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Queensboro Bridge construction, 10X8, by Carol L. Douglas. Cities were once the highest expression of
civilization. What happened?
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I had intended to write about the beauty of boreal bogs this
morning. But then I came across this,
from the Economist:
The bigger problem for
Baltimore is that lawlessness is not limited to nights like tonight. As one
young woman standing taking photos said to me, West Baltimore is “always like
this. Well not like this, but you know, shootings”. This is a city where a young
black man is killed almost every day—not by police officers, but by other young
black men. The failure of the police in this city is that they cannot enforce
the law even at the best of times. At their worst, as the death of Mr Gray
seems to suggest, Baltimore’s police are simply another source of the
lawlessness.
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Whenever I am totally disheartened, I wander over to Mt. Hope Cemetery to commune with my heroes. |
On Monday I wrote
about returning from Maine to Rochester’s daily violence. As Baltimore
descended into chaos, I was following a local story: the (Rochester) Regional Transit Service’s decision
to end a 37-year relationship with the Rochester City School District (RCSD).
That means the district needs to figure out how to move 9,500 students around,
and 144 jobs will be cut. The problem is a simple one: a small percentage of the
kids in the district are abusing their bus privileges with fighting, and the
usual correctives haven’t worked.
Beneath the Queensboro Bridge, 14X18, by Carol L. Douglas
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"As being an older adult, it can be intimidating at
times because you never know when you're going to be caught up in a
situation," Elmyra Crawford-Brown told
Time-Warner News.
I have concluded that the Rochester story is
really the same as the Baltimore story: a city skittering on the edge of
chaos resorts to extreme measures to protect the law-abiding majority of
its citizens.
Toya Graham, the mother who yanked her 16-year-old son out
of the fray in Baltimore, said, “A lot of his friends have been killed. I just
want to keep him in the house, but that's not really going to work.” At the end
of the day, the National Guard will leave Baltimore, the RCSD will find some
other way to move its students, and the killing fields will get back to
business as usual.
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What would Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass make of the mess we have today? |
Tune in tomorrow for the boreal bogs.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.