Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, June 14, 2020
through
Saturday, June 20, 2020
It’s Saturday, June 20, 2020
Welcome to the 802nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 First Lead Picture
Lindsay Yazzolino, advisor to Echobatix
Adds greatly to the direction and progress of Echobatix
1.0A Second Lead Picture
Gary Bartos, inventor, software engineer, pioneer in assistive technology
Has great ideas and high hopes
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2.0 Commentary
I’ve spent some time over the last several months huddling with
Gary Bartos, founder of Echobatix,
a man and a company dedicated to providing assistive technology to blind people.
Along the way I’ve also had the honor to hang a couple of times with Lindsay Yazzolino, herself an advocate for the blind and an advisor to Echobatix.
Gary is pushing the envelope on a lot of good stuff and needs visually impaired people to fill out a survey.
Hoping if qualified you’ll participate starting by reading Gary’s letter in today’s section 5.0 Mail.
Not forgetting Juneteenth.
Will cover it tomorrow.
It’s never too late.
A hot stretch has finally arrived.
We on the coast are spared the excesses of it.
But we truly, truly welcome the ‘80s’.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first;
Be not discouraged
- keep on -
there are divine things, well envelop'd;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
~Walt Whitman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from our dear friend, Gary B:
Echobatix is developing an indoor navigation system for the blind, the
Deafblind, and those with low vision.
The system will guide people through familiar and unfamiliar places by
complementing the use of a cane, guide dog, and
other existing orientation and mobility skills.
During the current lockdown we can't meet in person to conduct user
tests.
We're asking blind and visually impaired people to take a survey
to help us define which features are most important for daily use. We
welcome your feedback and hope to start a dialogue about what you want.
The survey has 8 questions. Respondents typically need 6 to 9 minutes to
answer, though someone who adds comments may need a few more minutes.
The survey is short and focuses on individual features rather than on
the system as a whole. In time we'll reveal more about the system and
about Echobatix.
Here is the link to SurveyMonkey where you can take the survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Echobatix_features_1e
Thank you from all of us at Echobatix!
Gary Bartos
Founder
Echobatix, LLC
http://www.echobatix.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Echobatix/
https://twitter.com/echobatix
Blog Meister responds: Even if few qualify to take the survey your activities deserve to be widely known.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
In advance of a visit of a vegan friend, I prepared an heirloom tomato salad, roasted asparagus, and made a Pesto sauce without cheese.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Assistive technology (AT) is assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities or the elderly population.
People who have disabilities often have difficulty performing activities of daily living (ADLs) independently, or even with assistance.
ADLs are self-care activities that include toileting, mobility (ambulation), eating, bathing, dressing, grooming, and personal device care.
Assistive technology can ameliorate the effects of disabilities that limit the ability to perform ADLs.
Assistive technology promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks they were formerly unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing, by providing enhancements to, or changing methods of interacting with, the technology needed to accomplish such tasks.
For example, wheelchairs provide independent mobility for those who cannot walk, while assistive eating devices can enable people who cannot feed themselves to do so.
Due to assistive technology, people with disabilities have an opportunity of a more positive and easygoing lifestyle, with an increase in "social participation," "security and control," and a greater chance to "reduce institutional costs without significantly increasing household expenses."
Braille technology is assistive technology which allows blind or visually impaired people to do common tasks such as writing, browsing the Internet, typing in Braille and printing in text, engaging in chat, downloading files, music, using electronic mail, burning music, and reading documents.
It also allows blind or visually impaired students to complete all assignments in school as the rest of sighted classmates and allows them take courses online.
It enables professionals to do their jobs and teachers to lecture using hardware and software applications.
The advances of Braille technology are meaningful because blind people can access more texts, books and libraries and it also facilitates the printing of Braille texts.
A reading machine is a piece of assistive technology that allows blind people to access printed materials. It scans text, converts the image into text by means of optical character recognition and uses a speech synthesizer to read out what it has found.
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It’s Friday, June 19, 2020
Welcome to the 801st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Walt Whitman, 1887
George C. Cox (1851–1903, photo) Adam Cuerden (1979-, restoration) -
This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsca.07549.
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2.0 Commentary
On an intellectual level my friend Grace liked
my tying Sacco and Vanzetti into the ongoing George Floyd street protests.
Social injustice being the connection.
On an emotional level,
she didn’t think Sacco and Vanzetti posters were appropriate.
The murder of G Floyd precipitated the explosions across the country and
any deviation from the single-mindedness would serve to dilute the impact.
In reference to the massacre in 1871 New Orleans of eleven Italians,
my friend Howard drove home the point that any lynching,
single or multiple, of any person, regardless of ethnicity,
was as horrible as the next.
His emphasis was that we should be concentrating on the ‘whys’ of it.
Gleaned from these comments is that
such issues are greatly nuanced and
take long, calm, all-embracing discussions to
formulate thoughts.
But the validity of the street protests is not
measured by the formulated thoughts that emerges from them, but
by their effectiveness in bringing the discussion of social justice
out of the lofty timelessness of academia into
action now.
Firings.
Arrests and trials.
Policy changes.
Compensation.
Now.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
This is what you should do:
love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches,
give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others,
hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people,
take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men
... re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book,
dismiss what insults your own soul, and
your very flesh shall be a great poem.
~Walt Whitman
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Checking my refrigerator on Tuesday I saw a leftover chicken carcass
having plenty of meat to make a meal.
Looking further: green onions, celery, yellow onions, and parsley.
Next day, on my mid-morning walkabout I bought a carrot.
In the afternoon, before my 4.00pm class started,
I took out a tub of chicken stock waiting in my freezer and
put all the ingredients together to make a delicious chicken soup.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist.
A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works.
Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.
His work was controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality.
Whitman's own life came under scrutiny for his presumed homosexuality.
Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. At age 11, he left formal schooling to go to work.
As a child and through much of his career he resided in Brooklyn.
Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money.
The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic.
He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892.
During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C. and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded.
His poetry often focused on both loss and healing.
Two of his well known poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", were written on the death of Abraham Lincoln.
After a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined.
When he died at age 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong.
Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe argued: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ...
He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him."
Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet ... He is America."
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It’s Thursday, June 18, 2020
Welcome to the 800th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus
Sebastiano del Piombo
This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy
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2.0 Commentary
Eight hundred posts.
That’s a lot.
Wow!
I’m referencing Sally C’s letter below when I record this.
Never have such brave and honorable men,
as those who fought in the Confederate Army,
fought for a cause so violently in contradiction to the law of God, and
the Natural Law of Man,
as slavery, and
please don’t litter our earth with pronunciations of ‘states’ rights’.
Slavery was the issue.
The only issue.
Now I see a huge difference between a statue of George Washington, a major slave owner, and
a statue of Robert E. Lee who, before the war made the point moot, planned to free his slaves.
Despite their personal morality, I say No! to Lee and Yes! to George W.
Washington’s fight was for independence from Britain and more personal freedom for the colonists.
His victory brought us that.
Acknowledging that the slavery issue was not addressed by the Revolutionary war.
During the Civil War Lee fought for Virginia’s freedom which would have left that vile institution, slavery, intact and strengthened.
So despite the good intentions of the people of the South who erected statues to Confederate soldiers to extol their bravery and honor,
the reality is that they stand as symbols of slavery.
Terribly offensive and should be removed.
I would replace statues of Christopher Columbus with Sacco and Vanzetti.
Not because I equate Columbus with Lee, I don’t.
Columbus’ overriding purpose of his venture was discovery.
And he did.
A whole new world.
He deserves great praise and honor for that.
Astronauts, those explorers.
What came after, exploitation and subjugation and extermination, is separate.
As an American of Italian descent
I would replace his statue because
his experience has absolutely nothing to do with my experience.
He was from a different country.
He married a Portuguese woman; had a Castilian mistress.
He spoke Ligurian, a French/Italian dialect, not Dante’s Italian.
There was no Italy.
There was Genoa.
Sicily.
No Italy.
Not until 400 years later.
Columbus was Genovese.
Now Genoa is part of Italy.
Big deal.
Four hundred years later Sacco and Vanzetti were from Italy.
We Italos shared the same anti-Italian prejudices they faced.
The same poverty.
Their anarchism and social activism permeated Italian political discussion.
After their electrocution they were laid out on Hanover Street in the North End, for crying out loud.
Their massive funeral procession started out from the North End.
Their cause, social justice, is today being played out on the streets of cities across the United States.
George Floyd thy name is Nicola Sacco;
it’s Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
Let’s get with the times, my fellows.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Happiness, not in another place but
this place...
not for another hour, but
this hour.
~Walt Whitman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from my dear friend, Sally,
Responding to the Blogmeister’s call to replace the statue of Christopher Columbus with
that of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.
Dear Dom,
Most of this furor over racism and statues and so forth seems to me to be distractions, aimed at keeping us all divided. What concerns me greatly are the emotional knee-jerk reactions by leaders and citizens alike, without making any effort to look at the complete roots and facts of any given issue.
I take no issue with people wanting to engage in discussion about whether or not to remove a statue or other monument, but I implore them to discuss everything about it, unearth the history about it, stop applying 21st Century mores to it, recognize why it was erected in the first place and what was the intent of its creator(s) and financial backers (the Lincoln Emancipation statue being funded by blacks, by the way; do we want to dismiss their interests and intent, when they can't defend themselves anymore?), and accept that our history is rarely pretty, but if we erase evidence of it, we will rampage in deliberate ignorance against reality until the end of forever.
Every people of every race across this globe has practiced slavery, since time immemorial. No one has ever cornered the market of innocence, or ever will. Monuments are not erected to celebrate evil, but to celebrate greatness. It would be nice if we could find a perfect person to raise a monument to, but no one has ever been perfect and no one ever will be. I prefer to focus on what great people have done for good than condemn them for their warts. To quote a famous man, the only perfect one that ever walked this earth, "Let him who has no sin cast the first stone."
Dennis Prager, a Jewish commentator, implores us to exercise "the wisdom to compare America with other countries, not, as the foolish, nihilistic left does, to utopia," which is unattainable. Specifically asking what should be taught in Jewish and Christian schools, he continues, "... when discussing Washington or Jefferson having slaves, if we are to dismiss the greatness of two of the founders of the freest country in human history ... then we should do likewise to the Jewish patriarchs. Moses had a fellow Israelite executed for publicly violating the Sabbath. Should his sculpture be removed from the Supreme Court? Will Jewish day schools start dismissing the greatness of all our ancestors? If they start doing this to Washington and Jefferson, they should be consistent." ... "While never ignoring the flaws of giants, remember why they were giants."
All I ask is that decisions of any import not be made while engulfed in the throes of emotions, for emotional decisions usually generate regret. Let's aim for education before action. If the educated then determine that removal of a monument is appropriate, then so be it.
Sally
Blog Meister responds: Well thought out, my dear and despite my disagreement, it deserves to be heard.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Shared dinner with cousin Lauren.
A plate of gnocchi with short ribs, chicken wings, steak, pork tenderloin.
Delicious.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Christopher Columbus (31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian master navigator and admiral who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that opened the way for European exploration, exploitation, and colonization of the Americas.
His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
Columbus's early life is somewhat obscure, but scholars generally agree that he was born in the Republic of Genoa and spoke a dialect of Ligurian as his first language.
He went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles (and possibly Iceland) and as far south as what is now Ghana.
He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo and was based in Lisbon for several years, but later took a Castilian mistress; he had one son with each woman.
Though largely self-educated, Columbus was widely read in geography, astronomy, and history.
He formulated a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade.
Following persistent lobbying, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II agreed to sponsor a journey west, in the name of the Crown of Castile.
Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships, and after a stopover in the Canary Islands made landfall in the Americas on 12 October (later celebrated as Columbus Day).
His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani; its exact location is uncertain.
Columbus subsequently visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti—the first European settlement in the Americas since the Norse colonies nearly 500 years earlier.
He arrived back in Castile in early 1493, bringing a number of captive natives with him.
Word of his voyages soon spread throughout Europe.
Columbus made three further voyages to the New World, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in 1498, and the eastern coast of Central America in 1502. Many of the names he gave to geographical features—particularly islands—are still in use.
He continued to seek a passage to the East Indies, and the extent to which he was aware that the Americas were a wholly separate landmass is uncertain.
He never clearly renounced his belief that he had reached the Far East and gave the name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. Columbus's strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits that he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.
Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, helping create the modern Western world.
The transfers between the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Columbian exchange, and the period of human habitation in the Americas prior to his arrival is referred to as the Pre-Columbian era.
Columbus's legacy continues to be debated.
He was widely venerated in the centuries after his death, but public perceptions have changed as recent scholars have given greater attention to negative aspects of his life, such as his enslavement of the indigenous population in his quest for gold and his brutal subjugation of the Taíno people, leading to their near-extinction, as well as allegations of tyranny towards Spanish colonists.
Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia and the name Columbia, which is used as a personification for the United States, and appears in many place names there.
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It’s Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Welcome to the 799th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
London protest against the Sacco and Vanzetti death sentence
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2.0 Commentary
At our friend’s Howard’s suggestion
I thought to look inside myself to ask
when I became aware of Sacco and Vanzetti.
In a Catholic grammar school we were taught about Christopher Columbus.
Sacco and Vanzetti were never mentioned.
Never.
They anarchists; we intensely Catholic.
Same thing during my two years in a Catholic high school and
two more years in a Catholic seminary.
So my first in depth exposure to Sacco and Vanzetti was in college.
But I wasn’t really impacted until I wrote my book on the North End, Dom’s, an Odyssey.
Being an attorney as well as a restaurateur I was instantly attracted to their story.
I was an early Dukakis supporter,
giving one of his first fund raising dinners in his gubernatorial campaign.
The day after his election he had a small victory dinner at Dom’s to thank us.
Later in his tenure, on August 23, 1977, the 50th anniversary of the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, Governor Michael S. Dukakis issued a proclamation declaring had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names" and that
August 23 will henceforth be Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti Memorial Day.
Proud I supported him.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and
shadows will fall behind you.
~Walt Whitman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Howard D:
Hi Dom
That’s an admirable undertaking. I mean yours.
I think the most effective telling might be, in capsule form and if it’s relevant in terms of what occurred possibly to change your sentiments from whatever they may have been to what they are now. Even if your sense of the “rightness” of having a CC statue in the ‘hood, while you were growing up, was understood and not discussed or examined among you and your peers, something brought you to your sentiments today.
It would be more dramatic, of course, if you can remember how you felt – in any dimension – about Christopher Columbus as you grew up and these sentiments (challenged in your mind or not) changed with time… And even if you were always a radical and progressive in your thinking, and even as a child Sacco & Vanzenti were heroes, that would be interesting to hear, especially if it flew in the face of common or familial sentiment.
In other words, make it personal, before you make it political. Give your point of view human dimension.
Blog Meister responds: Thank you, my friend. Will do. See today’s commentary.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Had leftover roast chicken on Monday night.
It held up.
With broccoli gratinee.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Two guards delivering a $16,000 payroll to a shoe factory in South Braintree, Ma were robbed and killed.
Two Italian immigrants, laborers and followers of anarchist Luigi Galliani, were arrested, tried, and convicted despite scant, questionable physical evidence and multiple eyewitnesses who placed them both elsewhere at the time of the crime.
The facts of the case did not get the defendants convicted.
They were anarchists, labor activists, draft dodgers, and Italians and that cocktail convicted them.
They languished in prison while talented people fought for a new trial, filing motion after motion, denied, denied, denied.
Although initially castigated for their philosophies and draft dodging public opinion around the world shifted their favor.
People increasingly saw in their case a trial blind to justice.
Protests, demonstrations, throughout the United States and in countries on every continent called for a new trial.
The convicted men, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had become a cause célèbre.
By the time the first switch was thrown on the electric chair, shortly after midnight on Aug. 23, 1927, an enormous crowd had assembled outside the Charlestown prison, which was surrounded by 800 police. By 12:30, word was out: they were dead.
Their lives were immortalized by Woody Guthrie.
Their story told and retold.
Finally came Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts saying “I think today there’s a very bright consensus about this. A terrible injustice was done."
And so on the 50th anniversary of their execution, Dukakis issued an official proclamation reading that a grave injustice had been done.
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It’s Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Welcome to the 798th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Anarchist trial defendants Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left) and Nicola Sacco (right)
Unknown author - Boston Public Library
Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left), handcuffed to Nicola Sacco (right).
Dedham, Massachusetts Superior Court, 1923.
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2.0 Commentary
So with the controversy over Christopher Columbus statuary back in the news,
perhaps those of us in whole or part tracing our ancestry back to Italy
might consider how tenuous the man is to our Italian-American experience.
He was born in Genoa,
at the time both a country and a world apart from the provinces of southern Italy from which most Italian immigrants to America came,
certainly we of Boston’s North End.
He discovered the Americas under the aegis of the Spanish monarchy.
Although noteworthy, his achievement had nothing to do with our own experience in America, which came four hundred years later.
As non-pertinent to our experience as Marco Polo, an equally courageous and accomplished traveling Italian man with closer ties to Italy than Columbus’.
Or Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer-map maker after whom America was named.
To the point, statuary commemorating the Italian experience in America, I point first to the current controversies swamping our news that stem from deep-seated American prejudices.
I propose that we ride this wave of a demand for equality by paying homage to Italians who were also victims of American hatred.
Puts us in the forefront of the righteous turmoil in the streets.
Shows solidarity with those striving for justice.
Because Italians experienced similar prejudice; similar hatred.
Because Italians suffered similarly, if not for as long nor as far-reaching.
If I were to ask which ethnic group fell victim to the largest mass lynching in American history
what would you answer?
In New Orleans, La., on March14, 1891, 19 Italian-Americans were detained in prison despite that six of them had been acquitted of their accused crimes and the trials of another three of them had terminated in mistrials which should have led to their release.
But holding them in jail gave the New Orleans power brokers time to organize.
On that date, a mob of thousands stormed the prison and killed eleven of the nineteen .
It was the largest single mass lynching in American history.
Anti-Italian sentiment ran rampant in New Orleans in no small measure because the Italian immigrants and the native black population got along very well.
How fitting that we join forces today.
Who for Italian-Americans to coalesce around?
The two most famous victims of the hatred rampant then in the American judicial system.
Whose execution set off protests around the world.
Whose persecution strikes closest to home: they were laid out in the Langone Funeral Home on Hanover Street in Boston’s North End.
Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco who were executed because
they were anarchists and because
they were Italian.
It’s noteworthy that the guilty verdict was handed down in 1921.
Three year later the federal government passed legislation that all but shut off the flow of immigrants from Italy, that onerous and hateful statute staying in place for forty years.
I propose that we give his due place in history to Christopher Columbus.
But acknowledging that his exploits have nothing to do with the Italian-American experience,
let’s give serious consideration to the installation of a statue to the symbols of our American persecution,
to the two men who bore the weight of the American establishment’s hatred towards us,
Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
It's funny how close the past is,
sometimes.
Sometimes it seems as if you could almost reach out and touch it.
Only who really wants to?
~Stephen King
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11.0 Thumbnails
Nicola Sacco (April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were two Italian migrant anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States.
Seven years later, they were electrocuted in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison.
Both men adhered to an anarchist movement.
After a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge.
Anti-Italianism, anti-immigrant, and anti-Anarchist bias were suspected as having heavily influenced the verdict.
A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee.
The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pretrial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti became the center of one of the largest causes célèbres in modern history.
In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Montevideo, Johannesburg, and Auckland.
Celebrated writers, artists, and academics pleaded for their pardon or for a new trial.
Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter argued for their innocence in a widely read Atlantic Monthly article that was later published in book form.
The two were scheduled to die in April 1927, accelerating the outcry.
Responding to a massive influx of telegrams urging their pardon, Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a three-man commission to investigate the case.
After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict.
Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair just after midnight on August 23, 1927.
Subsequent riots destroyed property in Paris, London, and other cities.
Investigations in the aftermath of the executions continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
The publication of the men's letters, containing eloquent professions of innocence, intensified belief in their wrongful execution.
Additional ballistics tests and incriminating statements by the men's acquaintances have clouded the case.
On August 23, 1977—the 50th anniversary of the executions—Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names".
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It’s Monday, June 15, 2020
Welcome to the 797th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Psilocybe semilanceata
Arp - This image is Image Number 6514 at Mushroom Observer, a source for mycological images.
Fruit bodies of the hallucinogenic mushroom Psilocybe semilanceata.
Specimens photographed in Sweden.
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2.0 Commentary
Nice weather the norm now.
Thank heavens.
Daily now we see an increase in social activity.
The trains have more passengers.
More restaurants are opening featuring outdoor dining.
More cafes and stores are opening.
The Prudential Center shows more visitors.
It’s still painfully slow but
the Baker-Walsh strategy seems to be working.
Let’s pray.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Books are the perfect entertainment:
no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent.
What I wonder is why
everybody doesn't carry a book around for
those inevitable dead spots in life.
~Stephen King
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
Oh, my! My dear writerly friends, here are a few marvelous words that should be redeemed from obscurity.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-for-messes/strubbly
I am familiar only with "gaumy," which my family has used for generations. I've never known how it is spelled, however. My younger brother includes it in emails to me, spelling it "gormy." I'll let him know!
I love "strubbly!" My hair texture seems to be changing as I grow older, and I may end up entirely strubbly before long.
Sally
Blog Meister responds: Deliciously obscure. Thanks, my dear.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday night I had my first dinner party since March 13.
The menu began with an Antipasto.
Followed by basiati pasta with seasoned ricotta cheese and a Gravy;
then a course of the Gravy meats: short ribs, meatballs, pork roast; and chicken wings; then
Slow-roast chicken. Ending with an
Ana-made vegan chocolate cake with a rich dense frosting.
The food and the company were terrific.
So happy we’re opening up a bit.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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Psilocybin is a psychedelic drug produced naturally by psilocybin mushrooms, commonly known as "magic mushrooms".
In the United States, it is federally classified as a Schedule I controlled substance that has "no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."
The drug was banned by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.
In February 2019, Troy Farah of Wired reported on two grassroots movements in Oregon and the city of Denver, Colorado, that were pushing for the decriminalization of psilocybin.
Advocates for decriminalizing psilocybin have formed their movement based on the rapid legalization of cannabis in the United States.
Decriminalization efforts have not included synthetic psychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and MDMA.[5]
In May 2018, President Donald Trump signed the Right to Try Act, with certain doctors suggesting that it allows terminally-ill patients to use psychedelics for treatment.
In October 2018, the Food and Drug Administration granted psilocybin "breakthrough therapy" status for research.
The drug was granted this status again in November 2019.
Decriminalization advocates have cited research that suggests that the drug is non-addictive and causes a low amount of emergency visits when compared to other illegal drugs.
Other research has indicated the potential beneficial use of psilocybin in treating treatment-resistant depression and nicotine dependence.
Advocates have also claimed that decriminalization would lift law enforcement resources to focus on high-priority issues.
American author Michael Pollan, writing for The New York Times, criticized the movement for being a premature push while research on psilocybin was not done.
He wrote, "We still have a lot to learn about the immense power and potential risk of these molecules, not to mention the consequences of unrestricted use."
Pollan acknowledged the low-risks of the drug's use, but cited a survey that nearly eight percent of people needed psychiatric treatment after experiencing a bad trip.
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It’s Sunday, June 14, 2020
Welcome to the 796th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Three images of Grace at Forcella’s
And the BlogMeister drinking a glass of Arneis.
For more details, see 6.0 Dinner/Recipes below.
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2.0 Commentary
Friday’s walk down Newbury Street revealed a street waking up.
Feet swung from mattress to floor.
Stretching beginning.
After several days of phase two of our reopening,
we are showing signs of reopening.
Personally immediately significant openings:
the Blue Bottle cafes;
the outdoor patio at Thinking Cup;
La Voile;
Limoncello and Forcella.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
When it comes to the past,
everyone writes fiction.
~Stephen King
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Ann H:
Saw the Limoncello space - wonderful
Just dined at Serafino with the ladies- very nice
Ann Heimlicher
Boston Spot-Lite, Inc.
"The Concierge Specialists"
50 Commonwealth Avenue #501
Boston, MA 02116
617-247-0001
visit our website at www.bostonspotlite.com
Blog Meister responds: The one downtown?
To which Ann responded:
No. On Newbury St.
Blog Meister responds: Thanks for the heads up.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Had dinner at Forcella’s last night,
in the outdoor café space they share with Limoncello in the rear of the building.
With Grace.
We shared a Linguini Pesto, the sauce excellent, the pasta cooked a perfect al dente.
Grace had a melange of vegetables;
I, the carnivore, a Pork Porterhouse steak.
Terrific.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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Juneteenth (a portmanteau of "June" and "nineteenth"), also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Cel-Liberation Day, is an American holiday celebrated on June 19.
It memorializes June 19, 1865, when Union general Gordon Granger read orders in Galveston, Texas, that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two-and-a-half years earlier, and the American Civil War had ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most “remote" of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent.
Celebrations date to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas.
It spread across the South and became more commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s.
Often the centerpiece was a food festival.
During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the focus became the story of struggle for postwar civil rights.
The 1970s returned the focus to African American freedom and arts.
By the 21st century, Juneteenth was celebrated in most major cities across the United States.
Activists are pushing Congress to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday.
Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in 47 of the 50 states.
Modern observance is primarily in local celebrations.
Traditions include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing traditional songs such as "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "Lift Every Voice and Sing", and reading of works by noted African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou.
Celebrations include rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, park parties, historical reenactments, and Miss Juneteenth contests.
The Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles, of Coahuila, Mexico, also celebrate Juneteenth.
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It’s Friday,
Welcome to the 794th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Corner view of the Equitable Building in downtown Manhattan at Broadway and Cedar.
Fletcher6 - Own work
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2.0 Commentary
The new good neighbor,
walking,
on approaching a neighbor from the opposite direction,
raises her mask to fully cover her face.
Recently on Newbury Street,
walking towards another walker,
I so raised my mask.
As we passed, she nodded in approbation and appreciation.
Society getting on a new page.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real.
I know that, and
I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers,
it will never be able to grab my ankle.
~Stephen King
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Ate last night at La Voile on Newbury St.
A tasting of foie gras and pate de foie gras,
sea bass and
Blanquettes de veau
with ample appropriate wines,
perfect.
A perfect re-entry into the world of dining out.
Ninety dollars per person, including tax and tip.
Kind of standard in Boston for a quality meal.
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The Equitable Building is an office skyscraper located at 120 Broadway between Pine and Cedar Streets in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City.
The building is 555 feet tall, with 38 stories, and was the largest office building in the world by floor area upon its completion, with 1.2 million square feet of floor space.
It replaced the Equitable Life Building, the previous headquarters of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, which burned down in 1912.
The skyscraper was designed by Ernest R. Graham in the neoclassical style, with Peirce Anderson as the architect-in-charge.
The building's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital.
Upon its completion, the Equitable Building was controversial because of its lack of setbacks, which in turn does not allow sunlight to reach the surrounding ground.
This contributed to the adoption of the first modern building and zoning restrictions on vertical structures in Manhattan, the 1916 Zoning Resolution.
The Equitable Building was developed by a group led by T. Coleman du Pont; work on the Equitable Building started in 1913 and was completed in 1915.
Upon opening, it hosted a variety of tenants, and by the 1920s, was the most valuable building in New York City.
Though the edifice was named after the Equitable Life Insurance Company, the company occupied a small portion of the building until it moved out during 1960.
The owner as of 2020, Silverstein Properties, purchased the Equitable Building in 1980 and renovated it multiple times.
The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978 and a New York City landmark in 1996.
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It’s Thursday,
Welcome to the 794th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Kipling in 1895
Elliott & Fry -
Portrait of Rudyard Kipling from the biography Rudyard Kipling by John Palmer
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2.0 Commentary
A poem introduced to me as a Law School Freshman,
in my book on Torts.
Loved it.
Some years later I wanted to read it again.
Couldn’t remember it’s name or even its author.
Drove me crazy.
Have been searching for it for years.
Until publication of a compilation of Rudyard Kipling poems called Barrack Room Ballads.
I had a suspicion.
Had examined so many Kipling volumes in search for the poem, but
not that one.
So I paid a premium for a copy of the book and paged through it.
Eureka!
Here it is, Kipling’s ode to the time-honored literary tradition,
plagiarism.
Prelude
When ’Omer smote ‘is bloomin’ lyre,
He’d ‘eard men sing by land an’ sea,
An’ what he thought ‘e might require,
‘E went and took – the same as me.
The market girls an’ fishermen,
The shepherds an’ the sailors, too,
They’d ‘eard old songs turn up again,
But kep’ it quiet—same as you!
They knew ‘e stole; ‘e knew they knowed.
They didn’t tell, nor make a fuss.
But winked at ‘Omer down the road,
And ‘e winked back – the same as us.
First published in the Seven Seas
London and New York, 1896
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries,
hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent.
What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around
for those inevitable dead spots in life.
~Stephen King
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Tuesday night I made another hamburger.
Getting to like them.
_____________________________________
7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist.
He was born in India, which inspired much of his work.
Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888).
His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910).
He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story.
His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift."
Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. Henry James said, "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known."
In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date.
He was also sounded for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both.
Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.
Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age.
The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century.
George Orwell saw Kipling as "a jingo imperialist," who was "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting."
Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled.
But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognized as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced.
That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with."
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It’s Wednesday,
Welcome to the 793rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Dedicated Fitbit retail stand stocked with different Fitbit Flex trackers
Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine - Own work
Fitbit stand for Fitbit Flex
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2.0 Commentary
The white population of America has spent
so much time. money, and effort
to make our black population feel inferior,
feel like things will never change for them,
feel like this is as good as it gets,
and punishing them when they get uppity,
when they deviate from the role we’ve assigned them,
we have so undermined their confidence,
that a black person cannot face white society,
white authority,
with equanimity.
Black individuals, like Helene Wright in Toni Morrison’s Sula,
when faced by a white train conductor,
quail and succumb or
lash out angrily,
sometimes violently,
in manners that white people find incomprehensible.
The solution?
Dramatic personal changes within each of us white people,
combined with penitence, love, understanding, and
the smoothing of the ways forward.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
When his life was ruined,
his family killed,
his farm destroyed,
Job knelt down on the ground and
yelled up to the heavens,
'Why god? Why me?' and
the thundering voice of God answered,
'There's just something about you that pisses me off.'
~Stephen King
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night I had a plate pf pasta with my Gravy.
Delicious.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Fitbit, Inc. is an American company headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Its products are activity trackers, smartwatches, wireless-enabled wearable technology devices that measure data such as the number of steps walked, heart rate, quality of sleep, steps climbed, and other personal metrics involved in fitness.
Alongside the activity trackers, Fitbit began offering a website and mobile app for iOS, Android and Windows 10 Mobile in 2014.
This allowed the trackers to sync to devices such as mobile phones via Bluetooth, or to a Bluetooth-equipped computer running Windows or MacOS.
Users now had the ability to log their food, activities, and weight, to track over time and set daily and weekly goals for themselves for steps, calories burned and consumed, and distance walked.
The app also offered a community page where users could challenge themselves and compete against other users.
The social element anticipated an increase in motivation, and found that users took an average of 700 more steps per day when they had friends on the app.
Users could also choose to share their progress pictures and achievement badges.
The first product released was the Fitbit Tracker.
The company released its Fitbit Ionic smartwatch in October 2017 and a redesigned, lower-priced version in 2018 called the Versa.
The Fitbit Charge 3, a wristband health and fitness tracker introduced in October 2018, was the first device to feature an oxygen saturation (SPO2) sensor; however, as of January 2019, it was non-functional and Fitbit had not provided an implementation timeline.
The Fitbit Charge 3 comes with two different-sized bands: small and large.
The small is around between 5.5 - 7.1 inches and the large is 7.1- 8.7-inches.
Additionally, the screen is larger than the Charge 2 by approximately 40%.
Fitbit Charge 3 comes in two color combos: a Rose-Gold case with a Blue Grey band and a “Graphite Aluminum” screen case with a Black band.
On December 17, 2018, Fitbit released the Fitbit OS 3.0, which included an extended dashboard, quick logging for weight and water intake, and goal-based exercise mode.
The new extended on-device dashboard (Fitbit Today) would include more data regarding sleep, water intake and weight.
There are three versions of the Fitbit Versa, standard, Special, and Lite.
On December 19, 2018, Emirates NBD announced its support of Fitbit Pay, providing services to the app. Emirates NBD is the first bank in the Middle East to offer this service.
On December 20, 2018, Fitbit announced a running detection feature, enabling auto-pause and auto-stop. Additionally, Fitbit added a birdie goal celebration and new clock faces.
That same month, Fitbit added an API and open source tools to allow developers to better build apps for its smartwatch products.
On January 2, 2019, the company announced the release of the Fitbit Charge 3 in India.
Before October 2007, the company was previously named Healthy Metrics Research, Inc.
While these devices appear to increase physical activities,
there is little evidence that they improve health outcomes.
According to an IDC report published on March 10, 2020, Fitbit is considered the fifth largest wearable company in shipments as of 2019 with an 14.8% over year growth, behind Xiaomi and Apple.
Fitbit reports to have sold more than 100 million devices and have 28 million users.
In February 2018, Fitbit announced that it would be partnering with Adidas to release an Adidas-branded Fitbit Ionic.
The special edition Ionic was released on March 19, 2018.
In August 2018, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association announced a partnership with Fitbit in which BCBS will include Fitbit's wearables and fitness trackers in its Blue365 program.
In 2019, Google announced its intention to buy Fitbit for $2.1 billion.
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It’s Tuesday,
Welcome to the 792nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
George Perry Floyd Jr.
(October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African American man who died during a police arrest in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.
Protests in response to both Floyd's death, and more broadly to police violence against other black people, quickly spread across the United States and internationally.
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2.0 Commentary
Had thought , “Monday night, first night, I must eat out.”
Booked my table.
Looked for a partner.
Waited impatiently for it to arrive.
Then someone reminded me I have class At 4.00pm.
Female relationships.
Am well-prepared.
Ooops!
No dinner out.
Don’t want a later reservation since it’s outdoor dining and
as warm as it may seem when you first sit,
temperatures drop quickly as the sun sets and
sitting still,
raising a glass does not qualify as activity, nor does
cutting a piece of meat,
sitting still also cools one down and
the combination often makes one uncomfortably cool outdoors.
And of course indoors is not an option right now.
So I cancelled.
Maybe tomorrow.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
The main mark of modern governments is that
we do not know who governs,
de facto any more than de jure.
We see the politician and not his backer;
still less the backer of the backer; or,
what is most important of all,
the banker of the backer.
~J. R. R. Tolkien
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Sunday night I made a chicken salad with the remains of my last roasted chicken.
I used a roll of ciabatta bread from Iggy’s.
Delicious.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Floyd was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and raised in Cuney Homes in the Third Ward of Houston, Texas.
Friends and family called him Perry and characterized him as a "gentle giant".
He was 6 ft 4 in tall and weighed 223 pounds at autopsy.
At Yates High School, Floyd played on the basketball team and helped lead the football team to the Texas state championships; he graduated in 1993.
He attended South Florida Community College for two years and played on its basketball team.
He transferred to Texas A&M University–Kingsville, where he also played basketball, before dropping out.
Floyd returned to Houston where he became an automotive customizer and played club basketball.
Beginning in 1994 he also performed as a rapper using the stage name "Big Floyd" in the hip hop group Screwed Up Click.
Floyd has been called an early contributor to the development of Houston's hip-hop scene.
He also was an informal community leader and mentor to young men.
After several arrests for theft and drug possession, Floyd was charged in 2007 with armed robbery in a home invasion; he agreed to a plea deal in 2009 and was sentenced to five years in prison.
He was paroled in 2013 after spending four years at the Diboll Unit.
After his release, he became involved with Resurrection Houston, a local ministry.
In 2014, he moved to the Minneapolis, Minnesota area to find work, like some close friends had done.
He worked as a truck driver and a bouncer and lived in St. Louis Park.
In 2017, he filmed an anti–gun violence video.
In 2020, he lost his security job because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He had five children, including two daughters who reside in Houston, ages 6 and 22, and an adult son in Bryan, Texas.
On May 25, 2020, Floyd was arrested on a charge of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a grocery store in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis.
According to the store clerk, the bill was an obvious fake and Floyd had refused to return the purchased cigarettes when challenged.
He died after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, pressed his knee to Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes during the arrest.
Floyd was handcuffed face down in the street, while two other officers further restrained Floyd and a fourth prevented onlookers from intervening.
For the last three of those minutes Floyd was motionless and had no pulse, but officers made no attempt to revive him.
Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd's neck as arriving emergency medical technicians attempted to treat him.
The official autopsy found Floyd died of cardiopulmonary arrest caused by subdual and restraint.
The toxicologist found several psychoactive substances or metabolites in his system, and the medical examiner noted fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use as significantly contributory to his death, though not the cause.
A second autopsy, commissioned by Floyd's family and performed by Michael Baden, without access to various tissue and fluid samples, found that the "evidence is consistent with mechanical asphyxia as the cause" of death, with neck compression restricting blood flow to the brain, and back compression restricting breathing.
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It’s Monday,
Welcome to the 791st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Colin Kaepernick
Mike Morbeck - Flickr: Colin Kaepernick
San Francisco 49ers vs. Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on September 9, 2012. Photo by Mike Morbeck.
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2.0 Commentary
First week of phase two bodes well for reopening businesses.
Restaurants with the outside capacity for seating will enjoy
sunny weather and warm temperatures.
I am planning to have dinner at La Voile on Newbury St.
Hoping to entice someone to join me but
if I have to eat alone I will.
Am determined to be in first wave of dining out fandom.
What a thrill to listen to the apology of
that formerly arrogant, smug successful Commissioner of the NFL.
In divorcing himself from his former position he touched all bases; or rather
he employed all three phases of the game.
His should be the template for all future apologies.
We forgive you, Roger.
You did so well you left us no choice.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo.
The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger, they were.
And sometimes you didn't want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy?
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
~J. R. R. Tolkien
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
Heard from people who have been to Normandy to view the cemetery and the beaches.
Moving.
Attendance for this year’s remembrance was much subdued: corona.
Blog Meister responds: Never been myself but would like to participate once.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Had a rib eye steak on Saturday night.
Last steak I ate, several nights ago, was a dry-aged rib eye.
For those who can afford it, the price differential is well worth t.
Buy the dry-aged every time.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Colin Rand Kaepernick (born November 3, 1987) is an American civil rights activist and American football quarterback who is a free agent.
He played six seasons for the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League (NFL).
He is also a political activist, best known for kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racial inequality in the United States.
Kaepernick played college football for the University of Nevada where he was named the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Offensive Player of the Year twice and became the only player in NCAA Division I FBS history to amass 10,000 passing yards and 4,000 rushing yards in a career.
After graduating, he was selected by the 49ers in the second round of the 2011 NFL Draft. Kaepernick began his professional football career as a backup quarterback to Alex Smith, and became the 49ers' starter in the middle of the 2012 season after Smith suffered a concussion.
He then remained the team's starting quarterback for the rest of the season, leading the team to their first Super Bowl appearance since 1994.
During the 2013 season, his first full season as a starter, Kaepernick helped the 49ers reach the NFC Championship Game.
Over the next three seasons, Kaepernick lost and won back his starting job, with the 49ers missing the playoffs for three years consecutively.
In the 49ers' third preseason game in 2016, Kaepernick sat during the playing of the U.S. national anthem prior to the game, rather than stand as is customary, as a protest against racial injustice, police brutality and systematic oppression in the country.
The following week, and throughout the regular season, Kaepernick kneeled during the anthem.
The protests received highly polarized reactions, with some praising him and his stand against racism and others denouncing the protests.
The actions resulted in a wider protest movement, which intensified in September 2017 after President Donald Trump said that NFL owners should "fire" players who protest during the national anthem.
Kaepernick became a free agent after the season, but went unsigned.
The statistics website FiveThirtyEight concluded that "it’s obvious Kaepernick is being frozen out for his political opinions", calling it "extraordinary ... that a player like him can’t find a team", based on the observation that "no above-average quarterback [measured by the total quarterback rating] has been unemployed nearly as long as Kaepernick this offseason."
In November 2017, he filed a grievance against the NFL and its owners, accusing them of colluding to keep him out of the league. Kaepernick withdrew the grievance in February 2019 after reaching a confidential settlement with the NFL.
Kaepernick's protests received renewed attention in 2020 amid the George Floyd protests against police brutality and racism.
These nationwide protests mimicked Kaepernick's kneeling.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell put out a statement where he apologized for not listening to the concerns of African-American players.
The Times wrote that Goodell's "words were panned as hypocritical because of the league owners’ rejection of Kaepernick."
Michael Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated wrote at the time, "Mainstream white America is going to reconsider Kaepernick at some point — the way it reconsidered Muhammad Ali years after he refused to go to Vietnam, the way it reconsidered Jackie Robinson and Jack Johnson.
Progress comes in fits and starts, and this country tends to punish those who urge it to move faster.
The reconsideration of Kaepernick has begun."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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It’s Sunday,
Welcome to the 790th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
A LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel)
from the U.S. Coast Guard-manned USS Samuel Chase disembarks troops of Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division (the Big Red One) wading onto the Fox Green section of Omaha Beach (Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France) on the morning of June 6, 1944.
American soldiers encountered the newly formed German 352nd Division when landing. During the initial landing two-thirds of Company E became casualties.
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2.0 Commentary
Saturday: so exciting.
Gov. Baker due to speak this afternoon.
Phase Two: can we start it?
Looks likely, therein the excitement.
Of course, the devil is in…
So he will detail the restrictions and protocols of the reopenings.
Regardless of the list, the key word for Monday is “Go!”
Hopefully the excitement of life returning will
prompt us to behave wisely so that
in the following weeks we can draw a wider circle, for example,
restaurants serving only outdoor seating allowed to
open their interior dining space, at least partially.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
It simply isn't an adventure worth telling if
there aren't any dragons.
~J. R. R. Tolkien
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from college-days friend, Joyce C:
Read your recent blogs and I am happy your son is okay.
I will check out Conflicted. It sounds rather deep.
I have used my early mornings to write a novel. Just finished it this week. Both a relief and an emptiness.
Stay well.
Joyce Consolino Gatta
Blog Meister responds: I know the feeling.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Friday night I made a decent creamy mushroom sauce.
It was a first for me who shies from cream in my diet.
But
I had leftover roasted La Belle Patrimoine chicken breasts leftover and
I wanted a different approach and
Eataly has a 30% off sale on mushrooms and
I came across a decent-sounding creamy mushroom sauce recipe.
I have some changes to make; some proportions to tweak and then
I’ll share it.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy/political story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
Today we post Chapter 22 in which Dee presents to the world her personal take on Christian mysticism.
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Twitter, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
Here’s the link:
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
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11.0 Thumbnails
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II.
Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history.
The operation began the liberation of German-occupied France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.
Planning for the operation began in 1943.
In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings.
The weather on D-Day was far from ideal, and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the invasion planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that meant only a few days each month were deemed suitable.
Adolf Hitler placed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of German forces and of developing fortifications along the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an Allied invasion.
The amphibious landings were preceded by extensive aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight. Allied infantry and armored divisions began landing on the coast of France at 06:30.
The target 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.
Strong winds blew the landing craft east of their intended positions, particularly at Utah and Omaha. The men landed under heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous.
Casualties were heaviest at Omaha, with its high cliffs.
At Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns were cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold were disabled using specialized tanks.
The Allies failed to achieve any of their goals on the first day.
Carentan, St. Lô, and Bayeux remained in German hands, and Caen, a major objective, was not captured until 21 July.
Only two of the beaches (Juno and Gold) were linked on the first day, and all five beachheads were not connected until 12 June; however, the operation gained a foothold that the Allies gradually expanded over the coming months.
German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Allied casualties were documented for at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.
Museums, memorials, and war cemeteries in the area now host many visitors each year.
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12.0 Diary of the Surrender of a Private Car
It’s been five months since I sold my car.
In that time I have not once bemoaned being carless.
I have never had occasion to rent a car.
Have not used Uber/Lyft/taxi any more than I had in the past.
I have contributed to others’ vehicles, not more than $200.00.
Against that, I have saved $53.00 a day for 150 days.
Near $8,000.00.
And that has had an important impact on the availability of mad money.
Some for restaurants when they reopen.
20.0 Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Wikipedia for providing the blog with stories on a daily basis.
And to all those who write to us.
And to all those who follow us.
Thank you.