Appropriate leader for Twitter

 Appropriate leader for Twitter

Turns out the new owner of Twitter is simply a twit. His posts, such as his bizarre charge NPR is 'government controlled' should be described, not as tweets...but twits.

For Trump, only thing worse than his perpwalk / fingerprinting / mug shot Tuesday?

 For Trump, only thing worse than his perpwalk / fingerprinting / mug shot Tuesday?

The 3 more coming up by year end.

Washington’s long shadow over presidency finally lifting?

 Washington’s long shadow over presidency finally lifting?

Maybe it wasn’t so fortunate for American presidential politics that first president George Washington was so perfect for the role he kicked off 234 years this April 30th. Revolutionary War hero and nearly universally respected, Washington so looked and acted the part that his first VP John Adams suggested kinglike titles “His Elective Majesty”, “His Mightiness”, and even “His Highness, the President of the United States of America and the Protector of their Liberties”.

Washington demurred. ‘President’ suited George just fine. He served the presidency with unblemished distinction for 8 years, even proclaiming and setting precedent, enacted in law 2 centuries later, that no president should be elected more than twice. He’s enshrined on the quarter and dollar, has the highest monument in the land, gave his name to our capitol. Countless schools, cities and streets named after him. His first name even became the title of a political magazine published by JFK Jr. American historians consistently rank him second best president to Abraham Lincoln. Washington achieved almost kinglike reverence in a country that eschewed monarchy.

Therein lies the problem that has haunted America ever since. We so revere the presidency that we’ve treated nearly all Washington’s successors with the respect, distinction and honor that few truly deserve. It has become so dysfunctional that the Justice Department created a bizarre rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Does any other democracy give a Get Out of Jail Card to their elected leaders?

That reverence was carried over to former presidents in 1974 when President Gerald Ford granted a full pardon to newly resigned President Nixon as being too disruptive to the American political system. Doing so, Ford reasoned, was necessary to get America over “its long national nightmare”. Alas, Ford simply perpetuated America’s political nightmare that sitting and former presidents are above the law.

If George Washington could return from his tomb at Mount Vernon he’s occupied for the past 224 years, I believe he’s flash a smile with those wooden teeth. If asked, he might offer “Bout time you listened to me that presidents are not gods or kings. We’re all mortal and none of us are above the law. I can now go back to my tomb and rest easy.”

Rep. Krishnamoorthi partners with GOP to suppress TikTok free speech

 Rep. Krishnamoorthi partners with GOP to suppress TikTok free speech

Raja appeared on CBS Sunday Morning with a Republican colleague today to promote their bill to topple TikTok from grabbing sensitive info from the 145 million Americans, mainly teenyboppers, who use it.

A Constitutional scholar was also featured and pushed back to this outrageous assault on free speech, saying that any law suppressing TikTok has likely a 90% chance of being declared unconstitutional.

Rep. Krishnamoorthi is a fervent proponent of US exceptionalism worldwide.

From his website, here is all Rep. Krishnamoorthi has to say about US perpetual wars including bombing and life degrading sanctions against dozens of countries US does not like. Not one word promoting peace. Not one.

"While maintaining our military superiority is important to continue our fight in rooting out terrorism, we must also remember to protect and promote our exceptional standing among nations by engaging in active diplomacy. We can respond to emerging threats at home and abroad without sacrificing American values or the rights and liberties that are the bedrock of our democracy."

"Protect and promote our exceptional standing among nations by engaging in active diplomacy" Apparently Rep. Krishnamoorthi did not get the memo that US does not do diplomacy, only war.

Inquiring free speech progressives would like know...why are you really doing this Rep. Krishnamoorthi?

126 shots makes it a machine gun

 126 shots makes it a machine gun

Some gun aficionados take umbrage with me when I call rapid fire assault weapons a machine gun. They’re all in for every Tom, Dick and Jane to obtain these machine guns under auspices of the 2nd Amendment with little or no oversight. They toss out highly arcane technical terms to prove how vastly different assault weapons are from true machine guns. Mass slaughter in a few minutes at a school, theater, concert, movie or a street crowd makes no dent on their thinking or conscious whatsoever.

We’ve just learned that Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale quickly pumped 126 slugs into the school from her machine gun, killing 3 little kids and 3 school employees. Anyone who doesn’t believe America’s 20 million plus machine guns aren’t machine guns, should be required to view photos of the 126 bullets holes at The Covenant School and the blood drenched floors and chairs. Only a machine gun can accomplish that.

Africa ‘all out’, 54-0, against joining Biden’s proxy war on Russia

 Africa ‘all out’, 54-0, against joining Biden’s proxy war on Russia

When President Biden announced sanctions against Russia over their February, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he called it a battle of democracy over tyranny. He expected Africa to rally to the US lead.

Unsurprisingly, not one of Africa’s 54 countries as joined US sanctions against Russia. Many are neutral; some even supporting Russia’s war to prevent NATO’s eastward expansion to Russia’s borders and gain independence of Ukrainian Donbas from Kyiv aggression that has killed thousands of Ukrainians there.

Why unsurprisingly? For starters, the US was delusional Africa would follow America’s proxy war on Russia. It’s the US, not Russia that is bombing Africans in Somalia, Niger and possibly others. It was the US, not Russia that supported colonialism and neo colonialism in Africa to suppress nationalist movements assumed to be led by commies. Even if Marxists were involved, that was none of Uncle Sam’s business. Since 2008, US trained officials attempted at least 9 African coups.

Russia recently convened its Russia-Africa in a Multipolar World conference in which most African nations were represented. Not one condemned Russia’s invasion while some blamed the US and NATO for provoking it. South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa told his Parliament after extensive lobbying by US Secretary of State Tony Blinken, "The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region."

What we’re witnessing is a seismic shift worldwide weakening US unipolar dominance. US claims of democracy v. tyranny are ringing hollow not only in Africa, but aside from NATO and a few others, globally. Over two thirds of our 8 billion souls live in countries rejecting US proxy war propaganda.

Instead of sanctimonious, self serving adulations of American ideals, President Biden might consider ending US African drone strikes killing many. Stop bullying African leaders to blindly support our proxy war. Remove our 29 African military bases and bring home the troops defiling Africa sovereignty. No more African coup plotting might help as well. Regarding Ukraine, the US should pivot from weapons to negotiations, end NATO eastward expansion, and support Donbas independence, not sabotage it as they did with Minsk II in 2015.

Any chance Uncle Sam will wise up and do even one of those things? Don’t bet on it. While Africa is ‘all out’ supporting America’s proxy war, America is ‘all in’, blundering down a very unstable, unpeaceful road of its own choosing.

Shut it down

 Shut it down

Shame on every Tennessee legislator who voted to expel their two black colleagues for demonstrating for gun reform in Tennessee

Keep up the protests. Shut down the Tennessee legislature till they reinstate the two legislators and address gun reform. Prayers will never work to end machine guns in America. Only non violent civil disobedience.

Shut it down

How to honor Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 How to honor Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Good citizens of Tennessee should honor the legacy of Rev. MLK, assassinated in TN 55 years ago this week, by using his non violent civil disobedience strategy at the state capitol to achieve reinstatement of 2 black legislators and gun reform in Tennessee.

Thousands knew Walking Man; almost nobody knew Bicycle Man

 Thousands knew Walking Man; almost nobody knew Bicycle Man

I’ve been fascinated by the saga of Joe Kromelis, A.K.A. Walking Man, who likely logged over a thousand miles walking the Loop and environs over several decades.

First heard of him after the horrible baseball bat beating he incurred in Chicago’s underground Lower Wacker in May, 2016. Kromelis survived and continued his endless walking, being seen and recognized by thousands of Loop pedestrians due to his strikingly tall figure with flowing white hair.

A European native, Kromelis grew up in Chicago and stayed when his family moved to Michigan when he was 19. He had a factory job but spent most of his working life as a jewelry street peddler. Kromelis lived largely off the grid in cheap SRO apartments till gentrification leveled his last SRO, making him homeless.

Over the years he achieved a measure of fame as ‘Walking Man’ with newspaper and social media articles, a Facebook Page, even a YouTube documentary. Joe Kromelis died December 11, 2022, seven months after being set on fire while sleeping on Lower Wacker. A gentle soul destroyed by an ungentle world.

What struck me about Joe Kromelis was the similarity, exercise wise, to my brother Bob Zlotow. Born 8 years before Kromelis, Bob got his first bicycle in 1948 at age 9. It didn’t take him long to realize it was his magic carpet to explore Chicago. And explore he did, venturing out nearly every day in good weather. When I say explore the city, I don’t mean his boyhood neighborhood of Garfield Ridge. We’re talking about the entire city, rich, poor and in between. He might head out around 9:00 AM and not return till dinnertime.

Sometimes he’d describe his explorations of Chicago’s numerous neighborhoods that fascinated him. He loved to see how neighborhoods changed over the years. Mostly when asked where he went, however, he’d just reply “Turf”.

When it came to a personal life, Bob’s couldn’t have been more different from Joe Kromelis’. Bob got an accounting degree from Roosevelt University. He worked 51 years in the accounting field, the last 20 for the State of Illinois in the Child Support Division. In 1974 he married a woman who fled Cuba in 1969. They had one son who served in the Army and runs a successful business in Kansas.

Bob found time to pursue other interests: photography, movies, ballroom dancing, crossword puzzles and TV's Wheel of Fortune. He would spend many hours planning vacations around America, mostly to major cities to explore his other great passion, interurban railroad systems. He had a savant skill that would mystify. You could give him any date in history. Within 10 seconds he’d tell you the day of the week. It wasn’t magic. It was based on the 28 year calendar repetition he’d memorized.

I’ve figured Bob easily peddled over a hundred thousand miles around Chicago from 1948 to 2018, when declining health necessitated his move near his son in Chapman, Kansas. Yes, he took his trusty bike, his third of fourth, with him and continued to bike from his apartment to the local store and post office till July of last year. Last time out he fell. The Chapman police scooped up him and his bike, ending 74 years on two wheels, 70 in Chicago. Tho uninjured, Bob’s health failed rapidly and he died February 11, 2023 at age 84. He and his wife had been married for 48 years.

Since Bob’s travels were random and varied, likely few if any of those thousands of persons who saw him over the years paid any attention to him, much less recognized possibly the most bicycling dude who ever peddled Chicago’s streets. Unlike Walking Man, he never experienced a single untoward incident till that fall on his last bike ride. Also unlike Walking Man, Bicycle Man didn’t stand out. He relished his anonymity and probably wouldn't want this published. Thought I'd I pen this tribute to my brother Bob Zlotow, who may gain a tad bit of posthumous recognition as Chicago’s most prolific…Bicycle Man.

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Nationwide high school strike to promote gun reform

 Nationwide high school strike to promote gun reform

There are 20,469 high schools educating 15,100,000 students in US. The best education those kids could ever achieve in civics is to organize a 1 day nationwide strike against the continuation of machine gun nation. They should all walk out of school at precisely the same moment to show their state and federal lawmakers it's time to enact massive and significant gun reform to reduce the annual 48,000 plus gun deaths annually.

A good sign to display during the protest? "Millions prepared to vote out every pro gun state and federal legislator"

Damn, If I could go back 60 years, I'd sure love to organize and lead such a protest walkout at Thomas Kelly High School in Chicago.