Sacramento Z, vol 1 no 1

New Z Column:

DayStream


"DayStream" will be a regular Z column featuring daily updates as we process recent events in the mainstream press. What begins with our morning coffee, like a fresh flowing stream, may not be the same by tomorrow's 'DayStream' or the next time you step into it. Give it an hour and you may not even know you've been here before.

February 12,2015 (Bee, A1)

There you go again

 'no-exit' photo

Looks like we're toe up to doing it again—war drums and all that jazz.

The bad news is: Well we don't have to go over that again. It's all too familiar.

The good news is: It is a necessary and justified undertaking, granted that the western powers have long prepared the ground in which such barbaric impulses could foment and take root. The good news is that a decidely swift and surgical response to remove the likes of isis/boko*... and their ilk will remove a few very dangerous, sociopathic and psycho-sexually disturbed individuals. Whatever the argument, there is no place for them on this planet.

The worst news is: Red Slider is posting another one of his poems. "War Memorial" We're not happy about that either, but it does speak directly to the subject - eds.

wilted roses

February 11,2015
(Sacbee, A13)

Valentines&Sex Dept:

Well, it sells papers, don't it?:

[editor's note: if this were just about old folks, the last two generations or so, we wouldn't be quite so snarky about it. But, think. This is about newlyweds, people just starting out, and a future that won't likely happen for them for 60 or 80 or more years (hopefully not happen at all.)

What kind of love/romance/marriage reality are we trying to freeze in place for those folks and their world? Do we even have a clue as to what they might want or need up in the 22nd century? Hell, for that matter, what do a couple of kids just starting out know about who they will be in sixty years or so?

With all respect to the author of the "compassionate contract" idea, it takes real z-axis thinking to even guess at what adjustments of reality future generations might thank us for. Your editors at The Z don't think this one even comes close to qualifying - ed.}

The latest in pre-nups for the about-to-get-hitched — and don't you forget it!—

compassionate 'fucking-licenses'
for the dementia affiliated.

Yeah, you read that right. Well, she didn't call it that, exactly. She called it a "compassionate contract", but we know what Rebecca Graulich meant in her special to the Bee editorial page (2/11/15, A13).

Well intended, we're sure. But come-on. To paraphrase a good friend of mine, "it must be frustrating to be in a marriage that doesn't permit you to use a little common sense." Or, let everyone else just get over our American sexual hysteria about practically everything and move on.

If you have a thing about monogamy as a sexually contexted term, then deal with it -- don't have it if that accords with how you view the matter. Otherwise, stop kidding yourself if you think real full-time caregiving is going to leave much time for slipping out for a little nookie now and again (Graulich didn't call it that, either. She called it "romantic relationship without guilt", but you get the idea.

so let's all grow up. You'll know the right thing to do

if the time and opportunity comes along. You don't need the "permission" you think you're being given in the first blushes of wedded bliss to go fool around when your loved one starts forgetting your name; that is, if you can even find respite care that covers hanky-panky. Mine, was all used up just taking care of those "urgent" tasks I should have attended to the month before.

Caregiving is all about doing the right thing. If you don't know what to do with your, uhm, urges— stuff 'em or indulge, guilt it or postpone till "someday", do what comes natural, pretend it's something else, or stop for a cold shower on your way to the medicine cabinent and your loved one's daily dose of Aricept—

There's about a hundred other major 'guilt-raising' issues you'll be dealing with in caring for your loved one. Believe me, sex is going to be way at the bottom of that list. Even if you're caring for a

DAYSTREAM

The Z-rpt:

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November 23, 2014

Wringing in the Homeless

no_whole_earth.jpg

"what community, what society could be so deranged, so degenerate, as to deny its own kind a place to stand, sit or even lay down on the earth?"

The Sacramento News & Review gave a pretty fair account of the latest attempt by the city to pretend to care about the homeless. Reporter Brooke Purves ( SN&R, 11/20/14) covered most of the bases, including mention of some of the goodies included in this season's "homeless relocation" package that appear to be both sensitive and useful. But, at the end of the day, it is a load of crap, and most of us know that. This city doesn't care a whit about the homeless and its policies and enforcements are little more than "move along" sticks meant to rid us of "noxious litter", because that is all the homeless are to those in control. Officially, there are the usual hand-wringing speeches to be made of course, especially when someone like Oprah shines a national


'Homeless'

Our Not-So-Grand Juries

Where the sun don't shine—
too often

Lessons from Ferguson:

If events of the past weeks serve only as a flashpoint in the wars of racist authority and the passions of a besieged people demanding to be free, then one of the most important and powerful instruments we have for the preservation of our democracy, one designed to insure it remains in the hands of the people, is likely to be lost entirely.

For the past century our grand jury system has been in a phase of devolution, some of its considerable powers neglected or forgotten, others deliberately compromised or removed until only a shell remains of its once formidable assurance that justice in America would be fair and equal, and all Americans protected from its excesses.

Currently, most adult Americans, even those... generally well-informed about their government and its activities, know little about grand juries.

— Susan Brenner

It should come as no surprise that a grand jury can only be as knowledgeable about its own purposes and powers as the ordinary citizens in the local community from which its membership is drawn. The layperson character of a grand jury was historically intended to make this body as generally responsive to the community as it can be, aware of local issues of greatest concern and need of attention, and charged with keeping their district as safe and accommodating for all its citizens as is humanly possible.

If the people of our communities are ignorant about of the roles, functions and historical purposes of the grand jury, as the quote above by professor Susan Brenner suggests in her paper published in the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law in 1995 (" "The Voice Of The Community"), then it follows that grand juries will be equally ignorant about nature of their responsibilities and how to discharge them. Such ignorance has serious consequences for every American.

It also means that grand juries will have a tendency to rely upon others to tell them how to go about doing their job. The remedy, however, is not to become more dependent on others for that information , but rather to become more educated and less ignorant.

As the events of the past few weeks in Ferguson and New York reveal, the focus has been almost entirely on specifics such as racism, police conduct, and to a lesser extent the manipulations of prosecutors' offices and their managment of grand juries.

Little attention has been given, during these days of shame, to the grand jury system itself. Yet a public more educated on the subject would have quickly realized that the grand juries themselves, had they been vigorous, independent and fully empowered institutions, not only might have responded more properly in deciding the matters put before them, but might have prevented them from happening in the first place.

For example, grand juries have long possessed the power to act on their own initiative. There is nothing to prevent them from working proactively in examining the sources of conflict and discord in their communities. Nor do they require the permission of prosecutors or other public officials to do so. Yet two of the primary instruments for doing this, presentment and investigative initiative, have fallen to neglect or been constrained by prosecutors who would much prefer grand juries be passive entities, acting only in ways preferred and prescribed by their own offices.

in United States v Williams [SC 1992], "the Williams court held that the grand jury is a distinct entity, an institution not "assigned...to any of the branches described in the first three Articles' of the United States Constitution."

That observation by the Supreme court is absolutely critical to the success of our grand jury system. For grand juries are not only responsible for looking after the health and safety of our communities, but equally charged with insuring that the insitutions of government do not themselves become the source of threats to the well-being of the the communities they are sworn to protect.


GRANDJURY

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