Young Diana - by Edward McCartan - Inquirer 18 March 1925

 

David Dinkins dead at 93

David Dinkins, first "black" mayor of NYC dead at 93. I voted for him twice before moving out west in the nineties. I voted against a seemingly corrupt Ed Koch running for a fourth term as mayor in the Democratic primary and voted for Dinkins, a known factor as Borough President of Manhattan. I then voted in the general election against the rather cold and green to politics, Republican Rudy Giuliani, a federal prosecutor for southern New York state. Fellow republicans in the office, peers, ate up all his coded "Conservative" rhetoric. As it turned out the two work peers who praised Rudy so much did not bother to vote on election day which is one reason Dinkins won and Rudy lost. As it turned out from day one, Dinkins was the Black Mayor of Manhattan it seemed to me and not the Mayor of NYC. He was out of his depth IMO and could not break out of either the Black or the Manhattan tags of his politics - get his head out of the premier borough and into the other four boroughs that make up New York City. I was turned off after I voted for Dinkins almost immediately when he won, I was turned off when someone like Jesse Jackson was on stage when Dinkins won that election night - and turned off by Jackson's "We Won" announcement. Who was "we" mister self appointed pol from Chi-Town? So, it was not surprising that I heard that Rudy won as mayor four years later as an alternate choice of the "We Won - First Black Mayor of Manhattan David Dinkins". An aside story of Rudy in the campaign in 1989 below. 

https://newyorkandstuff.blogspot.com/2019/02/rudolph-giuliani-republican-mannequin.html

Mao Tai Bar & Restaurant, 1 Bankers Trust Plaza NYC - Small Business Loan 1975

Duet for One - Dec 17, 1981 - Jan 02, 1982 Royale Theatre, New York, NY

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Nuestra Senora de Pimeria Alta - Our Lady of Tucson

While living in Tucson, I often remarked to people how southern Arizona seemed a special place, a land bought by the United States from Mexico through treaty, the Gadsden Purchase. In other words, it was not seized in war and blood had not been shed in the receiving of the land into the territories of the United States. Just a silly thought perhaps. 

That leads me to say that Tucson and that area of Arizona have a long clean line into its past in terms of politics and war.

While I am writing this, I can remember over 20 years ago my cars, all cars on the northern highway, from Nogales being directed to an off ramp of the highway for a visual check and talk to a border patrol police officer through the winder in order to continue on my way north in this land of the "free". That I and my family passed the look and language checks at this checkpoint Charlie because of race and education etc. So much for needing paperwork back then beyond your state issued driver's license etc.  

I cannot but feel great anguish in which I as an American have become aware of the inhumane way in to which would be immigrants from the south, Mexico and Central America, are being treated in a bully kind of response to an Immigration non-policy that a bunch of lazy crony pols in Washington of both major parties have not been able to settle for the past several decades. That we are a land of immigrants and my heart goes out to children separated from parents in this current impromptu and cruel handing of the situation on the border by the U.S. Government. 

That the image of Mary, the mother of Jesus, seems to be to be present in outline on a mountain overlooking that city near the border. I think it appropriate if you are inclined to a higher power and or the saints of the dominant religion, to ask for intercession through prayer or positive energy for the restoration of harmony, peace and justice in that region to be reestablished along the border regions of the two nations involved in this present tug of war over the popular populist politics of strangers wanting a chance to grasp and contribute to the American dream and democracy, the same opportunity my ancestors sought and achieved 170 years ago before the Civil War.

Losing Our Democracy

While the GOP sold the Gubmint to the Corps for cash and rubles, the Dems gave it away by default while sipping PC caffeine free Tumeric Ginger iced teas at sidewalk cafes on the upper west sides of Manhattan, Berkley, etc.


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2020 - Not just another year?

A year in which classic (not zero sum) balance and sanity to be restored ?


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