Today is the first day in over a week that I feel like things are back to normal.
Normal… now that I use that word, I realize that while things may feel physically normal to me again (I am no longer coughing or so short of breath that I am on the edge of panic, no longer in a woozy and sometimes disoriented state of mind), I also realize that things are no longer the same as they were before I became ill. It is almost as if I have awakened to a new reality.
Though I was knocked out of my “writer’s zone” all this time, I have been thinking all the while. I’ve been listening to the news… following the “Occupy Wall Street” movement… the deliberate injury of a peaceful young man, an Iraq War veteran, by cowardly Oakland cops… the continuing implosion of the world economy… the ongoing despair of millions of struggling, unemployed people—some of them my close friends… the hypocrisy and selfishness and lack of morality of the world’s politicians including the Republican “presidential frontrunner” of the moment… the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and the people in between thinning out and going the way of the polar ice caps.
And of course I’ve done my best to keep up with all the kids’ cases… Alex King had a court appearance last week and now has a December 20 docket date with trial commencing on January 9 on the traffic charge… Jordan Brown’s attorneys prepared a writ of habeas corpus and had hoped to have had a hearing early last week, but the judge rejected the writ without even a hearing (and with that dashed our hopes of “busting a big move”)… last week we heard that we should prepare for a court hearing on Blade Reed’s habeas corpus writ (though we don’t yet know when that will be)… next week there will be a status hearing in Memphis for James Prindle (after which we will hopefully have an idea about the timing of his case)… and Paul Henry Gingerich’s appeal continues to be delayed because of the obstinate failure of Judge Rex Reed’s lower court to comply with orders from the appellate court to provide a complete transcript.
How long Judge Reed’s court will be able to get away with such contempt is an interesting question. On November 20 MSNBC will air its documentary, “Young Kids, Hard Time,” which features the stories of Colt Lundy and Paul Henry Gingerich.
View a Preview of “Young Kids, Hard Time” here:
For the first time, national attention will be focused on the outrageous, arrogant, and cruel decisions of Kosciusko County Judges Huffer and Reed. Questions will inevitably be asked, and their court’s continuing obstruction of justice will become widely known.
I have emerged from the doldrums of my illness with a sharp new awareness that you and I are not the only people who realize that we are living in a police state that cannot long endure. I spent the whole week with the same uncomfortable feeling as being at a loss for words… an idea was “on the tip of my tongue,” but eluded me and frustrated me until now. But the sleeper has now awakened and the writer returns to work tomorrow.
Tomorrow is a vital new day and the start of a new normal.
۞
Groove of the Day
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