October 2008

Mayor Dixon will announce the plan at a press conference today, a 30-year plan for revitalizing Central Baltimore, with community input and participation during the planning and the process.  You can read more about it on today’s Baltimore Sun.

Also, on Thursday, November 13th, there will be an open house at Metro Gallery on Charles Street at 4:30pm. Local photographers, bloggers and interested folks are invited to come check out more details about the plan and enjoy food from some Station North vendors.  Stay tuned for more info, or leave a comment, and I can send you something to post on your blog/website.  I was in a committee meeting about the event last Friday, and the details of the plan are very exciting.

We have been watching scary movies, documentaries and “Treehouse of Horror” episodes out the yingyang. It’s awesome. I was reading some Poe, but I’m holding off on more of that until closer to the 200th birthday perhaps.

My bike is getting rained on right now.  And there’s nothing covering the seat.  I am going to have a squooshy ride home.

I love Wiffle Ball!  For Photo Friday: I love.

I’ve had late community meetings two nights in a row, meaning two 11 hour days.  I know; some folks do this regularly.  Heck, a good number of us were at both night meetings, a few yesterday and then more today and tomorrow.  But all these meetings wear me out!  I’m exhausted.  But the thought that there is a greater good to this work is well worth all the late meetings in church basements and all the feelings you have to smooth over and consider in getting people to work together.  At least I’m not stuck making rich people richer or anything.

Better than one?  Sadder than one?

What?  You know how we keep hearing about these crazies who repeat what other crazies say and maybe actually believe this bullshit?  I mean, I keep thinking to myself, “Good thing I don’t live near these backward inbreeders.”  I never thought I’d ever meet someone like that.

Don’t get me wrong.  I know and care a great deal about several people who are Republicans, conservatives, libertarians (small L), etc.  It’s not like anyone could say I only surround myself with people who think like I think.  Not that anyone actually accuses me of that very often.

I was talking to a non-liberal today who says he disagrees with Obama’s policies.  Okay.  I mean, if you’re not going to vote for a man, that’s pretty much the best reason not to vote for him and to vote for someone else.  That’s something where, if you’re in the mood and have the time, you can talk, discuss, maybe both come away a little better off.

But I was talking to another guy tonight who commented that we’d have the most “Islamic” country in the world if Obama gets elected.  Okay, more “Islamic” than actual Islamic countries I guess?  I calmly informed him that Obama is not, in fact, Muslim, ignoring the fact that it wouldn’t matter to me either way.  Then he went on to inform me that Obama is not a US citizen, that he made it to the United States Senate without ever having to prove this to anyone, all the way up to top Presidential candidate.  I mean, I guess there’s some pro-Muslim conspiracy at work here, to get this to happen.

I let him keep ranting.  He was getting upset.

Then he said that Obama was “only” leading by two points in the poll this morning.  I corrected him that it was in the double digits last time I checked, that, in fact, Obama was really winning.  “But see who bothers to vote,” I offered, in the way of consolation.

He got even more upset.  Started saying that you can’t trust Obama, that the answers are all out there.  On the internet, where, you know, all the reliable information is.  “You should look this up on the internet, boy.”

Ouch.  Yes.  I’m 29, married, bearded and all.  I don’t like to throw my education around, but I’m almost a frikkin doctor.

“Boy.”  Ouch again.

Well, he got himself so upset that he didn’t do something he said he’d do before he left, and I wasn’t shy about telling why.

He also asked me, two weeks ago, if a cop in a certain undesirable situation was black.  “No, actually he was white.  They all were,” was what I was only too glad to tell him.

You can’t argue with people like that.  Yes, I’m told, he’s from a different generation.  So what?  There weren’t any non-racist white people in Southern states until the last few decades?  That can explain a lot of things pretty well to me.  But not repeating the bullshit this guy repeated.  And, for the record, my uncle who passed away last month was completely different that he saw through bullshit and didn’t propound racist attitudes.  And he was the same age and fought in the same war.

I’m tired of all the reasons other people like to offer for why people that they like say fucked up things.  “He’s not like that.”  “She’s a Christian.”  “It’s her background.”  “He doesn’t have the education you have.”  Cuz, you know, education: that’s the way to erase racism and bullshit spreading.

And why, FUCK ME, why would you, knowing that my wife is black, say these kinds of fucking things to me?  I’m serious.  Why?

Dan — after most of the Tour du Greater Homewood. Mr. Dan is nearly half way through a 5-month training that will put him in what just might be a dream job. Dan is awesome. And he will return to cycling soon!

Dan! Dan!

DING-DING!

For Photo Friday: Freeze Frame.

I was riding the elevator up to my office today.  I work on the top floor of my building.  An older gent who I have not seen before was riding to the third floor.  When I excused myself and pushed the button for 6, he joked, “Sixth floor?  Must be a successful man!”  I was still laughing when I opened my office door and threw all my crap on a chair.

Well, as much as one can at a catered event when the speaker is nicely dressed and using multiple expensive technologies to express her wisdom.  I know there are a lot of assumptions we all make (yes, you and I, too!) about poverty and about those living in it.  But in talking about avoiding stereotypes and generalizations about class, we keep reminding ourselves that these generalizations are false.  But then we use them and act like they are hard-and-fast.  This happened repeatedly.  And some of them really strike me as not only unreliable but also false.

For instance, in talking about humor, we were told that members of lower economic classes use it to defuse negative situations but that anyone in the middle class doing it might be seen as disrespectful.  Pile this on top of the statement that “business” procedures and customs are based on middle class ways of thinking and doing, which we were also told.  Unless I’m more of a dreamer than I thought, I can swear I have seldom seen middle class people show signs of feeling disrespected by people using humor to lighten the mood.  And when I have, it seemed more of a personal issue than a class issue.  Maybe humor is universal?  Or, at least, class-less?

I don’t know where I’m going with this.  It just makes me sad and makes me think about what I spend money on.

And thankful for my full belly tonight.

And you should see my office.

Blowing down The Avenue in Hampden Friday night with my friend Zack and a go-cart, I caught the thing in the back of my heel when I tried to keep Zack from going into the street.  Didn’t break it, and watching the colors change is fun.  This was at its more normal color.  A few inches higher, and I might have broken an ankle.  I ran into a tree when I was riding it, but I hurt neither me nor the tree.  Nor the cart.

I toasted my recently passed-away Uncle Harry today at the Taste of Waverly.  When he lived in Boston (while I was small), he would spend his vacation in Maryland with the family — to include playing in the pool and yard with the boys.  He enjoyed a beer, some crabs, the cigarettes he used to smoke a long time ago and people he cared about nearby.

He was one of the sweetest people I have ever known.

He was a fan of Pabst.  The smell of “regular” beer always makes me think of him.  More so now.

[Taken with my new camera!]

A raven sculpture outside the Poe National Historic Site in Philly.  I never made it inside while it was open from my training in August, but I’d really like to go back.  This is the bicentennial of Poe’s birth, and we’ll have a grand celebration in Baltimore, too, I’m sure.  How cool would it be to get to travel up and down the coast to the cities he’s called home?

I’ve had Poe on the brain lately. I have re-memorized “The Raven” just, well, because. If you’re interested in his death, I’d recommend Matthew Pearl’s The Poe Shadow.  It contains some “original research” into Poe’s mysterious death in Baltimore, 160 years ago this month.

You should see all the Poe toys I’ve collected. Rather, I should take some pictures of them.

For Photo Friday: Athletic.

I was going to make a “that one” joke, but I’ve heard quite a few good ones that were much better than what I had in mind. And I don’t know if I want to make light of the disregard displayed (all that dis-ing!) publicly toward one Presidential candidate from another. I’m not naive enough to believe that Obama likes McCain any more than John likes Barack. But he does a better job of hiding it, at least in public when the man’s standing/sitting right there. And people call him elitist!  Standing while Obama was talking was minorly disrespectful.  But on the other hand, I don’t  know.  I’m not making fun of him, but that stool looked uncomfortable for Senator McCain to maintain a posture in.  I don’t think I would have been comfortable in that chair, having short legs also.  Maybe his legs hurt, and he needed to stand a bit.  Like I said, I don’t know.  But pacing while Obama was talking at the end –  I mean, geez.  Even “elitists” like Obama don’t do that.  Not so openly.  That kind of “I’m right, and you just don’t understand” posturing stands in contrast to the “maverick” reaching across the aisle they both brag a lot about.