I've been served

The knock came at the door one summer afternoon, not long after I had moved into the new house. I wasn't expecting anyone. Normally I don't answer my door when people ring or knock because I don't have a peephole in my door, and unless I am expecting a delivery or a guest, I don't expect unexpected visitors. In my last rented home, the landlord complied with my request for a peephole.  She thought I was a bit paranoid but she acquiesced. My newest  landlords balked because they feared that the peephole would damage their custom doors--the same customs doors that were dry rotting and splitting from exposure to the hot AZ elements, but since I don't own the house to which that crappy door is attached, and I was exhausted from moving in the midst of being pregnant, on bed rest and raising a 2 year old, I didn't push the matter.

As an aside, the lack of a peephole leads me to surmise that people like the illusion of safety because of their location. The lovely home is in a reasonably well to do neighborhood that has frequent security patrols.  It's the kind of neighborhood where you don't really see a lot of foot traffic. People are mildly friendly but not terribly neighborly.  It's the kind of place where you could reasonably be dead in your house for weeks or months until somebody complains about "an unusual odor", but God forbid, you  leave your trash at the curb for one day too long, you might get warrant a visit from an officer of the Home Owners Association (HOA).


It's not that I am expecting Jack the Ripper but I am naturally a bit skittish to open the door--chalk it up to my years living in the big city, in not yet gentrified areas. On a recent visit, my very cautions mother had commented on two major security flaws that she felt made us less than safe in our new home.  First was the lack of windows allowing views on the front entrance. Second and most egregious were the two large block columns flanking the front door. Instead of architectural interests, in her eyes they created dangerous hiding places for some dastardly ne'er do well with nefarious intentions. She saw it vividly. An unexpected knock. Her daughter opens the door to no one.  Just before she can retreat to the safety of the house--Bam! A ne'er do well gets a drop on her.  It gave me pause. Suburban neighborhoods, to the person with the right kind of thinking would be prime grounds for ambushing the unsuspecting, lulled and complacent resident. Well, I had no intention of going down like that!

 Again the knock. I debated for a split second. The only other time I answered the door without seeing who was there, it was a young woman selling magazine subscriptions with an unusual, for this neck of the woods, "song and dance" about the life changing opportunities that my purchase would mean. More unusual and very disturbing was her tale of how one of my neighbors up the street had called the police and chased her off with a racial epithet. Like me, she is Black.  I believed her because on my way home, not long before she came knocking, I recalled having seen a Sheriff's car up the road. I knew that the HOA also doesn't permit soliciting in the neighborhood. (Years later I would be struck by the fact that of all the other solicitors who ignored the sign at the entry to our ungated HOA community, none but the Black girl would get the cops called on her. Funny that!)

Since I had visiting relatives in the house, I decided there was no harm in answering. But oh how wrong I was!  The man showed me a badge and said he's with the Superior Court. And he was looking for me! It's at this point I have to admit gullibility because I didn't inspect the badge--nor could I have without the necessary peephole accessory--the mail slot!
Worse than a fake officer of the Superior Court was this very real officer with a summons for ME! In that instant, my predicament couldn't have been greater than if a nefarious ne'er do well had gotten the drop on me--I was face to face with a process server.  Damn!  The stupid ticket!  The one that had come in the  mail a few months before. The one I had ignored.  The one that showed me, in a series of photographs and an online video, allegedly of course, running a red light!

It had all happened on the way to a 4 week check up with my newborn. Naturally I was under-slept, tired and late.  Admittedly I was driving with a bit of a speedy edge--nothing outlandish, but I wasn't driving Miss Daisy either.  I approached the last intersection and saw that the light was amber and decided to take the turn instead of stopping. It was a decision I had taken on many other occasions where I gauged speed and braking time and safety. On this day, I decided to proceed because the timing of my appointment was a factor.  I would never knowingly take a reckless driving risk with my child in the car!  Alas that intersection was one of the few in town with a red light camera as I would be reminded of when I received the ticket.

I must note here that I am an ardent fan of red light cameras because I hate red light runners. They kill people!  So imagine my horror, disgust, outrage and denial that I could have been one of "those" people. Upon receipt of the ticket, with great umbrage, I had called the city to question the validity of the ticket--the absurdity of the allegations.

I didn't.
I wouldn't have.
I couldn't have.
I was convinced of my rightness.
What for me had been a judgment call of timing, was for the camera, a split-second transgression across the point of prolongation!
What the hell?
Get ready to be "schooled!"
The edge of the curb just before you enter the intersection is the "point of prolongation!" 
You have already run the red light the minute you cross it. It's what the camera sees--not what you perceive!
Naturally it's not at all the point where the average human would think "Hey I am running a red light!"--that point in the actual middle of the intersection.
No!
It's that seemingly benign point at which you normally see people have placed their Yard SALE signs attached to a cardboard box, the point with the pole bearing that badly hand lettered signs offering to buy your home for cash! It's that hair's breadth point at which the camera, uncaring of your perception of an amber light, your logic and timing and split-second calculations of risk is triggered, capturing that image of you, comical (only in retrospect)--intent and oblivious with your mouth hanging open, trying to get that child to the pediatrician!

So with great disdain and righteousness I ignored the ticket--for months. Friends and the Internet had confidently advised that, absent an in-person summons, the camera-issued ticket was as good as dead! The city wouldn't spend good resources on serving summons for camera issued tickets, would they? Well, you know what they say? "That and a dollar...!"

So there I was in the doorway holding on the slowly disintegrating custom door without a blasted peephole, face to face with a process server.  Damn! Someone had gotten the drop on me. Face to face with a split-second judgment call. Was I the woman he was seeking?  Suddenly, no! She, the alleged fugitive, cavalier runner of red lights, was not at home. Come back later. I was galled by his presence. Surely I would be able to delay and avoid and outsmart if I refused to acknowledge or accept on  that "not me" woman's behalf? Victory seemed certain until I saw him reach down toward his feet to slip the summons under the door mat! A warm body and an opened door would do! And like the heretofore unknown line of prolongation, I had been schooled, caught slack jawed and oblivious.  And just like that, I was served, by proxy, by a dirty doormat! 

Originally written in 2011

Racial Muzzle

It tells you everything about RACE in America that the Black President can't even talk about race, racism, racial injustice in the way it NEEDS to be talked about at every level by EVERYBODY in these United States. (And by RACE I mean the deeply entrenched and historical and contemporary divide between BLACK and WHITE! Yes folks, we got to go way back to that place people want to forget--slavery and the lingering stench of its aftermath. And I don't care if your people came over on later boats through Ellis Island!)

 Like Trayvon Martin before him, Mike Brown too could have looked like Obama's son! If President Obama had a son would he/could he speak differently? At times when he needs to speak, it's not unusual to hear pundits reiterate that President Obama is not a President for Black America only, as if by commenting on elephant in the room of American existence, he is violating his oath of office. When has he ever shown that he is not a President for all who live here? I dare say, by not talking about race consistently and meaningfully throughout his presidency, he has not fully been the president of all Americans. Black folks are still catching hell as they have under all prior 43 administrations. President Kennedy and Johnson after him took courageous steps in the area of civil rights, so I have to wonder where, style notwithstanding, is the substance of President Obama on this matter? In these turbulent times, if not him, then who? If not now, then when? Who will be the next most powerful person in the whole wide world who is going to have the power to call this for what it is? Who else but a Black man can talk about what life is like for Black men, profiled, pursued, penned in, and pent up? Who but he can say, "This crap must stop?"

GAZA: No Peace. No Justice

Justice First:  On the “Situation” in Gaza

What do we mean when we say there can be no peace without justice? It means that peace cannot grow in injustice. Peace cannot grow under occupation.  Occupation is injustice.  So let us just do away with the fig leaf of the "peace process." What kind of peace process requires that people come to the negotiating table, as supplicants, like dogs with their tails between their legs?  How can the USA be an honest and just broker for peace when their every utterance begins with “We firmly believe in the right of Israel to defend itself!”?  How can peace or justice prevail in a process where the scales are weighted in favour of one side? 

 It is impossible. We can’t even talk about the “situation” in Gaza, the West Bank and the Occupied Territories, in honest language.  The parameters of the conversations are circumscribed by narrow social conventions and fear of being seen as anti-Semitic.  We have actively closed off many valid critiques of Israel because of the threat of that dreaded accusation.  We silence ourselves in the face of the injustice and dehumanization we can plainly see that the Palestinians suffer daily and have for many years.  Even Jewish people around the world and citizens of Israel whose conscience rage against these injustices are silenced. Notwithstanding the corruption of their political representatives, and perhaps incompetence of leadership, the plight of Palestinian people, vis-a- vis Israel is unjust!  

So I will not preface my long held feeling that the Palestinian people have long borne the freight of an injustice not committed by them. And in the current geo-political climate the odds will never be in their favour. We have limited the space where we can talk honestly and constructively about what is happening, and why. I will not preface my feelings that the Palestinian people have a right to struggle against this injustice and oppression and subjugation and dehumanization.  They have a right to resist the capriciousness of occupying forces. They have a right to struggle against despair and annihilation. To deny the validity of their struggle is to rub salt in their wounds.

Understandably, Palestinians have used violence in their resistance struggle and in the process they have killed innocents on both sides. But the collective punishment meted out by the Goliath that is the Israeli military against what can be argued are at times feeble, wrong-headed and self-defeating tactics of a long-oppressed and out gunned people, is overkill. Particularly in a space the size of Gaza, I imagine it is like shooting fish in a bowl.  How can bombing schools and hospitals and razing blocks and decimating the foundations of Gaza be a reasonable response?

I recently heard a journalist commenting on a radio program that at the heart of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was that two people wanted to live on the same dot on the map!  I nearly drove off the road over at this wrong-headed simplistic drivel.  The continued displacement of the Palestinians due to occupation and continuing encroachment upon and resettlement of their lands is not the same as two people wanting to be on the same dot of land.  It is this and other similar glib “assessments” that obfuscate the roots of this intractable conflict.

 In the West we know well of the Holocaust in Europe that killed millions of people, including 6 million Jews.  It is right that we “never forget!” However in the aftermath of WW2 came the “Nakba” for the Palestinian people when the modern state of Israel was conceived.  We can’t ask them to forget and accept what happened to them when European powers reshaped their lives and futures at meeting and conventions at which they were not present.  Imagine the bitter pills Palestinians swallow whenever they see Jewish people from around the world finding refuge in lands from which they have been exiled, with no right of return. Imagine the “insult to injury” of not being able to speak or be heard on that righteous grievance. As we should make those who deny the Holocaust be forced to face the truth of that horror and its root causes, we ought to at least grant the Palestinians the decency of a real and unvarnished examination of their suffering, its origins and the hard choices that will have to be made to bring about a resolution. However in the “give and take” of negotiations, one side can’t be expected to do all the giving! Absent that, the seeds of peace will continue to fall on and wither in the rocky grounds of injustice.  There can be no hope for reconciliation in the face of the world’s amnesia or ignorance to how and why the Palestinian people are as dust. 7/28/14

Better Late Than Early

I finally made birth announcements for my 4 year old and my 2 year old. Why so late? Because they were both born early and I was busy doing other stuff like trying to keep them alive and healthy. And not to mention keeping myself sane.

There's a lot of stuff people do when they have babies, cute, twee stuff that I can never get the hang of, like professional pictures, or those monthly "watch me grow" photos.

And frankly, if I had done it back then, I'd have gotten a batch of cards and probably wouldn't have sent them out till now.  So I think this works out just fine.  And when people do get them, imagine their surprise. I guess I could blame the USPS but why kick a guy when he's down!

I am proud of the cards I made on Shutterfly.com.  And the thing about making the cards so long after the boys have been running amok on this planet, is that it looks as if I made such effort between the first and the second child to make sure the cards were coordinated.  Haha! And I can I take credit for something I didn't do!  And even if they end up in folks' recycling, I will cherish these cards. And I hope the boys will add them to their scrap book!

Stationery Card

View the entire collection of cards.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/fashion/with-kumon-fast-tracking-to-kindergarten.html

Odd things I've been tempted to collect.

Dryer lint.
cardboard tubes (leftover from foil or tissue paper or wax paper rolls),
plastic bread bag tabs.
empty baby food jars.
odd bits of plastic packaging materials of interesting shapes.
string.
plastic pouches that stuff come in.
Not until you end up with hundreds of things does it seem strange to have been collecting the at all.

The Shackle Shuffle

You've seen them! The young men walking around with their pants down to their knees and their drawers showing.  It's a style that comes to us courtesy of the prison-yard culture where belts are not allowed (well at least that's what I've heard) and so the pants hang low, low, low. 

It's disgusting on so many levels. It's a physical manifestation of the lowering of standards in this youth culture of ours. Imagine, young people aspiring to look like people in prison.  As Chris Rock once said: "You're not supposed to go to jail."  It's not a badge of honor!  But you can't tell young folks that these days.  So now they shuffle around holding up their pants with one hand because it's just so "stylish."  You're supposed to wear a belt.  Every time I see some kid with his pants down so low that he can hardly ambulate it calls to mind those old-time convict chain gangs. I've called the new style of walking "the shackle shuffle."  It's good practice for when they end up in prison.  Prison giveth and prison taketh!