Category Archives: Autobiography

Empty Rhetoric

Perhaps being reared in a Catholic environment has made me more aware of empty or meaningless refrains.

Miserere nobis comes to mind. Also, dona nobis pachem. The first, of course, is entirely consistent with the culture of commiseration which salves the spirits of those subordinated by the culture of obedience. Ah, we are all in this together. Woe is us.

Peace is not something that is handed out. Only peace prizes. Though why we want the result of pacification is beyond me. I do not want to have peace handed to me on a platter or a paten or anywhere else.

R.I.P. gets it right. We are at peace when we are dead.

What was that stinky thing on a string we used to wear around our necks?
Scapular, an “object of popular piety.” A reminder of Christian behavior for those whose memories are bad.

Catholicism also clued me in to other stuff. When did I learn about hypocrisy? It must have been at the age of 13 when the nunny bunny on our floor, the strict enforcer of beds made before morning mass and windows left open even when snow dusted the floor in the morning, forgot to lock her door and a peek revealed that she had obviously not made her bed and the nose told us the window had not been opened in weeks. Being honest, we confessed. Our monitor said nothing but her door was never left unlocked again. I guess I’ve been challenging authority for a long time. LOL

Authoritarianism and the instinct-driven

Perhaps it is a fail-safe option. Guaranteed to fail or not. LOL

The last thing we need is another Catholic authoritarian on the Court. Not because Catholics are subservient to the Pope in Rome, but because confession and absolution frees them from the need to exercise self-restraint. Behavior can be hit or miss and, if it goes wrong, all can be forgiven by confessing. That is not a reliable basis for moral behavior but it is what makes authoritarianism attractive to the instinct-driven.

An admission. I left off being a Catholic because the church offended my moral sense.

Deconstructing language

Once a person has learned a couple or more languages, it becomes obvious that there is a differnce between reality and its symbolic representation. In my case there was the additional realization, eventually, that some symbols simply do not translate easily inside my brain. This accounted, I think, for why, no matter how much effort I expended, I never could relate the notations in a musical score to a particular musical sound or piano key. So, I never learned how to play the piano any better than a hunt and peck typist uses a typewriter. But I did learn that practice does not make perfect.
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Friday the 13th

Begin forwarded message:

From: Julian Smith
Date: April 10, 2018 at 5:02:08 PM EDT
To: “James A Yancey Jr.”
Cc: MonicaSmith
Subject: Re: Friday the 13th

James:

I would prefer to go to trial and see no reason why I should pay court costs resulting from an arrest based on false accusations. What say you?

Julian

On Apr 10, 2018, at 3:40 PM, James A Yancey Jr. wrote:

Great Afternoon Julian!

I have convinced the solicitor that she has a difficult case. Therefore, the solicitor wants to dismiss your case upon payment of $300 court costs.

What say you?

Have a blessed and highly favored day!

James A. Yancey, Jr.
Attorney at Law, P.C.
704 G Street
Brunswick, Georgia 31520-6749
Office: (912) 265-8562
Fax: (912) 265-8564
Email: jayjr@standinthegap.biz

And I sought for a man among them, that should make up
the hedge, and stand in the gap before Me….Ezekiel 22:30

—–Original Message—–
From: Julian Smith [mailto:whalerock@smith-family.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 1:11 PM
To: James A Yancey Jr.
Cc: MonicaSmith
Subject: Friday the 13th

James:

Do we need to get together to discuss the Calendar Call and Motions Hearing (if any) related to the charges of Criminal Trespass brought against me? For instance, is there any chance the prosecutor will attempt to dismiss the charges?

Julian

Draft LTEs, a compendium

The Brunswick News is rather more selective than the New York Times. The paper prominently features a request for letters but doesn’t publish them on but a couple of days a week out of the six. So, I’ll post them here.
Addendum: The Brunswick News has revised its letters policy and has been publishing many more, including mine. (06-18-16)

Two back-to-back presentations by a Dr. Wickersham and Sheriff Jump to the Glynn County Commission on Tuesday made that pretty clear.
Wickersham’s Health Needs Assessment brought forward as evidence that half our children live in single-parent homes, an almost certain predicate for poverty conditions, a hundred and fifty of them a year suffer serious abuse or neglect and, while car crashes and fatalities are decreasing, injuries are way more than in the rest of the country.
Glynn also has some of the worst air, an inordinate number of prescriptions for controlled substances (1.29 for each of our 81,000 residents), and double the violent crime rate in the rest of the state (800 per 100,000 people). Not to mention 155 registered sex offenders having to be tracked. So, the Sheriff has reason to ask for nine more detention personnel to staff his new jail, a facility that’s three times as large as the present one. And who’s to argue with the assertion that 173 violent incidents a year (one every two days) have to be contained, or that the prisoners aren’t entitled to the services of a doctor, a dentist, a psychiatrist and 24 hour nursing that, because of the community’s sense of penury, they can’t get outside.
Half the population not being seen by a doctor in two years and Medicaid dollars being refused are not going to negate the effect of 14 hazardous waste sites and 1.3 million pounds of toxic chemicals being spewed. There are reasons Glynn people are unhealthy and dying off prematurely.

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