THE INTERESTING LITTLE ODYSSEY OF OUR BOX FROM BALI -- AND SOME OTHER THINGS

THE INTERESTING LITTLE ODYSSEY OF OUR BOX FROM BALI -- AND SOME OTHER THINGS  (OCTOBER 20 2013)

The most important family news for us is the arrival in Iowa City of Willow, baby daughter of grandson/son Thomas Gray Salter and his good spouse, Mimie (Yirengah) who is from Zambia and UK. Willow is almost nine pounds.  Between Thomas and Mimie, she's full of tribal lines.  Mimie's parents, Amos and Mutale Chilinda, flew in from the London area for The Arrival.  All are doing very well indeed.

While "nightrider" matters around here remain quiet, my holstered revolver still resides on the table next to my chair in our living room.  Sometimes it rests on a copy of Backpacker magazine, sometimes on Fur - Fish - Game, or on Against the Current, or a Lupus journal.  (My personal Lupus is now 'way far down-in and has been inactive for several years.  As I've indicated, my medics are extremely surprised by this.)  At the moment, my revolver is resting on my large paperback copy of American Sporting Rifles.  I like to browse that from time to time since it speaks very well of the several Browning/Winchester and Marlin rifles I own -- all "Western" big-bore lever actions with pre-1900 patents.  The book mercifully says Zero about the "militarily" dressed up semi-automatic "assault" rifles which I see as a valid civil liberties issue in the defense of the Second Amendment but which I personally would never have in my home.

If the "night-rider" piece is now quiescent -- at least for the time being --  ostensibly mysterious postal things still continue to occur -- as they have for years and years.  More on that in a moment with respect to our package from Bali.  But, given the widespread reports of the vast indeed U.S, Government and related spying on people -- huge numbers of targeted people in this country, and others -- there seems to be relatively little discussion of it in our mainline media and a strange paucity of relevant verbiage in many left and liberal circles. What discussion there is tends often to be abstract in nature.  Sometimes it's easier to talk about  overseas political crises and, while those discussions can be important, we do have our very significant challenges on many, many fronts right here at home -- including personal privacy.  I do give ACLU and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and some notable individuals high marks for keeping us reasonably posted as these sorry and sinister revelations unfold.

At some point in the future, there will be some examination of the actual impact of this spying on actual human beings,  And, in due course, I look for a streamlining of the Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts and their extension from coverage of Federal snoopers to also completely include local and state forces operating as Federal agents.

In an apparently unrelated matter, we beat back a totally unwarranted civil lawsuit against a family member in these parts.  I have a reputation, and have had for decades and decades, of writing very effective letters.  I composed our answer to the suit in the form of a strong and reasoned letter which, among other things, hinted counter-suit and which I also signed.  I filed that in District Court, paying the $66.00 fee.  A status hearing was scheduled for later this month.  But the other side, Plaintiff, not too surprisingly, filed to drop the case without prejudice, and the judge so ordered.  End of that -- and a nice little scalp for our pole.  

As Martin King once put it, "I am not a lawyer but I have had a great deal to do with lawyers."  Many years ago, the then North Carolina Attorney General, Ralph Moody, threatened to prosecute me for "practicing law without a license."   My response was icy cold and completely adamant and I sent copies of my answer to attorneys Bill Kunstler and Arthur Kinoy.  Never heard from General Moody again on that.  I am, I should add, very careful to not represent myself as an attorney and, in Internet advice, I always issue an explicit disclaimer.  I also know the "professional" limits of my abilities in the legal arena -- but I do know a lot about it all.

An academic person is coming here from deep, deep Dixie for several days this coming week to do a long film documentary with me. It'll cover a good number of things.  Always remembering when Ella Baker and I left Birmingham together in the late fall of 1963, hitting Iowa as the first part of our several weeks speaking tour and being struck hard by what seemed to us super cold weather, I have advised the person to bring a "medium" jacket along.  Our days are now very cool and the nights downright cold.

And now to the travels of our package from Bali:

In this late September, Maria ordered a Christmas present for another family member -- a pair of ear-rings -- from an artisan in Bali.  Bali is part of Indonesia, of course, and Bali's prevailing theology by far is Hindu.  The artisan is endorsed by National Geographic.  The shipping mode was the private United Parcel Service -- but with a not procedurally uncommon twist at the end.  UPS would handle the package to Pocatello for us -- our Zip, 83204 -- but would turn it over to our local post office for actual delivery. (All of this was in Eldri's name since she has the credit card.)

The payment receipt for the ear-rings carried our full and specific Pocatello address and our telephone number.

What the local Pocatello postal authorities who became involved in this may not have known is that UPS, which tracks its packages faithfully, continues to track them, with or without local U.S. postal involvement -- right to delivery at the purchasing person's address.

Thus we here, with our computer technology, were able to watch the little junket unfold. Here are the high points: According to UPS (again, of course, United Parcel Service), the Bali package arrived initially in this country at Kansas City, Mo., on October 1 where UPS has a processing center.  Then it went to West Valley City, Utah, arriving on October 3.

Then at 8:46 a.m., October 3, it reached Pocatello.  And at that point, the little Bali pac should have been marked "out for delivery" to us at 2000 Sandy Lane -- and actually delivered into our hands.

But then came the very signal departure from normalcy.  According to the faithful UPS record, the package from Bali appeared on October 4 at a major U.S. postal processing installation at Nampa, Idaho at 2:52 am -- 250 miles or more to the west of us.

It remained in Nampa for that full day and well into the night.  Then it went to postal authorities at nearby Boise.
 
"Bali" finally reached Pocatello at 4:09 am on October 7.

Early that afternoon, several of us were outside our house, visiting with Josie and the Babies at their Jeep.  The mail carrier came quickly to our box by the road, put in some things.  The  Box from Bali was there.  The Postal Service had covered it with thick tape carrying thereon and in print Eldri's name and our address.  The earlier mailing markings were thus not readily available to us.  

The fine ear-rings were in OK shape.  Nice note from the Bali artisan.

And, before any of the revealing travel records could be cyber-deleted by anyone, we printed it all out via our computer.  It joins a vast amount of similar stuff, some in my computer, much in my personal notebooks.

Still dark outside at this point.  If I listen carefully, I may hear coyotes howl -- or a lion scream.  They're friendly.

In Solidarity,

Hunter (Hunter Bear)


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq / 
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org  The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

See WITCH HUNT STUFF on our website (a number of pages 
including FBI, Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission):
http://hunterbear.org/a_bizarre__1979_fbi_smear_effort.htm

See my  new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book," 
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual: 
 http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm   

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)