Palmer Blevins Blog

I feel I need to clarify something from a previous post in regards to my feelings about Abraham Lincoln: I do not dislike Abraham Lincoln, the man. I do, however, dislike Springfield’s Lincoln fetish as well as the whole Lincoln mythos.

In that post, I was trying to convey that despite trying to escape Abe and anything to remotely do with him…he kept popping up. And now this. A fellow Blevins genealogist recently emailed me something in regards to Lincoln and his connections to the mother of Susannah Duncan:
(From R. A.)- …Apparently her mother or Susannah’s mother was a first cousin to Abraham Lincoln. In the Sorento and Reno area Lincoln traveling through as a lawyer would stop and eat and or sleep at their home. I do not know the name of Susannah’s mother or father except for the last name of Duncan. Susannah personally told my grandmother in Gillespie many times and unfortunately some of thru details have gotten garbled through the years.

Susannah Duncan was the wife of my 2x Great-Grandfather, Henry Benton Blevins (the first male child born in Cahokia Township, Macoupin County, IL). I must admit, it would be highly interesting to me if a connection could be found. But once again, there just is no escaping Abe.

Since my vacation to the South this weekend, I’ve been puzzled by something. During the entire trip, we saw only two Confederate flags flying in the air, three bikers who happened to have the Confederate flag stitched on their jackets, and countless cars with Obama bumper-stickers…even in the most remote places. Not once did we see a car/truck with a “Kiss My Rebel Ass” or “Proud to be a Rebel” or “the South Will Rise Again” bumper-sticker.

We were treated with the outmost politeness and respect. It was truly shocking when we went to a bar in the middle of nowhere in South Carolina, one of the bikers with a Confederate flag emblem, bought us dinner…talked politics, the economy and gave us names of people to talk to in regards to getting a job or place to rent in North Carolina if we so desired.

Contrast those experiences with the following.

On our ride home we went through Indiana and went through Champaign to Casa Blevins. We stopped at a gas station near Springfield and the attendant followed Samantha around like she was up to no good; despite her being professionally dressed, not speaking with an accent, and her having the required white-male escort (me) at her side.

Since being home we have seen 1 Confederate flag flying outside a house off of North Grand, 25 trucks with a Confederate flag decal and/or the catchy slogans mentioned above, and dealing with closet racists at some gas stations, banks, restaurants, etc., we’ve encountered almost daily here in Springfield and who don’t have the balls to say what they think/feel.

Is Illinois/Springfield more racist then the areas we visited and traveled through in the South? And if so, should Lincoln really be the posterboy of this town?

I am about to write/say something so shocking, so evil, so un-Springfieldian and I sincerely hope that you, my dear reader, will not think any less of me than you may already think.

I DISLIKE THE MYTHOS of ABRAHAM LINCOLN!

Since my childhood, despite years of educational indoctrination that built Lincoln into a larger than life demagogue worthy of worship to the point of extreme fetish, I’ve never been a fan of Honest Abe.

When I became a history buff, I often found myself quickly silenced when I went against accepted conventions in regards to Abe, and I usually try to avoid any public criticism or disdain for the man.

But honesty is truly the best policy. So it is out there: I am not a fan of Abraham Lincoln. So, when I planned my vacation I carefully tried to avoid any place with the slightest association with Lincoln; yet, there is no escape.

Of course, traveling through three former Confederate states is not going to provide a real escape from Abe since the landscape is dotted with many Civil War battlefields. I avoided going through Kentucky today just for the simple fact it was Lincoln’s place of birth; but lo and behold there is a Lincoln Museum here in Tennessee. In a strange twist of fate, I had to pay for my hotel room, $50, with fives. There just is no escaping Abe.

I’ll be in South Carolina by mid-afternoon. Hopefully Myrtle Beach will grant me at least some reprieve from the ghost of Lincoln that is following me.

If there were to ever be a Springfield Blogger Hall of Fame, there is no way Dave, Marie, 30 What, Shoo, Gish, Will or Just 2 Guys would not make it. After reading The Way of the Andy, after reading comments left by him, I would have to say this site is “Hall” worthy.

Insightful, funny, fresh and in your face.

BTW, Andy, correct me if I am wrong…Wells Fargo ‘03, you sat a couple cubicles behind me?

I’ve been reflecting on an interview I had for an organizer position with SEIU Healthcare IL/IN last Monday. When I found out today that my “qualifications were outstanding” but “the union had decided to go with somebody else” I really was not happy.

Apparently passion and knowledge of the labor movement, my youth and ambition, and more importantly my ability to organize a Verizon store before management caught wind and fired my happy ass, was not what they were looking for.

Not only did I organize the Verizon Plus! store in Bloomington, I came damn near organizing a Verizon Wireless store in Springfield. Oh, yeah, that’s right, I only have a year of organizing experience. Then again, I’ve known organizers who have years of experience but are lucky if they can organize their desk let alone an organization.

Even though I am a bit miffed in regards to not being hired, I realize it’s their loss. After all, I only organized Verizon.

You can only hope it goes away.

Without giving away where I live totally, four years ago I bought a house near North Grand. At first, my neighbors and I did not really get along all too well but our relationship has gotten much better; and that is more than likely due to our collective disdain for some neighbors that live two/three houses down the street.

These houses in our neighborhood are nothing but drug houses and possibly dens for prostitution and other debauchery. On any given day, any given hour, there are tons of people just loitering around, making noise and just being general nuisances. They don’t work because welfare and crime pays better than an honest wage does, and they are nothing but a blight not only on the neighborhood, but the fabric of humanity itself.

Saturday morning I was walking home after getting some milk and eggs from Walgreens and the usual crowd of trash was in the street, carrying on when a girl gets in the car and is about to leave when a guy decides to jump on the hood of the car and yell “gun it!” And she did; and the stupid idiot flies over the car and lands on the back of his head on the street.

He didn’t move for a bit. The crowd of hooligans were now screaming and hollering, not because they did not have the intelligence to prevent an unnecessary accident but because one of their fellow crack-heads was now on the ground bleeding.

And you would think they would learn. Nope! Come Sunday morning two more people were doing the exact same thing; I could not help but think why do my tax dollars help keep these idiots fed and breathing? The neighborhood would be so much better if these people were loaded onto a truck and shipped off somewhere to become a burden on another society.

Khadija Abdul Qahaar, a Canadian formerly known as Beverly Giesbrecht, is a hostage of the Taliban; and she is pleading for help. I am finding it hard to feel sorry for this woman, and I do not see how her death would be on someone shoulder’s other than her own.

I will not hold converting to Islam after 9-11 against her; but the situation that she is in is of her own choosing. She went to a war-torn country without any money, without any security and without any care for the real situation on the ground for one purpose and one purpose only: to give an “alternate” (ie., pro-Taliban) view because the Western media is so “biased.” And now, she is supposedly in a life and death situation after refusing to see the history of how women are treated in Islamic societies, and after failing to see the real nature of the Taliban and other fanatical Islamic groups.

Call me a cynic, but there is something that makes me feel that she may be on the same side of her “captors.” I can’t put a finger on what it is, but I get the feeling that there is more to this story than meets the eye. Perhaps it’s her website and its seemingly pro-Taliban, pro-bin Laden tone that makes me feel that she is merely a player for the other team trying to extort some money for the cause. I could be wrong; after all, it is clear that the floating knife in the picture/video offers a clear and present danger to her.

Khadja, I’m not buying it.

What are you most afraid of? Some people are afraid of the unknown, others are afraid of being exposed. Others are afraid of being irrelevant, while others still are afraid of guilt/remorse. It would be safe to say that, ultimately, everyone is afraid of death in one form or another: not just in a physical or spiritual sense, but in the sense of losing favor in someone else’s eyes, etc., as well.

Just like everyone else, my fears drive me to do, say and write things; for the good and for the bad. My fears of being irrelevant, of not being a success, etc., have led me to not only be bitter but also angry, contemptous and apathetic as well, at times. And it is very easy to blame someone else, to play the abused martyr who just doesn’t understand why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people; for example, the good person being the individual who feels slighted when he sees someone he/she doesn’t like getting something that he or she wants. If I had a quarter for every time I got into that state; I could have bought myself a nice US Senate seat from Rod Blagojevich.

More often then not, we project these fears on others: be they institutions or individuals themselves; often times the very things they lash out at and demonize have no consequence on their lives. It’s It’s a mad final dash to prove one’s salt. So they attack or knowingly say or do something that is not only offensesive, but also hurtful to others just in order to elicit a response and feel a sense of relevancy; which is probably why Family Guy is still on Tv and Rush Limbaugh is still waddling around in a drug induced haze.

Fear could very well be the fall of man. It is what leads to anger, bitterness, apathy, guilt, remorse, revenge, etc. It is what leads to the destruction of not only the mind and body, but also the soul. And try as hard as one might to project one’s own fears and sense of inadequecy, irrelevance, anger, contempt, etc., onto another person or persons (who more often then not have no bearance on his/her existence), the ugliness of one’s own life is still reflected in the mirror.

I hate when neo-Conservatives are quick to call for others to go to war, but are quick to find any way possible to avoid fighting those very wars they support.

It also annoys me to no end when liberal leaning individuals feel the need to disparage those who opted to serve in the military. It is not difficult to create a post that says “I Love a Man in Uniform,” and have a picture of Nazi troops as the main attention grabber.

Some people are troubled by the assumption that the men and women who served in Iraq are coming back to be police officers and will be able to exercise careful and prudent police power…because after all, they were psychotic mercenaries who have an unquenchable bloodlust and feasted on little children and widows.

People can harp about post-traumatic stress all day long, but how many of them really give two craps about soldiers coming back from the battle field with PTS? PTS is a serious problem, but should not be masked for someone’s seeming contempt for those who marched into battle. Granted, there were people who abused their power in Iraq & Afghanistan; but the vast majority of people who have and continue to serve in the military served their country and knew/know the difference between right and wrong. And to label those men and women as black-booted Gestapo thugs of the Bush Administration is preposterous, unwarranted and mean-spirited.

There are plenty of people in police uniform who, if given the chance, have and will abuse their power…and they’ve never been in the military. There are plenty of nutjobs who go into the police force for the very adrenaline rush and position of power that some people are terrified that former soldiers will do if they happen to trade in one uniform for another. Were is the phony outrage over the assumption that these people won’t go crazy and decide to shoot up a place?

Finally, a man willing to stand up to murderers who use religion as a pretext for their homicidal inklings.

Lord Justice Wall, a senior judge in the UK, has declared “honor killings” as “acts of simply sordid criminal behaviour’ and ‘had nothing to do with any concept of honour known to English law’.”

I think it could be said that honor killings don’t have anything to do with any concept of honor known to civilized man. It is beautiful that the father of the children in the case mentioned in the article has been refused the right to have contact with them.