Month: February 2018

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The menace and the great society

Picture a society of 300 million people.  Despite their large population and diverse cultures lending to an eclectic appearance, they are for the most part a happy people.  They get along well enough with neighbor and state.  Their nation is extremely prosperous and popular around the world.  So sincere and content are the people of this land that they readily come to the aid of their fellow man in times of disaster and hardship.  Their altruism reaches across the sea to other people living in places where life remains poor and bleak.  People around the world envy this idyllic nation mostly for its innate human rights: free speech and religion, even thoughts and ideas.  Ah, and the motto of this comparatively young nation: The pursuit of happiness!

But there is one enormous problem for those living in this great free society.  Every so often, but increasingly, a dozen or more inhabitants are randomly injured and even killed by a menace, always the same exact menace.  The attacks are often unforeseen and sporadic.  Within the past couple decades the menace has caused countless deaths and insurmountable sorrow throughout the land.  Mostly the menace haunts large gathering places of humanity: shopping centers, movie theaters, schools, colleges, night clubs, baseball fields, parks, Christmas parties, halls of justice, concerts, even churches.  But by all accounts, high schools have been the preferred target.

The menace comes around again and again, leaving the same macabre scene of bloody carnage and wounded survivors physically, emotionally and spiritually—some permanently traumatized.  Incredulously, there seems to be no solution to rid this beautiful society—no doubt the greatest ever on earth—of its deadly menace, which to most people of the world seems very strange.  In fact, people of the world don’t think the menace cannot be conquered.  The world remains aghast at the perpetual atrocities by the lone menace allowed free range in an otherwise peace-loving society.

Ad nauseam 

Within the white dome buildings with towering columns and spacious porticos, the great society’s elected leaders remain at an impasse: divided on how to eradicate their nation’s growing menace.  One side, including the grand leader, has come to believe the menace will only be conquered by the same menace—not unlike a vaccine containing a little of the deadly virus to build immunity and prevent mass illness and death.  They think their idea is logical and sound.

But other leaders do not believe in the same method to eradicate the greatly feared menace.  This group refuses to believe in fighting a menace of this caliber with the same or similar menace.  They seek solutions without really knowing how to bring down once and for all the omnipotent menace, still roaming the great society, and as the citizenry young and old has learned to accept, most certainly planning the next scary bloody insane massacre.

After the latest high school massacre, though, hundreds of students who lived to tell about it found themselves collectively emboldened to speak out against the menace so that it never strikes another school ever again.  Their rage was not so much at the menace but at their society’s leaders, even the grand one.  Unified in mind and voice and of one accord, they called the oldest generation—the generation of their grandfathers than their fathers—weak, feeble and impotent.  Using microphones, cameras and the internet, they instantly spread their message across the land: Down with leaders who support the menace!  Down with the organization that supports the menace and allows it to spread!  Down with leaders who take money from the organization that supports the menace!

Even the grand leader could not hide and pretend he did not hear: words spoken by the youth, a generation growing up without a single day’s peace while attending the great society’s schools.  Having survived an attack by the menace, confronting the deadly evil they had heard about all their lives, they became energized by a shared fervor.  The teen survivors were joined by others whose lives were marred by the menace in school massacres across the land.  For some reason, they were summarily granted a meeting with the grand leader face to face.  Not to waste the leader’s time, they rationally and calmly presented only one request: No more menace.  We’re sick and tired of the menace.  Do something about the menace now.

But instead of going after the menace, and finally doing away with its deadly power, the grand leader called on arming teachers to fight the menace at school.  This was not at all the scenario envisioned by the massacre survivors.  Why didn’t the grand leader understand their simple plea?  They were quite clear: No more menace.  Massacre survivors young and old never called on more menace to fight the menace.  To the survivors, that was nonsensical, like a Hollywood action movie, based on fantasy not reality.

At this point in time, the menace has not left the great society and still remains the constant evil that will not be destroyed.  As for other lands, the menace rarely rears its ugly head.  Every society on earth has prevented the menace at least from spreading as it has done so freely throughout the entire great society, shore to shore, engulfing thousands in blood, death and fear.

“Strange,” others around the world ponder.  “The great society is not at war.  Is it?”

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Future of American elections? To the Way Back Machine

So now that we really, really know for sure with absolute certainty that Russia truly was indeed behind creating chaos in our last presidential election—with the sole intent to denigrate Hillary Clinton and install Donald Trump—we gotta come up with the perfect plan to protect the next U.S. election.  We gotta think of an equally terrible, evil and mind-boggling scheme … to save American democracy in our lifetime!  Even Mexico is calling for the return to U.S. domination and world leadership.  The U.S. used to be the Good Guys, remember?  Here’s what we do (chuckle, snort).  It’s so simple, a child could have thought of it.  But, sh sh sh, don’t tell anyone.

OK, since high tech got us into this colossal political pickle (for those of us who think Trump’s presidency is a train wreck,) for our next major election, we simply go back in time!  Let’s pick a year like 1984 or 1989.  Throw a tarp over those newfangled computerized voting machines and store ’em in the closet at the county clerk’s office.  We can vote by hand, just like our forefathers and a lot of our foremothers did for generations, since our nation’s founding.  We just handpick all our candidates.  Pssst.  You know, you don’t have to vote for every race on the ballot; just pick and choose the ones important to ya.  An incomplete ballot’s legal, maybe just requiring our hand-written signatures like in days of yesteryear.

I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave

Isn’t this a fabulous idea?!!  Wouldn’t the Russians be confounded by our decision to beat them at their own game?  Just dump computer technology for our upcoming election, see how it works.  Oh, and we all must agree to forget about Facebooking and surfing the ’net for political information.  Most voters don’t know how to tell the difference between news and views anyway.  That’s how we got tricked by the Great Russian Bear.

For those of us old enough to remember how voting used to be before the days of computers and the prevalence of hacking, it went like this:  We’d show up to the polls, get a ballot, and then poke out the holes beside the candidate names we chose.  The ballot first was manually checked—probably at a cost much cheaper than hooking every county in the nation to a computer ballot system—and in a day or so, we knew who our elected officials would be.  Simple as making apple pie.

Even with the new voting computers in the 2000 presidential election, voters claimed the lights of the name they touched did not go on and instead another name lit up, meaning their ballot was incorrect if they didn’t repress the candidate of their choice until the correct light went on.  Along with this was the Florida mess where the old punch-card ballots were somehow unclear to read.  We learned related terms like impregnation and chad, but the state’s election board called it.  It got messier when the U.S. Supreme Court was called in to finalize between Bush and Gore.  At the turn of the computer age century, it was like we were living back in Mayberry USA.  The entire nation was left rocking in our front porch swings awaitin’ the presidential results, strummin’ on the old guitar and singing folk songs.  Yehhp, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.  We got the news about the new president in a couple of weeks.  It wasn’t that big of a deal in the great scheme of time.

And our obsession over time for election returns also played a part in the disastrous 2016 presidential results.  Americans have become the most politically impatient people on earth.  Come on, ya’ll!  The rest of the world population is laughing at us.  Who can blame them?  We’re immature, most of us hardly voting to begin with, then we want to know election results a few hours after casting ballots.

Whoa Nelly

We gotta hold the brakes when it comes to our future national elections.  Our entire form of government, still just a crazy cock-eyed 242-year-old philosophical experiment, is at stake.  Besides relying on super fast voting computers that can be hacked, half the country got sucked into Russian Bots.  These were somewhat cleverly disguised hard-punching nonsense political ads casting Hillary as the devil incarnate and Trump as the choice of Jesus Christ Himself.  What kinda American idiot would believe such a thing?  Tens of millions did.

So the Russians got us and got us good.  We don’t have time to be smartin’ over it.  What’s done is done, and we can’t let it happen again … ever, never again.  Voting sans computers is a start.  Voting is just too precious a right, a right a lot of people on the planet would love to have and as human beings deserve.

Why are Americans so cynical about our own elections, saying things like the choice is always ‘the lesser of two evils?’  American cynicism stems from money—money, money, money, money, money.  We allow this pervasiveness to buy elections when we agree money’s the root of all evil; well the love of money is evil.  That would be another thing to change: campaign financial caps.  We could promote campaign finance reform in a national ad like “Who loves America more?”  That usually gets our countrymen’s attention.  Which party, Dems or Repubs, would be willing to cap candidate election spending?  And what would be the cap?  Not billions of dollars again!  That’s how we got into our current political nightmare.

My fellow Americans, the Russians proved to know more about us than we know ourselves.  They played on our deeply held Christian beliefs, distorted history, racial prejudices, class jealousy, job insecurities, pop culture worship, and pitiful education.  Many of us were duped, dare I saw were ‘patsies?’  We started believing whatever we read on the internet.  Isn’t that a bit un-American?  Wasn’t it Will Rogers who used to quip, “All I know is what I read in the papers?”  That means we have to check all accounts to get the full story.

This next election, let’s agree to be on guard by the oncoming flood of Russian internet ads that feature Christ, crime, guns, immigrants, jobs, economic future, fear and panic.  Think before we click.  It takes time to research the facts and find the truth.  We can start by researching the small print campaign ad notice ‘Paid for by.’

But make no mistake: Russia is out to create havoc and chaos in our American political system, playing on our deepest, darkest fears.  Yet the one thing the enemy doesn’t understand about being a real American is our independence.  We all call ourselves American, even feel empowered within a political party.  Yet each one of us has our own views … about everything.  Many Americans rarely vote straight ticket.  Thinking for oneself is the seed to a perpetual democracy.  A lot of us forgot about our individual independent “I’ll think for myself, thank you” streak back in 2016—and in so doing totally freaked out.

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From Dead Bird Mall to Red Bird Mall once again

The former Red Bird Mall now resembles historic ruins.  For decades hardly anyone wanted to shop there, preferring to venture across Dallas or in recent years nearby Cedar Hill for its trendy outdoor walking mall.  Many cities across the U.S. are burdened with mid-century malls.  Old and gray and huge as the sea, they remain sprawled across a good hundred acres—taking up way too much space and offering no tax revenue.

The death of a mall is a pitiful sight especially for Baby Boomers like me with memories that keep us forever 16.  The biggest thing to have come to my neck of the Dallas suburbs was this very mall.  Opening in 1975, it seemed destined for eternal business with anchors like Sanger Harris, JC Penney and of course Sears.  The mall shops were crazy eclectic but competed to fulfill our every want and need.  More shoes and dress shops than a busy gal could visit in one day, a couple of record stores (for the latest album rock) and eateries galore made the mall an inexpensive teen date: a place to roam and people watch.  Christmas time was especially crowded.  As a teen I always liked going to the mall.  It made me feel alive.

My first real job was at that mall where I scooped ice cream at Baskin-Robbins.  We wore pink baseball caps and smocks.  I learned to operate a cash register, figure tax, and count correct change back to customers.  After school on the days I went to work, the price of a single scoop had increased a penny or two, sometimes a nickel.  If I recall correctly, a scoop at some point was 20 cents then more and more, corrections noted in pencil near the register.  The owners, a married couple, wanted to train me in management.  Turned out the young assistant manager was stealing from the register and summarily fired.  But I had greater dreams to fulfill and passed on pursuing management.  Besides, the job paid $2 an hour when the minimum wage was more than that.  When I inquired about the discrepancy, the owners explained if a company is small, employees don’t have to be paid the federal minimum wage.  After some months, I quit to finally earn minimum wage at a barbecue joint.

But working at the mall really appealed to me.  Many occasions I’d approach every single store, on both floors, and ask for an employment application.  Through high school and early college, I usually could land a job at the mall.  My sales clerk experience included the children’s clothing department at Sears and a clothing store called Woman’s World that specialized in the latest fashions for larger ladies.  I enjoyed my breaks at Sears because I could go to the candy and nut counter for a bag of warm cashews and an Icee.  At the ice cream shop, employees got a free scoop for coming to work.  I usually passed but when succumbing to temptation chose Daiquiri Ice on a sugar cone.  I was trying to be sophisticated.  Besides, I liked the cool turquoise color.

 All’s fair in mall and war

Because of the mall’s location, in south Dallas, a lot of whites referred to Red Bird Mall as Black Bird Mall.  What an awful thing to say, just because a lot of shoppers were black.  But see, the majority whites at the time were not yet willing to be inclusive or think of the community and our country as multicultural and multiracial—as I had come to realize in college.  The racial epithet of sorts was around 1989.  Yes, there was crime at the mall, perhaps more than other malls in Dallas, still at the time unverified as fact by the general public.  It seems an urban legend started the moment Red Bird Mall opened: a horrible story about a little boy attacked in the mall’s restroom.  Hearing the story as an adolescent, I believed it and was on guard if ever having to use the mall restrooms, eerily placed down long corridors.  After I grew up, going alone to the mall seemed unsafe.  I could tell things had changed.  The young crowds seemed rough, loud—and most importantly to business—weren’t there to shop.  But neither was I most of the time in junior high and high school.  I did shop for and buy a prom dress at the mall my junior year: a lacy baby blue evening gown and a very fond memory.

In an effort to rejuvenate the mall, it was renamed Southwest Center and its interior walls redecorated in a style reminiscent of the Old Southwest, more New Mexico and old Mexico than modern Dallas, Texas.  It just didn’t fit for those of us born and raised in this area.  As the poor economy of the late ’80s and early ’90s continued to threaten businesses from independent shops to national retail chains, my old shopping ground got a new nickname: Dead Bird Mall.  It was a hilarious yet honest depiction given all the mall vacancies.

Eulogy for a dead mall

A year ago the Dallas mayor proclaimed intentions to yet again reincarnate Red Bird Mall, first off to rename it as such because originally it referred to a nice upper middle-class Oak Cliff area of Dallas.  The city is working with businesses like Starbucks to once again populate the vast concrete territory still harboring some semblance of a mall.  But perhaps malls should be a thing of the past.  As wonderfully convenient, though costly, as shopping malls were—everything under one roof—times have changed.  People shop online first to purchase so many things.  Then there’s Wal-Mart and Target.

So what’s gonna bring ’em out to the modernized Red Bird Mall?  Perhaps a lot of small single buildings connected by outdoor walkways, fountains, floral landscaping with shade trees, benches, ponds and nature—a beautiful place for meditation, reading online and waiting while others shop.  Rule one should be in considering a new shopping development to revitalize Red Bird Mall: Why do people want to go there?

In retrospect, maybe we should list all the reasons people stopped going there: safety, loud unruly crowds, loitering, theft, assault, guns, drugs, evening hours, humongous terrain, accessibility, health issues, and impractical shops.  Consumers of the 21st century may have no need for the old mall experience that millions of us hold dear in our memories.  Our generation knows better than most: The past tends to be romanticized … because we don’t want to reminisce about the way things really were.

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Mid-century suburban life cemented memories

It was a picture perfect morning.  Early spring 1967.  Mom was changing her bed.  A set of washed sheets blew in the breeze to dry.  I could hear them playfully snapping as they hung on a line in the backyard of our suburban house.  I was 4 years old, standing against the bedroom wall, taking in the moment.  The windows were open, and fresh air caressed my face.  I remember white walls, white sheets, and the feeling that this moment was most wonderful.  I realized I was alive.  And Penny Lane was playing on the radio.

All senses were engaged so this pleasant childhood memory would remain in my mind for life, returning every once in awhile this time of year … and anytime and anywhere that Beatles’ song was heard.  Life was pleasant, simple, clean.

Around this same time, however, other outdoor sights and sounds would be disconcerting.  We lived right next to a suburban forest of sorts: short trees, thick brush with stickers and faded plants, nothing beautiful but natural nonetheless.  Soon the rumbling noise of tractors, bulldozers and construction men interrupted all I knew about life, about peace.  Before the work crew appeared, we had lived on a rural road in a Dallas suburb.  My parents had chosen that sleepy nook because they were from the country themselves.  But they had no idea our earthen street with maybe five houses spaced far apart would be smothered in concrete cement … forever.

As I ventured outdoors, driving my big red trike on the wood sidewalk, I noticed a huge street sign abutting the untapped brush: Dead End.  Probably the first words I learned to read.  Then one day that sign was mowed over, trees uprooted, the land flattened and platted for dozens of modern late ’60s brick homes.  Before the houses were built, first the concrete was poured over our dirt road.  Then the wood sidewalk was turned into cement, curb and gutters replaced the ditch, and lots of digging was done to install concrete pipes for sewer and water lines.  My Dad never got our house hooked up to the city sewer line; we would remain septic tank folks.

Urban sprawl

After the white dust settled, the rubber was poured, its thick pungent tar smell still rudely embedded in my mind.  The street was laid in maybe 15-foot blocks with rubber strips in between I suppose for ‘breathing’ through all types of Texas weather, to keep the concrete from buckling.  As I grew into an older child, I liked placing my toes in the occasional newly squirted pliable rubber across our residential street.  I had learned to accept annual work crews, pounding concrete excavations, heavy metal repairs, finished up with new rubber.  Playing in the new street rubber was lots of fun for a city kid.

Our community grew and grew especially during the 1970s as families from other states were relocating to Dallas but desired to live outside the city.  We were called a bedroom community.  The main restaurant we had in my early years was just Dairy Queen.  But soon McDonald’s came to town followed by every fast-food establishment and pizza joint known to kids across the U.S.  Teen years were filled with meeting at those hang outs to socialize with fries and a Coke or Dr. Pepper.

Having grown up pretty well adjusted and content within a suburban bubble, I never realized my hometown lacked, mmm, charm.  Not until I went off to college and traveled around Texas did I see the huge disparity in quality of life.  Other towns were much older than the mid-century suburbs, but they had generations of families who maintained their communities’ grace.  Old large houses were renovated into restaurants, law firms, or just nice homes for doctors and those who could afford the upkeep.

Streets were lined with trees providing shade.  I’d never seen such a thing except in very small towns like where my parents grew up.  Walking around my neighborhood during the summers left me squinting from the sun and getting a pink burn.  Shoes were a must given all the hot concrete.  I grew up where houses from the early 20th century would have been considered old and necessarily torn down.  Trees were not a priority.  I learned that urban fact when all the trees were yanked to build more homes, larger and larger through the decade.  What was more important to my community leaders was moving in more families.  Our community expanded until there would be no more undeveloped land, no more nature.  And when the entire town was built out, they started building up with more apartments.

Progress was our middle name

What were suburban city officials thinking in the mid 20th century?  They were the Greatest Generation but in charge of ‘modern’ city development.  More population meant more taxes for more amenities, right?  When I left my concrete city, I realized the error of their ways.  Communities nowadays are better planned.  I suppose if it weren’t for all those cement towns with no beauty, style or nature, the new and improved housing developments would not have been created.  Modern residential neighborhoods emulate 19th century city neighborhoods.

And what got me to thinking about all this?  Well, the city in which I live has been bull dozing and pounding apart my residential street, right at my driveway.  We—the city crew and I—have had to get along and make things work as the heavy-duty work trucks park in the way of me trying to move my car to leave and then later return home.

The unannounced street work jarred my early childhood memory as I sat indoors feeling and hearing the vibrations against windows and across the wood floor.  Construction tractors were breaking up the entire street to fix a busted water line from the big cold a month ago.  The first job had been a patch; this time it was a permanent repair.  The sound of smashing concrete and men yelling orders is one I grew up with and have had to learn to accommodate as a city dweller.

Ah, but since I left that cement sea that was once my hometown, I’ve learned the art of meditation.  Now any time I want, I can clearly relive that moment some 50 years ago when life as I first realized was splendid … “beneath the blue suburban skies.”