LATE NIGHT MINI-RANT

One of my brothers was a cop. My Irish immigrant grandfather was a cop. One of my godsons, who is also my nephew, is a cop. One of my cousins who lived next door was a cop, his son still is. One of my brother-in-laws was a cop. The father-in-law of one of my brothers was a cop. Etc. Etc. Etc. I would never want to see them shot at or killed and would want whoever would even attempt such a thing to be tried and put in prison.

All of the cops in my clan were, and those still living are, good persons. They were and are all small town cops, most of them in the town I grew up in. But that town has its projects (the kind of areas where so many cops in other places seem to spend most of their time pursuing minor infractions etc.) and is on the border of what once were two of New Jersey's, and the country's, deadliest municipalities: Newark and Irvington. And they've seen shootings and drug dealing and altercations and etc.

Oh, and they're all what we call "white" though when this clan started out in this country with my grandfather the Irish immigrant, people like him were considered not quite white. And I would guess sometimes these cops in my clan were nervous in certain situations. But the cops in the videos killing black men, especially the last two victims, weren't just nervous, they were panicking, like scared little children.

How the hell did they become cops? And no cop in my clan would allow a bleeding man to just sit in a car without coming to his aid, trying to stem the bleeding, instead of continuing to hold a gun on the man. And why didn't the cops who arrived on the scene not help the bleeding man and subdue the panicky freaked out shooter cop?

The woman who had to watch her boyfriend die was more composed than the cop who shot her boyfriend. She was behaving like a professional, while the cop was acting like a demented paranoid stressed out unbalanced mad man.

I would hope, though I know it won't happen, that every decent and dedicated cop across this country would stand up and demand universal training and screening (for mental health issues and for drug use, including, or maybe especially, steroids) of all police, and the immediate dismissal of any cop caught abusing his power, and the arrest and incarceration of any cop when that abuse of power leads to the infringement of the rights of any citizen, in any way, but especially leading to the loss of that citizen's life.

SO LONG AGO

me & my three big brothers in the late 1940s back when I could still be caught wearing shorts and my brothers were still around, God rest their souls

LATE NIGHT MINI-ANTI-RANT

When I used to get angry with myself for doing something I, or others, considered stupid or self-destructive or unintentionally harmful to others or mostly just a mistake, my old friend Hubert Selby Jr. used to say, "You're just a people, Michael." It was a great comfort to me, and it comforts me tonight when I see all the hurt and damage my fellow people are doing to themselves and each other. I know there's a bit, or sometimes a lot, of the asshole in me, like in everyone I've ever encountered, as well as some good, but it gets pretty difficult these days not to see everything as "black or white" or "right or wrong" or "good or bad"...but Selby also recommended I give those judgmental terms up...a high spiritual bar I haven't successfully reached yet.

MORE BROKEN HEARTS

(and lest we forget, the most comparable mass murder in the USA was committed by a white, Christian, right-winger named McVeigh...)

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

YEP