Politics

Ok I really know that this is not going to come off the way I plan . … forgive me . …

Carlos Miller was arrested by City of Miami police officers Feb. 20 after taking pictures of them on a public street and refusing to take a hike. The theme Photography is Not a Crime ( no kidding?) . Thomas Hawk has been following the case you can read his latest article here.

Karoli on odd time signatures in her update on Carlos Miller pointed out a chilling reference to the involvement of Homeland Security – seems some blogger turned poor Carlos in as a threat to National Security – please spare me – did the police officers have some top secret super duper weapons on them – or perhaps the road work at the location was really a new secret defense department bunker – come on! Realities check Miami!!

Remember the pair of Homeland Security officers at the Little Falls branch of the Montgomery County Public Library in Bethesda that went around and looked at what each person was looking at on their PC. The confronted on man about a site he was visiting and told him to step outside.

Or how about the couple Walter and Deana Soehnge – they paid off their credit card and ended up with their account frozen and Homeland Security notified?

Exactly one year and one day ago I asked on this blog in a post titled Apathetic Citizenry and Loss of Civil Liberties when discussing Bush’s qualifing statement included with the H.R. 3199, the “USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 these questions:

How do you define domestic terrorism? How does the government?
How do you interpret this section? Do you think American citizens are becoming complacent and take their civil rights/liberties for granted?
You decide and let me know what you think.

These are not unexpected occurrences that should be anything more than the DUH factor- they are the DUH factor. Those who experienced a country where civil rights were on the rise not decline have been writing, protesting, and some even have been jailed to get the message out. Hello society your rights are going to disappear – this administration has just set the ball toward a federal police state a rolling.

It is unfortunate that this already has been allowed – the Constitution has been turned into a joke. The separation of powers … well you get the point. Now yesterday’s news was full of the judicial systems being influenced by the executive branch . . . and the stuff of Science Fiction’s Big Brother becomes closer to non fiction.

Last night I was photographing a statue of an Elk that happens to be located at the main entrance to the Elk Grove, CA. Chamber of Congress Building. As I started I noticed there was a police car across the street. I have noticed this before on nights where they hold board meetings. I started to take pictures and realized that maybe this might not be the smart thing to do at the moment. I being the good little sheep that I am LOL put on my zoom lense and shot from the public sidewalk – in a hurry – only when I pointed the camera in the direction of the police car did I see movement inside – so not wanting to test my spider senses I turned away. Sad but true. I am not saying that this officer would have done a thing. I am saying that I was not willing to find out in the wake of the Carlos Miller story – I also would be a bit short on bail funds if he had.

I have no answers I only hope that it is not to late to turn this country’s direction the other way again. As long as we have the political Fear Factor machine –mentioning evil doers and terrorists – an apathetic population – the little tale about next they will come for me is very much a reality.

I stopped posting political topics because no one really paid much attention and those who did usually did a much better job of covering the subject matter than I.

Katrina taught me that Mother Nature is one tuff gal, our government is not going to save or help anybody. I no longer believe my voice really matters (especially with the voting machines in place) – I believe in God, kindness, honesty, honor, and self sufficiently. I am not going to wait till the knock on the door is for me to be ready. And, if I am going down – I am going to get a better shot than one of a fiberglass statue! Even if it is Red, White, and Blue.

In keeping with my promise to not forget the victims of Katrina.

My friends Shelley and Prasad took us to New Orleans on our visit last year. Shelley was waiting in their van when a nice lady rolled up and they started chatting it up. Shelley purchased the voodoo doll that was guaranteed to have good Juju (not sure of proper spelling here) that she gave to me.

She told Shelley her Katrina story – everyone who lives there has one – she talked about when it came, where she took shelter, and how glad she was that her city streets had people on them again. I came in on the end of the conversation. The one thing that I have not forgotten was the lady (I forgot her name) was still without teeth. She laughed and joked about how Katrina took her teeth. She was also up front and honest about selling the doll so she could go get a bottle.

Here’s to one of the nicest ladies I met along the streets of New Orleans:

Like everyone we met she had her story, she had a scense of humor, and she was upbeat.