Please, Alice, never apologize for taking exception with anything I
post on this list. Disagree or agree or scratch your head or backside
and ask, "What the Hell is he talking about?", but just as long as
your marbles are moving it's been worth the effort.
And yes, clean streets filled with old farts tipping their hats are a
long sight better than trash strewn streets with homeless folk lying
about, and rapist and gangs stalking one another.
But my point was that if we continue to think in such terms, we will
never begin to deal with the real city streets. Let's Pretend is fun,
but solves nothing. And while I would not turn down a single dollar,
the paltry few millions being tossed into drug rehab and drug
education, is not getting to the real problem. Poverty and
dehumanizing create much of the inner cities problems. Good education
with a good job as the light at the end of the tunnel, good consistent
day care, parenting classes, decent clean housing, training in working
together as a community, and on and on, all sorts of stuff that might
really impact the mess our cities are in. Mostly, treating ourselves
and others with respect.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/19/15, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I apologize, Carl, I’m doing it again, taking one little phrase out of your
longer piece and taking issue with it…
And, like you, I’m not attacking, well, anything at all, but most assuredly
not the old fart that sent it…I’m only ruminating about it and where it
takes my thoughts…and, BTW, like seemingly you and Miriam and Roger and
perhaps others, I conjure up an entirely different picture when I say “old
fart,” and I proudly count myself a member of my own mental picture, along
with many of my very favorite people. We actually more often refer to
ourselves as old curmudgeons, but same difference...
Anyway, the phrase that snatched my attention and set the brain wheels in
motion was the following:
“…where old farts can saunter down clean, prosperous sidewalks tipping
their
hats to the ladies.”So many of us advocates for and members of the working classes seem to speak
of clean, prosperous streets populated by hat-tipping, polite old farts and
young bloods with a sort of scornful disdain. But isn’t that a damned sight
better than blighted, neglected, filthy streets filled with trash and lined
by boarded up, decaying buildings and populated by those who, instead of
tipping their hats to the ladies, are mugging and raping them, buying their
sexual favors, drinking or shooting themselves up into oblivion?
Nothing like two polar opposite extremes to drive home a point with a
sledgehammer , is there? haha So I’ll tone it down a bit…still better clean
and prosperous than run down and neglected and shoddy. To me, even that
dichotomy smacks of the tyranny of the super rich, the ruling class who
wants to have the clean prosperous streets for themselves and wants to keep
the rest of us living in squalor, in inferior housing, badly constructed,
badly designed, sometimes even dangerous.
What I would want for all, rich and poor alike, are, within the reasonable
parameters, clean, prosperous streets filled with people who are not preying
on each other, neither economically, spiritually, mentally, not in any way
preying on each other.
There’s more to this than pure economics.
It’s the oppression, the soul-deadening, mind-numbing grinding down of the
person that is really at the root, and sometimes I think if we focus only on
economics, we lose sight of the real core of the ruling class’s
dictatorship…maybe the money is more a means to that end?
alice
I
On Aug 19, 2015, at 10:56 AM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
First, my thoughts are directed toward the posted piece, not the old
fart who posted it.
On first reading, posts such as this seem innocent enough. They speak
to that Never-Never-Land, the Once Upon A time America, where all of
our finest values are the Law of the Land, and badness does not exist.
It is the Norman Rockwell World, the one that we all dream of, but it
never existed. Well, all of us White, Working Class Americans dream.
If you look around Norman's world, it is the Land of the White Man.
This composite of the perfect American Elder sets forth our most
cherished image of who we believe we Old Farts are.
Yet it was the old fart generation that brought us to where we are
today. That old fart and the old fart who went before him. All the
way back to those old farts who, as young farts cleansed the Land that
God had promised, and built this great, White, Christian Land, where
old farts can saunter down clean, prosperous sidewalks tipping their
hats to the ladies. And on Sunday mornings we can hear them singing,
"Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to War"...
No, we old farts have dirt and blood on our hands. But so long as we
deny it, we do nothing to resolve our growing crisis. The end of
civilization. And if this be civilization, perhaps it is better that
the world...or what will be left of it, be given over to some new life
form.
Our great experiment, our so called civilization is like a deep wound
that has scabbed over. We look at the scab and say, "It is good", but
the infection and pus continue festering and growing beneath that
protective cover. Until we deal with that deep infection within our
civilization we will continue on this death march. Since the first
Europeans set foot on the "New World", our progress has moved us
further and further away from a civilization where we live within our
world, to one that must expand at the expense of the Planet's limited
resources. So we go along playing this game of denial, absolving
ourselves and our Forefathers of any blame, ignoring the growing rot
within our misconceived Land of Plenty, and pretending that there
really is a Santa Claus and an Easter Bunny.
And all the while we pretend that we are Blessed because God is on Our
Side.
If I were God, I'd be rethinking that one.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/18/15, R. E. Driscoll Sr <llocsirdsr@xxxxxxx> wrote:
All:
May I comment to the effect that my contribution is not to be modified
in any manner, shape or form!
R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
On 8/18/2015 7:59 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Actually, Dick's message got it's heading mixed with the one that
goes: Definition of a confused gentleman.
While us Old Pharts do many of the same gentlemanly things described
in Dick's post, we honest and true old Pharts are not the
soppy-brained, slack-jawed, mindless Casper Milktoast's portrayed in
the tribute.
Real Old Pharts are crusty, out spoken fellows who have been awake
enough years to know when the Bullshit is being fed to them.
These sentimental bits of prose are fine for Mother's Day cards, or
for grandpa's 100th birthday, but they do no real justice to their
topic by glossing over, "The Rest of the Story".
Carl Jarvis
On 8/17/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I thought I was an old fart until I read this. Looks like I would be
excluded.
On 8/17/2015 10:49 AM, R. E. Driscoll Sr wrote:
Good Morning Monday! Hope this helps start the day with a smile.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Subject:* Old Farts
I never really liked the terminology "Old Farts"but this makes me
feel
better about it.
And if you ain't one, I bet ya you know one!
I got this from an "Old Fart" friend of mine!
*_OLD FART PRIDE_*
I'm passing this on as I did not want to be the only old fart
receiving it. Actually, it's not a bad thing to be called, as you
will
see.
* Old Farts are easy to spot at sporting events; during the playing
of the National Anthem. Old Farts remove their caps and stand at
attention and sing without embarrassment. They know the words and
believe in them.
* Old Farts remember World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal ,
Normandy and Hitler. They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean
War,
The Cold War, the Jet Age and the Moon Landing. They remember the
50 plus Peacekeeping Missions from 1945 to 2005, not to mention
Vietnam .
* If you bump into an Old Fart on the sidewalk he will apologize.
If
you pass an Old Fart on the street, he will nod or tip his cap to
a lady. Old Farts trust strangers and are courtly to women.
* Old Farts hold the door for the next person and always, when
walking, make certain the lady is on the inside for protection.
* Old Farts get embarrassed if someone curses in front of women and
children and they don't like any filth or dirty language on TV or
in movies.
* Old Farts have moral courage and personal integrity. They seldom
brag unless it's about their children or grandchildren.
* It's the Old Farts who know our great country is protected, not
by
politicians, but by the young men and women in the military
serving their country.
This country needs Old Farts with their work ethic, sense of
responsibility, pride in their country and decent values.
We need them now more than ever.
*Thank God for Old Farts!
*
Pass this on to all the "Old Farts" you know.
I was taught to respect my elders. It's just getting harder to find
them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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