Spare Any Change?

"As a jailed Ricardo Rolon awaits arraignment with three others on suspicion of killing a Pico Rivera grandmother when she tried to stop a tagger, his mother, Carmen, sprang to his defense Friday, lashing out at authorities for portraying him as an out-of-control gangster...

The truth is, Carmen Rolon says, that her son was extremely drunk on the day Maria Hicks was gunned down in her car after flashing her lights at a tagger to try to get him to stop spray-painting a wall in Pico Rivera.

'He had a job, he was a good worker, he has two (young) sons, he went to school, he has a certificate of completion -- but they've never said anything about that,' she said."

SGV Tribune

She'd have been better off if she had tried this at the beginning of the credibility year. Maybe then there might have been enough in the budget to go for this, but I think most people, most of the people she'd want to reach anyway, are already running a BS deficit. What with wide stances and successful surges, a lot of people are already giving everything they can to believe.

It's not like it's impossible, or even unheard of, for us to make sense of the supposedly senseless. Afterall, she's using some very good points: we don't see the whole picture, the media are one-sided, we should focus on the present and not past mistakes- unless past mistakes can be viewed as someone else's responsibility, we need to support abstract ideals like MOTHERHOOD and CHILDREN, we need to fight them over there so we don't fight them over here. No wait- that last one's not hers, but it might work... No, I suppose not. Okay, the point remains; we are quite adept at making the pieces fit- at least to individual satisfaction.*

Maybe there are better things for a father of two young children to be doing than getting drunk, tagging, and being involved in shooting an old lady, but now's not the time for playing the blame game, rehashing mistakes, or questioning the decision to pay for Palo's defense when Carmen is homeless and $25,000 in debt from a previous legal case. Right now the only thing worth focusing on is how to support her boy's defense.

Maybe there's something to that, but Carmen's timing is a bit off. People aren't necessarily tired of crap. We just don't have the capacity to work with too much at once. General Petraeus will be giving his oral report tomorrrow, bombs keep blowing up, and with every American that dies, we're deeper into the pot. We're tapped out with just war, let alone pro-family politicians that aren't into their spouses, trying to believe in something like FREEDOM and the GWOT, or just all the day to day garbage we have to reconcile with who we think we are.

It's a lot to ask; yellow ribbons are on backorder and already committed to another purpose.

*I like to pretend that Iraq is a wonderful missions field- not to the Iraqis of course. I mean it's a place where American service personnel have the opportunity to really examine their lives and come to a personal relationship with Jesus. That's how I sleep at night.

Tainted Love
Black Boys on Mopeds- Sinead O'Connor
Vancouver- Violent Femmes
Beautiful World- Devo
Misterioso- Tito Puente
Do Ya- ELO
C for Conscription- The Almanac Singers
Is This Love?- Bob Marley & The Wailers
Helium Bar- The Weirdos
Bodies-Sex Pistols
Message From The Underworld- The Weirdos
She Came In Through The BAthroom Window- The Beatles
Painter Song- Norah Jones
Just Another- Pete Yorn
C-C- Tom Vek
Bailey's Walk- The Pixies