Slavery comes to Massachusetts?

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When the slaves were freed and plantations and southern towns still needed work to get done, what had been free, now had to be paid for. The people in charge, who resented having lost the Civil War and slave ownership, found a way to continue slavery by giving it a different form.  If in the name of justice you started arresting people and putting them in jails and prisons, you could justify using them as free labor in the name of rehabilitation and skills training.

This explains why more Black men in the South were arrested than White men and why they got ridiculously long sentences for even the most minor crimes. This meant having to come up with a “reason” for all these arrests, and the Black man as innate criminal was born.

Jim Crow laws were not so much to deprive Black people of certain rights and practices that the Whites had, but, rather, these laws were designed supposedly to keep the races separate so Black on White crime could be minimized. The designers of these laws presented them as positives and not negatives. They were not to punish the wicked, but to protect the innocent from them.

Since Black men had a propensity to commit crime, having so many in custody seemed acceptable and logical to the masses, and oddly, where more work needed to be done, more Blacks committed more crimes.

The use of prisoners replaced slaves as the source of free labor.

Roads were built by chain gangs at a much lower cost than if they had been built by a company whose workers would have salaries to cover.

I am new to Bristol County on the South Coast of Massachusetts, and that being the case, I do not know as much as I need to about it.

I spent almost two decades in a rather regressive state in what is either the South or the South West area of the United States depending on who claims what, which makes its location a rather fluid thing. It claims the confederacy as part of its heritage even though in the 1860s it was Indian Territory, and would not become a state until 40 years after the Civil War. But it did, and does, favor the Southern approach to things.

So the prisoner as slave is not a foreign concept to me.

When he was sworn in as County Sheriff this past week Thomas Hodgson made an offer to President-elect Donald Trump to have inmates from Bristol County help build the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I can think of no other project that would have such a positive impact on our inmates and our country than building this wall,” he said at his fourth inauguration.

“Aside from learning and perfecting construction skills, the symbolism of these inmates building a wall to prevent crime in communities around the country, and to preserve jobs and work opportunities for them and other Americans upon release, can be very powerful.”

He calls the Project N.I.C.E., National Inmates’ Community Endeavors.

Just as in the South, Hodgson says his policies focus on rehabilitation rather than recreation. Apparently his jails are presently some sort of country club if all the inmates do is play games, sit around the pool, and have afternoon cocktails, instead of taking Vocational Education classes or working on local projects.

But it is obvious that he is just using the program to appear tough and to answer a political need. He wants something, and will use the inmates to get it.

If his motivation were truly to benefit the inmates with job training and rehabilitation, why not have work done locally and not in a national spotlight where his name will keep coming up while the inmates will just be anonymous numbers with no guarantee this job training will result in employment when their sentences are up.

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He also suggested his inmates could be used to help out after natural disasters.

“Think of how much good could come of 500 or 1,000 extra hands in rebuilding a community after a disaster, and the inmates would learn valuable construction skills and on-the-job training as part of their rehabilitation”.

Since the wall would cost a projected $25 billion, prison labor would save a lot.

But, since county jails are not necessarily long term facilities, the Sheriff would have to find ways to keep the inmates coming.

That could be done easily by arresting more people, even for the slightest infractions, increasing the length of sentences, and rounding up more replacements as needed.

Look, there’s  Brown guy!

Of course the question does come up as to who will pay for this program.

Certainly the taxpayers of Massachusetts will not like to be saddled with footing the bill for transporting and housing the inmates in Texas, especially since it was clear from the last election that the wall may not be a popular idea here.

The rest of the country should not pay for the transporting and housing of prisoners to support a local program. After all too much government spending is not something the minority of voters seemed to support when they gave Trump the electoral college based on just a few thousand votes.

Trump said that Mexico would pay for the wall anyway, but, somehow, I do not see it sending money this far North.

So perhaps before anything is done, the Sheriff should establish who signs the check.

 

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Invitation to an event

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Here’s something on the upside.

This weekend is the 21st annual Moby Dick Marathon.

Each year in January the unabridged Moby Dick by Herman Melville is read at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford Ma with the goal of completing it within 24 hours.

People from all over the globe show up for this, and last year there were 2,500 people who attended the event whole or in part. Some even bring sleeping bags so they can be in the museum for every minute, and these stalwarts get an award for that.

Last year was my first time reading. My turn was at 4:10 a.m. on the Sunday morning, and I got to meet quite a few interesting people since I had decided to attend all of the festivities from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. Although living just a few blocks from the museum, I did walk home for a nap.

At the opening dinner I sat at a table with members of the Melville Society, and, having taught Moby Dick, had the opportunity to tell them how it went with my students, especially the landlocked ones who had never seen an ocean, except in movies and on television, and of a grimed with whom I taught in the 1970s taking me o Riverside Cemetery in the Bronx so I could see Melville’s grave.

This year, as a museum volunteer, I am exchanging that sort of involvement with doing two shifts on the information desk and am looking forward to meeting even more people.

This is not just an event for those who are able to attend in person. It is going to be live-streamed this year so unlike last year when only the audio was available this year the audio-visual can be experience worldwide.

Here is how the weekend will go for those who will be participating.

First I skipped the Friday evening events as they involved pre-purchased tickets.

Before the actual reading begins there is the chance to try to “Stump the Scholars” with questions for Melville Society Cultural Project members. This game show like experience starts at 10:00a.m.

While this is going on for the adults, the children’s mini-marathon is going to be held where children take their turns reading from the abridged child friendly version of the novel.

At noon the ship’s bell will be rung, and the opening lines to Moby Dick will be read by Herman Melville’s great-great-grandson, Peter Gansevoort Whittemore.
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When the reading reaches the chapter containing the sermon by Father Mapple, the audience walks across Johnny Cake Hill to the Seamen’s Bethel where a local member of the clergy delivers it.

When the reading resumes in the Harbor View Room on the top floor of the museum overlooking, the second annual reading of Tiago Patricio’s abridged version of Moby-Dick in Portuguese (Junte-nos para a segunda leitura anual de versão abreviada de Tiago Patricio de Moby-Dick em Português) is held from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00p.m.

The Azores area in the Lagoda Room has been remodeled thanks to the Azorean Maritime Heritage Society and the Portuguese Consulate of New Bedford, and his is where the Portuguese reading will take place.

People do have to eat, so again this year, starting at 5:00 p.m. there will be free clam chowder and kale soup provided by various local restaurants. For those who are convinced kale is a new thing recently discovered by millennials, I would suggest bringing any millennial you might know and let them sample an age old soup.

Another break in the reading will take place when all who wish to will gather to toast to Herman Melville’s 21st birthday as this is the 21st Marathon and he was 2i when he boarded the Acushnet and went on his first, last, and abbreviated whaling voyage. He jumped ship in the Pacific having not found the romance in seafaring, and later produced two books, Omoo and Typee, based on that post ship jumping experience. He was not, by the way, unique in this sudden change of heart.

The beer for the toast will be supplied by the local pub, The Pour Farm.

By 1:00 p.m. on Sunday the reading should be complete, and awards will be given to those who never left the museum the whole weekend.

If you can’t make it, the entire marathon will be broadcast via livestream, viewable online on the Museum’s website

www.whalingmuseum.org/programs/21st-annual-moby-dick-marathon-2017

and Facebook page.

If you are close enough, drop in. The event is free.

If you live far away, no matter how far, drop into the live-stream.

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Romae in proelio

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At one time New Bedford was the richest city in the country per capita. Although the Quaker influence, which was strong, prevented boastful ostentation, the owners of ships and the whale oil industry built mansions on large estates many of them on the top of the hill affording them a clear view of their wharves, ships, warehouses, and counting houses before the trees and the downtown area between them and the harbor began to grow and obscure the view.

Their heirs found the mansions a bit much to maintain, and either sold much of the acreage to offset financial losses as the whaling industry declined, or divided up the estates on which multiple heirs could build more practical yet ornate houses. Eventually one whole section of town was a collection of stately homes of various architectural schools, and most have withstood time.

Many now house law firms, doctors’ offices, and organizations’ head quarters while some, maintaining their outsides, have been divided within to be multi-resident apartment buildings some with furnished single rooms, others with suites for small families.

When the city began to lose its luster and began its downward economic slide, many mansions in the downtown area fell to the wrecking ball and were replaced with a bus terminal, a nondescript brick office building, and a two block long county and federal complex with a district juvenile court, a federal building, and a VA center.

Although the early 20th century, three story apartment building in which I live may have replaced the imposing home of Mr. Alfred DeWolfe, a merchant who owned many stores in the downtown area that thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the building still was designed with character having fine appointments that make it an interesting structure and not a brick box.

When a four lane highway was constructed to allow a speedy ride from an interstate to a traffic light in the congested south end of the city, a distance a little over I mile, necessitating tearing down many historic buildings and stately homes so that the occasional tractor trailer had a convenient route to water front businesses, some people had had enough and began attempts to save what history was still around.

The problem was that, in spite of the ultimate success in getting a huge section of the downtown area with old homes and cobble Stone streets and much of the water front designated an historical district, something that spread to other sections of the city earning for them a similar designation, initially they had a problem getting the residents of the city on board.

And then it happened.

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There, among mansions and other buildings of note, the Golden Arches rose yellowing the night sky. The seeds for honky-tonk were sown.

The people reacted. The horrible idea that other historical homes might be replaced with schlock had woken people up.

And now County Street with its miles of stately homes has only that one blemish and the KFC that appeared at about the same time to mar its beauty.

Rome is the “Eternal City” with its ancient artifacts, buildings going back centuries, and traditional foods that are as much a part of the history of the city as is all that ancient Rome stuff.

But soon among the history, and in the shadow of the Vatican, we may start seeing the Golden Arches in pictures of Rome and Vatican City, especially as the McDonalds will be located just outside the gate to the Vatican where, besides it, you can see the window where the pope speaks.

The complication with any objection from the citizens of Rome and the multi-generational owners and chefs at the local trattorias is that the Vatican owns the building and will receive $31,000 a month in rent from McDonalds.

And to make things worse, in spite of all the little local coffee shops where people speak Italian for real and serve real Italian coffee items, Starbucks is preparing to open its first shop in Italy.

There goes the neighborhood.

Assumed hero

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In elementary school the teacher, that would be Sister Eugene, introduced us to what was called “New Math”. It turned out to be algebra of sorts, and part of what we were to learn from it was thinking logically.

In explaining that, just because one event happens after another, cause and effect did not necessarily exist, Sister Eugene told the story about a boy standing on the corner, snapping his finger.

“What are you doing?” asked a curious passerby.

“Snapping my fingers to keep the elephants away”, was the reply.

Stating the obvious, the passerby pointed out that that was foolish because, obviously, there were no elephants around.

“See. It works”,  the boy responded.

To me, Donald Trump is the little boy.

Anything that has happened since his election, even those things that had been coming in steps with the final step coming after he won the presidency, he claims credit for.

The result of negotiations that had taken place in preparation for some event may have taken place under President Obama, but to hear him tell it, Trump’s claim is that the final, inevitable, instant result is a direct result of his election. Nothing had existed before, but only after and because of.

Jobs coming after months of negotiations, people being able to spend more money at Christmas, companies who may have been thinking about moving elsewhere, but which finally decided to stay were instant events with no prior steps

. The only things for which he won’t take credit are those things that are unpleasant and actually happened because of him and his rhetoric.

He will even take credit away from the American people he claims to champion, and will change the details of the story when doing so if it puts him in a better light.

On Monday, the GOP held one of those closed door meetings for which they have become famous and decided to eliminate the independent Office of Congressional Ethics and police themselves without having to inform the public about any charges of wrong doing, or subsequent investigations, conclusions, or actions to address that which was proven to be an ethics violation.

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Meanwhile Kellyanne Conway initially supported the disbanding of the ethics commission stating on the Today Show that,

“I don’t want your viewers to be left with the impression that there’s no mechanism to investigate what I would call consumer complaints, constituent complaints. There’s a new office. And this new office will really cut down on the overzealousness. Many of these people — members and their staffers who have been under investigation — have complained about their due process rights being violated and being compromised. They need protections as well.”

She obviously saw the perpetrators of lapses in ethics as the victims of the constituents who objected to those lapses.

For his part, Trump did not complain about the move, but only to its timing.

Rather than say the action itself was wrong, his only objection, tweeted, was,

“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it, may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!”

Not only did he sympathize with the potential violators of ethics, he also simply complained about the timing. Perhaps, if this were done later, he would not have expressed any objection at all.

But in response to constituents and the outcry from all quarters, on Tuesday, the GOP unanimously voted against the action.

His tweets were not about any objection to the foxes guarding the hen house, but as happened so often in his campaign, he was more than happy to take credit for a misreading of reality that makes him look good when even his own spokesperson, Sean Spicer, had stated his only objection had been to the timing, not the substance.

Besides Trump’s real reason for objecting to the GOP plan is that this was the first thing that they chose to deal with on the first day of their return to Washington, and they did it behind closed doors.

 

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He has made his choice

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One country is an island that has never threatened us with war, even though we invaded them once at the Bay of Pigs.

Being dependent on Russia, it had been used as a base for nuclear missiles, but it was obvious during the “Cuban Blockade” that this was Russian aggression.

For the most part, Cuba has been treated as the last vestige of the cold war by the aging people who had been born, or had come to power during that time, and it is clear that  Fidel Castro’s only real offense was that he lasted over 50 years and outlasted 10 U.S. presidents.

So we subjected them to a lot of sanctions which have only recently been lifted.

The other country was our real Cold War adversary, the one whose leader had declared at the U.N. that they would bury us, and they raced to get enough weapons to blow us off the face of the earth if they felt that would be to their advantage. It had attempted over the years to get allies to oppose the United States either through diplomacy, or, when that failed, just taking them over.

Although their empire seemed to collapse, it did not stop those leaders who had lived through and were the architects  of the Cold War from simply stopping what they were good at, disrupting other countries and flexing their muscles when they felt they needed to.

Many generic brands generico levitra on line browse around these guys have now arrived on the market but the buyer should beware. cheap viagra in australia Counselling is the best solution for the psychological erectile dysfunction for the whole life then do not panic as there is a very effective product that can help in carrying out the issue of terminating the male impotency issue in men. Erectile dysfunction is very cheap cialis from india common in men and is the size of a walnut , situated just below the bladder and above the penis . If you feel it boring or tedious then keep on your research to know the facts behind the men’s sexual issues and different ED drugs. pfizer viagra for sale After all, at the end of World War II when all of Europe and the United States had fought to stop one country from establishing its empire, Russia simply put itself in its stead and made their own.

Russia has done all it could to destroy the United Stats, and continued to use any convenient county to do that.

And now, with one county having really nothing to offer but cigars and cane sugar, and perhaps the opportunity for tourist hotels and the rebuilding of the gambling mecca it once was that the president elect realized that if he won the election he would not be able to capitalize on (a fine motivation to oppose normalized relations with the Island nation) while the other has oil and oil company agreements that are stymied by old, and now new sanctions, our president elect has chosen sides, and praises someone who had once run the Russian secret service and worked hard against the United States so he can benefit his oil baron friends.

That whirring sound in Simi Valley is the body of the Sainted Ronald Reagan, invoked whenever his party makes a decision, spinning in his grave.

 

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Sean Spicer speaks.

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It is no surprise to the majority of voters who went for Hillary Clinton, and it should eventually dawn on those who voted for him that Donald Trump has a very strange take on Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Especially when it come to putting more stock in Putin’s word than in the United States intelligence agencies.

Being a very, very smart man, an idea that many people agree with according to Trump, while he is skipping security briefings, he is certain that in spite of the information gathered by 17 U.S. intelligence departmens, they are wrong and Putin is the only one telling the truth.

According to Sean Spicer, Trump’s incoming press secretary, attention on what Russia might have done in regard to the incidences of hacking that took place during the elections should be replaced with attention being given to punishing Hillary Clinton for trying to influence the election.

Imagine the depth of her treachery in waging a campaign to get votes as she ran for the presidency.

Imagine.
Spicer said on Sunday,

“Why aren’t we talking about the other influences on the election? Why aren’t we talking about Hillary Clinton getting debate questions ahead of time? No one is asking those questions. The fact is that everyone wants to make Donald Trump admit to certain things. When do we talk about the other side, which is what did Hillary Clinton do to influence the election? Is she being punished?”

Concern that Hillary Clinton may have gotten some questions, or hints of questions before one of the debates has been spoken about often and it even became part of Trump’s justification for the middle school style nick name “Crooked Hillary, but Fox News Megyn Kelly also pointed out that questions were leaked to Donald Trump for debates during the primary season.
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So in this regard, Spicer is either forgetful or is hoping the American people are.

For his part Trump has claimed that he is an expert on all things hacking and has more information than the CIA.
“I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

He has also announced that he will let the American people know what he knows about the whole hacking thing this Wednesday or Thursday.

Tweet worth waiting for?
In the meantime, the American people need to be very concerned about why Hillary actively campaigned with the intention of becoming president.

 

 

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

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Here is a collection of the best cartoons from my blog for 2016.
The price is the lowest Amazon allows. If enough people buy it, it can be viewed on all ereader devices, even Nook, I can afford a large gourmet white pizza from that fancy place down the street.

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