“24 years ago I, uh, was the only white guy in a six-man cell in L.A. County Jail.  There were nine or ten guys in the cell -- three or four of us sleeping on the floor.  A couple of months ago I was watching a CNN --  Lisa Ling -- special on L.A. County Jail.  About 1 out of 4 guys were white.  It was good to see real proof of the evolution of integration in our society.” ​

The Northern Ireland Effect (a version posted earlier):             
 
The Harland and Wolf Shipyards built the Titanic and the RMS Britannic and was one of the most successful yards in the world.  Catholics made up approximately three percent, or less, of the workforce in the late 60s, though they represented more than a third of the population of Belfast.  This socio-economic effect was representative of employment in the private sector in Belfast, a free enterprise system run primarily by the British and by Northern Ireland Protestants, an infrastructure of opportunity and oppression that evolved over hundreds of years.
The Catholics were primarily the descendants of the indigenous Irish population; the Protestants mostly from lowland Scot and English colonists.  As each people evolved separately but together in Ireland -- and eventually what became Northern Ireland -- Catholic neighborhoods suffered greater unemployment, less opportunity, and so the dole: then greater poverty, a lesser education; poverty-driven alcohol abuse, violence, crime, rebellion, etc., generation after generation.
Though both people are white, the difference in evolution of the Catholics and Protestants was dramatic.
In America, the evolution of poverty, violence, in black neighborhoods (the descendants of slavery and Jim Crow laws); Hispanic barrios identified by language, color; Native American reservations, where many of the indigenous people of the United States are contained (during and after hundreds of years of rebellion and war) and live in often-isolated poverty-stricken communities, and (by variation) rural whites in formerly coal-driven economies, in often-isolated areas of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, suffer the Northern Ireland effect. 
The Northern Ireland Effect wasn’t, isn’t ethnic, racial, generated by a lack of ambition or weak work ethic, and people do survive and succeed...


1/21/19:  

“If success is the, uh, tenth rung on a ladder, ah, whatever it might be, money, social status, what have you, a lot of people start at the first, the lowest rung.  But, plenty start higher up, um, at seven, eight, or nine, and so their ascension isn’t really much to brag about.  As time goes by the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  The, ah, climb gets easier for the former and harder for the latter -- no pun intended.”  ​



​
I had family that immigrated from Scotland to Northern Ireland, later from Northern Ireland to America, and family that came from Ireland to the U.S., Catholics and Protestants.

​edited: 1/3


​A story about a new beginning:

"The seventy-five-year-old woman stepped gingerly out of a ‘98 Ford Taurus.  She surveyed the line of winter trees as a picket line upslope.  Dense woods surrounded the sweep of open ground at the Norma Johnson Conservation Center: Caterina smiled, she liked the way the tree cover crowded the snowy hilltops. 

"Cat buttoned the top button on her old gray overcoat.  It was cold. 

"Under a well-worn ski cap her strong green eyes were lenses that captured and considered all things.  A shifty breeze brushed gray bangs gently across her forehead.  Cat turned downwind and in two steps she was upwind as the unreliable breeze began to stalk and circle and to nudge her ever so gently from one side and then another. 

"She trudged uphill on a well-marked path, hitching up baggy blue jeans.  Without focus she looked back the way she had come: hers was the only car in the parking lot --

"She was alone." 

- from Caterina Zutscu and the Three Legged Dog, a short story by Kevin O'Kendley in Carbuncle Moon...


​

Please give to The Sierra Club: 85 Second Street/ Suite 750/ San Francisco, California 94105/ 415-977-5000/  And: 
Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club: 565 Congress Street/ Suite 206B/ Portland, Maine 04101, 207-761-5616, maine.chapter@sierraclub.org.

                                                Sunrise at a small rodent colony...


1/3/19: The cow in this cartoon was taken from a similar picture of a cow, sans the rear-end (I believe), in 1990.  If there is more to the picture than that please, contact me, and I'll remove the cartoon.  This cartoon wasn't published in the last century, as were many of the toons in this blog. 

"I’m tired, exhausted, get home, grab a bottle of Tokay, write President Trump to comment on the beautiful landscapin possible in the Mexican-hyphen-American-Wall-coma that should be paid for by Canada  -- I spell comma as coma -- but before I can fix it I fall into one…"   

​
first posted 3/27/17:

Some facts about building a wall on the Mexico border and fences already in place:

"The border runs about 1,900 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Some sort of barrier—made from concrete, steel mesh and/or barbed wire —currently stands along about a third of it, in areas U.S. Customs and Border Protection deems vulnerable to illicit cross-border activity."
"The hundreds of miles of border that remain unfenced fall into three categories: those deemed too topographically challenging for wall-building because of mountains or other rugged and rough terrain, those on Native American reservation land, and spaces identified for fencing that was never completed because the last project ran out of money. The largest swath of border without a barrier is in Texas."   - Los Angeles Daily News/ 2017




​Please give to St. Jude's Hospital: Danny Thomas Place/ Memphis, Tennessee, 38105/ 800-822-6344

Happy Kwanzaa:

​

"I figure apartheid in the old South Africa didn’t end because of morality or outrage, but because of all the public toilets they had to build. See, there were four racial classifications:  white, black, coloured, and Asian.  Instead of building, let’s say in a public park, one restroom for each sex, and a single drinking fountain for everyone, the South Africans had to build eight bathrooms and four drinking fountains.  Think about it.  Cricket fields.  Amusement parks -- suppose you owned a real small telephone-booth of a diner -- a place where you could only fit about five big eaters and you had to build eight restrooms?  Crazy, huh?  Then, of course, they had to build separate septic tanks, use separate sewers…”


​
edited 12/28:
​first posted 12/26/16:
(Happy Kwanzaa) 12/26 to 1/1/17:
​

"Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor and chairman of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach, created Kwanzaa in 1966. After the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Dr. Karenga searched for ways to bring African-Americans together as a community. He founded US, a cultural organization, and started to research African “first fruit” (harvest) celebrations. Karenga combined aspects of several different harvest celebrations, such as those of the Ashanti and those of the Zulu, to form the basis of Kwanzaa.
"The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase 'matunda ya kwanza' which means 'first fruits' in Swahili. Each family celebrates Kwanzaa in its own way, but celebrations often include songs and dances, African drums, storytelling, poetry reading, and a large traditional meal. On each of the seven nights, the family gathers and a child lights one of the candles on the Kinara (candleholder), then one of the seven principles is discussed. The principles, called the Nguzo Saba (seven principles in Swahili) are values of African culture which contribute to building and reinforcing community among African-Americans. Kwanzaa also has seven basic symbols which represent values and concepts reflective of African culture. An African feast, called a Karamu, is held on December 31."
- History (history.com)

Please support the National Museum of African American History and Culture, NMAAHC:
1400 Constitution Avenue NW/ Washington, DC  20560/ 844-750-3012




Please  give to the NAACP: 4805 Mt. Hope Drive, Baltimore, Maryland  21265/ 410-580-5777 

Merry Christmas:

​

                                    He was: of migrant, impoverished parents...



​
A Christmas story in Carbuncle Moon (edited 12/31):

      "Larry still has the Rutherford B. Hayes Monkfish Hat, a swatch of Tomas Orenstein’s hair (the dog passed away unexpectedly at 37 after getting hit by a propane truck), and even though Larry has naked pictures of both ex-wives he’s a relatively moral man and never emails the pictures to anyone, though he did lend them out once to the Elder O’Brien who, of course, never said what he wanted them for (still, if you can’t trust a dead guy with naked pictures of your ex-wives who can you trust?)."   - from my short story Little Anthony's Taverna.  



Please give to the Jimmy Fund: 10 Brookline Place West, 6th Floor/ Brookline, Massachusetts  02284/ 800-525-4669

edited 12/25:

       "In room 420 at St. Mary’s Hospital:  Lucky Louie’s lips were pursed, his bloodshot brown eyes protruded slightly from sunken sockets; a lightning bolt of a vein throbbed in his forehead from monumental mental stress.  He stared intently at his coffee cup on the bed stand.  
         "Fortunato walked in.  'Uncle Louie -- what, what’s the matter?' 
         "'You can speak up the guy in the other bed died yesterday.'
         "'Mrs. Catalina?  She had gout.'
        "'Really?  Huh?  Thought it was a guy.  The voice -- I was trying to make that coffee cup float through the air and land on my belly so I didn’t have to move my ass over to the table.'  He raised an arm with intravenous tubes attached.
       "Fortunato chuckled.  'It’s only two feet away.'  He opened the curtain between bed spaces with a quick ripping noise, making Lucky Louie’s immediate world larger, and moved from the back of the bed, or from Uncle Louie’s aft, forward.  The nephew picked up the cup, and gently, ever so gently, handed it to his uncle. 'Your, uh, teleportation didn’t work.'
          “'Did.' 
          "'Did what?'
       “'Did work.'  Lucky Louie sipped his coffee and grinned."      - from my short story, Lucky Louie...

​


Please give to the U.S.M.C. Toys For Tots: 18251 Quantico Gateway Drive, Triangle, VA 22172 / 703-640-9433