Inappropriate Behavior: Welcome To The New, Old Normal

I truly believe it is a great development that sexual harassment and other such violations have  been taken up as an American cultural theme, these kinds of behavior requiring closer examination and remedy and stoppage.  That we live in a time where a man who freely admits to having permission to grope women's vagina's was elected president surely means it is past time we collectively in America address what should never happen once, let alone how many unknown times daily across our nation. 

Personally, as I have chronicled often, I too have been grabbed and touched in the cab by both sexes, including telephone stalked, both women and men somehow holding license to do what one should never do to another human upon any occasion.  But thinking about it, about inappropriate behavior in general, I am convinced the real problem facing humanity on the whole is a history of engaging in abhorrent behavior and practise, whatever the behavior and justification.  It's clear to me that our lives are daily impacted by deranged behaviors and decisions considered commonplace and routine, making it seem we reside in a massive insane asylum called human civilization.

The list is long and horrible yet accountability for these kinds of violations is rare, and too often, non-existent. How has humankind justified:

Land Mines

Poison Gas

Agent Orange

The promotion of cancer-causing Tobacco for personal profit and gain

Rape and sexual assault

The American Medical Community issuance of unnecessary opioid prescriptions

Slavery

The Three-Fifths Compromise of 1787

Racial Discrimination

The murder of millions solely due to ethic and cultural background

The using of war to resolve political argument, and using WW II as a best/worse example, with between 50-70 million dying in the conflict, the Soviet Union alone losing 25 million lives

The forcing into marriage of woman in Pakistan and India and other countries to men they do not want to be with or love

In same countries, the forcing of underage girls into marriage

The forcible drafting of young men into military service who are then made to kill others against their will

The forced introduction of  unverifiable religious and cultural beliefs upon children, eliminating choice and freewill

Manifest Destiny

The Monroe Doctrine

Executive Order  9066---FDR's 1942 internment of Japanese-Americans

Common, everyday theft of another's processions and property

Denying harmful actions, like polluting local environment for one's personal profit

Intentionally promoting two-tiered educational systems, creating an educational apartheid

Torture

The annual waste of over 30 percent of American food production

Bigotry

Obviously I could go on and on but I believe the point is well made, that by condoning mundane injustice we jointly continue a never-ending cycle.  Simply by not training people how to properly drive cars we perpetuate worldwide 1.3 million deaths and 50 million injuries annually.  It's madness, and of course, welcome to the world as it is, stupid men grabbing woman and forcing their tongues into resistant mouths. 

I am sure many Americans remember that  photograph from 1945 capturing a US Navy sailor dramatically kissing a nurse on a NYC street upon the announcement of the WW II's end.  What most don't know is that the sailor didn't know the nurse, just randomly forcing himself upon her, a degree of rape forever immortalized. But it is certainly a great photograph but what is it really expressing to the world at large?  Perhaps an acceptance, and even celebration of inappropriate behavior.  Scary is all I can say, making me afraid to head out the door.  Ain't it funny that many are scared of snakes, spiders, bedbugs etc but the real culprits are our fellow homo-sapiens, destroying and poisoning our world.

Seattle's New Mayor

It is Wednesday morning, and with Jenny Durkan leading her rival, Cary Moon, 61 to 39 percent with 50 % of the votes counted, Durkan will be Seattle's next mayor.  I feel Moon made the mistake of running for the wrong office, her skillset more suited for the US Congress, where you are not immediately required to know what you are doing, your role more advisory and supportive to party agenda.  Seattle has some immediate issues that cannot be ignored, like traffic congestion and police conduct.  Durkan was, and is the right choice to begin addressing these and other pressing issues.

Uber Top Light

Today I received an email from Anthony Anderson, City of Seattle Licensing and Standards Inspector, telling me he had contacted the offending Uber driver and the illegal top-light would be removed.  All I can say is thank you for doing that.  It is appreciated.  That the Uber driver swore at me is to be expected.  I would have done the same, war is war, the battle lines drawn.