and hoot and whistle continuously? Why doesn't a bird just say what's on its mind and then shut the f*ck up? Don't get me wrong. I love the sound of birds. But their continuous voicing of whatever it is they want is a complete mystery. When I was a kid back in the 40's and 50's, and moms throughout my neighborhood used to open the windows of the apartment buildings we all lived in, and call their kids home for dinner, they didn't continue doing it every 3 seconds until sundown. The kid came in and that was it. What is it that birds want that can never be satisfied by only asking once? Birds are like toddlers, I guess: "Ma. Mommy. Mama. Ma. Mommy. Look Ma. Mommy. Ma. Mama. Mom-Mom-Mom-Mom-Mom-Mom-Dadeeeeeee!"