Grievers At Rodney King Memorial: ‘The Nation Owes Him’

Grievers At Rodney King Memorial: ‘The Nation Owes Him’


I saw a peaceful gentle man the first time I  saw him, as he was leaving the hospital in a wheelchair, soft-spoken and unassuming, uninterested in lawsuits -- not the raging beast malcontent malingerer the reports had suggested he was: it was an eye- and mind-opener.
These last few years I was grateful for the opportunity to see the real man (via tv, on Celebrity Rehab) and to love him more -- still the soft-spoken, unassuming, gentle man upon whose shoulders rested the fragile relationships of race/culture, of authority vs. the individual, bearing the burden of the underlying resentments that reached critical mass, and L.A. exploded as it never had before, from Florence & Normandy to Beverly Hills, unimaginable scenes of groups run wild, palm trees burnt, the police chief letting it burn, reluctant to interfere.  A man who never wanted the spotlight on him was suddenly the public spokesperson for reason -- as he proved to be every time he spoke his piece/peace -- who most recently inspired and saddened us with the grace and humility he brought to all with whom he came in contact -- publicly once again, in rehab.  

“Some are born great; others have greatness thrust upon them.”

I am sorry to see the gentle giant pass from our lives, as he gave more than his all in bearing a greater burden than seemed humanly possible, as another individual who opened the closed door on the institutionalized abuses of power that we close the door on not out of a lack of concern but out of disbelief, an inability to comprehend or verbalize that which is before us because it does not mesh with the belief system we learn as citizens.  Trying to reconcile these two things will drive a person mad.  Remember who Rodney King really was and remember the viciousness of the beating he received while on the ground face down, covering his head with his hands and trying to crawl away from the blows.  

Always look and learn for yourself: read between the lines, use your eyes and senses, not what others tell you, in order to know a person, a situation, and their truths. Remember and hold fast Rodney’s gentle grace under a few individuals’ abuse of power that night and remember that he maintained that grace constantly, in the face of hardship and in spite of efforts to portray him as anything but.
Honor his memory by remembering to do that and remembering the pain in his voice and the spirit in which he uttered the words, “Can’t we all just get along?”  It’s not the joke some people have made of it; it’s the bottom line.

Rest in peace, Rodney.  I hope it’s good: you earned it.  23 August 2012

Black & White and Read All Over Redux

A year ago, I finally found a NY Times crossword collection with that puzzle in it, so I can remake the inner skirt of the Ball Gown with exactly the puzzle I had in mind: the one that had both presidential candidates winning the morning after the election: the spaces could accommodate either name and work the whole block of words.
21 October 2010 re: blog post click here to go to original post:Brenda Starr ballgown, 29 November 2007
--Ali

Where am I?

Holy moley! -- has some parallel universe opened up a leak somewhere?

Yesterday, the wife of Clarence Thomas, the wife who is a visable face of the Tea Party matrons, called Anita Hill's office at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday to leave a message (at that date, time, and place she could hardly be expecting to have a conversation with Ms. (or is it Dr.?) Hill.  The content of the message was a cheery hi, how are ya?  You should apologize to my husband."

In her words, this was extending an Olive Branch.

As confused as the TeaPartiers are with facts, perhaps Mrs. Thomas confused a hickory stick with an olive branch?  She sees herself as the dove of peace, perhaps??

This weird feeling that a parallel universe has opened up is nothing new, and it began for me with the 1968 DNC, just watching it on tv, drawing, and taking it in.  Suddenly I saw scenes that looked like European WWII videos and kept asking my friend, "What is this? Where is this? What happened?" thinking it was a breaking newsflash from around the world.

Television followed with another surreal broadcast of toorahrah, "Watergate," asking then, "Well what all is this about anyway?" and then there was Martha Mitchell, Cassandra, reduced to banging on doors to make her voice heard while being labeled an alcoholic lunatic street person, this former wife of the Attorney General, John Mitchell.  Her cries went not only unheeded but mocked publicly; she continued to fight for what she knew was right, and what history has revealed to have been correct all along -- "history" being "the media" I suppose.

Then Ollie North and what was all that about, followed by an election and Ronald of Orange suddenly became president, more suddenly the hostages were released.  It was a HUGE arms trade, politically ensnared with the US in more ways than one might suspect -- ways that would appear to be delusional ravings, things so weird and far-fetched, that is, in contrast to what we have been educated to believe, that the truth, like Martha Mitchell's, seems an impossibility.

Those exist in the vaccuum created ten-twenty years earlier with the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, these swirling conspiracies.

Enter television again broadcasting another "What is this?  What am I seeing?  What is going on?" with the Clarence Thomas hearings, leaving us all puzzled for years, sweeping it behind us as another, "I don't knowww. . . ."

Memorial Obituaries McMahon, Bernice

Memorial Obituaries McMahon, Bernice

I've been devastated.  Losing my mother was losing my life: she was 92, which gives us many years to be two parts of the same thing. 

 Summer 2007

photo by Dyan Roldan

an angel sent to us

Donald Trump has a Dan Quayle Moment with Cindi Lauper

. . . and just as graciously as the boy who amended what had been the correct spelling of potato to "potatoe" for the boss, Ms Lauper corrected herself to say ". . . badly," after the Donald on last Sunday's Celebrity Apprentice stopped her midsentence to advise her to use the adverb badly to modify a sensory verb, in this case, feel,

so Big Red makes an appearance, on behalf of the Grammar Police in support of Ms. Lauper, to say,



Guys & Dolls: The stories of Damon Runyon

". . . so my dears, the lovely Ms. Lauper, in the boardroom, said 'I felt bad . . . ' about one or another event that affected people personally in that day's task. Without letting her finish, the Donald said, 'Badly. You felt badly.'
"'Mmmmm. Badly,' she said and continued, knowing well that her capacity for feeling is not in the least stunted, ill, or faulty, as the adverb badly suggests.  One can see badly, if one's vision is bad.  One can smell bad or badly, and they mean two different things.
". . . and so today, I, Big Red of the International Grammar police, have come to induct the Donald into the Hall of Fame at the Nathan Detroit School of Grammar."


This month's tv watching has deepened our love of Cindi Lauper and brought unexpected deep feelings of love for . . . wait for it . . .

Jessica Simpson

and

Tori Spelling

and

Kendra Wilkinson

it's all about as shocking to me as overcoming my aversion to Barbie dolls.  Now that I have written these last two names and "overcoming my aversion to Barbie" in almost the same breath, so to speak, I think I have something to worry about -- though I do love Jessica Simpson's big blonde beauty, and what is to love about all three of them is their gentle and thoughtful good natures.  Did that quality come from the same place that their need for surgical enhancements did?

Tori Spelling I had never seen until the short run of the Beverly Hills house with the smart-alec Latina housekeeper/babysitter: she has a gift for comedy.  The Tori-Dean shows I have seen are lovely: she is a wonderful mom with her children and is "giving them everything she didn't have as a child," which is usually a bad thing; for someone coming from a well-to-do Hollywood family and a mom who makes her feel worthless -- intentionally it seems -- it is a good thing: she is giving them love and attention (far more important than a toddler birthday party with many guests, 2 adults for every child, "all that and a pony").
Watching her carefully creating crafts to give as favors, her thoughtfulness to others, is a good picture of someone gone right.


Now, if only I could find the picture of Barbara Muñeca chatting with the Donald on a bench out back, bringing up the suggestion that he abandon investing in a power-building on the site of the Twin Towers and instead pull up those old Antonio Gaudí plans submitted at the same time the Twin Towers plans were, and thereby establish himself as more than a real estate investor: as a man who earned his wealth in real estate and used it to build another of the originally proposed plans for the site as an investor in cultural heritage, which will ultimately last longer than his wealth, notoriety, or celebrity.  We thought it was a brilliant Wizard of Oz solution.*

* a Wizard of Oz solution is ultimately simple and does what many make impossible by believing in impossibility: it is a win-win-win solution, one which makes everyone happy, or does good all around (i.e. it is a solution done well by virtue of doing good).           

From a Narcoleptic Insomniac

The Dormouse Awakes . . . to find projects galore all started up.
We did get in on Project Dollway again this year; I don't have the required Antoinette doll to design for, so we had to do some creative evening wear design to work around that. I also just read about a 19 pt articulated Fashion Doll on the Couture Doll Competition, and I must get a look-see at that one.
I am set for dolls -- I never thought I'd say that -- and have fitting models galore, all of whom I am fond of . . . .

Not all of it is sleeping: I am just now, once again, recovering from what has become the traditional summer biennial Computer Shutdown. I thought that since I spent 18 months getting Vista to work with me that I might get an extra eighteen months out of it before having to buy a new one -- the tradition --- but noooo, right on schedule, the week before IFDC, it went on the fritz.
This time we opted to repair it -- and boost the memory. It cost as much as getting a new one and took longer, with the puter in for repair, and on top of that the last geek tech lost the Vista software that Microsoft had sent me to straighten out the problem that I worked on for eighteen months -- the last three of them on an every day basis with "escalation" level support in Shanghai.


I'm back and getting back on my feet as far as catching up with all the mess that piles up while the computer is going on the fritz and with reinstalling programs I need.


Under the weather perhaps -- something like light-headed, only at the very top of my head, with the rest feeling like lead.


Summer is ending and I didn't have my pool, promise by promise and hope by hope devouring the last one month by month and week by week and day by day until today when I got More Glue Please! for another patch on the pool. At least I make a darned good patch: the first one I made held well, and then the pool got another hole a few feet away. Not on a level surface pulls the bottom up the side and makes a stress point. All of it is work I shouldn't have had to do if I had had help putting it away for the winter: and I cleaned it fully four times to do so. A thorn in my side. The DH doesn't get it yet, that I need water, and here I am in Texas, so some extra effort needs to be made.



The pool in 2008

"I grew up at the beach," I told him, knowing his answer would be, "So did I."
"Mmmm hmmm. Venice is not the same as 'the beach.' When I say I grew up at the beach I mean I spent all day every day on the beach, swimming and hanging out. I grew up at the beach means I grew up on it. I survived in Taiwan by working early in the morning, taking the bus home and getting off at the American School Pool and lying there all afternoon, swimming, napping, reading, until the evening, and then I went home. I need water."

I did go out and play on my slip-n-slide a bit this summer, waiting for the pool on one of the numerous fills that only pointed up what can be described as "I told you so."
Well, that was certainly a mixed bag of reportage. Back to my teapot -- and my catch up on the latest Naruto episodes: I finally got the programs running so that I could get them on DVD to watch lying down.

Google Ads

These look nice -- I just signed up for ads, and the links I see are fully related to the content of this blog, so I am pleased to present to you the links to doll-related sites which advertise with Google.

Please click on them, as they are, as Google sponsors, sponsors of my blog.

I'll so my best to post shorter posts more frequently.

Don't look for me to be tweeting on Twitter; I'd be embarrassed to say the words and embarrassed to be competing for a number of "followers." It's all gone too far, the pulling oneself out of where he is and what he is doing to tell people where he is and what he is doing.

I wonder if Andy Warhol saw that coming, the self-awareness, no the self-conscious megalomania of it all.

I had had it with cellphones, cellphone use in public while engaged in something else, when they first came out. I wish I could pass on the Hong Kong HHH joke about them, but it's not only not for families but not for most Americans' ("oh, pssst shhhh psss mmmbl pssss") prudishly tender eyes and ears.

The last straw with cellphones was seeing people chatting away in the grocery store while the teller was totalling their purchases and asking for payment. Nice way to really show disregard and disrespect for service people as invisible non-entities with whom one might want to interact, eh?

People are getting very far removed from reality through these small communications devices that give the illusion of being "in touch with the world."

I, myself, do love to blog, as I think about things and have not been in touch with many people who do so also for the past seven years; it's also good for my writing.

--Alison