Speaking of shit shovelers...one time I was at Rolling Thunder's camp (in Nevada, 1977) and I had run out of work to do, having attended to the goats and rabbits and finished all that. I figured I ought to be doing something, so I went up to Greg Valentin (the person I most admired on the face of the Earth...amazing man...my "uncle" Greg, as far as I was concerned), and said, "Chico Mescalero is bored. Chico needs something to do."

Greg looked at me sardonically. "So, Chico is bored, is he? Follow me, Chico, I have a job for you."

He led me to the pigpen, which our one and only pig had occupied until just a couple of days before, when the poor little guy was turned into pork roast and such....

"We need to get this pigpen emptied out," he said. "It shouldn't take you more than a few hours."

I stared at the pigpen. It was full of liquid manure to a depth of maybe 6 inches, maybe more...mixed with the local mud, of course. There was a shovel leaning against the fence. My heart sank. However, if Greg had told me to walk across the Colorado River during spring flood, I would probably have given it an attempt.

I took a deep breath and said, "Is there a bucket somewhere I could use?"

Greg looked back at me, completely without expression for a few seconds, then his eyes crinkled up and he started laughing. "Never mind," he said. "I was just testing you. I wanted to see how willing you were. Why not just get yourself a coffee instead, and I'll show you some interesting plants over here that you can use for healing."

Greg was about the best man I have ever known.

Major thread creep, eh?

Okay, so back to the subject...it is funny to think of Rodney King asking for mutual understanding...if you investigate into his own personal behaviour toward others prior to and leading up to his spectacular encounter with the L.A.P.D. I imagine that Rodney was told (by his lawyer and handlers) EXACTLY what to say in front of the microphones that day. He was not what you would call a gentle and accomodating soul most of the time. So I think I get the joke, all right.

We all get heated now and then on certain subjects. I think the important thing is not to start personally denigrating someone you disagree with by calling them words like "scumbag", "stupid", "anti-Semite", "moron", "fascist", or whatever. You can make strong statements about a subject of discussion, but you shouldn't personally abuse people, just cos they see that subject from a different angle. After all, they have been through a different life experience than you have, and that shapes how they see things. For example, you might feel that a specific governmental policy is fascist or communist, but you should not therefore call anyone who happens to support that policy a "fascist" or a "communist". They may have any number of reasons for supporting it that you are simply not aware of, depending on their own background.