Thursday, June 11, 2020

At the demonstration

So, today I went to the Black Lives Matter demonstration in downtown Kent, on the lawn in front of the Justice Center.

I've never been to a demonstration before. My thinking was 'if not now, when?'

I must say that it was a well-behaved group of perhaps a few hundred people with lots of signs, all variants on the same theme: this has got to stop.

The occasion marred only by the fact that due to a poor sound system it was pretty much impossible to hear anything the speaker was saying at any given point.


This was the first time since mid-March I've been out to a place where I knew there'd been a crowd. Unfortunately difficulties with the mask prevented me from being there for the whole two hours; I bailed about a third of the way through. Still I'm glad to have made it. I think it's something my father wd have done if he were here.

--John R.
--today's song: "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by The Rolling Stones (esp the line 'I went down to the demonstration')




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2 comments:

  1. N.E. BrigandJune 13, 2020 at 11:41 PM

    Ever since he accepted the Republican nomination (here in Cleveland) in 2016, I believe all of Donald Trump's rallies have concluded with "You Can't Always Get What You Want".

    Curiously, the FBI counter-intelligence investigation into whether certain Trump associates (including George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn) were acting (wittingly or unwittingly) under the influence of the Russian government was titled "Crossfire Hurricane", which is a phrase from another Stones song, "Jumpin' Jack Flash." And that investigation, which was later taken over by the Special Counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller, launched ten days later. No one has ever explained why the FBI gave the investigation that name.

    Here's a high school marching band from 2014 whose show opens with the latter song, closes with the former, and in between includes "Paint It Black", "Sympathy for the Devil", "Has Anyone Seen My Baby?" (which makes me think of the caged immigrant children) and "Fool to Cry".

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeYJAroFzjw

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  2. D CoteJune 14, 2020 at 10:28 AM

    All hands on deck. By the way, currently reading THE HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT (Kindle Edition- strangely enough, autocorrect wanted to write “Edithion!)— what a wonderful job. Thank you for it.

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