Undercurrents: Notes, thanks & condolences

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Some random thoughts as Thanksgiving permeates the atmosphere:

• If you’re keeping count, on the day this appears in the paper there will be 29 days remaining until the end of the world, or possibly until the end of the Mayan “long count” calendar, depending on your point of view. Question: What would you do if you believed the world would end in a month? I’m betting Black Friday would be farthest from your mind.

• Speaking of which: By the time the sun was rising last Black Friday, I was trying to go to sleep after a night of shopping beyond my means with my family. I upset some people by posting a photo tagged “Occupy Walmart” just before the frenzy started on the DVD aisle.

I don’t think we’ll be doing that this year, though I might be unpleasantly surprised before it’s over. Question: Do you try to hit the after-Thanksgiving sales (or this year, the actual Thanksgiving Day sales)?

• A highlight of the season last year was attending the improv-heavy performance of “Every Christmas Story Ever Told (and Then Some)” at the Seaside Repertory Theatre. The REP is once again putting on the show every weekend in December. You never know quite how it’s going to go, kind of like the actual holiday — and also like the actual holiday, there will be laughter and tears.

• The election is over. Get over it. Unless you think it’s a sign the Mayans were right, in which case it doesn’t matter any way, so get over it.

• We have been house hunting for some time now, despite the impending end of the world, and it looks like we’re close to closing on one at last. I have enjoyed renting for the past few months, because the honey-do list shrinks significantly when you don’t have to worry about home maintenance so much. But now I’m looking forward to having a place to call our own again — and to having a place for all my books again.

If all goes well, and the world doesn’t end, we’ll be there before Christmas. If you don’t mind, I’m going to give thanks ahead of time for the continuation of life as we know it, and for a place to share with my family.

• Finally, please join me in extending condolences to the family of Tony Jordan Simmons (no relation), who died Saturday after a long struggle with COPD. When I first came to work for The News Herald in 1993, I received several phone calls from people who thought he had taken a job with the paper after retiring from his career as an officer with the Panama City Police Department. He even called me once to say hello, after he got some calls at his home from people who thought he might be me.

Now my thoughts and prayers go out to his family as they must say goodbye.

Peace.
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(This was my Undercurrents column this week.)

Occupy This

I don't generally talk politics. I have my reasons.

But I've been following the Occupy movement via Twitter, the NYT live Occupy blog and other online resources, and it irritates me that I can't find anything about it in local media. (Or, in recent days, as I was watching live feeds of clashes via the web, nothing was being broadcast on places like Headline News.) At least, that was the case on specific instances when I went looking for more info.

I could easily find newspaper and TV reports on the protests in Egypt, where citizens were sporting bleeding head wounds from military or police. I couldn't find reports on U.S. citizens who were being thrown in police vans with bleeding head wounds after the billionaire mayor of New York City sent in his helmeted police.

Even when that wounded citizen was a NYC councilman:

New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez screams police brutality while being arrested on Broadway after he was with a group who tried to push through a line of police officers. NYPD Clear Zuccotti Park of Occupy Wall St. Protestors. Tuesday November 15, 2011. NEW YORK, NY, USA. Photo by (Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger)

I could find stories about journalists being detained in foreign countries on trumped up charges because they were trying to cover the events there. I could not find stories about journalists being detained in my own country when they were trying to cover the Occupy movement:

A New York City Police Department accredited journalist is arrested while on Broadway. NYPD Clear Zuccotti Park of Occupy Wall St. Protestors. Tuesday November 15, 2011. NEW YORK, NY, USA. Photo by (Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger)

You can clearly see her press credentials on her lanyard. Journalists across the country -- 26 of them so far -- have been detained by police on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to obstruction just because they were on site of a breaking news story where peaceful protesters were getting the blunt end of what passes for justice in our country. Hit this link for info from Josh Stearns, who is tracking and verifying these arrests.

I could find stories about people being hit with tear gas or pepper spray or Mace while rioting in Tunisia, but there were no reports to be found of people being sprayed in the face with pepper spray while sitting and chanting on the sidewalk of an American city. That is, until this happened:

Seattle activist Dorli Rainey, 84, reacts after being hit with pepper spray during an Occupy Seattle protest on Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at Westlake Park. (Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com)

Does this sound like America? Oh, wait a minute:

John Filo's iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway, kneeling in anguish over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was shot by the Ohio National Guard. (via Wikipedia.org)

I guess it does actually. No one has been killed yet, but give the people with the guns time; the movement is still young. Seems to me the last time this happened, there was a war on and our president was more concerned about China than his own people.

Larry Downing/Reuters

President Obama with Hu Jintao of China in Hawaii. Mr. Obama has stepped up his criticism of Chinese economic policies.

That's not who I meant, but man it's weird how history repeats. (And for the record, that photo ran with a story about how Obama and the Republican Congress found something they agree on: Criticizing Chinese trade practices. How nice for them. Did they also agree that pizza sauce counts as a serving of vegetables?)

Meanwhile, my friend Karen Zacharias today had some choice words about finding something to stand for before the movement falls apart because of a lack of singular vision or clearly stated mission, and because they're protesting the wrong folks -- we can't stop the rich from screwing us over, but maybe we can vote out the cronies that aid and abet them. Please read her essay, 'Occupy Congress.'


Anyway, I remarked on the lack of Occupy coverage in the media to a person who is ostensibly in charge of such things, and was told he didn't know about these stories. That a NYC councilman had been busted in the head and arrested. That journalists were being arrested. That U.C. students were pepper sprayed for sitting on a sidewalk; as I was telling him, the local TV news ran a clip from the video below, and he was shocked. Shocked, I say. (Really, you should watch this video.)



He also said the people who make decisions on "wire stories" are very conservative and wouldn't be interested in those stories.

I believe they are in the majority right now, and I say to them, 

Shame on you.