The Withered Rose of Spelman

An exceptional Spelman student (GPA 3.8) Jasmine Lynn was killed by stray bullet walking the campus of Clark Atlanta last week. Not knowing, not understanding, not deserving, not even being involved, simply walking, with the world as a vast stretch of graph paper which she stepped on the wrong square of to her death.

Clark Atlanta's campus is located less then a block away from ramshackle housing. A fight had broken out, according to the AJC between students and non-students to one edge of campus. A shot was fired, and hit none of the combatants but went flying straight to its random point where a non-entity, a non-involved, a speck of dust drifted along the edges, awaiting impact. In no time at all, she was every bit as much of an object as they likely saw her to be.

We all know that these neighborhoods have been through rough times, and much despair has been seen and felt, but despair is a part of life. We all know that the solutions for these neighborhoods are not simple, but that doesn't mean they and City Hall have an excuse not to try. Maybe they should look at their zoning, and maybe consider creating real jobs for these people instead of just giving them housing cheap. Maybe they should consider bringing more heavy industry back in to the city core; there are some good railroads near there - erect a siding and rezone the land. Just because it don't look pretty doesn't mean it isn't needed.

Further, I would say that all who engage in gang violence, and then excuse themselves with previous racial injustice, have salted their peoples wounds and spit in the face of those who have made progress. As long as no one can walk in your neighborhood, business cannot take root, and especially not the pedestrian level Main Street type development most likely to be owned by locals and hire locals and create a real sense of community and place in a neighborhood. As long as you humiliate your people by fulfilling their stereotypes, the stereotypes will continue. I'm not excusing those responsible for the stereotypes, I am merely stating the cold hard facts, and you can't control them, even if such were just. And as long as you make it you versus everyone else, we will continue to wither more flowers in despair, and no peace will be found, as kleptocracy and theft cannot create peace of any sort.

The students at Morehouse University, across the street, have distributed a shirt saying "Brotherhood, Sisterhood, Livelihood, Neighborhood." This action is very kind and graceful, and emotionally supportive, but the message may be too soft and ambiguous to even put a dent in the problem. To dent the problem, and eventually, break it, a clear consensus and ATTACK on the root of the struggle must be made, and what it comes down to is lawlessness, self-righteousness, and the inability of certain malefactors to understand or be responsible for their own actions. They don't even see that they are traitors, claiming to be at war for their side, but stabbing them in the back with their actions.

The love of violence is hated by Christ, as is the love of lawlessness, and with good reason. Authority is to be respected for the love of God and the love of others. Authority doesn't always do what's right, or do what's fair, or do even what is decent, but it will always exist, and the more you try to procrastinate in handing the reigns of government over, the more arbitrary, warlordish, and unjust it will become, until the good sheriff faces three brutes escaped from prison alone, only life doesn't work like a Hollywood Western. It works like Spellman and a beautiful young scholar named Jasmine Lynn, whose works on this earth will never be seen, and whose warmth and love will be unheard of now and forever on this here planet. Rest in Peace my lady. Rest in Peace. And the Lord be with you. And may those who ended your short but beautiful life in some way, either through punishment or through their own words and acts, help bring an end to this bloodshed, division and treason.

Ted Kennedy Announces Candidacy for President of Hell

With gracious thanks to BigFurHat over at iowntheworld.com for creating a fantastic image to go with this piece.

Hell, Circle 8.5 -- Just a week after his death, the greatest grafter of all time, former Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, announced today that he was running for president of the netherworld.

“This place is a disgrace,” Kennedy said, while bathing in boiling resin and drinking a fifth of Bushmills and getting a massage from a demon named Lilith. “It looks like it’s been run by Republicans. The pagans and unbaptized babies are out of work. The lustful have lost their libido. The gluttons are starving. The hoarders are giving their possessions away. The wrathful can’t stop apologizing. The heretics have found religion. The violent have become docile. The pimps have stopped wearing fedoras and purple suits. The flatterers have gone silent. The simonists have stopped selling pardons. The soothsayers have stopped making fortune cookies. The politicians have started giving back people’s money. The hypocrites have stopped living lies. Thieves are stealing only from themselves. Deceivers are being honest. Sowers of discord have become pacifists. Falsifiers have discovered truth. And the treacherous have become huggable teddy bears.

“It’s like Martha’s Vineyard down here. It must stop, and stop now. It’s embarrassing. What would they think above ground if anyone found out?”

Kennedy said he promises a typical liberal reform platform: “We’ll restore the redistribution of wealth, spread misery equally among all classes, harvest the brains of anyone who's not yet a zombie, and curtail all freedoms and enjoyments. Why, you can’t come to hell for a suntan!”

His running mate will be Yuri Andropov, once the Soviet premier and Kennedy’s old pen pal.

The former U.S. Senator, most known for his rotund physique and vicious political attacks and inability to drive over water, said he’s just the man to come in and clean up a realm beset by years of increasingly lackluster observance of the rules of inflicting excruciating torture and eternal pain on Hell’s dwellers.

“This place has so much sloth and lascivious behavior and enjoyment going on, you'd think it was the U.S. Senate chambers at midnight during a vote on economic stimulus,” Kennedy said.

His first order of business, Kennedy added, would be organizing all demons, an often fractious group of heathens who would just as soon chew each other’s scales off as collaborate, into a well-oiled political machine that can strong-arm the supporters of any opponent into throwing their evil charms behind him. He also said he’d release all of the whores from their shackles and put them to work, secretly, to entrap the current hierarchy of power in Hell in uncompromising positions, such as being kind and benevolent to strangers.

Kennedy has his work cut out for him. Back in the 1950s, after Joseph Stalin died and moved here, Adolf Hitler recruited him in an attempt to overthrow Satan and form a Communist-Fascist dictatorship, but Satan fought back, having his best Gorgons unleash parasitic worms to infect the brains of both mass murderers. They’ve been hanging from either side of a Tree of Death ever since, forced to face and curse one another for all eternity.

But that was back when Hell was a bad place to be, and even those closest to Baal say he just isn’t the same cruel devil he used to be.

“I think it’s the age thing,” said one of Satan’s confidants, a three-armed, four-legged demon with 47 eyes and four humans pierced through his tongue. “He’s been waiting to take over the earth for so long, he appears to be going soft. Plus, with guys like Kim Jong-Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. President Barack Obama around, Hell is kinda starting to look like valuable real estate.”

Beelzebub himself seemed flattered by the challenge, according to his spokesman, Richard “Ahhh” Gibbs (twin brother of the chief flak for Obama).

“Satan was very pleased when he found out Senator Kennedy would be coming here,” Gibbs said. “That’s why he offered him a position of prestige among the grafters. The President himself enjoys a turn in boiling resign now and then, and was even gracious enough to give Lilith, one of his concubines, to the good Senator as a welcome gift.

“But really, we don’t think it’s anything to worry about. I’m sure Satan and the senator can work things out this weekend when they plan to have a picnic near the Circle of Cocytus (“wailing river”), in Lower Hell.

“In fact, Mr. Kennedy is so kind he’s even offered to drive.”

DEVELOPING….

Cross-posted at Feed Your ADHD.