{"id":1434,"date":"2017-06-04T15:40:11","date_gmt":"2017-06-04T20:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gilcanrun.com\/?p=1434"},"modified":"2017-06-04T15:40:11","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T20:40:11","slug":"sunday-runday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gilcanrun.com\/?p=1434","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Runday"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, doing well. Glad I woke up early enough to get down to Bari and get into the Castle for free, because they’re doing lots of work to the castle and only the inner courtyard and three rooms of the keep are open to the public. Which is totally weak. Two of the halls are used as art exhibits and one is, not even full of artifacts, but plaster casts of artifacts from the major churches and buildings around Puglia. So that wasn’t impressive, but the Cathedrals (which all this time I hadn’t visited) were fantastic. Plus I can say I went to church today, even though I just went and took pictures during Mass. Ha! In all seriousness though, and don’t worry, I don’t use a flash. But now I have even more pictures to sort through. I took over 300 yesterday, and I haven’t downloaded what I did today yet.
\nSo I got back, had some lunch, then decided to go for a run. I am a little behind my “schedule” for the month already, so I decided to just do a half<\/a>, and if I was feeling good enough, I’d go for 15 and catch up. But that did not happen. If I had waited about an hour or so, it probably would have been better, but the Sun was so strong. I didn’t know I could sweat that much, I truly mean that, I’m not exaggerating. I sweated through Body Glide and almost sweated off my Band-Aids. I’m a little raw right now. Given the situation, and that I took my singlet off at about 7.5 miles (12km), I’m ok with my time. Right around 10 minute miles with a fair amount of walking. So what went through my head today, you may ask. Oh boy…
\nI worried about my friends in London. Most of them are not really “going out” types, but still. I was also enraged by Orange Shitlord’s response to immediately call for his “Travel Ban” again. Again, also enraged by the fact that when it’s a European country, when it’s a “Western” country we immediately get on the pity wagon, and send our “thoughts and prayers” (like that’s working). Yet when it’s not a Western country, we completely don’t care. They’re having massive problems in Indonesia and The Philippines, we hear almost nothing about it. There was no outpouring of support for Kabul. I also never hear any talk about how the Bush Administration would tout their strategy of destabilizing the region to bring about democratic revolts<\/a>. I totally remember them saying that.
\nAs I said, we don’t care when it happens “to them”, and that’s horrible. I care, I don’t know anyone in Afghanistan, I don’t know anyone in Syria, nor Iraq (directly), nor anywhere else, but I care. I want it all to stop. I don’t have answers, I know just stopping interference won’t end things. We created this. We intentionally sought out these dictators, propped up these regimes which visit this violence on the world. The US, the UK, Russia\/Soviet Union, Europe, we all did this. In the 60s, almost the whole Middle East was as diverse and “advanced” as any Western country, then we started installing dictators and regimes we wanted. They did exactly what we have been doing in the US, poor quality education, leaving people vulnerable to “snake-oil salesmen” and the like, con-men basically. We have created this, to what end? To keep oil prices low. It’s pretty much disgusting.
\nOn that note, let’s pivot to Bill Maher. When he first started coming around, I admit, I found him funny. Then he started getting TV shows, and I realized what an asshole he is. People call him a “liberal” and many times he takes liberal stances. But in general, he’s just a stupid asshole. Well, he really hit it out of the park the other day by using the full-on “n-word.” Look, it’s never ok. Full on never ok. There’s no such thing as a “pass” on this one. There’s no such thing as context here. It is a word that has been used by Europeans and people of European descent for centuries to oppress Africans and people of African descent, knock it the fuck off. This isn’t a free speech issue. Insofar as, nobody should accept or tolerate this. But here’s the amazing thing, it will totally be tolerated.
\nLet’s put this in perspective, man is harassing two hijabi women on mass transit in Portland stabs 3 people killing 2, and Trumpster Fire and the GOP are silent. Last night in London, before anyone really knew anything, Orange Twitler was already tweeting about how we need his travel ban back. Kathy Griffin holds the bloody effigy head of Trump up in a photograph and they lose their damned minds. Even after 8 years of effigies of President Obama being hung, burned, abused, likened to apes, etc. Tad Nougat claiming her personally would murder President Obama, and Shitlord invites that no-talent shitbag to the Oval Office. CNN immediately fires Griffin from their New Year’s Eve coverage. But Bill Maher, nothing will happen to him. Why? We can’t even agree that #Blacklivesmatter , I seriously doubt enough people even think #Blackfeelingsmatter . But it’s not just the GOP not caring on this one, it’s the entire White Establishment. Sure, most of the Democrats will get behind and say supportive things about #BLM but in the end it’s just lip service. One of the big reasons Hillary had trouble and ended up losing, is because of a speech she gave ages ago in which she called adolescent gang members\u00a0“superpredators, who need to be made to heel<\/a>.”\u00a0Now, while she never directly says that African-Americans are the gang members, the implication made by Priebus and Trump was enough. Not properly addressing this issue turned down so many people. It’s like nobody considered that, even though the GOP attack line wasn’t true, that they were the ones who equated “gang members” to “African-Americans”, it required attention, clarification, and apology to anyone who may have been offended by this.
\nMost politicians don’t care about anyone, but they particularly don’t care about African-Americans. But that’s par for the course for most of the world and anyone from, whether recently or historically, Africa. So many Africans here are shocked when I ask them where they are from and can talk to them about their home, or even know where their country is on a map. Not just Americans, Europeans are completely ignorant about this. The point being, we don’t seem to care at all, and so Bill will keep his job and it will be business as usual, even though he needs to knock off his shit. But more than that, we all have to start being decent human beings to each other. Which was my final thought on my run. I want to learn to say “hello” in as many languages as possible. Just one word, but surely it is the most important word. To greet someone, I think, is the most important thing.
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