Gone, Gone, Gone Good Will

Today, February 21, 2016, I saw a butterfly. I tried to take a picture, but I wasn’t fast enough! However, color is returning–

Lenten Rose (red and white), daffodil, and now forsythia and phlox. Well, the phlox seems to be about died out. I don’t know if I will replace.

Why is the price of bleach so high? I know last year there was a production issue, but the no name bottom shelf bleach, 64 ounces at Kroger only climbed to around $1.70. Now that same amount has almost doubled in price. It’s ridiculous to pay five dollars for a pint of real ice cream. But that is what one has to pay if one doesn’t want to ingest a lot of fillers, chemicals, and high fructose corn syrup.

And what about cheese? Last month I was paying $6.99 a pound for deli cheese and now the same cheese is $9.99 a pound. Why? These are not incremental price increases, but price hikes.

These You Tube creators know that the persons they’re featuring are Black. I just saw a video featuring the Berry Brothers who were just as good as the Nicholas Brothers. I think many of us have seen the splits and acrobatics of the Nicholas Brothers, but I had never heard of the Berry Brothers. And interspersed with pictures of them were these pictures of white dudes. It was annoying and what was the intent? Confusion as to whether or not the Berry Brothers were Black? Covert appropriation? These creators do the same with videos about Egyptians. And they know that ancient Egyptians did not look like the Egyptians of today. The conquerors’ bloodlines rule Egypt today. It’s really, really annoying when I see these white faces where they do not belong.

I’m looking at The Gray House on Amazon Prime. I’d heard about the spy who was in Jefferson Davis’s house during the Civil War. I knew she was Black, but I never really looked into it. This series is based on her supposed activities during the Civil War. I say supposed because, of course, the details are not known and, from reading the Wikipedia article about her, there seems to have been some activities attributed to her that probably did not occur.

I really like the these song–Blood In The River. I’d never heard of the group The War and Treaty. They are a husband and wife duo and they can really sing. For me, the song was bluesy, gospel, R and B, with a distinctive drum beat–ear worm material. So, I bought it. I’ll have to listen to more of their songs to see how well I like their body of work.

The depictions of the Slaves in The Gray House was more like the depiction in Roots, i.e., educated, brainwashed, skeptical of promises of freedom, recognizing that freedom has costs, code-switching, jealous, present-focused, wanting to learn, taking chances, having as much agency as possible in their lives that were hemmed in by Slavery. I binge watched the eight episodes in two days. I listened to, rather than watched, the war scenes. Why? This quote from General William Tecumseh Sherman says it very well–It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

There were many women who spied for the Union and the Confederacy. On YouTube, there is a channel that purports to investigate old photos and tell the story of the photographed people. Seems like it is AI generated fiction. I googled the names in a picture of interest…it showed three Black women dressed in fine clothes and it was purportedly taken in 1863. Supposedly, the three women, sisters, were found to be spies for the Union Army by the present day researcher. Fiction. Interesting, but fiction.

However, the fiction can spark an interest in finding out about real women who spied for the Union. The women featured in The Gray House, Eliza and Elizabeth Van Lew and Mary Elizabeth Bowser, were real and did spy for the Union. And, Harriet Tubman is well known for her clandestine activities on behalf of the Union. There were, course, many more whose deeds we will never know.

I applaud all of them because they were brave women, especially since they were well aware of the brutish violent males who were commissioned to maintain “order” in the South. I think they would be appalled at what the United States has become in 2026. Appalled, but probably not that surprised. For they would see that the brutal, misogynistic, emotionally stunted males that they knew so well are still here in 2026

In the news–the incompetent in chief, along with Israel, bombed Iran. There are boots on the ground in Nigeria. Fishing boats are being bombed in the Caribbean and off the coasts of Venezuela. Sadly, history will probably indict both and the weaklings who supported them because the bombing was for personal selfish reasons to maintain two unworthy males in power.

I wish those who support that country named Israel would read the Bible they claim to follow. There will be no end times with this usurper that is called Israel. The promises made in the Bible were made to David and his descendants. It is a fact that those who occupy a land they call Israel are not descendants of David. No Biblical prophecy will come to pass because the facts necessary for the fulfillment of the promise are not in place. Calling a bomb a rose will never make the bomb less of a destructive thing. So, the end times that will come will not be any fulfillment of a promise, but engineered by selfish, narcistic, ignorant males who crave power.

Goodwill–intangible asset of a business such as its good/positive reputation, which increases the value of the business. We all know that goodwill is earned, by a business through consistent practices that the customer/client deems fair and of value. Governments also must seek the goodwill of the governed. This is to say that the Supreme Court does not care that it has exhausted any good will it might have garnered in the past. The Supreme Court has placed its stamp of approval on an Executive branch with such flimsy guardrails that they may as well be non-existent, it has approved corporations buying elections, it has gutted the voting rights act, it has denied women agency over their bodies…no need to go on. Every once in a while, it throws the people a bone–the tariffs imposed by the executive branch were not within the executive powers set forth in the Constitution. Then, within days it decides a case that holds that we, the people, have no remedy against a postal employee that deliberately fails to deliver the mail. It’s as though the court wants chaos and not the rule of law to decide disputes, especially with the government. A mail carrier is a governmental employee and should be liable for their mis- or mal-feasance in carrying out their duties. And, the Post Office, if aware of the employee’s failure to do their job, should be liable for damages caused by that employee.

There is a certain consistency to their opinions…where we the people are concerned what these opinions have done is rip the scabs off wounds that time has not healed. These opinions herald a United States where the hounds of the “slaveholders” have been set loose to savage us. These opinions do not engender good will, but the opposite.

There is one consolation…these so-called justices will not be able to buy Indulgences to atone for their failure to act justly, nor will their death bed confessions earn them a place in heaven. For they have sold themselves to the other “Master” and have proudly displayed his flag. They will die in fear for the millstone that is their heart will greatly outweigh the feather.

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I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Albert Einstein

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