July 15, 2013: 52 Wedding Aniversary

Yup, 52 years and still going. Our love relationship has many unique features that has made the long haul possible, and my three books detail some of those factors, so this is no place to discuss them. When rough patches occurred we didn't abandon ship like so many people do. We worked through them rather than divorced. Patience and forgiveness was the key.

The Zimmerman trial is over . The jury of six women concluded he was not guilty, to the consternation of many. The defense team outwitted the prosecutor team. They did it by seizing the narrative, like the Republicans do from the Democrats. The defense made it seem that the true aggressor in the encounter that rainy night was Trayvon Martin, not the bigger guy with the gun. The tactic worked because Martin wasn't at the trial to give his side of the story. Nobody saw what really happened so Zimmerman was allowed to frame the story to his advantage. He became the victim and so self defense was his prerogative as they grappled on the sidewalk.The cornerstone of the jury's decision was the right wing notion of "stand-your-ground" law in Florida. The death became a justifiable homicide, when so many things pointed  toward Zimmerman initiating the contact. As one of the prosecutor said, " You shot him not because you had to, but because you wanted to." On seeing Martin he called him "another fucking thug," when he knew absolutely nothing about the kid, other than he was black. But oddly, the Judge would not allow the word "racial" to be used when it was clear Zimmerman was profiling Trayvon as automatically suspicious because of the color of his skin. There have been protest around the country but I doubt anything will come of them.

I wish they was something new to say about the political scene, especially in regard to the Republicans, but they just keep going from bad to worse. The core of hard-nosed Republicans in the House are like a rock rolling downhill. Like during the Bill Clinton's second term, they are determined to undercut or block every bill Obama or the senate puts forward. They are proud to be the Do-Nothing Party. At a time when so many things need to be fixed they want to shrink the government to incapacity. A week or so ago the Demos were furious with the House because the Farm Bill they passed  not only fattened the subsidies for the corporate farmers and removed all risk from farming, they jettisoned nutrition and food stamps. The reason: they want to cut more funds out of those programs, if they even deal with them. The two things have been linked for decades but no more. Many Demos spoke against the ploy, but the republicans just yawned and showed the same indifference and ignorance as they did to the poor.

It also appears that the Immigration Bill may not pass either. The senate bill is comprehensive but the House see it as too big, too complicated and that it should be slowed down. They want to cut it up into pieces and pass one piece at a time. Most important to them is the money they want to spend on border fortifications, including 20,000 more agents to patrol the border. And of course they believe that 11 million Latinos don't deserve amnesty or a path to citizenship. God, even G.W. Bush came out in favor of the bill, asking Republicans to show a "compassionate spirit." Fat chance that will happen.