Boston Marathon Massacre Bounce

Crime don’t pay in Boston. These people love their city; they love their traditions. They love their marathon. They love their survivors.They even love the US citizens who did not survive.

The people of Boston and other Marathon visitors were the key to solving the crime that took place at the Marathon finish line in 2013. Three days after that explosive disaster, the FBI and the Boston Police asked Marathon witnesses to send snapshots and video that had been captured at the moments before and during those  two murderous acts of terror.

By viewing all those pics and videos, our Law Enforcement officials were able to ascertain the identity of the criminals who had set up their two acts of lethal terrorism.

And we do mean “terrorism.” If you ever meet a person who was there in April of 2013 on Boylston Street in Boston, at those two explosive moments, they will attest that they now know, from experience, what that infamous, dreaded thing called “terror” is. 

Terror is no walk in the Park, although the Boston Common is a park nearby where many Marathoners and observers traditionally unwind after the big event.

But in 2013, there was no joyful gathering of runners and observers in Boston Common as the Boston Marathon concluded. Instead, there was, literally, a Terror-driven sudden dispersal of everyone immediately after the bombing.

Post-terror, our Law guys and gals wasted no time in working together to identify the bombers and apprehend them.

The Boston Police, the FBI, ATF, CIA and several other agencies worked together.

One observer, Jeff Bauman, lost both his legs in the detonation. Furthermore, Jeff’s traumatic experience was  profoundly intensified because he actually saw the bomber drop a fully-loaded backpack in the spot where it exploded moments later. According to Wikipedia, Jeff later gave a detailed description of the suspects.

Our law enforcement guys got right on it, identified the Tsarnaev brothers and put out an APB.

The FBI released images of the Tsarnaev brothers three days later, asking for help from the public to help in identifying and apprehending the bombers.

Sure enough, the cooperative efforts of our Law Enforcement officers and an attentive citizenry culminated in a successful manhunt. But Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were not easily apprehended .

The two young Kyrgyzstani immigrants made a desperate getaway. 

But thanks to the cooperation of citizens and Law Enforcement officers, their frantic getaway lasted only 101 hours. 

In those last hours of high-speed getaway, one brother ran over the other brother while desperately evading the police in darkness in nearby Watertown, across the Charles River from Boston.

But Dzhokhar Tzarnaev’s ill-fated runaway ended, alas, when Boston’s well-trained assailants apprehended him hiding in a tarp-covered boat.

Dzhokhar’s anti-heroic act of terrorizing destruction ended in a suburban driveway, of all American places. What a way to go—hiding in the dark in a boat that won’t float. 

The lesson of the 2013 Marathon is: Don’t mess with Boston! These people have been defining American freedom since the King’s soldiers tried to stop them in 1770.

Furthermore, this is no time to collapse in the marathon of  our American nationhood. Be inspired by the resilience and determination of those Bostonians! Appropriate their resolute resistance as we strive to defeat the trumpian magamaniacs who conspire to destroy our Constitutional Republic!

Glass half-Full 

SayJFK

 In his masterpiece song about the latter half of the 20th century, Billy Joel concluded his sixth verse with a reference to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. 

We Didn't Start the Fire

In a dramatic crescendo, Billy finished that verse about the early 1960's with this line:

"JFK blown away: What else do I have to say?"

For those of us Americans who were alive and aware in 1963, Billy's profound question stands completely understood even though he offers no explanation. Our President's assassination on November 22, 1963 is one of those moments where we all remember where we were when we heard the news. .  . like how we remember where we were on September 11, 2001.

Today, April 27, 2023, I was reminded of President Kennedy while I was strolling along the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This memorial triggered the remembrance of a Statesman whose Presidency was a profile in courage, a memorable landmark in our American history.

These words of President Kennedy are still a timely message today:

Yes, my fellow Americans, the question is still as profound now as it was in 1963, when Kennedy posed the question only five months before he was gunned down: Are we willing to treat every one our fellow-Americans the way we ourselves want to be treated?

This was JFK's timely rephrasing of the message that Jesus spoke long ago: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

That high standard of compassion is indeed a principle with which many wise men and women have challenged all mankind throughout the ages of history.

Don't forget it. Try to live it if you can. We are all of us, when you get right down to it, to be held accountable for how we live out the meaning of that golden rule.

King of Soul

Gone Done

 Gone, gone, the lifetime done

oh no, not done yet

but this one life, yes, this one

done getting what we can get.

 

Done doing what we can do

oh but there’s something yet

‘though the days be few

just so they won’t forget

 

Surely there’s a lesson or two

for the kids yet to come along

from boomers with words, a few

or just an ole star-crossed song

 

There’s wisdom in here somewhere

surely, the testimony of a generation

leaving  legacy of love and care

more real than imagination

 

Must be some kind of lesson here

behind confusion’s whirlwind storm

beyond sentiment’s eternal tear

to disrupt this same ole same ole norm

 

Where’s the purpose in day to day

What’s to redeem our futility

Peace and Love and Live for today?

Still seeking out profundity!

 

But where profundity dwells

I can’t tell.

What the hell?

There’s only one who hung in hell

then lived to tell.

I’m going with Him.

Glass half-Full

Ballad of Brett v Blasey

 When Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was being nominated, there was a Senate Judiciary hearing in which our Senators were considering the nomination. The testimony of a former acquaintance, Blasey Ford, was controversial.  Senatorial strivings within the committee were a source of public concern and no small amusement to any of us who were hearing bizarre media reports.

So I wrote a song about it. Here are the first two verses:

Lindsey and Mitchey were gettn kinda itchy

just to leave  Judiciary hearings behind.

Chuck with his committee, workin’ toward a ditty

trying to get Brett’s nomination on time.

On committee fence Jeff Flake sat

‘cause victims’ rantings knocked him flat.

Lindsey and Mitchey still a-pushin’ forward

in the Senate, you know where that’s at

and no one’s getting Tweet ‘xept Blasey Ford

 

Lindsey said to Grassley we need to go fastly

just to push this nomination on through (let’s go fast)

But Flake said to Grassley, we just cant pass it

until we truly know what to do.

On committe fence Jeff Flake sat

‘cause elevator tirades knocked him flat.

Lindsey and Mitchey still a pushin’ forward

in the Senate, you know where that’s at

and no one’s getting Tweet ‘xept Blasey Ford.

 To hear my down-home recording of the entire song, follow this link to my website:

                    Ballad of Brett v Blasey      

  Glass half-Full 

The Weaponization

 To put it plain and simple, the weaponization began when a grand Loser, formerly a winner, summoned up a mob of fascizing former patriots to steal the Presidency by invading our Congress on January 6, 2021.

After the insurrectioning rebels had attempted to steal the election, they fell into the habit of weaponizing everything they could get their hands on. 

Being in a weaponizin’ frame of mind, they presumed that their opponents, the Dems and the true Republicans, were also operating from a weaponized modus operandi.  

Hence, after the Jan6 Pence/Fanone/Capitol Police/DC Police retrieval of our Capitol away from the clutches of formerly patriotic, weaponized traitors, now the rebels  have begun sayin’ that the Dems and the nevertrumpers have weaponized the Justice Department, because our Attorney General and his team of prosecutors  are actually doing their jobs, to prosecute traitorous criminals, including the chief insurrectionist, the Loser.

And not only that, but the District Attorneys in New York and Georgia are performing their duties to the American people. They're catching a lot of flak from the insurrectionist whackos.

So now the trumpian traitors are flinging out "weaponization" accusations because they'll soon be catching prosecution from the Attorneys General and other law-abiding citizens who are indicting them to the bar of Justice. The rioters are crying weaponization-this and  weaponization-that. 

But 'scuse me,  they’re the weaponizing wicked weirdos, not us.

Back in the day, before all this sh*t hit the fan, I used to get a periodic, informative email from the Surgeon General of the United States. After We the People fired his boss, the Loser, I didn’t get his emails for awhile. but then he started sending them again, as a private citizen,  now just a regular guy, pretending, I suppose, to be a Republican again.

But I just deleted them, not reading them. I didn’t want to have anything to do with an administrator who had served the Loser who still thought he was a winner. Then I got an email with the caption “What are your thoughts?” 

So I thought, ok, I’ll give Ben a piece of my mind just to see where he’s at. So I sent him a message that I would not be renewing any old Republican connections until I was absolutely sure that donald trump was gone for good from the Oval and from what was formerly the party of Abe Lincoln.

A few days later, I got another email from the former Surgeon General. I noticed that his opening sentence was some bee-es about the “weaponization” of the Justice Dep’t.

Bye bye, Ben. When you figure out that the weaponizing was started—and continues—with the Jan6 traitors and their Loser leader, and when you admit that, then I might be interested in what you have to say.

Oh, and one more thing, the real weaponizers are those guys who are totin’ their AR-15s and shedding innocent blood like they own the place. Go put that in your conservative pipe and smoke it.

Glass half-Full

The End of Death

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

The night before, he spoke a message; it ended with these words:

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything.

I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Dr. King knew, no matter what happened the next day, or whenever. . . he knew that he would see the glory of the Lord coming for him.

To commemorate Dr. King, and for the continuance of his work as a preacher of the gospel, and the continuence of his work, like Moses, as a Liberator, I wrote a song many years ago:

                                             Mountaintop                                       

On this April day, about 2010 years ago, Jesus Christ was crucified. Then they took him down and laid him in a tomb. Maybe it was here:

Here's a song I wrote about us and Him:

                                            Follow the Way                                       

  For Christ's sake y'all, we commemorate, on this calendar day, Good Friday, His Life and His Death by crucifixion. 

 There is only one man in history who died a bloody death and then lived to tell about it. I'm going with him, later on, at my own death. On that day, my dying day, He will receive me into eternal Life. And when I get there, I will be able to meet Dr. King, and Moses and a whole host of other folks. . . maybe you, if you can believe it!

King of Soul 

Star-spangled Capitol

Listen and Sing:

Star-spangled Capitol

Oh say can you see, in the 2021 light

What we so proudly maintained 

after a riotous fight.

That broad dome and wide steps

through the perilous fight

O’er the barricades we watched

were so gallantly retained!

As our Congress did dare, with teargas in the air,

giving proof through the fight

that our Congress was still there;

O say does that Capitol Congress  remain

with our Presidency,

o’er the land of the free,  Democracy!

 

Glass half-Full 

Which is Worse?

Which is Worse?

1. Is it worse to have to watch Trump summoned  into a court of Law to answer for his lies to the American people and his deceitful manipulations of our campaign laws?

2. Or was it worse to have to watch Trump summoning his storm troops to our Capitol to damn-near steal the Presidency?

Which is worse, y'all?

1. Oh, Cry me a river, ye trumpian hordes! for your golden boy being summoned into a courtroom to answer for his stormy cover up.

Quick, golden boy, zip your fly! Don’t be embarrassed, sir.

The Indictment! How dare them! We know in the history of these United States there’s only been one man who was exempt from the long arm of the Law! Read ‘em and weep, all ye jonny rebs! The nerve of those law-obsessed asses who cannot bear lies gushing forth to flood the paths of American Justice!

Which is worse? y’all?

2. Or, ? will it be. . . Cry, cry, my beloved country, if we shrink from bringing him to the bar of Justice! Cry, cry if the chief insurrectionist is not summoned to answer for his treason, his riot incitement, plotting and attempting to obstruct the dutiful operation of our Representatives and Senators on January 6, 2021! And  begging Brad, y'all, to find 11,780 votes! cuz the devil went down to Georgia and he was lookin' for some votes to steal.

Oh! Cry. Cry, cry, cry me a Potomoc River! 

Oh but I almost forgot. Which is worse? #1 or #2?

Glass half-Full 

Democrats Need a Tweak

 Democrats Need a Tweak.

There is one issue that—if the Democrats would make some adjustments in their emphases—could assure them a victory over the trump travesty in 2024.

There is no question about the human right that individuals have to make their own choices about sexual identities. Trans people and all the rest of the LGBTQ cititzens have human rights, Constitutional rights no less, to live life as they decide to live it.

But indoctrination of impressionable young school children is not an area of schools’ policy to be messed with. 

My impression of what is going on now is that the Democrats will not let go of this issue, just as, on the other side, the trumpians will not let of their trump delusions.

We cannot allow the trumpians to take this country over. 

Ron DeSantis tried to raise this issue so that conservative Republicans would have a means of presenting their issues in public schools.

It is apparent that, with trump’s latest blast of bluster following the NY indictment, the destroyer has tightened up his attempt to attempt to control the party of Abraham Lincoln.  He has emphasized—or so it seems—some education issues that DeSantis has raised. Apparently he has some smart people behind him, although they are not smart enough to see that another trump presidency would drag this nation into mussollini madness and destruction.

As a Republican, I say we cannot let this happen. Another period of trump in the oval office will destroy this nation. We’d back where were in 1861.

If, however, Democrats will continue their historic emphasis on civil rights, including CRT, while forsaking any insistence that third-graders ought to be exposed to trans-tolerance indoctrination, they can defeat trump next year, whether at the nomination level or the general election in November ’24.

Democrats, I am asking you to still hold high the banner of Civil Rights. But, for the sake of our Democracy’s survival, pleas drop the insistence on indoctrinating grade school kids about sexual identities. 

All you ex-hippie boomer babies (such as I am) please stand firm on Civil Rights. Even CRT is fine with me. White folks actually do need to know more about black history. But let the Republicans be assured that their children will not be pressed to mess with the sex in school.

Teach kids abc and 123, not trans identity.

Defeat trump insanity!

King of Soul