Author: Larry Jones

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ICE Out

Alex Pretti is dead because he tried to help a woman . . .

. . .who’d been shoved to the pavement by masked, heavily armed federal agents. Maybe he didn’t mean it, but his act of kindness made the ICE agents look bad, so they pepper-sprayed him, gang-dragged him to the ground, beat him, took his (legal) gun, and shot him ten times. If you’ve ever been taken down and pounded by four or five bruisers in tactical gear, you know that Alex was confused and afraid in his last few seconds. My heart goes out to him.

But that’s not the worst part.

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revision99 is 20

I guess I should mention that this blog turned 20 years old last month.

It’s true that I haven’t been writing much for the past few years, but then you haven’t been reading much for a lot longer than that. Anyway, there’s a lot of good writing and clever back-and-forth in the archives (look over on the right sidebar, where it says The Complete revision99 Archive). */

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The Students Are Revolting (Again)

In response to the Vietnam war,

…students protested on college campuses across the country. Protest spread to the “civilian” population — people who were not students, but agreed that the war was wrong and had to be stopped at any cost. I was one of the students who chanted, sat in, boycotted and marched. In 1967 I took part in the giant peace march that extended all the way across the city of San Francisco. There had been violence at some other events, but this one, while enormous, remained peaceful.

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Survey Says…?

One of the three giant credit reporting agencies (Experian) has been badgering me lately to “let them know how they’re doing,” by taking an online survey.

Of course, their survey is about 90% marketing, trying to get me to sign up for additional so-called services, AND it was easily the longest online survey I’ve ever seen. Normally I ignore this crap from big rich corporations, partly because I know they don’t read them or care what I think anyway, but today I was feeling a little feisty so I decided to tell them what I think. Most of the questions had multiple choice answers, along the lines of “Are we… a.) Good b.) Great or c.) Fabulous?” But there was one place where I could write free-form what I think. Here’s what I wrote:

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Colin Powell, 1937 – 2021

I was meaning to leave poor Colin Powell alone today — and all future days, too — but I am just the teensiest bit weary of the continuous eulogizing that’s been going on all day.

Photo: Brittanica.com

Powell was a young man who — like far too many of our young men — thought that the best way to solve a problem was by violence. How else do you explain his love for the military? And no matter how much his friends declare him a man of peace, a man who “understood that war was a last resort,” he spent his life in wars in various places around the world, as a young officer and as a four-star general, all of them of extremely dubious value to his country, unless you count gratuitous ass-kicking as “value.”

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The Boys in the Band

Last evening I went out to see The Emperors, one of my favorite local bands.

I saw them for the first time at a high school dance in 1963. I was a new Californian, awkward and shy. I was aware that there was such a thing as dance steps, but I didn’t know any of them. I’m not sure why I went to that dance, but looking back I think I must have been cajoled into it by some friends who had my best interest at heart and thought it would do me good to get out of my shell.

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American Rescue Plan vs. GOP Tax Giveaway of 2017

You may be hearing a lot of Republican bullshit…

…about how President Biden’s about-to-be approved American Rescue Plan is being “shoved down the throat” of the helpless American taxpayer, who of course is totally against its many wasteful elements. But how does it stack up against the Trump Tax Giveaway Act of 2017, which was passed with no negotiation and no Democratic votes? Well, both bills cost us about the same amount – 1.9 trillion dollars. Other than that, if we put them side by side it looks like this:

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There’s More to Biden’s Covid Bill Than the Price Tag

Image swiped from somebody’s Facebook page

If you watch television, read the paper or listen to the news on the radio…

…you could be forgiven if you thought there was absolutely nothing to know about President Biden’s covid relief bill other than how much it’s going to cost. One point nine trillion dollars! That’s almost two trillion dollars! So expensive! Every single news account I’ve heard or read for the past month has called it “President Biden’s one point nine trillion dollar covid relief package, emphasizing “trillion” every time. No one calls it “The American Rescue Plan,” which is its name, after all.

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In the Name of Love

Mary Wilson, a former member of The Supremes, is escorted after singing the national anthem in Detroit on April 4, 2019.
Photo: Carlos Osorio / AP

Today a loving goodbye to Ms. Mary Wilson, who has died at the age of 76.

I’ve been hearing snippets of her work with The Supremes all day, and it reminded me again the importance of the Motown contribution to the music so many millions of us grew up with. It was, as they said, “The Sound of Young America. Wilson “only” sang backup behind Diana Ross, but she did it perfectly, with poise and grace as the group cranked out hit after hit in the 60s and 70s. That’s her in the foreground of the thumbnail below, although in the video she’s on the right (Diana’s left). We miss you already, Mary.

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