Street Art

I'm mildly obsessed with this fellow's story and moreso his art.  He has been a doctor at Indian Health Services in Tuba City for 20+ years, in the last few he has started putting up these installations.  They are all over downtown Flagstaff and all across the reservation, the ones between Flagstaff and Page are known and sometimes change, I was delighted when we drove from Flagstaff to Telluride to see the art in a different part of the Navajo Nation. So a lot of  these I have seen in person. I love them.

This is a newish one I found in the alley in Flag after breakfast, you can see the coal baby that was there before underneath.

Lincoln

I saw Lincoln yesterday and yes it is as great as they say. But while weeping over the (spoiler alert!) passage of the 13^th Amendment. (And let’s be honest, weeping starting with the Gettysburg Address, because what am I if not a sop for what America could be?) Abolishing slavery was ugly and difficult and many people thought it couldn’t be done or shouldn’t be done. But it was because more and more people saw the direction of history and, to paraphrase MLKJ, that long arc of the universe bending toward justice and equality. It occurred to me that that time might have felt kind of like this time, right nowish. 

After the results two weeks ago in Maryland, Washington, Maine and Minnesota, I think it is clear. Marriage equality- and gay rights- are here. It’s time and it is happening. I don’t think I felt the issue of marriage equality really until we got engaged. I mean, I always thought everyone should be able to marry whoever they wanted but at some level maybe didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I mean, I’ll still say slavery is a bigger deal. But even in terms of less extreme human rights.  And maybe it isn’t the biggest deal, if choosing between voting and marrying or separate drinking fountains and marrying, I guess marrying still loses as super biggest deal. But realizing there was someone who I wanted to be publicly and legally linked with kind of shaded the issue for me. 

If marriage didn’t matter, I wouldn’t be doing it (since I only do really important things, see: Law & Order: SVU). And if I can do, everyone should be able to. Except assholes, I’ll do everything in my power to limit their civil rights.  Gay, straight, brown or white-- assholes, I am coming for you.