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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Bernie Goetz redux.

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Oh, man, too much overviewing of our nation’s exceptional ability to hate...

Adams is acting exactly as could be predicted. Apparently, our equally awesome governor has little more compassion for Neely than Adams has. Again, as expected.

Meanwhile, add to the list: Having an incredibly fucked up life while Black is a capital crime.

Did I say exceptional?

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May 4, 2023·edited May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

One of those posts I hate to “like.” (Because I hate that it needs even to be written.)

Well put, Roy.

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

I split my time these days between suburban Philly and New York (thank you, remote work), so I spend maybe around 10 days a month back home in NYC. I’m more likely to take cabs and Ubers than the train these days, but I’ll still ride once or twice a month. Drawing from that experience, I can say that the behaviors of my youth when riding the subway are still in effect: when someone is being loud and obnoxious for whatever reason, mental health crisis or otherwise, New Yorkers observe the time-honored traditions of 1) ignoring it and not making eye contact, 2) switching cars, or 3) simply getting off the fucking train if the situation looks like it’s about to escalate.

Apparently the provocation was Neely yelling that he was hungry and throwing his jacket on the floor. Seriously? I’ve been on trains where guys were urinating or masturbating, where fights broke out, where a mugging happened in plain view. Nobody got killed. And I think we all know if Neely had been white and the marine who killed him was Black, the vigilante would have been charged, his name, photo, and any unsavory thing he’d ever done dating back to childhood would be on the front page of the NY Post, and he certainly wouldn’t have been released from custody.

So of course conservatives love the Neely killing. They live in a Death Wish 24/7 world, and they want revenge against people they never see but whose mere existence enrages them.

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Bernhard Goetz, anyone?

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May 4, 2023·edited May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

You gotta look on the bright side -

Is it really a bad thing that all this shit talk keeps the Rubes home in Cousinfuck Hollow?

It's not just the folks in Cousinfuck. A dozen years or so ago an acquaintance of my wife's, a nice lady who worked at Sears, received a promotion into management and had to go to Chicago to the Sears headquarters for training. Being simple people from the suburbs of Dayton her and her husband lost their shit about having to go to the murder capital of the world. They were really freaked because she was flying up and couldn't take a gun with her. She said something about staying at home and shooting herself so at least someone wouldn't steal her purse. Being Rough and Ready Suburban people, used to living off the land and fending for themselves they came up with a plan that involved the husband driving up meeting her at her hotel and slipping her a handgun so she could be safe.

Everything went off according to plan until the next morning when she actually tried to enter this Sears world headquarters with her gun. Seems like security minded people like her and her husband would figure out that the Sears world headquarters in the murder capital of the world would have metal detectors at the door.

She was sent home and a month or so later got a job working at the Bath and Body works store at the other end of the mall from the Sears.

The mall closed a few years ago I don't know where she's at now.

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

It has been my experience that people who genuinely do prefer living in rural areas don't give a shit what happens or how people live their lives in cities. They like the quiet, simple life with plenty of room to roam around. And they view people who constantly obsess about the evil cities as weirdos who need to get a life.

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

“you’ve got your good things and I’ve got mine”

when you sing in the radiator everything is fine…

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

I take the T in Boston. One winter day on the way home from work, a man got on the train and immediately began a loud rant. He didn't appear to be homeless, he was clean and well groomed, but apparently had been drinking. He was raving about everything under the sun - this, that, the other thing, and his wife too. People backed away from him while he ranted on. Suddenly he announced "I'm drunk. Yes, I'm drunk. I'm drunk because my son just took his life." and got off at the next stop.

I think about that incident everytime I hear about someone having a breakdown in a public place. You don't know what brought that person to that state. You don't know your own breaking point, either, because you just haven't been there. Do you deserve to die because life has thrown too much at you?

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The guy used too much force, anyone who learns martial arts learns not to use certain moves because they can be deadly. But I think the pile-on is unwarranted. There are people on subways doing very threatening things--pushing people on the tracks etc. I don't think the guy got on the subway intending to kill a black person. He probably should not have intervened at all, tho we don't have all the evidence yet for why he and the other men on the train (who weren't white) also intervened. I think making this into a racial drama is just b.s. frankly. It's a very sad situation, and what's to blame is really our mental health system or LACK of one. Anyone who's ever gone to a mental hospital knows how useless they are. They keep you for a week, dope you up, then let you out again--with little to no followup. Obviously Neely was not getting the help he needed, and it's an easy out to just blame misplaced vigilantism for why he died.

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Um, duh. I’m a total idiot, I guess. What did the word “throw” mean in that context?

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

This one hit me harder than usual. I lost alot of sleep over it. Waves of sadness and anger. Revenge fantasies directed at the killer. Then I felt ashamed for losing control, and tried to pray, which I seldom do. The weight of so many atrocities! All it takes is a few evil people; but there are more than a few.

My bit of solace is that Neely is at peace. It may sound like a hollow phrase. I am in earnest though.

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

Not Travis Bickle; these people are D-fens (Michael Douglas) from 1993's "Falling Down." "An ordinary man frustrated with the various flaws he sees in society begins to psychotically and violently lash out against them," according to the pitch. The fact that Douglas is dressed like Dilbert makes it even more spot on.

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

I just had to click on that "Biden wants to abolish suburbs" link because What The Fuck, and I won't bother you with the "argument", I'll just note it was written in June of 2020 and writer Stanley Kurtz is pretty obvious in his desperate attempt to stop suburban voters - and especially suburban women - from fleeing the Republican party. Judging by the results of the 2020 election and the more recent Supreme Court race in Wisconsin (where the Milwaukee suburbs still went Republican but by much smaller margins than in the past) Stanley's scare-mongering isn't working.

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Roy, you've done it again - said so many of the same things I am thinking right now. It really feels like an attack on my city, all these fucking attention-craving knobheads and bellends with money and power (or aspire to have money and power) that recognize nothing beyond their own terror of the unknown.

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May 4, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso

God, so much to unpack with this one. I was talking to my therapist yesterday about how much I just want to GET THE HELL OUT of this neighborhood and the creeps and how I felt so racist for saying that because it's something my Dad or sister would say (remember - they're MAGA conservatives) and she pointed out (paraphrasing) "You're not doing it because of the ethnicity of your neighbors, but the crime, right?". I have a hard time explaining my family's attitude when they (rarely) come over, but you can sense the paranoia even if they've never SAID anything, and I know damn well that they're expecting trouble entirely BECAUSE of the Black and Puerto Rican folks. So even if the "how can you live like that" is never articulated, it's there, and I was afraid it'd slopped over onto me.

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