When in the course of American events it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the political bands which had previously connected them with insurrectionists magamaniacs, and to assume, among the powers and the rights afforded us in our Constitution, the separate and corrective station to which Nature and our Bill of Rights entitle us, a decent respect for the opinions of mankindrequires that we should declare the violations of our Rule of Law that impel us toto the corrective action.

We hold these principles, mentioned here, to be memorable in the minds of ourfellow-citizens, that we are all challenged by our Constitution and our judicial precedents to conduct ourselves in a manner that is law-abiding, peaceful and productive toward the general welfare of our citizens and our institutions. The securing of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, requires us to institute governments, on the federal, state and local levels, deriving their powers from the consent of the people who str governing and being governed. And when any holder of public office becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to remove him, thus rebuilding a lawful foundation on Constitutional principles, and re-organizing powers that are appropriate for obtaining Safety and Security. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed with magamania intentions. Therefore. . . a long train of abuses and usurpations compels US the People to expel the chief offender for the sake of the preservation and continuance of our Democratic Republic. To advance our grievances and our intent to remove the offender who now occupies the oval office, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world: 1. He has refused to govern by Rule of Law, choosing rather to rule by his social media posts and the blind obedience of his foxy-woxy sycophants, who appear to have no consciousness of Constitutional authority or Rule of Law.

2. He has recruited proud boys, oath-bleepers and three percent of the foxes who steal the vines of Law and order. . . to mount an insurrectionagainst our Congress, with the intent to obstruct their Constitutional duties and subvert the counting of Electoral ballots so that he might continue, illegally, to occupy the office of the presidency, January 6, 2021.

3. Having no summons from any state Governor, as is required by our Constitution, he has called out soldiers to attack, and even to kill citizens in three of our United States, because they were making lawful use of their Constitutional Rights of Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech. 4. Having no declaration of war from Congress, as would have been required by our Constitution, he took it upon himself to kill and terrorize citizens of a foreign nation, imposing a murderous war on Iran, and thereby disrupting international trade routes, and igniting monetary inflation that imposes hardship on US the People of the United States, all because he wanted to start a war. We therefore, the citizens of the United States of America call upon our Representatives and our Senators to remove the offending oval office occupant, so that we may continue in maintaining a government of the People, by the People and for the People, instead of being led by a self-obsessed powermonger who understands no principles of government of the people, by the people and for the people of these, our United States of America. Glass half-Full

North star for middle America, Chicago. . . the first time I visited there was on a road trip back in summer of ’71, between Ohio and Wisconsin, parking my old ’63 Olds Skylark in a parking lot at the Circle campus of University of Illinois. I had taken a break from selling dictionaries door to door, for the Southwestern Company of Nashville. down in Oak Hill, Ohio, for the Southwestern Company of Nashville. I parked the car and left it there for a few days so I could visit friends who were working in a summer ccamp in Wisconsin. Metropolitan Chicago represents the great middle of our nation. In my lifetime, I can remember the 1968 Democratic convention, where young people, college students from all over, gathered to protest against the draft, and against racial discrimination. The mayor of Chicago didn’t like what the protesters were doing.

But that was a long time ago. Today I’m in Evanston, just up the lakeshore from Chicago, traipsing on the campus of Northwestern University, founded in the early 1800’s, a fascinating place… founded as the first great university in the middle of our country. Wandering around now on campus, I see there is no shortage of the liberal perspective in the middle of the country. Here’s a flyer I found on a bulletin board.

Now I’m no leftie. I am a Christian, centrist. I notice that my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, taught, in His sermon on the mount, that we should be peacemakers, we should feed people who are hungry, provide shelter for those who are homeless, and welcome strangers. And just now, I notice that our former president, Barack Obama, has made some comments that serve well to gravitate our attention back to that Christian message, and away from the magamania that has captured the oval office and its current occupant. Here’s a church sign in Chicago that gets it right, or left or whatever you call helping people instead of rejecting them.

King of Soul

Oh Canada!

Back in the day, Gordon sang. . .” So they looked to the future and what did they see? They saw an iron road running from the sea. . . up the St. Lawrence, all the way to Gasp’e, swinging our hammers and drawing our pay. Look away, said they, all across this mighty land, from the eastern shore to the western strand” . . . Along came Joni, singing . . .”On the back of a cartoon coaster, in a blue TV screen light, I drew a map of Canada. . . Oh, Canada!” And Neil, 1970, singing about the trouble being generated across the border, in America, and on the side of the world, Vietnam, in the 1960’s. . . “Blue blue windows behind the stars, yellow moon on the rise. . . big birds flying across the skies, throwing shadows on our eyes.” In 2026, donald trump has been trying to pull the wool over Mark Carney’s eyes, trying to cover the Canadian Prime Minister’s vision with maga madness, trying to pull his maralago tricks on the Canadian PM, as if he could fool a leader who had, as Mark Carney told the Europeans recently, “ran the Bank of Canada during the financial crisis, and ran the bank of England during Brexit” The present occupant of the oval was trying to throw his weight around to get Mark Carney to tow the line for trump’s bull***t hegemony. But now the Canadian leader has forced into a captive position in which donald has received a message, something like. . . do not pass go; do not collect 200 dollars, American or otherwise. . . Instead, Mark Carney went to the Europeans and explained. “Canada did not impose the first tariff, the second tariff, the third, the fourth 5th, the sixth or seventh tariffs. Every single tariff in this confrontation was initiated by U.S. . . . . .Canada supplies to the US 60% of its crude oil, 98% of electricity on the borders, 73% potash for agricultural fertilizer, 87% of softwood lumber, 67% of our nickel for defense and 100% of the fresh water to the Great Lakes.

When a journalist asked, “Can Canada win this?”. . . speaking of trump’s bully tactics for controlling Canada, Mark Carney answered. “We already have.” As for the bully across the border, the king of maralago. . . this American writer says: Read ‘em and weep, donald! You’ve been outdrawn in the shootout at the Brussels corral. Do not pass Go; do not collect anything! Paraphrasing Gordon Lightfoot’s song from back in the day. . . “So Mark looked to the future and what did he see? A Canadian nation, glorious and free! Oh Canada, glorious and free! Glass half-Full

Murder Most Foul 1963

an excerpt from chapter 4, King of Soul.

Mississippi, 1963: If ghosts could speak, they would probably confirm what Uncle Cannon was saying. As he sat on the lowered gate of his black Ford pickup truck, with one leg on the ground and the other swinging beneath the tailgate, the old Mississippian spoke some of his thoughts about the state of affairs in the state of Mississippi. His friend, Geehaw Kent stood listening. “The murder of Medgar Evers was a tragedy: he was a young man,” Cannon said. “He had slogged his way across Europe, along with thousands of other Allied soldiers, to arrive triumphantly in Germany and then knock the hell out of the Nazi war machine. So he contributed to that great collective effort through which we won the big war. But then he came back to Mississippi and was told—what the hell—to go to the back of the bus.” “So, at the end of his homeward journey, Medgar entered, almost involuntarily, into another great war, but it was a war of a different kind. It was an old war that had been started by old men. That is to say: men who we think of as old because they had lived and died in the prior era, and yet some of them were still living—men who, in days past, had retained, even cultivated, the prejudices and the limitations of their ancestors. “Last year, only six months before Kennedy was killed, Medgar Evers was shot dead in his own front yard in Jackson Mississippi. He had just come from speaking to some brothers and sisters at New Jerusalem church.” “Now, this summer, you know we had bunches of them starry-eyed college students from up north come down here and try and help the Negras get the vote. Over in Meridian, a few of them were trying to get the blacks organized to boycott a store that wouldn’t hire some of them same blacks who shopped there every day, every week, all year long for years and years. Then about two months ago, three of them students disappeared. Kinda mysterious, don’t you think?” https://www.amazon.com/King-Soul-Louis-Carey-Rowland/dp/1545075115 Listen: Underground Railroad Rides Again

Death in London 1937

The old fellow, quite dapper in a brown derby that shielded bright blue eyes over apale, fleshy face, double-chinned over a red bow-tie, seemed nevertheless to be slowly collapsing beneath the burden of his own weight. He clutched Nathan’s arm. “Young man,” he insisted, though weakly, “Would you be so kind...” He was faltering. His cataracted blue eyes closed slowly, then managed, laboriously, to open again. He looked up at Nathan’s expectant face. “...currency stabilization...on the gold standard...perils...bloody monetary experiments...reverse...a calamity...Here, my boy, take this, please.” The old man proffered a small notebook, which Nathan, puzzled, and attempting to support the fellow’s faltering constitution, managed to accept with his left hand. Then the old fellow collapsed. “Doctor! A doctor!” yelled Nathan, frantically. A thread of drool dripped from the old man’s open mouth as Nathan struggled to lay his limp body down gently on the sidewalk. At the nearby corner on Haymarket, the lights changed, and traffic commenced.

Nathan and Philip, speechless, knelt beside the stricken man, whose portly, suited body now lay motionless on the sidewalk. His eyes stared blankly upward into the morning mist. A crowd of people stood and stared. Smoke

First Ezekiel

Now it came about in the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth of the month in the fifth year of King Jehoicachin’s exile, the word of the Lord came expressly to mEzekiel the priest, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar and there the hand of the LLord upon Ezekiel. As I looked, hehold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in the midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire. Within it there were figures reembling four living beings. And this was their appearanc: they had human form. Each of them had had human four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. ATheir wings on four sides were human hands. Their wings touched one another; their faces did not turn when they moved; each went straight forward. Each had a face of a man; all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left; and all four had the face of an eagle. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies. And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, without turning as they went. In the midst of the living beings there was somethingthat looked like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright and lightning was from the fire. And the living beings ran to and from like bolts of lightning. Now as I looked at the the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings, for each of the four of them.

The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another. Whenever they moved, they moved in any of their four directions without turning as they moved. Their rims were lofty and awesome, with all four having eyes round about. Whenever they moved, the wheels moved with them. And whenever the living beings rose from the earth, the wheels rose also. Whenever the spirit was about to go, they would go in that direction. And the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. Whenever those went, these; and whenever those rose from the earth, the wheels rose close beside them; for the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels. Now over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal, spread out over their heads. Under their expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward the other; each one also had two wings covering its body on the one side and on the other. I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters. Smoke. .

High Holy Place

A scene from my novel, Glass half-Full

Beneath a cold, clear, azure sky the city of Jerusalem lay stretched upon the mountains and valleys like a fuzzy glove upon God’s hand. People from all over the world had gathered here to unearth evidence of God at work among the people of the earth. Some sought a temple that no longer exists. Some sought a mosque where a prophet entered heaven. Some trod upon the cobblestones of ancient, holy real estate, pleading for reconciliation, seeking atonement for the human condition. A man wandered beyond the dome, past the blocked-up eastern gate; curving around northward, he noticed a large open area beside the mosque. Was this where the former temple had stood? What a beautiful mosque. Could not the owners of this hill sell the adjoining, vacant acre or two to those pilgrims who, standing daily at the wall below, were wailing for their wonderful temple? Why not make a deal? Such a deal. Cousin to Cousin. Temple and Mosque, Mosque and Temple…Mosque Shsmosque, Temple Shmemple. Such a deal. Everybody happy. You pray your way; I pray mine. Aliyah Yerushalim