Stupidity...

 

'God particle physicist and Nobel laureate Leon Lederman dies at 96, Stephen Johnson, Big Think

© April 22, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Leon Lederman

American physicist,

Won the Nobel Prize in 1988,

For his “groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of the particles of nature,”

Coined the phrase: “God particle,”

A precursor to the discovery of the Higgs Boson,

Ushering in a new era of physics,

At the CERN Hadron Collider,

Instead of Waxahachie, Texas,

(Gutted for budget cuts),

 

Due to failing memories,

And mounting medical costs,

He sold his Nobel medal

For $765,000,

At auction,

Because he lived in the U.S.,

Where universal healthcare

Does not exist,

Dying in a nursing home,

His Nobel Prize now belonging to someone else.

 

There are

Thriving, prosperous nations,

Treating their citizens more magnanimous,

More gracious,

Or, at least, more human,

 

Universal healthcare

There,

Isn’t a conservative boogie man,

It isn’t stymied

In racist opines

Of,

“What if ‘those people’ get it?”

 

Racism is in the fabric of the state,

Making Native Americans,

Hopeful immigrants,

And kidnapped Africans,

“Others,”

Needing them,

While despising them,

Because of the knowledge

They wouldn’t have made it to “American exceptionalism” without them,

The ultimate narcissism:

Cutting off their noses,

To spite their faces,

 

Tiki torches

In Charlottesville,

Shouting

“You will not replace us,”

“Jews will not replace us,”

 

Showing up to “freedom rallies” with AR-15s,

Armed to the teeth with small penises,

“Mask holes” refusing to wear them,

The same mental giants

With chugging smokestacks

On the back of trucks

To “own the libs,”

Living on the same planet,

Without a single starship,

 

Too narcissistic to admit:

Maybe we’re all Africans,

Who migrated to different locations,

On the island called Pangea,

Before it separated

Into different continents,

Different elevations,

Different climates,

Different foods for consumption,

Later,

Humans migrated

From Mother Africa,

To other places,

Humans subjected to such stresses,

Have no need for a preponderance of Melanin,

It doesn’t make one superior,

Or the other inferior:

It just means as species; we’re highly adaptive,

In one hundred years of settlement,

Would we recognize a Martian?

 

Damned insane,

 

Opiate addiction,

Suicide affliction,

By Second Amendment,

Increased mortality,

Reduced birth rates,

 

Shooting their feet,

Slitting their wrists,

Cutting their noses,

To spite their faces,

 

Nobel laureate winners

Should NOT be,

Selling their medals,

To pay medical bills,

In the richest nation

Ever to exist,

 

Idiots,

Who can’t see,

Their towering hypocrisy,

 

Something is wrong with this,

Their stupidity

Slew a Nobel laureate,

In the wealthiest nation that’s ever existed.

 

Eventually,

Like Narcissus,

Their pathological “self-love,”

It will [be] their Waterloo and the planet's Entropy.

Traitors and Patriots...

 

© April 22, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

“There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party.” Ulysses S. Grant

 

Ulysses S. Grant was a Republican.

He and Abraham Lincoln

Part of then the progressive party in the nation,

That won the 1860 election,

Causing defection,

Insurrection,

By the southern, slaveholding states,

 

The party that won the Civil War

Ensuring freedom for former slaves,

Saving the republic,

Starting the National Academy of Science during it,

Would be aghast

At the modern party’s stance,

At the conspiratorial nuthouse, it has become,

 

The traitors’ ancestors brought my ancestors to this country against their will to work as uncompensated labor.

The traitors’ ancestors wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

And a mathematical loophole for holding kidnapped humans in bondage.

The traitors are their descendants, shouting “all lives matter” while black lives don’t make a kind of duplicitous, hypocritical “sense.”

 

The traitors believed the pandemic was a hoax, delaying our actions resulting in more deaths than necessary.

The traitors believe masks are an assault on “liberty and freedom.”

“Liberty and freedom” apparently canceling the deaths of 578,726 Americans.

That somehow opening with only 195 million doses given, 76.7 million fully vaccinated amounts to 23.4%: we need 70-80% to achieve “liberty.”

 

The traitors are pushing the election “Big Lie,” not unlike the “Lost Cause” narrative that amounts to superfluous bullshit.

If you hold your nose and compare it side-by-side, it’s the same lie that caused the Civil War, inaugurated Jim Crow, and domestic terrorism on people that didn’t ask to be brought here.

The traitors are passing laws to shorten early election times, close more precincts that stifle the voices of BIPOC, the young, the queer because they haven’t had a platform since the 1980s that appeals to these groups and never had.

The traitors are trying to tank Kristen Clarke’s nomination to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department,

Like they did Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because someone fighting for the Civil Right to cast a vote might thwart the plans to block the votes of people who won’t vote for them.

The traitors don’t want a 9-11-style commission to investigate and hold accountable traitors in an insurrection, guaranteeing the tactic will happen again if an election – local or national – is lost.

The traitors are more motivated about Antifa (short for anti-fascist),

[Than] the fascists that scaled walls 100 days ago powered on this big lie, given voice by their fallen orange god who daily performed nauseating fellatio,

On Vladimir Putin, according to Michael Cohen, for a vanity tower in Moscow.

 

If you are not on this list: you are a patriot.

 

The patriots,

Are writing spoken-word pieces,

Original hip hop rifts,

Blues, folk, or country music,

We might see a harmonica, and hip hop fusion,

Comedy routines that make you think,

At Kick Butt Coffee,

And other like venues,

Though: I can't think of any like this!

 

The patriots,

Are demonstrating in the streets,

For equal justice,

During a pandemic,

George Floyd

Became a hashtag, and chant,

That culminated with

A verdict: guilty on all counts,

A chant that became a sob

For most of us,

A cry of relief,

And a resolve: this is not over.

The evil that birthed public lynchings,

Obama in effigy,

Illegal chokeholds,

And, knees on necks,

Still exists,

The march towards the arc of the universe has just begun,

We must soldier on:

Artists, comedians, musicians, poets,

For the sake of the survival of this fragile republic

To the apogee of justice.

Psychotic Trauma...

 

Image source: Cherwell

© April 14, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Sunday,

My wife and I took a “sanity ride.”

To High Point, North Carolina,

Cruised around,

Checked out the sights:

A baseball game and family BBQ in progress,

 

On the way back,

We were followed,

By High Point police,

For several miles,

Running my plates,

As I drove defensively,

Five miles below the posted speed limit,

 

Lights on, he pulled us over,

I dug out my license, insurance,

The masked officer told me my tags were expired,

Something that you might let slip during a pandemic,

He told me to get it inspected,

And present it to the magistrate,

I had no priors like,

Duante Wright.

This happened,

On the same Sunday,

Duante was slain,

By a training officer,

Yelling three times, “taser,”

 

HELP ME UNDERSTAND:

Tasers are often produced in bright colors,

Or, with neon accents,

To distinguish them from guns,

 

The Glock is on their dominant side,

The taser on the opposite.

A gun weighs more than a typical taser,

Guns have a safety trigger,

Tasers do not.

 

Duante and I are black men,

Except, one of us is alive; one of us isn’t.

 

Fuck this!

 

The Texas toll road can take a picture of your plates,

And MAIL you a ticket if you’re in violation,

PLEASE tell me:

Why do we have nervous,

Armed,

High school dropouts,

Pulling over motorists with weapons?

 

The Kenosha, Wisconson shooter, seventeen,

Not even a resident of the state he murdered two people in,

Got bottled water, and "attaboys" from the local police,

Underage, carrying a long arm weapon openly in the streets,

A white man shot up Mother Emanuel after attending church with his victims,

Then he got a cheeseburger for his grumbling tummy and disposition.

 

A white man shot up a movie theater,

In Aurora, Colorado,

The second movie in the Batman trilogy,

Died his hair in homage to Heath Ledger’s Joker,

Walking out completely without a mark on him,

 

Timothy McVeigh, and Terry Nichols,

Blew up the Alfred P. Murrough Building,

In Oklahoma,

Killing 168 persons, thirty children,

In a nursery,

The US government started looking for Arabs,

Before they found GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip,

He and his psychotic sidekick were,

Taken in without incident,

Stood trial breathing,

Though they did get a measure of justice.

 

White women call 911,

On African Americans enjoying fellowship,

At a BBQ,

Selling water, or lemonade,

On a train in Napa Valley to a winery,

Bird watching in a New York City park,

 

A Facebook meme encapsulates:

 

“When the color of your skin is seen as a weapon, you will never be seen as unarmed.”

 

This is state-sponsored terrorism,

Amounting to public lynchings,

A steampunk techno metal version

Of the original,

With the same initiatives:

Keep the untouchables in a state of panic, fear, and dread.

 

I quote the following, copied and pasted from Facebook:

I need to run some errands this morning. To ensure I arrive alive, I won’t take public transit (Oscar Grant).

 

I removed all air fresheners from the vehicle, double-checked my registration status (Daunte Wright), and ensured my license plates were visible (Army Lt. Caron Nazario).

 

I will be careful to follow all traffic rules and announce I have a CHL (Philando Castille), signal every turn (Sandra Bland), keep the radio volume low (Jordan Davis), and won’t stop at a fast-food chain for a meal (Rayshard Brooks).

 

I’m too afraid to pray (Rev. Clementa C. Pickney), so I hope the car won’t break down (Corey Jones).

 

When you run errands today, be sure not to dance (Elijah McClain), stop to play in a park (Tamir Rice), patronize the local convenience store for snacks (Trayvon Martin), or walk around the neighborhood (Michael Brown).

 

Once home, don’t stand in your backyard (Stephon Clark), eat ice cream on the couch in your apartment (Botham Jean), or play any video games (Atatiana Jefferson).

 

I guess I’ll watch a movie around 7:30 pm; I won’t leave the house to go to Walmart (John Crawford) or the gym (Tshyrand Oates) or on a jog (Ahmaud Arbery).

 

I won’t even walk to see the birds (Christian Cooper).

 

I’ll [just] sit and remember what a blessing it is to breathe (George Floyd), and I definitely won’t go to sleep in my own bed (Breonna Taylor).

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics...

Image source: Brainy Quote

 © April 9, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself, in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

 

Mark Twain

 

“No, thank you, Mr. President,”

Though we’ve all been on the planet Earth,

During this pandemic,

 

And lockdown

[Seemed] a reasonable event,

Our attention spans are limited,

 

Two weeks was more than enough,

We all found out how tough

Teachers’ jobs were,

 

And how bratty our children are!

Got vaccines: great!

We’re going to open up our states,

 

Though small percentages of our populations

Are vaccinated,

We’re opening up with a full head of steam,

 

Filling spring break beaches,

In Miami, Florida,

And Corpus Christi,

 

“Kansas lawmakers voted Thursday to repeal the state’s mask mandate despite Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s attempt to extend it,”

 

“Arkansas ended their mask mandate Tuesday, and while the state will allow businesses to impose their [own] restrictions as well as localities, local orders cannot be enforced.”

 

Governors in Indiana, Alabama, Utah, Wyoming, Mississippi, Alaska, South Dakota,

And, Texas, oh Texas!

19 states,

Don’t, or no longer have mask mandates,

 

Thought experiment:

 

The current US COVID deaths are 573, 988,

The current US population is 332,494,997,

Or, thereabouts,

 

Divide the smaller by, the larger,

Multiply by one hundred, you get

0.17%,

Round up to 0.2%,

 

Now, close your eyes:

You’re on the beach,

At Miami, or Corpus Christi,

 

100,000 of you are about,

To charge into the ocean,

With the guarantee,

 

Man-eating sharks,

Like the large white in “Jaws,”

Will devour 0.2% of your flock of 100,000,

 

Guaranteed,

200 of you WILL become,

“Chicken of the sea,”

 

Now,

99,800 of you WILL make it,

You have no idea which,

 

In my best Clint Eastwood,

Dirty Harry shtick:

 

“Do you feel lucky?”

Or libertarian?

 

No government will MAKE me get a shot!

No way!

William Wallace! FREE DUMB!

 

This example is the analogy I give

On which I want you to meditate,

You can’t outrun white sharks

 

In their oceans,

Or airborne coronavirus,

That has three distinct mutations,

 

And one double,

 

The problem is, your 0.2% chance is not zero.

During this pandemic,

I lost two friends,

 

Maybe to self-identified libertarians,

 

This loss to you doesn’t seem significant,

But like John Donne: my shore is diminished,

Without them,

 

Under normal circumstances (and pandemics are once-in-a-century “not normal”), there’s no libertarian case for this:

 

Neil deGrasse Tyson said,

Something that should be a cardinal rule:

 

Your lifting mask mandates,

In your states,

[Makes] as much sense,

As a peeing section,

 

In a public swimming pool.

Duck, Duck, Goose...

Image source: IStock Photo

(Somehow, the visual metaphor worked better than I thought)

 © April 7, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Proto the current nonsense,

Remember when the right canceled The Dixie Chicks?

For daring to say they were ashamed of a US president, who

Lied about weapons of mass destruction,

That didn’t exist,

In Iraq,

Where we’ve spilled blood and national treasure,

The lives of women and men who didn’t have to die,

Iraqi, or American,

To ensure an illegitimate president

Scored an electoral win,

 

After some silence,

Re-emerging,

The artists,

Upon reflection,

Dropped “Dixie”

As a pejorative,

 

Now,

The right boycotted the NFL

Because my Frat brother,

Colin Kaepernick

Nonviolently took a knee,

Protesting police brutality,

Blood running in the streets,

Culminating in the gut-wrenching trial of Derek Chavin,

For the callous murder of George Floyd,

Kaepernick made us look at a dark mirror,

It’s a reflection we can’t avoid,

 

The right wanted to boycott the NBA,

Laura Ingram told Lebron James to “shut up and dribble,”

Because that’s what privileged blonde Nazis would say,

As racist as her father,

Ask Laura Ingrate’s baby brother!

 

The right wanted to boycott NASCAR,

For taking down the flag of traitors,

 

Now they want to boycott Major League Baseball for changing the All-Stars venue,

Oblivious that tax day

Due to the pandemic is delayed,

And, April 15 is Jackie Robinson Day,

Making Lebron James, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Colin Kaepernick, and hundreds of others who didn’t exist possible,

 

Where every player and owners pretend,

All is well,

Wearing Jackie’s jersey number 42,

Forgetting the hell he endured,

 

Jackie grew up in Sanford, Florida,

Where they burned Rosewood,

Two years after bombing Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

Sanford: where a vigilante murdered,

Trayvon Benjamin Martin,

 

Being the first to integrate a commercial sport, after

Jesse Owens, with four Olympic Medals,

Defeating Hitler in Berlin,

Had to still go through the back door,

Hearing the N-word from the stands,

Teammates, and opponents,

Greatness,

Was his iron will,

From Branch Rickey’s counsel,

Not to EVER retaliate,

Chadwick Boseman,

Played him,

Thurgood Marshall,

And, Black Panther,

And, a host of other positive icons,

While the actor

Was dying from cancer,

 

Or, that Hammering Hank Aaron,

Recently transitioned from us,

After breaking Babe Ruth’s record,

His mother came out to hug him,

Not just because she was proud of him,

But,

Because she figured,

They could die together,

 

You see, Hank had to hide out in the stadium,

And the dugout,

Eat concession stand food for days,

Not go home,

Because of death threats,

From Klan domestic terrorists,

 

None of this,

Is remotely in the experience,

Of the hypocritical miscreants,

To stop the electoral process,

For people who might be related,

Upset that the playground of democracy is tanner, browner,

Younger, less cisgender,

Unmoved by the traditional fears,

Previously used to control them,

They would [rather] you make your arguments,

With logic, science, and poetry,

Before they opt not to vote for your oligarchic agenda,

 

Moscow Mitch,

Telling corporate America,

To “stay out of politics,”

(“Just shut up and dribble,” I mean, keep writing those checks!)

 

Orange Satan,

Asking for a boycott of Coke,

Pictured with a Diet Coke on his messy desk,

 

Moscow, and Orange,

Are neither duck nor goose,

Seeking to line the pockets of their [own] suits,

 

They’re ghoulish vultures,

Having the audacity,

To form their mouths,

 

Pointing their fingers to shout: “cancel culture!”

We Grew Up...

 

 © April 4, 2021, the Griot Poet

Fifty-three years ago,

We lost Martin,

Marching with Memphis sanitation workers,

Despite having approval numbers

Underwater,

At thirty percent,

 

Somewhere between his last sermon,

“I have been to the mountaintop.”

He slept with two women,

Not Coretta Scott,

Though disappointed in an icon,

I don’t fault him,

Because I don’t know how I would process it,

Death threats daily,

It’s easy on the sidelines to pontificate

“He should have prayed about it.”

 

The self-hating,

Closeted man,

And, overt racist

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover,

Had everywhere King went,

Bugged and under surveillance,

COINTELPRO,

The FBI’s counterintelligence program had one mission:

Ensure there wasn’t the rise,

Of a black messiah,

The focal point that led to the murders of:

Medgar Evers,

Malcolm X,

Martin Luther King,

And, Fred Hampton,

Not knowing the irony,

White supremacy’s

Ignorance,

Of the ethnography,

Of first century Palestinians,

 

Because

For an ideal,

Only so far

Seen on Star Trek,

He was willing to die a martyr’s death,

 

Bethlehem Community Center,

Part of the Wesleyan Methodists Ministries,

Was our kindergarten

On the East side of Winston,

Browner, with older equipment,

Wesleyan Community Center,

More spacious, better equipped,

Not quite as diverse,

On the West,

 

My parents already knew,

And, couldn’t break the news

To me,

Instead,

They left that grim task,

To the preschool and kindergarten teachers,

April fifth,

 

5-year-old children wept until noon,

Three, and four-year-olds joined the chorus,

The solace of our tears turned

To screams of horror,

As the Klan rode by,

The treasonous stars, and bars,

On pickup trucks,

The sound of gunshots,

The drunken shouts:

“I’m glad that n-word is dead!”

Meant to grind a boot,

Into a salted, stabbed wound,

 

The cowards counted on

Our forced compliance,

Terror always the tool of

Fascists, and cowards,

I’m sure the toothless wonders

Have mostly died,

Despite their earnest wishes:

We grew up.

 

One of us, living in Hawaii, not the south,

Became president,

A woman of South Asian and Jamaican descent,

Is our Vice President,

Our Transportation Secretary,

Is in a committed same-sex marriage,

The Secretary of Defense,

Is African American,

The first Native American cabinet member,

Women, Asians,

The current cabinet,

Shaping up to resemble [the] coming diverse America,

That doesn’t require superluminous propulsion starships,

 

Not the clown actor sycophants

In a narcissist’s self-centered

Reality show,

Where he played the role of president,

Without showrunners to clean up his mess.

 

53 years ago,

April 4, 1968,

We lost Martin to a coward’s bullet.

My kindergarten class the next day got the news.

5-year-old children wept until noon,

Three, and four-year-olds joined the chorus,

After the tears were over,

We remembered what Martin said:

“You can’t ride a man or woman if their backs are straight,”

 

It is bizarre,

That their grandchildren,

Stuck on stupid,

Still, try this tactic,

Stormed the Capitol,

Restricted voter access,

Always guaranteeing,

The opposite effect,

 

Riding past,

Bethlehem Community Center,

Stirred the hornets’ nest,

We are resolved,

Our backs are not bent,

Our ancestors died for this,

We grew up!

And, we will vote!