Archive for October, 2008

Ron The Plumber …

October 31st, 2008

Sarasota, Florida

One of the most discussed characters in this Presidential election is a man called Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher–Joe the plumber of Toledo, Ohio which is a swing state. The gentleman who was terrified of Barack Obama’s ’spreading-the-wealth-around tax plan’. And who has became the centrepiece of the McCain campaign ever since the Republican senator repeatedly mentioned him in the debate.

Turns out Joe is actually a little too working class to be affected by the Obama plan. It taxes individuals and businesses with earnings of over $250,000. Joe makes $40,000 annually (but nevertheless aspires to buy a business worth several times his salary). The Obama plan woke him from his American dream rather rudely.

Ron the plumber, of Sarasota, Florida, which is also a swing state, has a very good handle on reality however. Sure, he dreams too: about steady work for himself and his college degree-holding wife. And for the employment to be a little less back-breaking than it is now at the hospital remodelling site he’s at.

He gets on all fours to show me what he does all day. Bunching his shoulders , twisting his neck at acute angles in imaginary closed spaces to simulate how he cuts, welds and rivets pipes that run unseen under neat buildings, keeping them functioning.

He’s on his knees ten hours a day, and they hurt. His clothes are covered with muck. He doesn’t get paid that much–most likely even less than Joe of Toledo.

But it wasn’t always like that. So what happened?

“What happened was the war. George Bush done this. Four years ago ,there was so much work here in Sarasota, work everywhere. Construction, hotels… and then the war started. And all the money had to go there…

“People that are rich, they can survive, but ordinary folks, they can’t. I used to have money in the bank and stuff. Now I’m living week to week.” The emphasis on the last phrase is as heavy as the burden of an unaffordable mortgage payment.

Fortunately, Ron doesn’t own a house he needs to pay for. He lives in a motel, where he makes the rent by doing odd plumbing and maintenance work for the property. If he earned $250,000 a year, he’d be thrilled to pay the extra three per cent.

“My wife’s trying to find a job. She got two college degrees. She can’t find no work. I’m grateful for what I got and I’m lucky… My trade, everybody needs that.” Then he chuckles and says: “When you get up in the morning what do you do? You know, so everybody needs that.”

As essential as it is, plumbing is still affected by constipation–in credit flows. Ron says so: “No new houses being built. So I’m lucky that I got a job with a company at the hospital.”

But he keeps blaming the war for the blighted times. “Osama Bin Laden is laughing at us from his cave or whatever and we’re spending billions in Iraq. It’s been seven years, he’s laughing.”

9/11 is quite close to the bone for people in Sarasota. It was in flight schools in Venice, less than an hour away from here that Mohammad Atta and other hijackers learned to fly aircraft.

Venice is a beautifully designed retirement town built in the 1920s, with wide roads and blue wave beaches, very attractive looking funeral homes, a small airport and several flying schools. But house prices in the area have been very badly hit: they are down an an average by about 40% from their 2007 levels.

Nothing new is being built, so Ron’s got fewer job options. You pass neat homes everywhere, with yard signs that say might say ‘McCain’, ‘Obama’ or ‘For Sale’.

Going by the numbers, if this guy ‘For Sale’ was in the race, he would defintely win–along with his running mate, ‘For Rent’.

Florida facts:

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In Salinas, freedom’s just another word

October 27th, 2008

“One day, up near Salinas, Lord, I let him slip away,
He’s lookin’ for that home and I hope he finds it
But I’ll trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday
To be holding Bobby’s body close to mine…
…. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…

We’ve all heard ‘Bobby Mcgee’. And before I go into a pedantic diversion, let me just say that Bobby would have had a better chance of finding a real good home in Salinas now. Way better, at today’s prices, than in 1971, when Janis Joplin recorded the song on her album ‘Pearl’.

Salinas has had the highest rate of foreclosures in otherwise upscale Monterrey County. Banks took over the most properties from defaulting home-owners here. Walk or drive, you cannot miss the ‘for sale’ signs. Stay in your room, and there’s a brochure that advertise foreclosures and short sales (when your property is sold for less than what you owe the bank.)

So somewhere near Salinas, there’s a 5 bedroom house with a pool, guest quarters and caretaker’s cottage that’s a million dollars down, at $2.65 million.

But we know that Bobby isn’t rich (why else would he need to thumb a ride or have a bandana-sporting companion?) so let’s look for something in his range. And here its is: a great little 2-bedroomed condo overlooking Sherwood lake, at $122,300, provided you have loan pre-approval.

I doubt if Bobby could have got a ‘pre-approval’. A month or so ago, before the credit crunch, the story might have been different, but not now. And here I take my promised diversion: it would probably make little difference if Bobby were a male (as in Joplin’s version) rather than a woman (as in Kris Kristofferson’s original). Besides, Kris’s Bobby was looking for ‘love’, not a ‘home’. Usually, you need to put in some hard labour to find the latter.

But there’s plenty to do in the ’salad bowl’. In fact, this is probably the best time for a farmhand who harbours ambitions of owning a home. The realty ads, with their foreclosure, and predatory ‘pre-foreclosure’ lists say so: everything is going cheap.

The reason why you might find work here is the same as it was during the great depression of the 20s and 30s.

It is nature. All the Salinas Valley needs for you to eat it, is a dressing. The Salinas river, and timely rainfall, slakes the thirst of the soil to so satiate it, that it returns a lush green carpet of lettuce and broccoli (and grapes, of course) that are sent all over the world. From all accounts this business is currently doing better than banking.

Much the way it was when John Steinbeck lived here, witnessing the arrival of unemployed men from the dust bowls of Arkansas and Oklahoma looking for work, and writing ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ while he was at it.
The ‘Traveler’s Hotel’, where I write this, is about a cricket ball throw from long off to the keeper’s end at Eden Gardens, Calcutta, to the Victorian home where Steinbeck lived. It is now a restaurant, serving set meals with crunchy salads.

My $40 a night ‘Indian rate’ hotel in downtown hotel, is run by Jaggubhai Patel of Surat. (Menially: he sweeps the pavement in front, is up at 2.30 am to receive you and speaks no English). And by his son Cretin Patel. (Managerially: he is usually in a ‘meeting’; when he does speak, it is strictly in non-specifics.). Cretin, true to form, tells me that he will not get into details about Steinbeck, liberalism, crime rates in Salinas, the economic downturn, or how he will vote.

The one thing he does say, is that the economic downturn has affected “all businesses”. But it is the loss of homes that is the biggest concern. Not just in Salinas, but in California in general. Defaults are up 228% for the third quarter of this year as compared with 2007: nearly 80,000 people lost their homes. Default notices (served before foreclosures) have dropped, however, leading some to conclude that the worst is over, and others to say that the people who do the paperwork just cannot find the time to process so many notices.

You may not figure any of this as you watch as you watch the seagulls sweep down on the sterns of boats lined up at Monterrey. Or gulp a sample of clam chowder off the tray of a soliciting usher at a seafood place on the old fishermen’s wharf, with the incessant barking of sea lions in the background.

For those who have nothing left to lose, these may be worth nothing–but they’re free.

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Colorado will define a person this election

October 26th, 2008

As America votes to elect a new president on November 4, the state of Colorado will vote on how to “define a person”.

On the 4-page ballot paper in Colorado, is Amendment 48 of the Colorado constitution (the U.S. system allows voting on citizen-initiated laws on the same ballot, provided they have a certain number of signatures to support this). It asks Colorado whether they would want a “the terms person, or person, to include any human being from the moment of fertilisation.”

This is not a simple question. If the people answer yes, the implications are huge, says Curtis Miller a 52-year-old pastor. He and his traveling companions are going through the 2008 State Ballot Information Booklet as we approach Glenwood Springs through surreal canyons on a slow train.

If there is a place where you seek answers to the kind of deep questions on the Colorado ballot paper, you could do much worse.

Pastor Curtis, supports the amendment, of course. But he does give it a think. There are practical considerations. But finally, it boils down to: “Life is a gift. And you have to draw the line somewhere.” He is from Denver, but if you ask him, he’ll say: “I’m from the womb.”

If Colorado thinks the same way as the pastor, then abortions would have a different name in Colorado: murder. Because the state guarantees a “person” the right to life. It would also mean a reversal of one of the most important judgements in the U.S. Supreme Court’s history. In 1975, Roe v Wade, the U.S Supreme Court legalised abortion in the U.S, on the ground that the unborn were not included in the word “person” as used in the U.S. Constitution.

John McCain does not agree with that judgement, and Sarah Palin is even more stridently ‘pro-life’, she has a special needs baby to show for it. But Roe v Wade is hugely important, because it upheld the right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

A reversal could limit private, personal choices and could be used to stop the use of commonly used forms of contraception (the ‘day after pill’, for instance) and even hinder stem-cell research

Steve Levitt, economist and co-author of ‘Freakonomics’ wrote a jaw-dropping paper on the correlation between crime and unwanted births–subjects that seem unrelated. Levitt’s argument, based on hard data, was: if you force women who 1) do not want the child andS 2) have no means to support it, to be single moms, then you will get cascading waves of kids turning to crime.

Banning abortion would mean more such kids. Legalising, as the Supreme Court did in Roe v Wade, would reduce crime.

Few churches come out openly in support of on candidate or the other. But in almost all, preachers tell the congregation that they must vote according to a candidate’s Christian values: to check if they are pro-life, and support the biblical version of the birth of the earth (done in 7 days; Noah’s ark and so on, as opposed to evolution from “monkeys” or “cells”) to name just two of these values.

One of pastor Curt’s companions had filled out the Voter “cheat-sheet” for measures on the 2008 ballot. These are provided well before election day, so voters can get a bit of practice for what is a fairly lengthy exercise.

She hands me the booklet before hopping off at Glenwood Springs. I find that she’s ticked the yes box for amendment 48.

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Escaping from Sarah to Dinosaur, Colorado

October 25th, 2008

Dinosaur, Colorado.

Having heard that Sarah Palin was about to descend on Colorado after a week of poor ratings for the McCain Palin ticket, I decided I needed to run to a place where she would definitely not find me. Looking at the perfect rectangle that is Colorado, I chose the top left hand corner: a town called Dinosaur. (No, it is not named after John McCain.)

This town actually exists, I am serious. You can even have a ‘Cappasaurus’ (this town’s version of cappuccino) at the Bedrock Cafe on Brontosaurus boulevard. And one of the town’s 319 people should be there at the ‘welcome centre’ at the corner of Bronto and Stego to tell you about the attractions.

Local literature tells you that Dinosaur is an “excellent central location”. Right, as central as the middle of nowhere. This is why when they needed a mayor recently, they advertised the position in a paper in Grand Junction, which is four hours away. And why they stopped the bus service to here (from anywhere) about 10 years ago.

But with a little enterprise you can go down to nearby Vernal to look at dinosaur fossil bones found in the area; or visit the dinosaur national monument, a few miles east, where hidden in the folds of the Rockies is a magnificent canyon at the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers.

What you cannot do, is escape Sarah Palin. I have chosen an unfortunate date for my attempted escape: her constituents are all over the place. Not because she’s in the area–but because it’s the beginning of the hunting season.

Their pick-up trucks whizz along Highway 40, the hoofs of some unfortunate elk or deer sticking out. At the gas stations or at drive by restaurants there’s the smell of coagulated blood. Big signs say: ‘Hunters welcome.’

A chunk of Colorado’s votes will be decided on who’s the better president for hunters, and they could be critical because it is a solidly republican state lurching leftwards.\

But here in Dinosaur, this is a no-contest, of course. It is a an area where the McCain-Palin ticket has all the experience, judgment and whatever ammunition is required. Palin likes shooting bears and wolves–specially from helicopters.

Two young men pull their truck into the lot of the Terrace Motel. A pair of beautiful horns stick out from the back of the truck and when it swings around you can see the animal. It’s blood, almost warm, leaching through its slashed stomach onto the floor.

The boys jump off beaming. Their names are Landon and Josh, from Craig (the elk-hunting capital of the world, a few hours east of Dinosaur). Landon’s the one who ‘got him’.

“We couldn’t find any elk, so we started coming down and we saw about 15 bucks. So we jumped out and shot him…(with his Roberts 257 at 250 yards).

“I shot him in the shoulder. He started moving, and we got up on a little cliff and we saw him lay down and we couldn’t shoot him again… he was too far away. And then he ran off and we tracked him down some more for about two miles… he wouldn;t go down.. and then shot him in the spine. Then we went up on him and he was still alive so we shot him one more time thinking that he was going to die. Then I shot him in the neck.

“And then, that was pretty much about it.

Landon has what is called a “resident youth deer tag”, which authorises a ‘discount hunt’ if you will. For $10.75, instead of the regular $45, you get to hunt a deer a season. The blue tag is now around the buck’s left ear. Josh, his hands blood-stained from hauling the thing, plays with it, and then turns his attention to fiddling around with the dead animals mouth, prizing it open with his fingers as if checking its dental health.

The meat, they will eat: about 75 pounds of steaks and burgers that should last the winter. Not bad for less than 11 bucks.

After severing the head (’just about there’ says Josh, pointing to the base of the neck) they will boil the skull and mount it. The fur will be given away to make rugs. The bones (’they’re no good”) will be thrown away.

Oh yes, one other thing, towns like Craig and Dinosaur will vote McCain-Palin. They think that the deer and elk population is getting out of hand, causing road accidents; they enjoy their cheap meat. They are patriotic Americans who love the legal, justifiable use of guns. (I am merely talking about hunting, not the war in Iraq). The candidates agree.

The buck is now driven off to the processing plant, perhaps in Maybell. Its wounds are drying up in the Colorado sun–it can’t feel them anyway. On its ear, is the fatal blue bling accessory of season. It’s eyes are open, though.

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“I ate where it all began …”

October 22nd, 2008

Corbin, Kentucky

The Sanders Cafe, Corbin

The Sanders Cafe, Corbin

The first word I heard in Corbin, Kentucky, (population 8,000) was ‘deerekson’. This is Gujarati for ‘directions’, as articulated by the clerk at a gas station on the edge of town, from whom I wanted to know how I could get to one of the roots of American global dominance. That I should have to do this through a Gujarati is ironic but not unusual; it happens all the time in the USA. No matter what it is you are looking for there’s usually a Gujarati middleman (or shall we say facilitator) handy.

It is ironic, nevertheless. Because it is a little odd to ask this particular species of vegetarian how to get to the place that began the war against chicken–a bird he probably has no quarrel with, unless it owes him money.

I had bet on his general awareness when I asked. This is the only recent war that America has won outright, so I assumed it must be common knowledge.

Well I was wrong, but not entirely. ‘Deerekson’ pointed me to a bona fide consumer of Kentucky Fried Chicken. This man was very helpful. So we went north, past main street with its little nail salons and florists, to where it all began. It was just about lunchtime.

Inside the Colonel's kitchen

Inside the Colonel's kitchen

Sanders Court and Cafe opened here in 1930, during the Depression. By 1936, Harland Sanders was made a ‘colonel’ by the Kentucky governor, for his services to Kentucky cuisine, which one would presume was in dire need of recipes and role models at the time.

By 1940, the colonel had worked out a way to pressure fry chicken so that it would be ready in 9 minutes making it possible to serve real fast.

But the big step forward, was prompted by adversity. In 1955, a new interstate highway bypassed Corbin, hurting business brutally. Sanders packed it in, collected a $105 social security cheque and hit the road trying to franchise his original 11 herb and spice recipe.

By 1964, he’d sold out for $2 million, but remained the face of the business. Recent surveys have shown that 98% of Americans recognise him. What McCain or Obama would not do to get that rating. (Sanders, however, ran for the state senate as a Republican once–and lost.)

KFC's rates in the 50s

KFC's rates in the 50s

KFC is now owned by Pepsi (do not ask for a coke at KFC) under the umbrella of Yum! Brands, which also owns such fine dining offerings as Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. They sell over a billion portions of chicken annually. Statistically, this means every sixth person in the world has been subjected to KFC once a year.

At the restored Sanders Court and Cafe in Corbin (also a museum of sorts, with Sander’s kitchen in original condition), a middle-aged couple say grace before they settle down to their fried chicken. I try and work out why they are thankful (even given faith, the food crisis and all). Maybe its because they do not have to eat at McDonald’s. This is the only reasonable explanation.

I can knock KFC from this safe distance. I would not dare do this at home. There are KFC maniacs out there, like my wife Suparna, and my friend and former colleague Sonal Nerurkar (who would queue up at the Bandra outlet for her fix. I am not making this up.) such is the power and global reach of the original recipe.

When they hire employees, for instance, they try and avoid the free-range variety. One of the service staff at Corbin told me her favourite word was ‘chicken’. And that what she enjoyed most was ’serving customers’. She’s been in the coop for 18 years.

The t-shirt says it all

The t-shirt says it all

The assistant manager (26, 9 years in KFC) did not have a favourite word, which was because he didn’t ‘have much of a vocabulary’. They were both Corbin locals.

The staff was extremely courteous, however. And served us an awful meal through no fault of theirs. Shrivelled, depressed chickens that would have probably commited suicide, had KFC not offered the humane euthanasia option, fried in oil that should have been carbon dated, with coleslaw which was sugar-bombed to disguise the many failings of Walmart cabbage.

Had KFC had won the war with just these weapons? Yes, and no. Most of the civilised world has recognised its suzerainty, but Iraq holds out.

In late July, the excitable (and stupid) right-wingers at Fox News celebrated that the recipe had worked in that country, too. They reported that a KFC outlet had opened in Fallujah. General Tommy Franks, who oversaw the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, could hardly hide his satisfaction in his interview to Fox.

Alas, this was not a bona fide KFC joint. Adventurous Iraqi entrepreneurs had opened such an obviously fake outlet that anyone who wasn’t blind could have told the difference. But it didn’t matter. U.S. Soldiers were paying $3.50 for dinner any way. This is a cause for worry. If the Arabs could get a hold of such a well protected secret, then nuclear bomb weapons blueprints may mell be in danger.

A recipe from the cafe:

The colonel’s secret 11 herb/spice recipe is protected against proliferation, but here’s a hand-written 1950s vintage recipe from the cafe at Corbin. Cook at your own risk:

Colonel’s mock oyster:

Peel and dice eggplant. Soak overnight in salt water. Next day, boil till tender. Alternate (i.e. put one after the other) egg plant, crumbled crackers, oleo, salt and pepper, finishing off with crackers.

Before placing in the oven, fill with 1/2 and 1/2 cream (somewhere between milk and cream). Bake at 350 degrees, till brown.

Voila.

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Don’t mess with the Indian in the parking lot …

October 20th, 2008

Birmingham, Alabama

Injun (noun): redskin, red man; a term offensive to Native Americans

Before the knives came out ...

Before the knives came out ...

Rick, the itinerant, weathered fruit salesman from Oklahoma was telling me about his sales technique, the 9/11 conspiracy and about his dad. He had initially suspected that I might be a radical Islamist, but got over this after the first few sentences we exchanged.

‘You know dawg, some time ago I told him, Dad Georgia’s gone to war with Russia. And he said, ‘What? And what about the rest of the United States? He almost fell over laughing–partly because of the joke and partly due to the last Miller light he’d downed.

We were sitting in a parking lot, the fruit crew’s pick up truck open from the back to show off cases sourced fresh from farms.  A speaker tethered to the truck’s cd player played Gun’s and Roses or Hank Williams depending on who got to it first.

There were five of them running this trip: going door to door selling grapefruit or oranges by the case. It was Saturday, they had sold $3,800 worth of cases. It was time to party.

I asked Rick about all the no soliciting signs and how he got around them. “Oh yeah, one time there were these three huge signs on the same door, and it pissed me off. So I decided I just had to go in.

“The guy goes… DIDN’T YOU READ THE SIGNS? And I say, Oh I wasn’t smoking? He says that’s a ‘no soliciting sign, can’t you read?’ And I say, ‘if I could read, would I be selling f***ing fruit door to door. I sold him a case alright.”

JJ, just before the fight ...

JJ, just before the fight ...

Part of the crew is JJ. He paced up and down a lot: long hair, tattoos on his bare body, jeans an big old cowboy hat. He shook my hand, saying: I’m Indian, where you from man?
‘India.’
‘Oh yeah. I’m Cherokee-Chickasaw. Proud of my Indian heritage, man. Real proud.’

Stacy, one of the crew, said he wanted to put on some rap. But JJ didn’t like the idea: ‘I don’t want no nigger music man. No nigger music around here.’

Rick turned to me apologetically: ‘He’s just a redneck… he said smiling. Guns and Roses kept playing.

The music from the truck, attracted other guests at the Days Inn in Fultondale, at the edge of Birmingham, Alabama. It was about the only bit of life in an otherwise dismal setting. Apart from the occasional group of bikers with their brightly lit machines who come to the gas station next door to fill up or get rubbery pizzas at 2.99 a slice; two for $5.

One of the guys who came to join the little Miller Light and Coors party, was a regular fellow in a neatly tucked yellow t-shirt. He’s looked like a republican, and of course, he was. He had one other handicap: he may or may not have known the meaning of the word ‘injun’, but he decided to use it.

JJ, walked up to where Rick and I were and in one smooth motion, pulled out a slim switchblade knife. I could see the knife’s teeth, glinting under the light of that parking lot.

“I’m going take the guy out. I’m going to slit him and watch him squeal.” And after a few minutes pause, during which there was an attempt to lead the prospective victim away, JJ rushed toward him… swinging wildly.

The man retreated, unhurt, fortunately. The little party was over. People dissolved into their rooms. JJ paced up and down the corridor on the second floor of the building. I heard him shout: “Nobody insults my Indian heritage, man…

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Finding Obama on the mountain where the Ku Klux Klan was born …

October 19th, 2008
Stone Mountain, Georgia

Stone Mountain, Georgia

Stone Mountain, Georgia

As you take the cable car up to the top of Stone Mountain, Georgia, they tell you all about the rock’s volcanic origins. That it took about 120 million years to take the shape we see it now; that it is 825 feet tall and a 5-mile walk around the base. That a variety of lichens and mosses grow on the top of this apparently bald heap of granite, quartz, feldspar and mica. And that the massive carving on the side–of confederate heroes, who lost the civil war–took 60 years to complete.

What they don’t tell you, is that America saw its last recorded lynching 11 years after that, in 1981. Or that it was on top of this mountain that the Ku Klux Klan was reborn– what better place for a carving to honour those who fought for the right to own slaves?

What they also don’t tell you is that in the goose-bump inducing crescendo of Martin Luther King’s 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech, he wanted ‘freedom to ring from Stone Mountain, Georgia’.

The View from Stone Mountain

The View from Stone Mountain

Stone Mountain park seems to offer lots of freedom and “some of the best facilities for hiking, golf tennis and biking in America”, according to park announcements. It is a place where families go to picnic and children go on excursions to marvel at the sight of the huge rock carving: a six foot man can fit inside the mouth of Robert. E. Lee’s horse. Wow.

Lee, Jefferson Davis (the president of the confederate states) and Stonewall Jackson, are considered heroes in the South, for their valiance during the American civil war. They lost, but some of the values (specifically, white supremacy) they fought for, survived for generations to come–and do so even now. Barack Obama still refers to places ‘where the confederate flag still flies’.

Stone Mountain is one of those places. In 1915, a man called William J. Simmons led a meeting on top of the mountain which saw the birth of the 20th century Klan. Shortly thereafter, the lynchings began.

Brian Bowers, 41 and black, says everyone knows what it stands for but no one talks about it: “In the actual town of Stone Mountain (closeby), there’s a city square, and every year the KKK have a march down city square.

“They still have that march?” I ask.

“Yeah. Every year. I don’t know if they do it under the name of KKK, but I know that’s who’s doing it. Because they have their confederate flags and everything. It still happens. Every year.” Then he shrugs his shoulders and says: “It’s freedom of speech, I guess”.

This is exactly the kind of place that black America looks back at to measure how far they have come in their journey towards King’s dream: “a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream.”

Mobile, Alabama, where Michael Donald a 19 year-old black was killed and hung from a tree by the KKK (in its signature style) in 1981, is another. That incident led to the prosecution and eventual bankruptcy of the United Klans of America: they had to surrender all their assets, including their headquarters in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to pay the $7 million awarded to Donald’s mother.

A quarter of a century has passed since those events, and it is fair to say that Ameirca has moved on. The Klan still exists, and reportedly has about 5,000 members who have now turned their hatred towards immigration and gay marriage. But lynchings by a hooded mob carrying flaming crosses are almost inconceivable, thankfully.

But just pure racism? Bowers and I talk on the train towards downtown Atlanta — whose outline you can see if you look west from the top of Stone Mountain. A majority of the passengers are people of colour.

“Our values are so screwed up…”, he says. “Let me give you an example that really bothered me. When Palin got nominated, her daughter’s pregnant, and she’s 17 years old. Let’s flip that around, let’s say that that was Barack Obama’s 17-year-old daughter. An African American girl pregnant, can you imagine the fallout? Can you imagine what would have been said about her?

“Our values are buried in so much hatred… This is not a free country. It’s not.”

We arrive at our destination, Five Points station as he leaves me with the thought that black America has still some distance to go before a “more perfect union”. Obama’s election will be a huge leap.

On Forsythe Street, dusk’s shift is just about ending. You can tell: the guy selling coke cans is winding up, the crack cocaine dealers are out.

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Riding the bus in Montgomery, Alabama

October 17th, 2008

Montgomery, Alabama.

Miss Pat drives the bus in Montgomery, Alabama

Miss Pat drives the bus in Montgomery, Alabama

I take route Number 1 from Zelda Road to downtown Montgomery, the city where a black seamstress had, in 1955, refused to give up her seat in the front section of a bus to a white man and move to the back, where the coloured folk were supposed to sit. I sit in the front.

Our driver is a black woman, Miss Pat, who tells me the story: “She was just so tired and fed up, that when that driver told her to get up she just wouldn’t.” The rest is fairly well known: Rosa Parks was arrested; the black population of the town boycotted the buses and the civil rights movement was born.

But there are a couple of myths that have been hard to dispel. One: that she was an old lady (she was 42); the other is that the action was totally spontaneous (she was just tired that day): Parks had been an active member of the National Association for Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and plans for a protest were at least a few months in the making.

Also, what hastened a compromise, was the fact that the boycott was costing the city bus service $3,000 a day. Blacks had to stand or sit in the back of the bus, but they paid the same fare. There was no better metaphor for segregation than this: you gave the same, but you received less.

Wifi at the slave market in Montogomery, Alabama

Wifi at the slave market in Montogomery, Alabama

After paying a dollar, I roll along in Miss Pat’s bus, to where Rosa Parks had hopped on in 1955–a terrific museum in her honour has been built there–and to Court Square, now a WiFi hotspot, in the mid 1800s a thriving slave market.

(Incidentally, the slave trade was so entrenched because it was very lucrative: in the 1860s slaves cost between $1,500-$3,000–a hell of a lot of money. This also explains why the southern states fought so hard over the right to keep slaves.)

I take all of this in at a time when America is asking the question: ‘Are we ready for a black president’? And the McCain campaign, primarily through a single-braincelled organism called Sarah Palin, is saying it isn’t. (’He is Barack Hussein Obama; ‘an Arab’; ‘a terrorist’; ‘who is he?’ and so on.)

I meet Coleman Smith, the tough security officer at the Montgomery Area Transit System bus terminus. He says he’s been following this election more closely than any of the others he’s seen in his 63 years. Why is that?

‘Because of Obama, I guess.’

‘What’s special about him?’

‘He’s black.’

Forget the presidency, it is easy enough to overlook the fact that blacks got the unfettered right to vote (they were kept out by devices such as a literacy test) in the world’s greatest democracy less than 50 years ago, in 1965. They have voted ‘freely’ in only in the last 11 of the country’s 56 elections so far.

But standing in Montgomery, which was pivotal in winning that right, I wasn’t about to let Mr Smith go. I tell him about this black guy, who (literally) begged McCain to take the country over at a public meeting.

“Is one o’them Uncle Toms”, he say. “Like in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, when the white man say ‘I’m sick’, the black man say ‘we sick’. Know what um saying. That’s when the white man ask the black man to lay on his feet. And then when the white man say ‘I’m feelin’ better’ the black man say ‘we feelin’ better’. Brainwashed, man…”

He makes a point right afterwards: it isn’t the white man who keeps the black man down, its other black men. There is a recurring theme no matter where you travel in the United States.

When it is time for me to leave, I realise I can’t make the Greyhound bus that I’m supposed to be on because the city bus won’t get me there. I take the problem to the information desk. There, Mr Smith and the clerk conspire to arrange an unscheduled bus, to take a solitary passenger, me, to the Greyhound station.

The bus today is nothing like the bus Rosa Parks sat in

The bus today is nothing like the bus Rosa Parks sat in

The bus isn’t anything like the one Rosa Parks rode: it’s more like van, seating just about a dozen people and it doesn’t have the mid-section door, which served as the racial boundary.

Benny Jackson, the driver, was 14 during the boycott and had been in those buses. ‘But we did a lot of walkin’… a laawt of walkin’, he says of the time. Many people ‘had no money to afford no ride’ in the carpools that were organised by the black community so that people got to work. The walking got them further than most had imagined, though.

As we drive, I can’t help wondering what the odds would have been for such a special ride for a person of colour (like myself) in Montgomery, circa 1955. Or, for that matter, what they are in Wasilla, Alaska in 2008.

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What the ‘red hatters’ are thinking

October 16th, 2008

Dayton, Tennessee

The Red Hatters vote for joy, and this time around joy is the McCain-Palin ticket

The Red Hatters vote for joy, and this time around joy is the McCain-Palin ticket

“I’m a red hatter”, says Mrs Karen Black, talking about a constituency that I had not heard of as we sip sweet tea in the Dayton coffee house. Then she explains.

“There is a poem that says ‘When I grow old I shall wear purple/ With red hats that do not match and do not go/ I’ll learn to spit on the sidewalk and send the grocery money for brandy/ And tell the family that we have no money for butter..’ And the poem goes on, all these things that we’re never allowed to do as proper ladies. And then at the end it says, ’so that my family won’t be too surprised, I think I’ll start practicing now.’

“And so–and you will see this throughout the United States–there are gatherings of ladies fifty and older, who, regardless of what life has thrown at them, whether it’s widowhood, cancer, loss of a child… Regardless of what life has done to them, they choose joy. The red hatters are all about choosing joy. And you will see them with feathers and glitters and red hats and purple outfits.”

Mrs Black is 58, she is wearing a green floral outfit, without any sort of hat, but I have no reason to believe she is not a red hatter. She has the primary requirements to be one: in this election, choosing joy, would mean going with the McCain Palin ticket; she’s also a good Christian.

I ask her what denomination she belongs to and she laughs and says: “I’m a ‘methabaptapristacostal’… just a Christain. Then, assuming the air of someone who’s about to say something really important. She looks me in the eye and says: “The main things are the plain things.”

She begins counting the main things on her fingers: “Was He born of a virgin; was He crucified; did He die; was He raised from the dead; has He ascended to the right hand of the father… the main things are the plaayne things. And you can put any label you want to put on it, but the main things are the plain things. And they are true. They are true.”

Faced with these profound, and totally sincere beliefs, I can’t help turn the conversation towards other countries and other faiths. We begin in Iraq, where it’s difficult to tell either main or plain.

Mrs Black pauses a bit to take in the question. “I think about the bigger picture, I think that politicians will come and go and do whatever it is that they have to do. I think the truth is that God is in control. And the truth is that this is going to play out how He wants it to play out.”

She continues: “Things that are meant for evil, God has a way of turning them into good in the bigger picture that we don’t even see. I do know that the end-time war, Armageddon in Revelation, is going to be somewhere in the east. Somewhere, Iraq, Iran… somewhere there. I think it’s a fool’s game not to keep that firmly in mind.”

Right there, I thought, in succinct, easy language, was Bush’s foreign policy. Had Mrs Black ghost-written it?

But what about good young American kids going out there and dying, I ask.

“Good young American kids died for the revolution. Good young American kids died in World War 1, for World War 2, for Vietnam. Do I like good young American kids going to die? Absolutely not.”

Wouldn’t you want to stop the war right now?

“All wars. ‘The-o-ret-ically.” She draws the word out deliberately. “In a perfect world… that would be wonderful.

“In a perfect world, there would be no sorrow. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have people trying to come over and kill us. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have to have a bigger stick than the other guy to make them… behave. In a perfect world…”

She was clearly not ghost-writing Dubya’s speeches: they had nothing of the lyrical quality of her extempore.

“People have died for the rights that we have. To go to the churches we go to–or not. To pray when and where we choose… people have died for these rights that we have to make this country what it is.

“We have more a sense of ‘I appreciate that’ and clearly the rest of the world thinks that because they’re pouring in our shores legally and illegally by the millions. Clearly, other people think, ‘we see that, we like that, we want a piece of that’. We think that’s good. And our boys think that’s worth dying for. And the mothers send them off… To die for it.”

Two teardrops roll down Mrs Black’s pink cheek as she says this. She looks away, her lips quivering. I ask if I’ve upset her.

“No, no, no, no, no! Honey I’m southern, we cry as easy as we laugh. We’ll probably hug when we’re through” she says, wiping her tears.

“I was saying that if a ship is moving then God can turn the rudder change the direction of the ship, but if it’s just sitting there stagnant then ain’t nothing gonna happen. So we’re moving, and if we’ve made mistakes, then God can alter and change them. Whether its through who gets in office or whatever he uses.

“Yes I vote–but I also pray.”

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Looking for change in Chicago

October 15th, 2008

Chicago, Illinois

I haven’t made an appointment with him. But I meet him on the corner of Rush and Oake Streets in downtown Chicago because he’s seeking change. I get straight to the point.

“So who’s it going to be, man?”

“You mean, for Prezeedent?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Obama, man. Obama. Do you have some change?”

There is that distinctive sound of metal-on-coffee cup-on-metal that you will only find in the disposable begging bowls of the West, as he shakes his chalice of change. And then, to someone else, he says: “Don’t be sad man.”

I have just got out of a jazz bar called the Back Room. (Don’t be fooled by the name. Not much politics here, just a cover charge and the ‘J.W. Williams Blues Band’–with ‘Patricia Scott’, but we missed her–playing stuff like ‘It’s a wonderful world.’)

“Don’t be sad, man”, says my man, smiling from his wheelchair, his folded jeans, thighs downward, swinging ever so slightly in the light autumn breeze, grazing the top of his footrest. There are no feet on it.

A man, a black man, in a good suit–the kind you saw on TV perhaps, walking out of Lehmann Brothers carrying a cardboard box a week or so ago, that kind of suit, but unattached to a box–strides by. He is forced, much the way many others are, to stop and stick out a fist. It doesn’t open to pour out change. It just meets the one that’s pointed in his direction from the wheelchair in polite acknowledgement.

I begin to think about the fuss that was created after just such a handshake a few months ago, when the fists that met belonged to Barack and Michelle Obama. I think this because the well-heeled black man reminds me of Obama.

He is made to look even better by the fact that he has the gait of a middle-weight boxer (most other men on Rush and Oake this midnight are oscillating between light swaying and staggering). The few words he says to my man, he says clearly. This is more than can be said of several people who articulate a response to “Don’t be sad, man.”

Even though the man in the suit didn’t offer any change, I ask my man if he reminded him of the future prezeedent.

“Who, that guy? No, man he’s two shades darker than me. And I’m ’bout three shades darker that Obama. Know what um sayin’?”

It was either the street lights, or it was just me. But I told him I didn’t understand: just on the basis of empirical evidence. I saw the man in the suit; I could see him in his wheelchair; and I had watched Barack Obama without adjusting my television set.

“He’s not so black. Know what um sayin’?”

Now if I got that right, what he meant was that his vote would go to a white black guy (visions of Michael Jackson invaded my already addled brain). I felt sorry for Obama. I mean, here’s a guy trying his damndest to knock a country semi-conscious about race and colour, and this is what he gets? Being called whitey by the brothers? But what the hell, he’s ahead in the polls so something must be working.

I change the subject to my man’s personal situation.

“Lost ma legs 31 years ago. Shootout, yesssir. Got 16 bullets in me. (Here, just to back this claim, he lifted his Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt to expose enough craters on his stomach and back for me to be embarrassed into saying: “I believe, you.”)

I ask what happened to the shooter: “Oh, he’d dead.”

“But I like to give back, you know what um saying… ‘How’ your night been baby, dont be sad (some change gets into the coffee cup)…’ know what um saying.

I do volunteer work with people who are in bad situations. At the hospital. (And now, he invents a beautiful word). I mean my situation was ‘uncopable’ man. I tell them, if I can make it…

More possible donors come our way…

‘How’ you’re night been baby? Had a good time? Don’t be sad…

And give it a pass…

‘Know what um sayin’?

“If you’ve coped, then why do you sit here every night? I ask. (I cannot get myself to be more direct: as in, so why are you begging?)

But he seems to know what I meant to ask. “I try and make people feel good, man. And get

some of their change–if possible. Heh, heh. Anything’s possible, know what um sayin’?

His soliciting style isn’t that different from Obama’s, actually. It differs only in the details. At a base level, both these guys try and make you feel good–and make a living off it. After that, one takes the styrofoam route and goes solo, with relatively low expectations. The other takes the internet way, with an army of faithfuls, and a set expected minimum.

I just got one of these in my mailbox a few days after I met my man.

avirook –

I’ve never asked you to make a donation before.

But I’m about to make some major decisions about deploying field staff and volunteers to key battleground states.

The resources we have on hand going into October will directly impact our voter registration and Get Out The Vote operations. And now that early voting has begun in eight states — including Ohio as of today — we need to move as quickly as possible.

Please donate $5 or more before the deadline to help register voters, get out the vote, and win this election.

We’re stretching every dollar and doing everything we can with what we have. But every day I see firsthand how much more we could do — and how far your donation will go.

Thanks for your support,

Jon

Jon Carson

National Field Director

Obama for America.

Everyone’s seeking change. Know what um sayin’?

A drunk white bum walks up, and without bothering anyone else, asks my man for an alm. He gets a cigarette still good for at least three puffs. He likes to give back, my man.

“But I got to sit here, man. I get $562 from welfare. I stay round here at the YMCA, that’s $390 in rent. Know what um sayin’?

‘But what changes for you if Obama is elected?’

Issues, I mean healthcare, man. Like right now, I could go to any of the fine hospitals in Chicago and they’d see me and all, but they wont admit me. Cos I dont have proper insurance.”

My man, and about 47 million people in the States have this in common: they can be diagnosed, but not treated in a hospital, because they don’t have insurance and 8.6 million are recent inductees to this unfortunate club. The Bush administration accounted for them.

Yes, universal healthcare is one of Obama’s issues. In theory, if you are an American citizen you will get treated no matter what under President Obama. I was about to ask my man what convinced him (beyond Barack’s oratory) that this would indeed happen, but he was gone.

I turned and saw a stationary cop car and an outbound wheelchair at top speed. The officer had evidently told my man that he should seek his change elsewhere in Chicago, if at all. And definitely not around the Magnificent Mile.

Here, on cool autumn evenings you don’t need to be told, ‘Don’t feel sad’. You can hear them sing ‘It’s a wonderful world’ instead. That should be good enough.

Know what um saying’?

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