Keep your head up.

I haven't had time to contribute as much as I'd like, and I'd ideally like to be posting something everyday. But in keeping with a theme running through my May 19 and May 27 posts, it's worth noting that Tupac Shakur would be forty years old were he alive today.

Tupac! Would be forty!

Time does fly, doesn't it?

I can't help but wonder what the cultural and even political landscape would be like had he survived the stupidity that got him killed. Maybe had he lived the world wouldn't have learned its lesson, so it was inevitable that he had to be sacrificed, Jesus-like, for the rest of us to grow up. I personally hate the everything-happens-for-a-reason, let's-reduce-a-person's-death-to-our-own-life-lesson approach, but I suppose it's one way to make sense of senselessness.

It's hard not to dreamily guess at what a Tupac would have to say about these times in which we live. The man was so full of contradictions. For every Hit 'em Up there was a Keep Ya Head Up. For every spittle-hurling vitriolic battle interview a thoughtful expression of compassion and complexity.

I guess those of a mind to believe that there's a point to all this say things like "Everything happens for a reason" to avoid joining the rest of us who can do nothing but shake our heads and sigh.

Fuck the world indeed.

Gil Scott-Heron. April 1, 1949 - May 27, 2011.

Gil Scott-Heron died today. I don't know yet what was the cause of death, but that's another truth-teller in the grave too soon. At sixty-two years of age, forty-one years after the release of Small Talk at 125th and Lenox and forty after the groundbreaking Pieces of a Man, his words are still all too relevant and--as a nation in general--we have yet to listen. The Godfather of Rap, an unflinchingly prophetic critic of national entropy and persistent injustice, tragicomic to the bitter end. Listen to Gil Scott-Heron. I mean, listen to Gil Scott-Heron. May he rest in peace.

May 19.

May 19 is Malcolm X's birthday. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz would be turning 86 were he alive today. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be 82. Medgar Evers would be 85. Fred Hampton: 63. Bunchy Carter: 69.

All (and many others) were killed within a five year span at the peak of COINTELPRO's efforts to prevent the emergence of a "black messiah." That's not even conspiracy theory--that shit's in the file.

Their truncated efforts fomented the rumblings that Nixon used at the end of the 1960s to seize on fears of integration and black urban migration with the euphemism "Law and Order." That became Reagan's "Morning in America," with its wars on vague concepts and its rancid downward trickles.

But unless you grew up in a disenfranchised community with some sort of minority political agitation, making those connections is just not a valid part of the study of history. If it comes at all, most Americans will only ever get that part in college--and now the motherfuckers want to take that away. Intersections like these are not simple coincidences, folks: UC tuition might jump 32% if tax proposal fails, official says.  

Just because we can't point to some back room where one group of scary men in suits pulls all the world's strings doesn't mean the game's not rigged to work in the favor of a de facto aristocracy. 

How many investment bankers have you seen in handcuffs?

Maybe Ahab was right when he observed that "This whole act's immutably decreed." 

Maybe.

Midwest, Middle East...Madison, Tripoli...whatever.

Gentle reader, to borrow a line from one Mos Def, we are alive in amazing times. 

By way of context, and for the benefit of our future selves carelessly clicking through blog archives whilst avoiding more productive work, it's important to consider what filled the news cycle during this penultimate week of February 2011.

Qaddafi will likely be deposed.

A few days ago, longtime Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, in a defiant speech extolling his regime and condemning pro-democracy demonstrations in his oil-rich nation, claimed that anti-government protesters were high on hallucinogens. That's why they're protesting, as he continues to claim, and their actions are punishable by death.

To that end, he's imported foreign mercenaries to sniff out and kill anyone seemingly unsympathetic to his regime, while continuing to blame the ensuing chaos and violence on pro-democracy demonstrators. He's ordered airstrikes and heavy artillery turned on his own people, and has openly vowed to kill anyone who questions his rule. To date, some estimates have the death toll topping 1,000 (the lowest estimates exceed 300), homes have been ransacked, and rape and theft are rampant.

* * *

Walker might be impeached.

Stateside, in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker has proposed to eliminate collective bargaining rights for union-protected public employees, prompting angry demonstrations even from his former supporters (like the police union) and sending the state into a political tailspin. Unions have gone so far as to agree to all of the governor's proposed fiscal concessions, and yet--under the aegis of balancing the budget--Walker has rejected their proposals and decided to resort to unabashed union-busting.

Some Midwestern authorities have gone so far as to suggest that force--even deadly force--be used to break up peaceful protests in Wisconsin, and Governor Walker himself was caught on tape (thinking he was talking to one of his patrons in the Koch clan) considering employing "troublemakers" to taint the demonstrations, but lamenting that it's just so darned risky. 

* * *

Is it clear yet why these two stories make for useful juxtaposition? Good, because into this shit-storm has now stepped the crown prince of foot-mouth himself, Rick "The Ick" Santorum, likening Wisconsin's union-represented public employees to addicts "acting like their drug is being taken away from them."

Santorum will remain a choad.

See what he did there?

Never mind the idiotic insensitivity of such a statement and the cluelessness it reveals about both the issue at hand and the concerns of working Americans: how the hell does a career politician like this even make such phenomenal blunders? Does he not watch the news, does he not realize what he's aligned himself with rhetorically? Does he not understand the comparisons this invites, especially for someone as detestable as himself?

Maybe he doesn't. After all, the man has shown time and again that reality makes his brain hurt.

What makes my brain hurt is trying to understand how this guy is still considered a contender for the presidency. I mean, really, dear reader, if you're one of the five people I know to be following this blog, you're probably a pinko-commie-Nazi-homo-Muslim just like me, but appeal to your conservative friends and relatives and ask how such a thing is possible.

And if I do have any Republican readers, two things:

First, from me to you, as a person who disagrees with your ideology but respects your intelligence: how do people like Rick Santorum continue to loudly represent your party?

Second, from me to you, as a person largely dissatisfied with the Obama administration but who still considers it the least horrifying of all electable options for 2012: please nominate Rick Santorum for president. Please put all your support behind him, stick all the corporate-pandering and fear-mongering resources you can muster in his coffers, dedicate your party machinery to blasting his barbaric yawp over every roof and into every gutter as loudly as possible, give him Michelle Bachmann as a running mate, support their ticket with Sarah Palin rallies and Newt Gingrich interviews and Glen Beck chalkboard syllogisms...

I'm serious. Let Rick Santorum speak. The nation should hear what this dude has to say.

"Good morning, revolution, or good evening, revolution"

I slept like a log in El Mahalla El Kubra. That's notable because I'm a light sleeper everywhere else and Mahalla's possibly the noisiest place I've ever visited. When we arrived at the apartment that first night it was 3:30 am and one of the neighbors was using a mechanical grinder downstairs. He ground metal until around 4:15 when somebody finally demanded that he stop. It bought the neighborhood a couple of hours of silence before the fajr adhan, when every imam in every mosque in the crowded and densely-mosqued neighborhood of Ghamorheya took up a microphone and sounded his call over the rooftops for early morning prayers.

Ghamorheya, El Mahalla El Kubra, Egypt. August 18, 2010.

But most could sleep through that. The tuk-tuks and their incessant Arabic pop music were another matter entirely, as were the taxis with their customized horns, and by the time the propane salesmen came out banging on tanks with wrenches to compete with the calls of fish and fruit mongers, well, the streets were awake.

But I slept through it all somehow, and did so every day until well into the afternoon despite blistering heat and stifling humidity. Maybe I was just exhausted, or maybe the constant barrage of noise wove itself into the perfect texture so that all was just background and nothing really disruptive could ever break through. Or maybe I was poisoned by the dirty air.

In any case, I slept well in Mahalla. Better than I'd slept on the entire trip. Better than I usually sleep at home.

Still, the night terrors happened. Not that I would have known had nobody witnessed it, but about a week in, as I stuffed some foul and cucumber into a pita bread for lunch, Amo Abdalla cautiously asked, "Brian, what did you dream about that night?"

"What night?"

"The first night you were here. You jumped out of bed screaming."

Real concern, suppressed for a week, peeked through his notorious deadpan. Suddenly it hit me: it had happened that first night.

When we'd arrived Wesam had claimed the couch, insisting that he wouldn't let a guest not take bed, so I had ended up rooming with Amo Abdalla. I fell asleep quickly, but at some point one of my dreams had gripped me. I had probably felt a tickle in my throat from the bubbling of acid reflux due to the fact that I'd recently run out of Omeprazole. That's all it really takes. Most people cough in the night--I wake up thinking I'm choking to death.

Whatever the cause, I jumped out of bed screaming and awoke Amo Abdalla. He asked if I was ok and if I needed anything. I asked for a glass of water, and he obliged. I drank the water in a quick gulp and went right back to sleep as though nothing had happened, and Amo waited a week for the right moment to assuage his concern because he didn't want to embarrass me or make me feel uncomfortable.

I recently talked to someone about these persistent nightmares that have knocked me out of bed since I was a teenager. They're not nearly as persistent as they once were, and I have a handful of theories as to why that might be. I was told that I shouldn't read the news before going to bed because it makes me agitated. That might be so.

Recently the news I've watched and read has nearly all been about the goings-on in Egypt. It was nerve-racking at the end of January, and at points downright horrifying. Then it became hopeful, joyous, and inspiring. I don't think I've been having night terrors, but maybe someone will correct me in a week.

So as a compromise between my penchant for current events and my apparent need for less depressing fare, here's a touching video of Amo Abdalla paying tribute to his people. This keeps me tuned in and makes me smile.

Good night.


To Egypt: Abdalla's Address from Wesam Nassar on Vimeo.

Or good morning.