Rigged Whirlwind

God bless the President of the United States.

God bless the President-elect of the United States.

Nevertheless, our President-elect hath brought down upon himself, and upon his budding administration, a whirlwind of contention about the legitimacy of the very election that puts him in charge of things.

Now Jill Stein, the Green Party's defeated nominee, is demanding recounts in some battleground states. Some Democrats are also rattling their cages with similar demands for recounting. Furthermore, some irate leftists are actively attempting to convince Electoral College delegates to violate the electoral mandate of their respective state delegations, by voting against the Republican Presidential nominee.

The overall effect is casting, in some quarters, a pall of doubt, and an implication of illegitimacy over our 2-centuries old Constitutionally-established electoral process.

Who is responsible for this dubious development?

Donald Trump.

He was the candidate who publicly proclaimed that our election system was "rigged."

His accusation, loudly stated months before the election, was a desperate attempt to capture the support of disgruntled voters in flyover country who have felt, for many years, deep down in their bones, distrust for our Democratic-Republican system of government. These so-called rust-belt-dwelling, middle-aged, middle-class, honky-white denizens of tea-party insurrection have felt, for the last eight years or more, that somehow the whole damn elite-controlled, media-manipulated, inside-the-beltway, special-interests-driven .gov-slouching Establishment is stacked against them.

But on Nov. 9, a funny thing happened on the way to the Electoral College. President Trump's strategy of sowing seeds of doubt--about the fairness of the System--it worked. Instead of getting him a recount, it got him a victory!

Who'd've thunk it? Probably the Donald himself. One thing's for sure. He's smarter than the average bear, and his timing must be damnear perfect. He played against the odds, like challenging the dealer in an Atlantic City casino. And guess what? He won.

Nevertheless, as the old Book--and sometimes the bookie--says, you sow to the wind, hey, you reap the whirlwind.

We Americans now fined ourselves feeling a whirlwind of discontent that ariseth from the other direction, like the hurricane after the eye has passed. This strange bellowing stirreth up electoral troubles anew, when we thought the whole damn thing had blown over.

Hence, post-election, leftist wolves now Occupy those Boston tea-party rumors of discontent; they howl beneath a full moon of coveted anarchy--contending that the system is rigged. It is rigged by our out-of-fashion Constitutional electoral process, and by election improprieties in several key states, and also by the fact that Sec. Clinton has reportedly gathered more popular votes.

"Rigged!" so they say. Who came up with that allegation?

President Trump.

You reap what you sow.

Glass half-Full

supremacist, really?

I got in the car to drive home from work. Radio was on. Juan Gonzalez was interviewing Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now. Jeremy was speaking about a political thing that is reportedly happening in our country now, a movement of misguided zealots who are striving to impose on the rest of us some so-called "Christian supremacist agenda."

But this Christian says, I beg to differ; consider this:

Here is a picture of the man who established the Christian religion:

Does this person look like a "supremacist"?

This pic, taken from a very old painting, is an artist's rendering of the man who long ago said:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.

This is the man who, when two of his disciples wanted to call down a firestorm of judgement on people who had rejected them, denied them permission to impose such a vengeful retaliation, and then explained, ". . . (I) did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

This is the man who, on the night of his arrest, who would not allow his right-hand man to wield a sword to resist their arrest.

Does such a strategy sound like the beginning of a "supremacist" uprising?

I do believe Mr. Scahill has confused us Christians with some other group, a group whose identity is not rooted in the One who was willing to give his life for me and for all the rest of us.

Mr. Scahill is referring, I believe, to those honky whites who think they own the place. They need to read the gospels instead of whatever white supremacist webstuff they've gotten a hold of. And they need to quit emulating the jihadi supremacists who want to impose a caliphate on us dhimmi-witted Christians.

As for you, Juan and Jeremy, just keep on doing what you're doing, if that's what floats your boat. But please, try to get your nomenclature correct next time you go reporting on us who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.

Glass half-Full

Alabama. How 'bout you?

Alabama.
Alabama sticks in my mind, going way back.
To get from Louisiana to Georgia, you have to drive through that Sweet Home state of Alabama, the state where folks drive around with a license plate that says: Stars fell on . . .
Alabama, whatever that means.
I'll tell you what it means. it means crucible.
It means the place where America's deepest hopes and deepest fears about building a great nation and living out the ideal of all men and women being created equal by Creator God, the place where all those deepest hopes and deepest fears clashed in the thoroughfares of history on a highway between Selma and Montgomery,
and on the steps of the state capitol when President Kennedy sent soldiers in to compel George Wallace to do his job and allow the black folks of Sweet Home to vote and to go to school and to University.
And then later, years later, George Wallace issued a public apology for his former racist bullshit way of doing things. And I remember this video I saw online just a year or two or three ago of Wallace sitting in a wheelchair, his daughter by his side, telling the blacks folk and all of us, all the people of America that he was sorry.
I mean I saw this, so to speak, with my own eyes, (online.) It all happened in my lifetime.
This George Wallace who was speaking in my hometown, back in the day, 1968, when he went to the Louisiana legislature and spoke there and he said if they'd send him to Washington he'd take all their suitcases from all them bureaucrats in Washington and throw them suitcases in the Potomac River, and when he said that all the Louisianans who filled that legislative chamber laughed.
But such hyperbole was not a rhetorical stunt unknown to the folks of the bayou state, many of whom in that room that day could still remember what Huey Long had said back in the day, 1930's.
'Course we all know it didn't amount to a hill of beans. Dick Nixon went to the white house that year instead the Alabama governor. Hubert Humphrey was the one who lost big time that year because Wallace peeled off a bunch of them riled-up southern Democrats.
I mean, Hubert got a raw deal in Chicago, but we can't be crying in our beer forever. He was a nice guy. God bless him, Hubert. May he rest in peace; and, for that matter, may Richard Nixon rest in peace.
We all have our faults.
All of this has happened in my lifetime, y'all, which wasn't so long ago and it's still happening today.
We have seen serious changes during these 65 years. I'm not making this up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MhOZt5-Jl8
Maybe I'm just dreaming it, but if I am just dreaming it, well shut my mouth.
But as I was sayin'--I'm talking' 'bout Alabama now--the place where all of our darkest southern closets got blasted open to reveal them skeletons in them closets, them skeletons of racism that most Alabamans have now left in the dust of history but every now and then someone drags them old skeletons out of them closets.
Dogs sicced on freedom riders, four martyred girls in 16th Street Baptist church, Birmingham.
This blood was not shed in vain. The blood of the martyrs is the seeds of . . .
So these days, November 2016, y'all can rant in the streets all you want to, but I'm here to tell you that this new Attorney General appointee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, him about whom the Dems are so upset, while they be trying to affix the R-word to Senator Jeff's reputation just because he be from Alabama, and yet I see on Resurgent this morning these photos of Jeff Sessions holding hands with Rep. John Lewis
http://theresurgent.com/seriously-trump-the-pictures-of-jeff-sessions-they-dont-want-you-to-see/
as they were commemorating the stand taken back in the day, 1965, when Dr. King, Dr. Abernathy, young John Lewis and many others who, being with them all together of one accord and holding hands, marched across the Edmund Pettus bridge while trying to walked from Selma to Montgomery but then them Alabama troopers sent out by the old Wallace, not the later-repentent Wallace, stopped them civil rights marchers on the bridge and beat the hell out 'em.
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/selma-montgomery-march/videos/bloody-sunday
But this blood was not shed in vain. The blood of the martyrs is the seeds of . . .
But then, as the poet said, and still says, the times they are a-changin'.
And so they did, and they still are.
Hence, just a year ago as I was cleaning a laundry room at work and listening on the radio to John Lewis' account of that infamous Bloody Sunday event, as he was recalling it to Terri Gross or Diane Rehm or someone like that, and I remember what Rep. Lewis said about being beat up and it was some bad shit going down but they lived to tell about it and ultimately they prevailed all the way to the steps of the Alabama state capitol and Dr. King spoke and it really stuck with me.
So now in November 2016 I'm seeing this jpg of Sessions and Lewis holding hands on the Edmund Pettus bridge and
this has all happened in my lifetime, y'all.
Please don't tell me it was a dream. Let me have my dream. I have the dream, all God's children. . . don't you have a dream?
I mean, this all happened in my lifetime y'all.
Alabama, please ya'll don't forget this excruciated crucible of our great American dream, where the blood of saints and sinners was shed for the liberty of us all. If you ever go there, remember you'll be treading on holy ground, ground made holy by the shedding of the blood of the Lamb,
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/birmingham-church-bombing
but that was before the stars fell on Alabama. Now people there have seen the light, or at least I hope they have. I'm willing to give them a little grace, and a little space, to cross our next bridge.
How 'bout you?

Glass half-Full

Symbols that Unite or Divide

Here's a timely excerpt from Glass half-Full, the novel I wrote in 2007:

Marcus opened a can of turpentine. He tipped it slightly so that its upper contents would spill onto a rag that lay on the parking lot next to his car. With the rag partially soaked, he began rubbing on the driver’s-side door. Someone had painted a black swastika on it while he was working late. His cell phone rang.

He opened it, looked at the mini-screen, saw “Grille,” which stood for Jesse James Gang Grille. In the last few days, however, whenever he would see “Grille” displayed as the caller ID, it registered in his mind as “Girl,” meaning Bridget, because she would often call from there.

“Hi.”

“Marcus, have you heard about the explosion?”

“No, where?”

“At the Belmont Hotel, about 20 minutes ago.”

The Belmont was just two blocks from the restaurant.

“That’s where the FEF convention is. Aleph told me he would be going there tonight. Has anybody been down there to see what’s happening?”

“Kaneesha left here right after we heard it, but she hasn’t returned. I don’t think anybody’s getting in there for awhile. The police have got the whole block barricaded.”

“I want to find out if anything has happened to Aleph. Don’t you think he would have left there by now?

“The TV News says the police aren’t letting anyone in or out except rescue workers.”

“I’m headed over there in a few minutes, as soon as I get the car-door cleaned up. Someone painted a swastika on it."

Glass half-Full

Thanks to our Veterans

On this Veterans' Day 2016, I say to all men and women who have served our United States as soldiers and workers in our armed forces, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard. . .

Thank You.

All you men and women who are serving, or have served, in our armed forces, and then lived to tell about it, please know that we are glad you made it through your dutiful missions, still alive and kicking.

As a remembrance of those who did not make it back alive, we reflect upon the cause--our freedom as a nation of free men and women--for which they fought, bled, and died. Toward that end, we recall the words of President Abraham Lincoln, which he spoke at Gettysburg battlefield in November, 1863.

". . . from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Glass half-Full

Where is our new Frontier?

We will need some kind of new frontier in order for significant growth to take hold.

In the early stages of our nation, that growth came from westward continental expansion.

In the 1920's, growth came from unprecedented expanding consumer markets.

In 1950's-60's postwar America, growth came from rebuilding our nation and the world after the Depression and WWII destruction.

In the 1980's-90's, growth came from the computerization, digitization and online expansion of American life.

If we are in for a new expansion, what industry or circumstance will be the basis for it?

If the next expansion is going to truly benefit the little people-- the losers in that theoretical "income inequality" gap--then our expansion must begin with them.

It's time for the bootslingers that tread upon American streets, sidewalks and soils to pull themselves up by our bootstraps, because such a thing as prosperity cannot happen as a result of .gov programs.

The advanced, post-industrial condition of our economy indicates, I believe, that the next wave of innovation/expansion can, and must, come only from the economic micro-units of our heartland.

That is to say, from the garage tinkerers, the workshop wonders, the flea-market marvels, the home front hopefuls, the lemonade-stand lovers of our land who are unwilling to waste away in social media mediocrity and cabled corruption.

Now is the time for grassroots level renewal.

Now is the time for all men and women to come to the aid of their families, their neighborhoods, their communities, our country.

Donald Trump, bless his heart, may be an amazing guy, off the charts and all that, but he cannot pull prosperity out of a half-empty glass economic base.

The glass half-Full mindset will be based, in our future, on learning how to do more with less. The milking of this planet's resources can only go so far without seriously strategic enterprising innovation. That principle will be the lesson and legacy of the Obama years.

I hope we have learned, or will learn, that lesson of resourcefulness, and I hope that President Trump will facilitate our building upon that great base of American innovation and enterprise.

Don't you Americans be looking for no handouts. That well has run dry. It's time to drill a new one, but it may have to be in your own back yard.

In this way we may perhaps make America great again.

Glass half-Full

America Bleeding

In the middle of my teenage years, back in the day, I was a high school student. On the other side of the city where I grew up, our state university provided education for thousands of students who had already matriculated to the college level of learning.

Here is a picture which I lifted, by iPhone helicoptering technology, from a book that I recently perused. The image depicts a campus walkway, circa 1965, where students are going into and out of the LSU student Union building. A few years after this photograph was snapped, I became one of those students, 1969 version, who traipsed from class to class on the campus of LSU.

The book from which this image is lifted is linked here:

https://www.amazon.com/Treasures-LSU-Laura-F-Lindsay/dp/0807136786

This morning, while viewing this photo as part of the research for the novel that I am now composing, I found something interesting about it. Take a look at the apparel that these students are wearing. Most of them are clothed in solid colors, which, in this photo, registers as either black or white. On almost every student whose garb depicts this black/white arrangement, the black is on the lower half of the body--the pants, or skirt part.

Considering the way Americans dress nowadays, this seems to be a boringly plain, regimented arrangement. It is, however, perhaps a little more dignified than what we might see at a typical 2016 visit to, say, Walmart, McDonald's, or any college or university.

Notice, however, that six of these students in the picture are wearing a clothes motif that stands apart from the black/white pattern. And in every one of these six individuals, the fashion statement is the same:

Plaid.

Six students are wearing plaid.

This was a new trend in youthful clothing during the mid-1960's. It was, however, the beginning of a virtual tsunami of color that would be be flaunted in the coming years, in the clothes and fashions of young people. By the end of the decade, this small bursting forth of crisscrossed chromaticism would metamorphose into a riot of self-expressive color displayed uninhibitedly on our young bodies. Thus would we baby boomers strive, in our own threadish way, to find and establish own generational identity.

My memory of this elaborative fashion development began in my eight-grade, 1964-65. The pattern retained in my mind from that time is a certain kind of plaid:

Madras.

The Madras plaid came from India, specifically a city there named Madras, which has since had its name changed to Chennai.

What was really groovy for us back in the day was that Madras plaids had an earthy, handwoven look. The fabric itself had curious little irregularities in it. . . little clumps in the thread, and variations in the weaving. The look and feel of it was a departure from the American stuff, which was obviously machine-made, bland and boring.

So we started wearing the Madras plaid in--I think it was--about 1965. This photograph seems to have captured the very inception of that style-shattering sea-change in our thread preferences.

A very attractive feature of the Madras was this: it bled.

When you washed your plaid shirt, or pants, the colors would "bleed."

With each washing, the threaded pigments would migrate slightly out into the white regions of the fabric.

This was way-cool.

It was groovy. All that color was leaping out of the grooves of regimented style, testing the compartmentalism of society, violating the tick-tacky of conformity, even setting the stage for a fading American resolve to retain our post-WWII position as policeman of the world.

But this fashionable Madras bleeding was but a small shriveling on the torso of the American corpus writ large.

At the same time, in the mid-1960's, America was bleeding real, red blood, and it wasn't cool.

It was hot blood, 98.6 degrees.

America was bleeding in Vietnam.

America was bleeding in the ghettoes of the cities.

America was bleeding in Selma.

America was bleeding in Watts, in Detroit.

America would bleed in Orangeburg, at Jackson State, at Kent State.

But that was nothing new.

America had bled at Lexington and Concord, at Yorktown.

America had long been shedding blood in the cotton fields, and at the trading blocks in New Orleans, in Charleston.

America had bled in Kansas, and at Harpers Ferry, Fort Sumter, Antietam.

America bled at Gettysburg and Appammatox.

America bled at Little Big Horn and at Wounded Knee.

America bled through the hands, the arms and backs and feet of thousands of immigrants who drove steel stakes into the railways that stretched all the way from Boston to San Francisco.

America bled at Haymarket, Chicago

America bled prolifically at Verdun, Amiens, Flanders

America hemorrhaged at Pearl Harbor, at Normandy, at the Bulge, at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal and Okinawa.

And America continued its bloodletting in Korea, at Inchon.

America bled at Ia Drang, at Khe Sanh, at Saigon and Hué and Danang.

America wept bloody tears at My Lai.

America bled from Kuwait to Baghdad

America bled in Beirut and Mogadishu, and in Kosovo.

America bled at the Word Trade Center on 9/11.

America bled at Fallujah, and in Helmand, Qandahar and Kabul.

America weeps for the blood shed at Mosul and Aleppo.

America weeps, America bleeds in millions of D&C'd in uteri.

We have always been bleeding somewhere. It is the way of all flesh.

And America is still bleeding; she is bleeding now.

As to which way we will be bleeding tomorrow, that remains, until 11/9, to be seen.



Glass half-Full