The week to come

I have a website bookmarked on my laptop called "The Drudge Report", which is a website that basically collects the https's of various news sources for easy acquisition. Created by Matt Drudge in 1995, it was once considered by some to be a conservative outlet, but not so much anymore. I mean, if you want quick access to The New York Times, go to Drudge.

Best of all, it's a collection of websites from all over the world. You can access The Daily Mirror in England just as easily as you can Die Zeit in Germany or The China People's Daily. It's a pretty handy tool to have if you want to take a peep at differing points of view.

So I took a quick look this morning, and the first story to hit my eye is "Trump ordering troops to Portland...Authorizes Full Force."

Uh-oh. Here we go again. Our convicted felon president is sending troops to yet another American city to quell rioting that doesn't exist except in his mind. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek hasn't asked for troops (it's unclear if the troops will be National Guard or general military, like the Marines or the U.S. Army). Neither has Portland Mayor Keith Wilson. This looks more like performative theater by Trump to satiate the MAGA faithful.

One of the things the Founding Fathers feared most was a standing army. That's mostly why the military is under civilian (Congressional) control. Plus, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 limits the role of the military in domestic law enforcement. So what Trump is doing here, without Congressional approval, is probably illegal.

Kind of like raising tariffs without Congressional approval.

And what does "full force" mean anyhow? Is he laying siege to an American city? You good with that?

Anyway, right next to the Portland story is this headline: "USA Preps Military Strikes in Venezuela."

What? I don't think planning military strikes on sovereign nations bodes well for any Nobel Peace Prize considerations, which is something Trump is desperate for. You know, because Obama has one. You'd think blowing up Venezuelan speed boats without issuing due process would be enough, but I guess not.

Drudge is usually timely with its news collection, but with a government shutdown looming for Tuesday, I can't find anything right now. Maybe I will later in the day as the news cycle refreshes.

In the meantime, maybe I'll check out "MAGA Coming for the WNBA." 

Charlie Kirk

When I turned on the news Wednesday afternoon after a couple hours of working in my yard, the first thing that came on the screen was the real-time coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the controversial right-wing podcaster, political influencer and activist.

"Uh-oh," I thought to myself. "This isn't going to be good."

As I watched the coverage, a kind of odd familiarity took shape: Rooftops. Crowds. Guns. Always guns.

And, minutes into the insanity and chaos, it was announced that Kirk had died of a single gunshot wound to the neck. Now the shooting had morphed into murder. 

I didn't know much about Kirk. I never listened to his podcasts because his political views aren't how I swing and I didn't need his kind of influencing or reinforcement to my life. I remember hearing that Kirk was the guy who said if he saw a Black pilot on his plane, he hoped the pilot was qualified. Sweet Jesus. He also suggested – among other things – that some Black women "did not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously." Seriously? The movie and book "Hidden Figures" quickly comes to mind here.

DEI apparently wasn't in his alphabet. 

I sometimes got him confused with Charlie Sykes, another conservative political commentator who is often the voice of reason. Maybe I got them confused because they're both named Charlie, followed by a single syllable last name. Yep, that's how I roll. Complex.

When I learned that Kirk was only 31 and left behind a wife and two young children, I cried. Assassins never account for who else gets hurt when the bullet leaves the gun. Collateral damage. There used  to be a time, I think, when you could disagree with a neighbor on politics. It was the Norman Rockwellian American way. You could sit around the cracker barrel and hold heated discussions, pretty much knowing you wouldn't get shot. Now even the cracker barrel invites division.

I am so weary of this shit. 

As the days passed, I soon learned that Kirk was a brilliant debater, often taking on college students in places like Cambridge, even though he himself never graduated from college. Sharp. Quick. Slice and dice. I would've been mincemeat in a debate with him even though I know I disagree with his core values. My best responses in disagreements always seem to come about two days later, when I realize, "That's what I should have said."

I also heard in the wake of Kirk's assassination that this kind of violence "isn't who we are."

What? It's exactly who we are. We live in a gun culture where finality is often discharged in feet per second. Why are there so many guns? Why are they so easy to obtain? What exactly are we afraid of? Why does this happen in America and hardly anywhere else in the world? We are the only nation on the planet with anything resembling a second amendment, and we are killing ourselves with it. I'm still upset with the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King Jr. Why kill John Lennon? He was a Beatle, for God's sake. A musician. Hell, I'm still mad that Abraham Lincoln was murdered and I missed that one by 86 years.

I don't know what the answer is. Reasonable gun control has to factor in the mix somehow, especially now that school children have become targets. We also have to figure out how to disagree without malice, when to walk away, to understand somebody else's perspective without literally being triggered. But I don't know.

It means we have to change who we are.

I think we need good luck with that one. 

 

 

 

 

Art for art's sake

It's not every day you see an artist setting up his easel on the Old Courthouse Square in Lexington, taking a favorite bristle brush and applying some welcomed color and perspective to our lives.

The Square certainly makes for an unusual workplace.

But that's exactly what Lexington's Kenrick Jobe is doing these days as passing motorists take a gander at his work during red lights, or honk their horns in appreciation (we assume) in what is something like a drive-by studio.

Kenrick Jobe creates art on the Old Courthouse Square.

 Why the Square?

"The Square is probably one of the top three busiest places in the area," said Jobe, 30. "So I thought, 'Why not take advantage of that?' So I tried it.

"And I realized, it's a great way to meet new people there," said Jobe. "So I'm like, why not do that? You know? You live here in Lexington. I don't really want to move anywhere. I feel like this area would be nice to build something solid.

"And I've met some of the best people here." 

There is the occasional peeper who comes up to Jobe, stands behind his shoulder and watches as he works a canvas into something that can stir the soul. That's what artists do, after all.

A car horn shouts at us. We both look.

"You got fans?" I ask.

Kenrick Jobe

 "Well, I've definitely got support," said Jobe, a 2017 graduate of East Carolina University, where he majored in art. "I don't mind if somebody comes up and looks over my shoulder while I'm working, even if they don't say anything. 

"I kind of like it," said Jobe. "Maybe I get some people thinking, you know?"

Jobe doesn't consider himself to be a "struggling artist", but he hasn't exactly hit the financial jackpot, either.

"Right now, I'm just working from home," said Jobe, who is originally from Summit, NJ, but came to Lexington when he was 12. "But I do a lot of commissions and stuff like that. I did a mural here in the Old Courthouse. And I'm also an artist in residence at Grace Episcopal.

"At the end of this month, I'll be doing an art workshop at Duke. I think that's going to be pretty much fun."

On the day that I talked with Jobe, he was working on a piece featuring white blossoms. It was stunning. He often videos himself painting in rapid time lapse, so you get to see the painting's progress, and then he posts his projects on Facebook with a description.

In the painting that you see in this blog, Jobe wrote, "I think I'm most proud of this painting. When I look at it, I see growth. These days I'm so optimistic for the future, it's overwhelming. I know something big is on the way."

In just the few minutes I spent with him, I discovered that you can feel his enthusiasm – and optimism – reach out to you. It's almost contagious. Now that would be a pandemic worth having, wouldn't it?

In another post, for a different work, Jobe wrote, "It's hard to ignore someone that paints outside every day. I'm full of love and gratitude. I'm ready to meet every individual that wants to meet me. Let's talk Art. Thank you for giving me a chance to achieve my dream."

In a streetside studio that is filled with sensual stimuli – the scents, the sounds, the motion, the colors – Jobe often paints simply what he sees in his mind's eye.

"Sometimes I might get an idea by looking at a picture," said Jobe. "But then I'll go on it by myself because I don't want to keep looking back and forth at something. So you visualize. I want it to have character. I don't want it to look exactly like a photo, right?"

Jobe doesn't have a gallery – a gallery remains a goal – but his work is for sale. Some pieces can go for several hundred dollars, while others go for several thousand. "It all depends," said Jobe, echoing nearly every artist's pricing strategy.

In the meantime, Jobe continues on with brush and paints in hand and a smile on his face.

"Art is the only constant for me," writes Jobe. "That, and God."