PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

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Last week, a few days ago, these people were living their lives in relative security, unafraid to go outside and enjoy the day. A bike lane targeted by an radacalized man drove into them (firing a fake gun, he was shot by police). What is a fake gun? A gun with blanks? If it was fake, how could it fire? Anyway, shot and arrested. Last I heard he was in the hospital awaiting what awaits him. It is called a terrorist attack in NYC, the first since Sept 11, 2001 - has proven connection to not the middle east but to Islam. 

And so we are back to hating arabs again and backing the limits the Fed wants by executive order limiting "them" into the country. This one, however, was home grown. US citizens are wiggin out - Toffler warned of this back in the sixties in Future Shock. The inability to cope with the increase in subjective persection of time moving too fast to keep up. The mind cracks. The influx of fast information via all kinds of new media fed high flame fuel to that fire. Toffler did not predict the inernet, but in his suppositions about future data delivery he was not far from the mark. Humans can only handle so much. Survival of the fittests becomes something else: healthy survival for those who can tolerate the greates bombardment of current events, the environment, and the interacitons of humans on way too many fronts. Toffler oculd not have imagined the cell phone with photography and video attached. News services don't have to send out living reporters with cams, they just buy the footage. 

Anyroad, the eleven wounded are pretty pissed off about now. The psychology usually tilts toward hatred of some groups somewhere - which brings out the questions: How do you distinguish a humanistic and peaceful practicioner of Islam from a radicalized one set on death to america and americans. How much of this is a war over media coverage and the front page? We (collectively) took down Kabul and this is retaliation or pay back in the minds of one young american male. Mosques will be invaded, probably by NYC cops who, fortunately, have all taken the human sensitivity classes manadated to make them aware of cultural differences and not react based on past racist inclinations. We hope that. We may not get that, but one thing we will get is full coverage of all infarctions. 

How each of us deals with the deaths of bicyclers and pedestrians in a bike lane is anyone's guess. Our polarized views seem to illicit a fixed set of conditioned responses. Death to Islam, death to arabs. We really suck at democracy, huh? 

Time will creep by and we hope there is law to keep the weather cool. He won't get bail. Less a flight risk than a death candidate. Tempers should be high about now among relatives. As the hours pass, the stories of those who died/were injured will emerge. If I was one of the victims, my relatives would be hysterical and raging. I, of course, would have preferred continued living, but there would have been nothing I could do at the moment of death. They probably thought some rogue teen driver or a dui got them. I hope none of them are having a baby soon or about to get married or just hit the lotto. Last thoughts before death: I hope their endings were lightening fast with no long suffering or lingering. Body bags are in the media again. Innocents slaughtered, maimed, marred, disfigured...how much can we take before we realize change of life as ususal is a mandatory evolutionary series of choices. Insanities definition comes to mind. But we continue doing our life the same way over and over and over. I'm just sayin'.

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Stella L. Crews

11-01-17

1101a

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