Friday, July 8th, 2016 — 15°C / 59°F – Very Grey & Cloudy — ‘It’ rained earlier in Atlantic Canada @ 12:38 pm — It’s Alex’s Birthday 🙂 —
Our happy little Smoke Tree – this morning at about 11:30 Atlantic Time.
If the above “Smoke Tree” sapling was the only ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ in our lives lately we’d probably be a lot more happier and a lot more relaxed.
— I made the mistake of listening to the news last night before I went to bed and tried to sleep.
— After 2 days of young black men being shot and killed by policemen in the country I was born in and grew up in [ one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana – The other in Minnesota ( Just in case you’re reading this in some distant future or purposefully cut yourself off from ‘main stream media’ and never heard of this before right now this minute – ) ] A peaceful demonstration in Dallas, Texas was winding down and people were heading home when at least two ‘snipers’ opened fire and killed at least 5 policemen, wounded at least 6 others and also wounded a couple of civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. One shooter, ‘heavily armed with an assault-type rifle’ & barricaded on the second floor of a parking garage, shouted at police that the end was near and he wanted ‘to kill as many white people as he could, especially cops’. He also told them there were bombs planted all around the building he was in and all around Dallas. So the police tried to talk to him. I believe this ended when an ‘armed robot’ ‘neutralized’ the ‘target’.
— Before I saw video of apprehensive police trying to remain behind cover while they were peering into the parking garage, I saw a very amateur cell phone video of another shooter – this shooter was on the street, standing against a square pillar beneath an overhanging part of another building – at least I don’t think it was the parking garage – This guy knew what he was doing, I believe one commentator said he obviously had combat training. He sprayed a couple bursts of bullets around and then checked his back and looked around, and when he had the attention of several policemen, he began aiming more carefully. We have to take the photographer’s word for the rest of this paragraph – He did not get this on camera: One policeman came up behind the shooter, behind another pillar, moved to where he had a good shot and shot three times, hit the shooter once in the back. The unphased shooter turned and moved. I don’t know whether he feigned in one direction and moved in the other, but he got behind the officer on his blind side and shot him, then stood over the fallen policeman and shot him ‘3 or 4 times’ “Execution Style” And escaped around the corner. He was reportedly captured alive a little later.
— One of the demonstrators who was walking around in ‘camo’ shirt and pants (& I didn’t see his feet) and had what looked like an assault rifle slung over his shoulder, pointed straight down at the sidewalk – had his photo circulated by the Dallas Police as a ‘Person Of Interest’. He reportedly ‘turned himself in’ [ why does no one say, ‘He voluntarily went to the police station’? ] — & The last I heard about him was that he was not a suspect. He was probably a law-abiding citizen, exercising his rights to “Open Carry” – a relatively new law in Texas. I never heard the arguments for and/or against that law before it passed, I am still up here in Canada. – My best guess would be that the Texas Legislature came to the conclusion that law-abiding citizens with ‘Open Carry’ firearms permits would more likely discourage violent criminals from attacking somewhere or someone they most likely believed would be an easy target, someone who could not defend themselves with ‘deadly force’.
— People up here in Canada argue along the lines that they believe they are safer living in a country where it is not very easy for anyone to get a firearm – where almost nobody would be walking around armed and ready to shoot ‘at the drop of a hat’. One person commented, that the shooter who was on the sidewalk and ‘executed the police officer’ most likely was wearing really good body armor – “Yeah, wow, see? Everybody should have access to that kind of stuff – ” implying, “Then nobody would ever be safe anywhere.”
— This morning I heard on a talk show that originated in Toronto, Ontario, Canada – That a lot of celebrity black people were posting and tweeting #BlackLivesMatter material, some of them short and quick, others longer and with obvious deep thought and level-headed feeling behind them. One commentator wondered why there weren’t a lot of white people talking, posting, tweeting and in other ways communicating that they agree with the idea that “Black Lives Matter”. Canada is not perfect, but it is quite a bit more open-minded about race relations, and doesn’t have the same level of deep undercurrents of white supremacy and racial hatred that I saw, heard and felt, even in New England, where I spent most of my life before I fell in love with a Canadian and moved up here.
— But let me go on record as a ‘white guy’ who believes that Black Lives Matter, as a matter of fact, I believe that All Lives Matter – And I thought that would include everybody – Red, Yellow, Black, Brown, and White humans – And any grey or green or other colours of the rainbow any human like races we haven’t seen or known about officially and/or unofficially here on planet Earth. & I also firmly believe that non human lives matter too: plants, animals – anything else that might be alive whether we recognize their sentience or not. I might never be able to convince a cat to become a vegetarian, or prove to an alligator that it might be more fun to make friends with any animal (or human?) it sees as a potential lunch than eat it – but I’m serious. All lives matter. This opinion never makes me the most popular person in any group of friends, but I don’t run around screaming or pontificating that I believe that everybody and every thing has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I think I would like to wake up in a universe where everybody has just realized that life would be a lot better for everybody if we all realized that those who believe a different philosophy, are attracted to people and ideas and emotions that ‘we’ can’t understand, embrace or endorse, belong to a religion ‘we’ don’t follow, belong to a race ‘we’ do not belong to, live in a country whose politics seem to be opposite those of ‘our’ country’s — are not a threat to us. — Everybody out there has something to offer that you would probably value if you could see a little deeper beneath the surface of things.
— Right now I’m thinking that if some string pulling, manipulating, evil master mind wanted to create a race war, he [ most likely ‘he’ – or a group of nasty, like-minded ‘he’s ] is moving his plan along rather well this week. Ya think?
— “Love Anyway – “
~~~~~ Jim
