B365V2.111 - Safety nets

11:14 pm and I am back on my outdoor bench again.  It been a few days since I have frequented either of my blogging spots, simply because I had no desire to lug my laptop with me, even though my +1 bag of wholesome goodness has a laptop a lot in it.  But the mouse level was starting to increase around my apartment, college kids and their parties again.  When I stepped outside to come over here though there were lots of groups of 8 to 10 people milling about, looking for an apartment party that would have them.  It is fun to watch these newbies try to figure out where they are and where the house party is at that they were told about.   There are no drug truck out here tonight, though there is a car way down at the end of the road, down by the turn around, but that is it.

Once again we have a Friday night in Oakland that would be a target rich environment for Bill Cosby, all he would need is a tray of quaalude loaded Jell-O shots and he would be in business.

I was tagged in a 9/11 remembrance today by Jerry Bowyer, who I was working with at the time, when everything happened.  I have covered that ground thoroughly in previous blog entries though I don't need to spend time out here repeating myself.  I am a more about where I am going person than about where I have been anyway, so I will not spend time reflecting on what happened that day, but more about where that day has taken us.

I done feel any more secure, or perhaps I should say I don't feel any less secure than I did prior to 9/11.  But I think of everything we gave up to maintain a status quo and it is somewhat mind numbing.  Any sense of privacy is all but gone, not that I am a private person to begin with, I have been blogging for 10 years now, but the implied privacy that we all think we should have is gone.  And why?  Because I may be the next sleeper Muslim secret agent?

Did you know that when I was promoted at work I had to show ID at the bank to put money into the company account?  Mind you I wasn't trying to take money out of the bank, in which case I can see where it may be appropriate that I am listed as someone who has access to the account, but putting money in?  When I questioned the people at PNC (our bank at the time) they told me it was a regulation passed after 9/11.  Yes, because a downtown business with Jewish ownership is secretly funding al Qaeda.  Don't tell anyone but we are secretly making exploding dreidel sin the basement at work.

As a nation we went from extraordinary to ordinary.  We readily admit to torturing people, all for the safety of the homeland.  Really, how Nazi Germanish does that sound when you say it out loud?

Two cops just went by with their lights flashing, should I be paranoid that they are monitoring what I am typing right now.  I hope not though it sounded like they continued deep into the heart of Oakland.  Mind you there used to be a police station in Oakland, but don't get me started on that.  They moved it to a wealthier part of town (Squirrell Hill) where there is an abundance of tax paying citizens as opposed to the transients that make up college apartment living.  We shall fend for ourselves, thank you very much.  See, I feel much safer already.

Prior to 9/11, perhaps I bought into the rhetorical nonsense a little bit too much.  The whole "shining city on a hill" and beacon for freedom jingoistic noise that was used to describe America.  Not anymore though, not when I see people trying to replace the laws of the land with their own version of Christian Sharia law, when I see places that we used to mock for their human rights abuses have fewer citizen per capita incarcerated than we do, when I see people who struggle to get here, risking their very lives in the process and work their fingers to the bone and we call them criminals and rapists because after all, if you not a God fearing American, then you just ain't human, now pass me some more freedom fries please.

Two cars have went down the drug trail since I have been here, both only to turn around and leave again.  Nice to see that some things have not changed in my near weeks a sense from my writing bench.  No sign of any tanukis either.  I wonder if that is the proper plural of that word, it could be all scientific and be something like tanukae.  Just saying.

Anyway, since 9/11 I do not feel safer.  Now I have to assume everyone has a gun, and knowing the people I know, that isn't a comforting thought.  And I know the NRA style logical leap I am supposed to make, well then Matt, go buy a gun and you will be safer.  No, then I will feel tempted to shoot stupid people.  Then a bunch of people with guns will come looking for me, how does that make me any safer?

Anyone wonder why I don't have a kid now?  Two people possessing similar thought processes to my own, yikes indeed.

Okay, I better get up off this bench now and meander my way back home.  Toodles.