A little Rumi:

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet."
~Rumi

HELP. We're crumbling here at home.

Detroit, MI
Sept. 11, 2008





I got robbed this weekend. I wasn't hurt, but as you can imagine I felt incredibly violated. Some of my belongings were stolen because they happened to be at the bottom of a bag full of groceries that was in my car. Bottom line: Someone robbed me because they saw lettuce sticking out of a plastic bag in my car. They broke the window because they wanted groceries.



And while my first emotion was anger, it quickly turned into sadness as I looked up and down the street and saw the desperocity it takes to smash a car window in broad daylight reflected in the crumbling infrastructure. I was on Gratiot and McDougall surrounded by abandoned factories with broken glass and charred houses. It was pouring rain, and I was soaking in the apocalyptic scene that has overwhelmed large parts of Detroit.



So when I turn on the news I don't want to hear my future presidents bickering over who said what or who hung out with who or cheated on their spouse. I want to know what they're going to do about the direction of this county I am a citizen of. For instance, one of the largest cities in the nation crumbling into the ground in the wake the shrinking U.S. auto industry. It's almost taboo to show images from Detroit or bring it up Especially for Sen. John McCain who has yet to visit Detroit on his campaign route. What is he scared of? If he really want to put country first, then why isn't he doing just that?

By the same token, if Sen. Barack Obama really wants to "change" the game in Washington, he was to prove it in his campaign. So I was glad last week when he said this:

"These are serious times and they call for a serious debate about where we need to take the nation. We can't take another four years that are like the last eight. Where we keep on spending 10 billion in Iraq at a time when our own infrastructure here at home in crumbling and the Iraqis has a $79 billion surplus they're not spending. Spare me the phony outrage. Spare me the phony talk about change."

After living in an impoverished neighborhood in Detroit for a year now, I have come to this conclusion: When every other house, block after block, is either burnt to charcoal, abandoned, or has all the siding and shingles stripped off, there's a grave problem. When crime becomes part of the culture of a city, there's a grave problem.

Now I am confident that the violation I experienced this weekend is just a symptom of a larger problem that is so painful to address that many, including me, try to ignore it. But when you are directly affected by the raw, harsh reality of poverty, and you're looking at the broken glass of hunger and abandonment, it's a little harder to turn your head.

The situation is so bad in some of these neglected neighborhoods it seems almost surreal that a 15 minute drive north will take me to one of the most wealthy suburbs in the United States. I wish I was exaggerating.

The irony is that the images embedded in this story are the last ones I uploaded from my camera before it was stolen. When I get a new camera, I will make sure that we don't forget our neighbors struggling in Detroit. They're not pretty to look at, but they're there. I hope that politicians in Lansing and in Washington that are supposed to be representing us see these scenes and it's a little harder to turn to ignore.



This weekend, I internalized the fact that crime, unfortunately, is part of Detroit culture. Everyone I know who has lived in Detroit has been robbed at some point. Some of them have had their houses broken into, some have been held at gunpoint, some have had their cars stolen ... for some of them, all of the above.

So it becomes part of the daily discourse: did you hear so-and-so got mugged/robbed? It's so common that when you call the police to report these crimes, you're lucky if they pick up the phone. That's because there's so many other things going on that are more severe that they hardly have time to catch a thief.






When I called the Detroit police Station on Gratiot on Saturday after the robbery and no one answered the phone. I had to call a couple times before someone answered.

Looking at these images should be reminder that of what a grave situation it is here in Detroit. I'm sure in other cities feel it as well. But in Detroit it's not just one section of the city. It's all over, except for a few pockets of wealth like Sherwood Forest, Indian Village and Downtown. While the country obsesses over "lipstick" comments and who said what, a major U.S. city is crumbling into the earth, abandoned in the wake of a crashing auto industry. I see these images driving to and from home every day. Most people in lofty positions that might allow them to make a difference don't live here.

Last week a house burnt down on my block, adding to the many charred houses that speckle my neighborhood. I'm staying in Detroit because I love my neighbors, and my little community. I want to help. I will over time, get another camera and continue to use it to rub these images in the face of a government that doesn't seem as outraged at what is happening to their own country as I am.



From: "The mountains of Sedona where he lives and the corridors of power where he works."

Sen. Barck Obama said in his acceptance speech at the DNC:

"It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it. [Republicans] give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own."

I never see any McCain signs around Detroit. I wonder why. I would like McCain to visit Detroit and look residents in the eyes and tell them why they should vote for him. Obama has. It would be fair. McCain has yet to visit Detroit on a campaign stump.

Crying, silently, among the rainclouds

There are places where everything is oriented vertically and sharp vertical objects spike the horizon as people push their way, forward, backward and sideways under white or rainy clouds, through which a reason cannot be seen.

Here, umbrellas come out when rain comes down and people have to act interested in their shoe laces for twenty minutes to avoid the akwardness of meeting the eyes of the stranger sitting across from them on the T because they forgot to bring a book and they have already read the paper. Here, there are sidewalks and pedestrians are treated as citizens, not aliens. The streets bend in no recognized organization, the congestion of cars and buses encourages one to take into motion on foot for the last three blocks, or sit in their car or cab, imobilized by trafic, and wish they could fly. The bright flare of colors under solid blazers and designer jeans with intrguing shoes designed to walk in flourish as every other person smiles, as every other person frowns.

Boston, Massachusetts: the first American city...town...colony. Everything is historical, it seems: the first public library, the first park, the first massacre of native americans. There is even a phallic symbol in the commons to comemorate the first massacre....with pretty genetically engineered pansises planted neatly around it....it doesn't really hurt to pretend. My eyes gladly suck in the sparkling color of the abnormally large flowers that are looking up at me with yellow eyes.
If I blink once I might miss the truth, it is so heavily decoarated in gaudy distractions.
I know it is not my place to judge, as a human being....and that it is not my right to ask you to sympothize...this is just how I feel right not, and tomorrow I might wake up and laugh.

SILENT MAJORITY:

In the evening glow of a day full of rain and air planes, I stood in my sister's kitchen, listening to air america as Jerry Springer ranted about that state of our country...when Jerry spinger is more intellegent than the president, I thought, that is the sign of a counrty in distress. An idle hand moved to the surface of the refridgerator where it slowly and regretfully, pushed a magnet of the american flag until if hung upside down...waving a signal of distress.
Here in the dark, there in the light, I realized that essentailly, where you are does not make who you are; that if you are happy, than you may be happy anywhere you go, the same goes for anger, sadness, or any permanent mood. In the midwestern pillows of apathy I found a strange sense of being a wildflower and a field of wheat. But in Boston I find myself among a field of other assorted wildflowers and with few strands of wheat here and there I am, feeling quite the same as I had in the wheat field, if not even more overlooked...I am just another fragment of a silent majority. Only thirty-five years ago, I would have been part of a vocal minority...and now I am sitting here trying to decide which is better: If a brainless tyrant went on killing in the name of freedom while most people agreed and few people arose in protest,OR if most people disagreed and silently looked on in disspoaintment and the few people who the war benefitted, or who where brainwashed, ran aroung in loud celebration.
Right now, I am one of those people, looking on in dissapointment, shaking my head at Air America and writing heated blogs that probably no one will ever read....I'm just walking the miles, every once in a while I get a ride...
In an airplane I was high, and looked down to see the other side of the clouds. They looked the same as the bottom side except whiter, puffier...and closer. They seemed alomost inviting, like a sea of foam one could bounce upon for all eternity...if gravity had not taken it's sinister hold upon the atmosphere.