HIT HARDER! or You're STILL wrong... Mykel's Blog for October 2022

 

HIT HARDER!

or You're STILL Wrong,

Mykel's October 2022 Blog

by Mykel Board

There’s nothing wrong with a screw that a hammer can’t fix.

--Mongolian proverb

An Indian grandfather is talking to his grandson. He says it’s as if two wolves are fighting in his heart. One wolf is vengeful and angry, and the other wolf is understanding and kind. The young man asks his grandfather which wolf will win the fight in his heart. The grandfather answers, "The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.” — Pema Chodron

Violence is as American as apple pie – H. Rap Brown

There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice. - Charles-Louis de Secondat

-----

It’s that scene where Al Pacino sprays the room with bullets. You know.. the gritted teeth, the flying blood, the… what the fuck? He dissolves, the whole scene dissolves into little boxes… stuttering picture… squares shifting… a jigsaw puzzle from hell.

I sit up… lean over … smash my fist against the side fo the TV. CHUMP! CHUMP! CHUMP! It only makes the picture worse. I get out of bed… pad barefoot to the kitchen… a frying pan… that should do it. WHACK! WHACK… A scar appears on the side of the TV. The black metal frame glints silver. Scarface has completely disappeared… just a gray screen… not black… the TV is on… but gray… refusing to show color.

To the closet! A hammer! WaTOOM! WaTOOM! WaTOOM! The TV glass cracks, sprays itself over the bed… Somewhere a small spark ignites.

Flash to someplace in Alabama: I can’t remember the town’s name… a small town. It’s on the news. A 20-something year old guy shot his family. Body count: Mom, Dad, older Sister, and much younger brother.

The sheriff is making a statement. “We believe we have the perpetrator in custody. He has a record… convicted of a crime with a gun. He only served a year for that crime. If he was still in jail, like he should have been, that family would be alive today.”

OUCH! I just slammed the heel of my palm into my forehead. How can people think that way? It’s like fixing a TV with a hammer if your fist doesn’t work.

If people commit crimes after being released from jail, it doesn’t mean that they should spend more time in jail. It means JAILS DON’T WORK! Jail takes away homes, jobs, friends, dignity. What’s left after getting out? CRIME! That’s what.

What it comes down to is that, in America, jail isn’t to cure or prevent crime. Jail is to make the victims of crimes feel better. Jail is about revenge… codenamed justice or being held accountable. Often it’s a training camp… and the only place inmates will feel comfortable in their future lives. Prison is HOME.

Now what happens when the victims become the judges and juries. Any idea of justice flies out the window like my errant TV.

Take the January 6 fratboy riot at the capitol. They’re planning to overthrow the government… with bear spray? They’re violent insurrectionists... with plastic zip ties? Seems to me that insurrectionists shoot people They use guns. Only one person was shot at the capitol… and she was shot by the cops.

Congressional trials by victims? You bet your horned hat. Congress will throw the book (and encourage local jurisdictions to throw several years) at these guys. Boo hoo hoo. Some congressfolks had to hide in a bomb shelter. Big fuckin’ deal! But the victims are the judges and jury.

FLASH: imagine that the newly formed Amazon Workers Union, has a rebellion... a piss-in... creating a stream of urine-soaked inventory to call attention to Amazon’s refusal to give time off for its drivers to use the bathroom. Workers rebel. Pissing on books and kitchenware and whatever else Amazon sends trucking through America.

Now imagine the pissers are rounded up… dicks and twats milked for DNA matching with what’s found on the products destroyed. And, get this, the jury is made up of Amazon’s board of directors. And the judge? You guessed it: JEFF BEZOS!

That’s what happened in Washington with the rioters. A couple windows broken… some furniture moved… that’s it! But a former president’s home is raided. One of the rioters gets 7 years in prison! News programs scream “It was revolution,” as if George Washington carried plastic twisties with him.

In 1968, in Chicago, the Yippies and others came together to wreck the Democratic Convention and call for REVOLUTION. I was among them. There was lots of publicity… no one went to jail. An no Democrat had to hide under their Chicago desks.

In 2022 Who conducts the congressional inquiry? Why the Congressfolks themselves. Anti-abortion, pro-Iraqi War, 90% Trump supporter and Congresswoman Elizabeth Cheney wields the gavel. Suddenly, she’s the heroine… the love of the Democrats. Principles be damned… THEY ATTACKED US! VICTIMS RULE.

REVENGE!

If this riot were in a school, you’d hardly hear about it. If it were at Amazon headquarters, you probably would be cheering on the perps! (I would be!) But in Washington, where the “victims” become the judge and jury, you switch sides.

Google “slap on the wrist” and you’ll find dozens of complaints about punishments that aren’t severe enough. Try “revolving door justice” and you’ll get the same.

REVENGE! REVENGE! REVENGE!

It’s not a Department of Corrections… but a Department of Punishment.

The calls for vengeance… usually known by its drag name justice… come from all sides. Depending on how the press frames the crime, those calls come from the left, right and center. George Bush the First was elected by videos of a black guy with an Afro going round and round in a revolving door.

More punishment. More blood! It’s the American way. The World Trade Center is destroyed by Saudis… Well, attack Iraq! All those people died. SOMEBODY’S got to pay, right?

In 2020, the black guy wasn’t going around a revolving door. He was under a cop’s knee. This time the calls came from the other side, but they were no less hateful and demanding.

Black Lives Matter is right. I marched on their first demonstration that year. I still support them. People need to see victims of crime… NOT to have revenge against the criminals, but to prevent the crime in the first place. It is so much more important to have awareness that some groups of people have been considered disposable, than it is to have one or two scapegoats for a system gone wrong.

You think the cries for Donald Trump to be “imprisoned for his crimes” are because people want him to be rehabilitated????

I remember when the cops broke into Jello Biafra’s house… tearing the place apart looking for pornography to help their case against a graphic record insert. We were rightly horrified that the cops smash the door to someone’s house without their permission... just tear up the place... steal documents… electronics, and then be free to use what they steal to press charges instead of being prosecuted themselves for the destruction.

But let it happen to someone you don’t like. And a cheer goes up. Let it happen to someone accused of fomenting false conspiracies. False conspiracies grow from the opposing side. Did you know that the FBI found Trump was selling US nuclear weapons-making instructions to the Russians? Can you get more evil than that?

Of course, no one found anything like that. The closest we get was a MAYBE that the president took home some papers on the nuclear capabilities of other countries… nothing about how to make atomic bombs with ammonia and old lightbulbs. But people will believe anything if it fits the narrative.

So the news stations that reported that the president took home American nuclear secrets apologized when they were proven wrong. Yeah right. Did you get calls from THE OTHER SIDE for something called the CONSTITUTION which says people should be secure in their homes? You bet your MSNBC you didn’t! HATE rules the day! More cheers and emails in my inbox telling me how wonderful Liz Cheney is and how much she needs me.

That woman is so cold that an ice cube wouldn’t melt in her ass. That woman, who according to PoliticsThatWork opposes taxing businesses, consumer protection, environmental protection, financial sector regulation, gun control, public health, humane immigration policy, labor rights and wages, lgbt rights, racial equality, taxing the wealthy, countering Russian interference, women's rights and supports big business, and war whenever possible.

She needs me?

People who should be opposed to everything she stands for… are suddenly in love with her. Why? Because she’s getting revenge on somebody they HATE. 

These days they say HATE is a crime. You can even be arrest for it. But the law-writers pick and choose their hate. You’re not allowed to do that.

See you in hell.

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→ Four strikes and you’re out dept: As more states stupidly fight crime with baseball-like “three strikes and you’re out” laws, those laws make even judges cry.
    Timothy Jackson was caught shoplifting a $159 jacket from a New Orleans department store. At the time Jackson was a 36-year-old restaurant cook with a sixth-grade education and a drug addiction problem.
    Since this was not Jackson’s first offense, the Louisiana Court made use of his “criminal past”, (3 robbery-without-violence convictions, one as a child), and sentenced him as a fourth-strike offender.

The judge wrote, “This sentence is constitutionally excessive in that it is grossly out of proportion to the seriousness of the offense.” Unfortunately, she was unable to deviate from the mandatory life sentence without parole required by law.

→ Hey! That’s Jeff Bezos’ tuna dept: The ACLU reports that in Texas, in 2010, Larry Dayries stole a tuna sandwich from Whole Foods while wielding a knife. He had prior convictions for burglary and theft, so the sandwich incident landed him a 70-year sentence. Larry will be 111 at the end of his sentence.
    Yeah, sure he’ll be 111. He’ll be DEAD at the end of his sentence.

See you in hell, redux,

MB

THE NATION AGAIN

I’m a long-time subscriber to the The Nation. It’s the only lefty publication that I find myself not only agreeing with, but also getting inspiration from. There are two articles in the current issue I’d like to recommend herel Strangely, when I post this stuff on facebook, no one looks at it. My “friends” would just rather call me a “Trumpist” or a “Republican” for all the times I don’t follow the party line.

One article is a great one (though I disagree with some parts of it, of course). It’s about “How the US leads by helping other people kill each other.” There’s also a good one about Liz Cheney, with a slightly different point of view from mine.

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

First take Sid Yiddish. There’s a great interview with him on YouTube. You can check it out here.

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes again with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. MYKEL'S JULY 2020 BLOG VOLUME 1 OR SACRIFICE by Mykel Board

YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S JULY 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 1

OR

SACRIFICE

by Mykel Board

Suffering ceases to be suffering in some way at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice. --Viktor E. Frankl

Love is not a feeling of happiness. Love is a willingness to sacrifice.

--Michael Novak

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.
--Albert Schweitzer

The Aztecs use an intricate knife. Its wooden handle curls in on itself… so it bulges at the back, like a huge snail with its tail attached to the blade… and the blade… ah the blade. Not metal but stone… heavy, nearly a foot long… chipped to two razor sharp edges and a needle tip point.

Pan back from the knife. Up… up… up… until both pyramids… sun and moon come into sharp focus. Pan closer… Shift to the Sun Pyramid...Flat topped… 248 steps...base to the top. A priest waits at the top of the pyramid. At the bottom, hundreds of people gather. You might think it was an Apache pow-wow for all the feathers, though the blue and gold chest plates and loin cloths might make you wonder.

At the front of the crowd, a mother holds her daughter’s hand. The child, about 10 years old, looks up at her and speaks.

[I translate for readers who do not speak Aztec.]

“Mommy,” she says, “I’m scared.” Tears drip down the side of her face. Mother releases the girl’s hand to wipe away the tears.

“Don’t be frightened,” says Mother. “It’s a sublime thing you’re doing. You’re bringing us health, good harvest, a happy future. You’re doing great things for us. You should be proud, not scared.”

“It’s time,” says a man, dressed slightly different from the rest… more gold… with a headpiece that somehow looks Egyptian.

“Yes,” says the mother, “it’s time…. and remember it’s a beautiful thing you’re doing for all of us.”

Mother takes her daughter’s left hand with her right. Together they climb, step-by-step, the 242 steps of the pyramid. At the top, Mother brings her virgin daughter to a little wooden platform… constructed in the center of the flat space on the top of the pyramid.

“You must lie down now,” she says to the girl. “I will leave. The priest knows what to do. Remember... I love you. And you are doing a great thing.”

The little girl sniffs back a sob, clenches her teeth, and closes her eyes. Tears form under the closed eyes and drip down the sides of her head. She lies down.

The priest kneels next to the platform. He holds the stone knife in both hands.

At the base of the pyramid, people shout. “Huitzilopochtli! Huitzilopochtli! Accept our sacrifice. We love you! Grant us peace and good harvest.”

Hands open, the priest raises the knife toward the sky, as if showing it to God. Then he takes the handle in both hands, and, holding tightly, plunges it into the chest of the little girl.

She screams... a high horrible scream… a scream heard 247 steps below… as the blood flows from the girl’s chest down her sides… from the platform to the top of the pyramid.

The screams fade. The priest presses the knife back into the young girl and slices downward… opening a slit… in the girl’s belly.

He sets the knife next to him, directly on the pyramid. Then… he reaches both hands into the slit. Finding the heart, he pulls down, and pinches off the veins and arteries that attach the organ to the girl’s body. When free, he raises the severed heart above his head… letting the fresh blood drip onto his body.

“This is for you, Huitzilopochtli,” he shouts to the sky, “Thank you for keeping us. Let this blood of a virgin be our sacrifice to you. Preserve us for another year. Give us a good harvest and victory in battle. Thank you, God. You are our savior.”

The people at the base of the pyramid cheer…. Then become quiet…. They are satisfied.

Barbaric?

That’s what you think… waiting at the base of your own pyramid. There is something human that demands a sacrifice. Soldiers are praised for making “the ultimate sacrifice.” We are urged to self-sacrifice… the firefighters website says, Self-Sacrifice Is A Firefighter’s Oath.

Parents sacrifice their freedom for the sake of their children. Pedestrians wear masks that sacrifice their comfort (and maybe their individual health) for the sake of the community.

But how about sacrifices like the Aztec little girl? Certainly we don’t sacrifice human beings for some vague principle, right?

You bet your stone knife we do. Our court system… the entire idea of “justice” is based on human sacrifice. Do you think there was any way that Harvey Weinstein could have gotten an objective trial anywhere in America? An innocent verdict would have caused riots. I don’t know if he was guilty or not. It’s my guess… but only my guess… that his accusers saw one thing and he saw something else. That’s beside the point.

Even if he were as innocent of forcible rape as I am of the Kennedy assassination, he still would have been convicted. The gods (goddesses) of #metoo needed a human sacrifice. They needed someone… (actually some ones… I count Bill Cosby among their victims) to be slaughtered on the pyramid… someone for the public to see… someone to bring them good fortune in their future ventures. Guilt or innocence have nothing to do with it.

Before Weinstein… before most of my readers were born… was the Vietnam war... a horrible American atrocity. US planes dropped firebombs on men, women, children… civilians all. Massacre was the name of the game as soldiers collected oriental ears as souvenirs.

In one place, Mi Li, someone caught it on film… hard to do in pre-cellphone days. An entire town massacred. The carnage caught by the camera.

Lieutenant William Calley, was brought up… court martialed… there were posters of the massacre. He killed babies! Though convicted, Calley only spent 3 years...not in jail, but under “house arrest”… like Martha Stewart.

There was outrage. How could someone get away with that? Calley was a murderer! He should spend the rest of his life behind bars. Hey buckaroos! He was a soldier. Soldiers kill people. That’s their job. But Calley was supposed to be the sacrifice for all the evil done by ALL the soldiers... the sacrifice to public opinion… That one didn’t work out.

It’s 2020 and you’ve seen the picture: Officer Derek Chauvin, his knee on the neck of George Floyd as Floyd chokes out “I can’t breathe.” I don’t need to reproduce the picture, you’ve seen it on every TV channel, on every page of social media, on every poster in every march. My pal, Bob Black, believes he’ll get off scot-free… or with a 3-year slap, like Lt. Calley. I think he will be both scotless and freeless.

I think he’ll be a human sacrifice to the gods of Black Lives Matter. A legal knife to the heart to satisfy the call for blood (under the term justice… another word for blood). From what we’ve seen, he is guilty. We certainly have more evidence than did the Harvey Weinstein jury. But that’s not the point.

After this sacrifice, people will cheer, then be quiet. Things will go back to what they were. Cops will be soldiers… whose job it is to kill. Nothing will change about police or policing. One person (maybe with a few others) will be offered up to the God of public order shouting at the base of the pyramid. They will be satisfied.

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

→ Music dept: The Boston Typewriter Orchestra has been performing its unique brand of music throughout New England since 2004 and will now be releasing its first vinyl album later this summer. Self-proclaimed conductor Tim Devin and a group of friends founded the ensemble as a joke. After premiering at Boston's Art Beat Festival, the idea took off. Using vintage machines to rhythmically clack, roll, spin and bang out "music," the typist-musicians say different models produce different sounds. "A Smith-Corona Galaxy 12 has a power space function that makes a nice metallic clang sound," explained one of the members.
I wrote my first column for Maximum Rock’n’Roll on a Smith Corona.

→ Something Fishy About This Dept: The Daily Star reports that a 30-year-old man turned up at Zhaoqing First People's Hospital in Guangdong, China, on June 3 suffering from abdominal pain. Doctors performed a series of scans before discovering a whole freshwater fish in the man's rectum.
How’d that get there?

The man explained that he had “accidentally sat on it.”
"Do you think I'm an idiot?" one of the doctors replied.

The spiny fins of the Mozambique tilapia had caused ruptures in the man's intestine and had to be removed through his abdomen by surgery.

→ The weirdest year in history continues dept: You may have heard this one on TV. A huge plume of Sahara Desert dust that drifted across the Atlantic Ocean has reached the southeastern United States.

This plume, which the National Weather Service (NWS) expects to blanket the U.S. Southeast and Puerto Rico, is the biggest in at least the past 50 years.

The dust outbreak is "by far the most extreme of the MODIS satellite record — our most detailed, continuous record of global dust back to 2002," tweeted Michael Lowry, an atmospheric scientist.

I wonder how long before they discover that the dust carries with it a new virus, spread through the eyes, that can only be stopped with a blindfold. Stay tuned for a state-by-state report on the blindfold laws. Actually, that might be cool. The REALLY blind folks would be the only ones who could get around!

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog

And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

NEW: Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

– See you in hell,

Mykel

You're Still Wrong, June 2020 Volume 2... NO LIVES MATTER

You're Still Wrong, June 2020 Volume 2 or NO LIVES MATTER

YOU'RE STILL WRONG.. 

MYKEL'S JUNE 2020 BLOG

VOLUME 2

OR

no lives matter

by Mykel Board

I grew up in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia has a really rough police-brutality history. I grew up in a neighborhood where it was very clear that the police were "them" and we were "us". --Will Smith

The grinding of the intellect is for most people as painful as a dentist’s drill. --Leonard Woolf

View from the operating table… looking up at the bright light… all faces masked... like the line at the grocery store during an epidemic… peering down.

“Looks like an aneurysm,” says one face… a man with bushy eyebrows.

“Yeah,” says another, “let’s go in… hand the drill to Dr. Unfahig.”

A nurse, short, brown skin visible around her slightly-oriental eyes, takes what looks like a large luger… with a drillbit at the end... and hands it to Unfahig. The doctor’s hand shakes as he takes the drill from her.

“But… but… but…” he says from behind his mask. “I can’t do this. I’m a dentist.”

“It’s part of the job,” says the man with the bushy eyebrows. “You’ll learn.”

Dr. Unfahig presses the tip of the drillbit against the patient’s temple, feeling for the soft spot… something to do with where Lincoln was shot. He knows from his dentistry class that the hole should be large, cleared of bacteria, go slow... narrow in… gradually widening.

He backs the drill off a bit… pulls the trigger… a high-pitched whine fills the room. He moves the drill to the patient’s temple and pushes it forward… there is blood… a lot of it.

Get it?

You would not demand that a dentist be a competent brain surgeon. Yet you complain when a cop… in what has become a branch of the military… doesn’t function as a mental health officer, a crowd controller, a peace-maker, a domestic dispute arbitrator, a spy, a detective, a public censor, an alcohol and drug abuse preventer, a run-away teen fetcher, and, in the past, a slave-returner.

Training for cops is how to protect yourself… how to use a gun… how to capture people and hold them so they won’t hurt you… all the skills you learn in the military. You fight for each other. Those on the barrel end of the gun are THE ENEMY.

And when the naked schizophrenic walks down the street with a screwdriver… who gets called? The trained doctors from the local looney-bin? No! The cops get called, and they do what they are trained to do… KILL PEOPLE. Winning the war requires killing the enemy… That’s what they’re trained to do. NO LIVES MATTER. Beating the enemy is what matters.

From one side, you hear ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards), from the other side you hear… No, cops are good guys and they have to be allowed to do what’s necessary to control criminals… And from a third side you hear, “Cops are just human… like you and me. There are good ones and bad apples. The bad apples must be punished.”

All of this is WRONG! Police are not the problem. POLICING is the problem. Liberals were horrified when Trump threatened to call in the army to support the police. Sure, we wouldn’t want to bring in young guys in uniforms with guns, would we? Yo! That’s what we have ALREADY!

The dad-was-a-soldier, the poor, the uneducated, the unable-to-work-elsewhere, the angry, the true-believers who really want to help. These are the soldiers… AND these are the cops. Giving mostly narrowly-educated people guns and telling them to “enforce the law” is like giving a dentist a drill and telling him to perform a brain operation.

People were horrified when Minneapolis defunded (abolished) the police force, but that is what needs to be done. We need, domestic negotiators, loony-handlers, substance recovery experts, anger-managers, cats-in-trees-removers, old-lady crossing the street helpers… and the list goes on. We don’t need cops.

- end-

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at god@mykelboard.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

→ The Loony Patrol dept: If you need another reason to have a group of mental health workers rather than cops, WKRG in West Florida reports a man is accused of going on a “crime spree” that included getting naked at a flea market, stealing a car, breaking into a home, and ripping someone’s mailbox out of the ground. Sure, jail is the best place for someone like that, don’t you think? They don’t call it the Department of Corrections for nothing.

→ Corona for the lungs, fries for the heart dept: As Corona winds down in Europe, the damage done to the lungs has to be made up for. Why not have some heart problems?

Romain Cools, secretary-general of industry group Belgapom, told Reuters . “We know Belgians like their fries, it’s intangible heritage... our frying culture... so we ask Belgians to consume an extra portion of fries to allow us to process more potatoes and to avoid food waste.”

That’s the spirit… avoid food waste… just fry it up… and eat it.

→ This Bud’s For You dept: Jennie Stejna, of Easton Mass is a 103-year-old woman who recently survived a bout with the coronavirus says USA today.

As Stejna’s condition worsened, the family called her to say what they thought were their final goodbyes. When her son-in-law, asked whether Stejna was ready to go to heaven, she replied, “Hell yes.” But on May 13, granddaughter Shelley Gunn said she got good news — Stejna had recovered. The staff gave the aged survivor an ice cold Bud Lite to celebrate. It was something she loved but hadn’t had in a long time. 

 – See you all in hell, Mykel

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog

And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

NEW: Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

And oh yeah, fittingly with this blog, I found a 1991 piece I wrote for THE MOWER zine in Germany. It's about VIOLENCE. You can read it at https://mykelsoldies.blogspot.com/2020/06/violence-in-mower-germany-1991.html