Travelling

We pull out tomorrow.

Known stops; SLO/Morro Bay (Montana de Oro)

Point Reyes

?????

We have a Coggins test, so the horses can cross state lines. We've declared a destination in Seattle.

I have hopes (because there's lots I'd like to see in Seattle, though I think, in terms of seeing people that a pub-meet might be the best bet, because it wouldn't be fair to expect someone; on wierd notice, to host a function).

A moderate group for dinner might also be doable (and I know where I want to go, so if I have a say, it's Greek food, near the Spaceneedle).

Patchy posting is likely to happen

I.F. Stone

When I was a whelp, Stone was still around. I recall reading a magazine article by him, this was when I was a journalism student. I'd seen the name, but not read any of his stuff.

So when a copy of, "The Trial of Socrates" came into my folks store (where I spent 15-20 hours a week), I snagged it. Man, that was one hell of a book. It showed Stone in all his glory.

How, he wondered, did so strong a bastion of free speech as Athens, come to condemn a man for speaking? His conclusions (in short, Socrates used the Athenian courts to commit suicide) were solid. Why? Because he dug into the material, looked into the primary sources.

There's a lot more in that book (my lack of sympathy for Plato comes out of it).

Dan Froomkin opened a recent column like this, The best blogger ever died in 1989 at the age of 81.

He was, if you hadn't guessed, talking about I.F. Stone.

It's a solid piece, and worth reading, as is the biography Froomkin refers to.

Better yet, get one of Stone's books, and read that. Find a copy of Stone's Weekly, and read that.

If you really want to take it to heart, find some document dump, or a hearing transcript, and do what Stone did them, read it.

Then write.

IBARW

This was sparked by desert_vixen, who points out she has a hard time writing about this, because she's got privilege. I have more privilege, I'm not only white, I'm male.

I have, however, experienced racism, though at a remove.

When I was a kid there was a drive for the United Way. I asked my mother for money. She said no. If I wanted to give the UW money, I could, but she wasn't going to contribute. I asked her why, and she told me they had a policy of supporting exactly matching the racial makeup of adoptees, to adoptors. At church (a progressive Vatican II type of place) we had a couple of bi-racial twins; and the thought that their parents (white) couldn't adopt them made my blood run cold.

That was my first stand on the subject (I was the only one who didn't contribute. I was the only one who didn't contribute for a long time, until they changed that policy).

Later, my second stepfather was black. We got robbed (lived in a less than afluent chunk of town). The cops were very attentive to me (all of 14) until he came to the door. At which point I could see them shut down. A couple of, obviously, pro forma questions, and they were gone.

But those aren't what I was moved to write about.

desert_vixen points out that being in the Army, which has a higher percentage of minorities than the population at large, can mute how soldier see racism.

A recruit who can't handle a black person (or an Hispanic) yelling at them, will get chaptered out. Guys in my company at Basic, had never seen anyone who wasn't white.

Then I went to DLI. In an army which had about 25 percent blacks, there were 4 in my company, of 182 soldiers.

WTF?

We talked about it. It bothered us. We tried to figure it out. All we could come up with was the difficulty of getting in. Not that it was all that hard. But the recruiter had to work harder. The candidate had to take a test; and a damned odd one. One that most people fail at, even ones who have some schooling in a second language. And there's a, somewhat more than cursory, background check.

All we could figure is that lazy/nervous recruiters weren't offering the chance to the recruits. They assumed that the black kids couldn't pass, and perhaps that, were they offered the idea of something glamorous, and then had it fade away, they'd elect to not join the army.

And that seems to be true, across the board. There were very few blacks in the other services student detachments either.

So even in a place which has some very good ways of dealing with race (and the Army has some very good ways of dealing with race), can have this sort of blind spot, where subtle bits of bias creep in, and color the whole thing.