Different Slants

I published a true, inspirational story on this blog on July 4, 2008:

Depression, Despair and the Human Voice, https://www.differentslants.com/?p=72 

(If link doesn’t light up in blue, try cutting and pasting it)  

It has become one of the most visited stories on Rick’s and my blog, to date.  Many, many people must know someone who suffers from the tyranny of depression, and that frank, unfiltered stories can help explain what it actually feels like, from the inside out.

Here is one more incident that I left out of this story.   I am adding it at Christmas time, 2008, because it serves as a reminder of how good strangers can be.  Sometimes, we all need that. 

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There was a small fresh fruit and vegetable store in Hyde Park, in 1978.  It was under the Illinois Central Railroad tracks and did a good business with the commuters rushing to their jobs in Downtown Chicago.  There was a bright, colorful public mural of grapes, apples, pears, carrots and so on painted on the brick exterior wall of the shop that faced my newsstand, just west of it, across Lake Park Avenue.

The owner was a short, stocky, Black and muscular man.  He worked hard, all the time.  We didn’t talk, but we nodded to each other when we caught each other’s eye.  I knew his name was James. He was kind of reserved.  I assumed he was wrapped up in his own world of business and other problems and not in any way aware of what I was involved with in the hostile world outside of intimate Hyde Park.  He had a formality about him, a kind of dignity.  But we weren’t friends.

The only indication James might have had that I was doing something besides selling newspapers on that corner was when my enormous black and white Gulliver’s Periodicals truck was parked outside of the store loading or unloading bundles of  thousands of current magazines.  The brick newsstand also served as Gulliver’s base of operations, initially. (Read on …)

Smoke Stacks, originally uploaded by richard_munden.

Now that oil prices have fallen again, the Hummers and monster trucks are coming back on the road and Mr. Pickens is delaying his wind power project. What can we do to counter this trend?

I suggest a carbon tax.

The tax would be collected at the carbon source – the wellhead, terminal or mine – and be based on the carbon content of the mined product. No emissions-monitoring is required.  Natural gas would effectively be taxed at a lower rate per BTU than coal. The tax could be phased in at a published rate to give fuel users time to implement transitions to less carbon intensive forms of energy.  By phased in, I mean start low ($10/ton of carbon content?) and consistently and predictably increase the tax on an annual basis. (Read on …)

Significant Follow-up Developments Since The original Story Was written:

My story, (click on the high-lighted link below to read my original story)

The 1915 Armenian Genocide, The Turks, The Jews, America, Israel and the Only Way Out

about trying to resolve the nearly century old unresolved anger and emnity between the Armenians and the Turks, was first published fourteen months ago in October 2007.  I wrote an even-handed proposal suggesting what I felt was fair and possible to make a difference in that part of the world, but I had no real belief that anything would change.

The forces and attitudes on both sides of the historical dispute were so frozen in their positions, concerning the truth about the history of those times early in 1900, that any effort to soften all the rigidity seemed impossible for anyone to make a difference.  Then this happened:

This  difficult-to-believe story was published in The New York Times on Tuesday, December16, 2008:

Turkey: Apology for Armenian Killings

A group of about 200 prominent Turkish intellectuals issued an apology on the Internet on Monday for the World War I-era massacres of Armenians in Turkey.

The group of academics, journalists, writers and artists avoided using the contentious term “genocide,” referring to the killings of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman Turk government from 1915 to 1918 as a “great catastrophe.”

While Turkey does not deny that many died, it has rejected the word genocide and has prosecuted people who have publicly acknowledged Turkish culpability for it.  The statement said in part:

I reject this injustice, share in the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers, and apologize for them.”

There were no threats of legal action from the government on Monday. (Read on …)

Charlie Newman, a Jersey guy, will get all this immediately. For him, I know I don’t have to spell it out.

But for all you other guys, well, it went down like this…

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Once a week, I go to this little place, a small cafe on the northwest side of Chicago–not the glamorous part–and join a rotating group of guys, and girls, to read my poetry and short stories at an “open mike” kind of place.  This venue, cleverly named: The Cafe, is so intimate that there actually isn’t any microphone.

People are quiet and respectful of the spoken word, and so no amplification is necessary.  It is a civilized two hours in our assorted lives, and the outside world doesn’t intrude in out efforts to communicate whatever is in our hearts or loins or whatever.  By around ten o’ clock, when we are done and go on our separate ways, there are hundreds of words scattered around the floor of the tiny stage, and Baki, the silent owner, sweeps them up.

Every week, one person is the “Feature” of the evening.  This means, instead of someone reading a few short pieces in seven minutes or so, one person has about twenty-five minutes to read a longer more complete work.  Some people have their poetry published by different small presses and they sell a few copies.

There are usually about a dozen people who show up to take part in this moment of culture, gradually, by the 8:30 PM starting time, sometimes a half a dozen more.  The place is so dimly lit, that if after a couple of beers, an affectionate couple decided to neck in a corner, near the bar, no one would notice.  Or if they did, well…that’s a kind of poetry, too.

Week after week, this gathering of diverse individuals occurs and the number of participants is always about the same, even though I believe I’ve seen perhaps fifty or sixty different faces that drop by on a particular night, over the time I’ve been coming to The Cafe. It’s kind of mysterious that the number stays the same, but things don’t have to make sense every single time you get involved with something.

Charlie Newman is the Master of Festivities and also reads his own stuff, but at a speed so fast, no one can be sure exactly what it was he was expressing.  Maybe he’s suggesting how fast life flies by and we better not miss it, but I’m just guessing that part. Charlie does his bit, and then introduces the first poet, and after that, by some Byzantine method only known to him, decides who follows that person on stage. (Read on …)