That Time That Was

There had never been anything like it in history . . . until it happened:

America, in victorious optimism after that “Second” world war.

I mean, the “First” world war was just a warmup apocalypse for what came in 1939-45.

It seemed, in the ’40’s, that the krauts had not learned their lesson, which they should have learned in 1918. Two decades later, the Beast spirit took a hold of a lunatic corporal who dragged the world, for the second time, into hell-on-earth for half a decade. 

Then our guys, under the leadership of Eisenhower, Patton, McArthur and thousands of other brave soldier who went over to the Continent of our cultural heritage and ran them third-reich nazis back into their holes, in the ground or into the judgements of History in a Nuremberg trial and, and . . .

And then, there we were sittin’ on top of the world, "one nation, under God, with Liberty and Justice for All!,  victorious from Normandy to Potsdam to the Philippines, all the way over to Pearl Harbor, where, for us, it had all started on that fateful day of infamy. . . back in '41 it was. And then four years of hell on (European and Pacific) earth. 

And then it happened happened: The Golden Age. California! Hollywood, Broadway, batons twirling in the air on Main Street from sea to shining sea. . . Ike, TV,  Davy Crockett, Micky and Minnie, Ozzie and Harriet, Superman, Elvis, Nat King Cole, Louie Armstrong, Motown,  Kennedy: “Let them come to Berlin”. . . to see the difference between the way WE do things and the way THEY do things! Later, Reagan challenged Gorbachev: “Tear down this wall.   And then they tore down their damn wall.

With a little help from the Brits we discovered a new strain of English poetry, set to the thumpin’ beat of this new thing called Rock ’n Roll, which the Fab Four had borrowed from our good ole boys . . .

Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, reflecting ancient African strains of laboring black fingers  a-pluckin’ the future of popular music out of a six-stringed, woman-shaped box with a hole and a neck on it, vibrating blue notes sung and plucked by the field-worn magic hands of many a long-gone Miss’ippi sharecropper somewhere down in the delta.

And then, and then, after the big war . . . as brother Don sang it. . . “there we were, all in one place, a generation lost in space. . .

Space! Imagine that! John Glenn . . . Neil Armstrong,Yeah! I remember!

America! We hardly knew ye!  Oh, wait! You’re still here. Let’s celebrate, American style! Wanna dance?!  Get started with kingofkungfu!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtIl1CGRu4M 

Glass half-Full 

The Arcane Conundrum

Erotica is nice and surely will suffice

while Esoterica glimmers through History’s roll of the dice;

History’s luck of the draw rolls up random events

ever since our ancestors lived in tents.

Yet some ancient wind of prescient detection

seems to accompany certain adventures of erection.

As men’s adventures grow up and harden

children are born through woman’s garden.

All of which cultivates that famous spice of life

bringing relief from our long trail of strife. 

A tale is told, although I comprehend it not

Of how in ancient times wise men begot

a scriptive tale of what men forgot

As Life’s challenges demanded interventions,

men lost site of their best intentions.

Even so

on with the show:

as billy shears sang twenty years ago

Or whatever;

nobody’s forever.

But I digress;

now I regress.

As I was saying:

before the watchers’ braying,

People brought forth wisdom with invention.

although we know not their intentions.

Blake came along with a glimmer

as he did catch a signal from Swedenborgian splendor.

Nostradamus surely had an esoteric handle

shining brightly within history’s long-lit candle.

Some say his prescience was born of akashic wonder

even as his quatrains sounded historic thunder. 

Blavatsky’s illumination of those akashic glimmerings

seemed somehow to cast up of esoteric shimmerings. 

As knowledge grew and push came to shove

historians donned their analytical gloves;

Although the solid grounds of historical enquiry

don’t hold a candle to Esoterica’s querkic diary.

Perhaps the tale of the Western quest,

which expanded with each historian guest

Began with Enoch’s un-canonic book

by which he was permitted to look

Into the arcane realm.

Who’s at the helm?

Wouldn’t we like to know!

I don’t really wanna stop the show

so I though y’all might like to know:

What’s going on down under you?

is it old hat or deja vu?

Guided by the Captain of our Souls

or the Joker with a million holes?

I mean Blavatsky took the dark side

and as each traveler came along to ride

He or she had to decide

to accept humility or amp up pride.

This is no new thing, you understand:

whether to heed self-will or divine command.

What you do with what you know

to reveal for Lord or flaunt your show.

In days of Old, Daniel knew his own allegiance,

to discern the side of Watcher angels’ obeisance.

Whether the Messenger’s servitude was Light

or whether ’t’was of the darkened blight.

As for Nostradamus’ path of Bright or dim . . .

still trying to make up my mind about him.

Selah.

Glass Chimera 

The Old Tree and the New Search

While I am getting old, we do have a granddaughter who is quite new (5) to this world. A few days ago, we were in Fort Lauderdale with her on a pirate ship.

Yes, a Pirate Ship is in the harbor there where you can cruise around for an hour and be amused by the monologue of Captain Black Sparrow and his sidekick Neverland Jack. It was fabulous. I wouldn't trade it for a davy jones locker full of fake doubloons.

I thought about those two Pirates, because, as I was about to write this essay, which would be about springtime and an old tree that Tolstoy mentioned in War and Peace, I had to turn to Google for a reference or two.

So, there I am, one little googly pirate-plundering maneuver after another, trolling online  for some literary treasure of buried information . . . whereupon I was guided by Sergy and Larry’s magic wand to the information for which I was searching.

I found it in the New Yorker, Nov 2007, in an article, Movable Types.  In the course of his long article about Tolstoy’s War and Peace, James Wood provided an exact quote of the scene I was looking for. 

The snippet of memory in my mind that had propelled my search to this point of world memory was a scene in which Prince Andrei sees something very special (and this is the phrase I remember from the War and Peace move) a “tree with which we agreed.”

Here's how Wood illumined Tolstoy's twice-seasoned experience:

“ a great, gnarled oak, surrounded by trees already succumbing to spring. He (Prince Andrei feeling at that moment somewhat depressed) feels like the oak: it seems to say , “Spring, and love, and happiness . . . senseless deception!”. . . But,  returning a month later, he cannot at first identify the oak, because it has leafed out like all the other trees.”

In the story of War Peace, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, feeling defeated, had "agreed" with the old tree when it was hesitating to join in with the younger trees' celebration of spring. But a month later, hey!, even old growths sprout a leaf or two (thousand) when spring time rolls around.   Life goes on, even when we get old and grumpy, haha!

So I did pirate the info and the quote from James Wood, who had discovered it buried in Leo Tolstoy's masterful literary treasure. Such is the Search and the Looting of meaningful blog-prospects in our 21st century web of wonder. Read 'em and weep for appreciation!

Glass half-Full 

Two Prophetic Paths?

 Messages future/past had come to Nostradamus

Casting quatrains of mystery among us, 

with glimmerings from some akashic world

where, among the stars unfurled

a tale is told both future/past

with mystery as to what comes first or last.

I’m just perplexed at this movie screen

that seems so real and yet, a dream

but revealing future acts

as if they were ancient facts

laying quite a puzzle upon my mind

about this riddling mystery called “Time.”

Is it front or is it back?

Is it potential or is it fact?

How a prophet could discern future deeds

performed by men of their own free will,

not determined by some pre-set bill?

On the esoteric side there’s Nostradamus;

I cannot comprehend his role among us.

How could he pen poems of future acts

that turn out to be historical facts

centuries later! Is time a crater?

Back in the Mosaic Book

’t’was written guard angels were assigned

to guard the gates of Edenic mind

so foolish Man. . . never more could

see the the tree of knowledge, evil and the good.

So I surmise these guard angels still do stand

somewhere to obstruct the deeds of destructive Man.

Maybe so that. . . when we had split the atom

we could not repeat the mistake of Adam

and blow this world to smithereens

even though we do strive for Green

which may be, anyway, just a hopeful dream,

if Vlad the Mad gets too flustered

and launches up a big atom-buster.

 

Two prophetic paths diverged in a darkened world

one cloaked in mystery, the other quite unfurled.

Not wanting to travel both

I chose the path of Faithful oath

to tread the path in Daylight;

and though the deep zodiac be bright

I find comfort in deep sleep at night,

sleep that knits the ravel’d sleeve of care

to soothe the souls that in future acts do dare.

Selah.

Glass half-Full

New Story of The Old

 I have decided to launch into my fifth novel. . .

In bright autumn morning sunshine, Noal descended stairs from his little apartment. The daily street-level traipse of nine blocks brought him through a few downtown streets of the Blue Ridge mountain town of  Ultramont. To Inland Press he would traipse, and his office desk, from whence he would conduct business that would change the world, or at least he liked to think so. A journey of a thousand miles, or a thousand years, has to start somewhere. 

  Walking past that familiar old white clapboard mansion, Noal paused for a moment to ponder, for the umpteenth time, the soft stone face of an angel. 

A hundred or so years ago, Elizabeth Finch—enterprising lady that she was— had been supervising the arrangement of her life-project, Mountain Aire Homestead. She had instructed the gardeners to place the angel in the yard, in front of her little mansion project.

Whenever Noal would amble by the angel, he could not help but retrieve in his mind some age-old memory. Whether the flicker was his own imagination, or some ancestral snippet, retrieved from some person, place or thing of long ago, maybe even far away , he had not yet determined. But hey, who knows about such things? Maybe someone, somewhere, understood. He was still trying to figure it all out. 

Maybe the angel, or the idea of an angel, had drifted down from heaven. God forbid that it might have trummeled up from the nether regions. 

Noal had never seen a real angel anyway, so how could he know? He was not even certain that such a thing as an angel exists. I mean, he had been taught, from an early age, that there was such a thing as an angel. It was known to be the celestial being that had stood, with its angel-twin, just outside the gates of Eden after Adam and Even had been banished because they had screwed up when they heeded the counsel of that frickin’ ole serpent who had been hanging around trying to stir up trouble, before he finally managed to bust through the Elohim hegemony with his apple trick.  

The guard angels, outside the garden, had been assigned from on high.   

Their duty--or so it was written-- was to prevent Adam and Eve from getting back into the special venue, wherein they had been birthed into the physical world, but then later ejected,  in a time so long ago and so far away. But this is a delicate subject.

Yes, 't'was so long ago, and so far away, in a garden far, far away from this place.  Moses had, back in the day, given an account of it.  Noal would be perplexed to find the manner in which he would—or even could—contemplate the ancient account of what had had happened in times past. Furthermore, how, now, could he find, or carve out? a niche of his own in this present arrangement. . . as he was strolling to work that fateful morning.

(to be continued)

King of Soul

The Peril of An Emperor

 Napolean Bonaparte had a nephew, known as Napolean III, who was elected President of France in 1848.

Later, in our modern era, 2001,  historian David Ovason gives an account of Napolean III’s accession to power and his later demise: 1848-1870. 

Ovason’s report on Napolean III is found in chapter 4 of  his book, The Secrets of Nostradamas, published through Harper Collins in 2001.

In chapter 5, David  Ovason wrote:

“When elected to the Presidency, (Napolean III) he swore an oath to remain faithful to the democratic Repubulic, even while working to overthrow this by having himself made Emperor. This aim he achieved by stealth, finally by coup.”

Reporting further, in that book mentioned above, on the Napolean III reign, David Ovason explained more in his book about the course of Napolean III’s destructive leadership among the French people:

“On December 2, 1851, after exertions to ensure that his own conspirator-supporters were established in important positions of power, he carried out his coup, and was declared Emperor a year later. after he was raised to a position where he might exercise that absolute by which he was corrupted even more. . . 

“Napolean changed laws to weaken the positions of the republicans and resorted to wholesale deportation of his political enemies, while his cudgel-bearing secret police, the ratapoils, terrorized the republicans. When the Empire fell (partly due to Napolean III’s incompetence at ((the battle of)) Sedan in 1870), the Bordeaux Assembly recognized the extent of the crimes and tyranny of renard Napolean III, declaring him responsible for the ruin, invasion and dismemberment of France.”

My question:  Does any of this sound relevant to our present situation in America, where we have the original—the very first, in 1776— Republic of the modern Age— a Republic that was founded only 18 years before the original French Republic?

Are we witnessing historical insurrection, Napoleonic style, being repeated in 2024, trumpian style? 

God forbid! Sacre Bleu! May it never be.

Glass half-Full

Riding the Rails of Time

 Way back yonder in time. . . back in the day, the Brits came up with a thing called a railroad. It was a mighty amazing beast.

I mean, it looked like a beast, huffin’ and puffin’ and blowin’ off steam while rollin’ along on a steel rail like nobody had ever seen before. 

By ’n by, that steam-belching beast became the inspiration for all kinds of historical developments. So, along with the railroads,  the Brits rolled out a whole host of industrial and economic innovations that changed the world forever.

As time rolled on, their upstart yankee brethren, cousins and heirs in America, joined the great importation of industry into human history; the outcome was a thing called the industrial revolution. There’s a lot could be said about that, but today I’m a-thinkin’ about the railroad’s impact on even older human invention: music

Way back in the annals and the windmills of my baby-boomer memory there’s a whole a train-yard of trains rollin’ through my Rowland memory.

The first one I can remember is “I’ve  been working on the Railroad, all the live-long day. . . Can’t you hear the whistle blowin. . .” Then there’s the juvenile-sounding “Freight train, freight train, goin’ down the track.” 

By ’n by, that steam-belching beast became the inspiration for all kinds of historical developments. So, along with the railroads,  the Brits rolled out a whole host of industrial and economic innovations that changed the world forever.

And I remember, back in the day, 1950's, layin’ in bed at night, with  transistor radio tuned into the darkness and here comes the voice of Brook Benton singing “Rainy Night in Georgia”:  he’s hobo’in’ on a boxcar. . .where

"the distant moanin’ of a train seems to send a sad refrain through the night. . .“so I take my guitar”. . . “It’s a rainy night in Georgia. . . Lord, I believe it’s rainin’ all over the world.”

On a lighter note, there’s the ole “Chattanooga Choochoo” from back in ’30’s or somewhere. . . not to mention (although I will) so many other classics: Wreck of the Old ’97, Orange Blossom Special, Wabash Cannonball.

When my generation came along, we were inspired to hear a highly commendable batch of contributions to the rail-song legacy. . . Peter Paul and Mary’s plaintive voice as she so tunefully lamented . . .

. . ."If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone. You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.  .  . you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles."

By ’n by, that steam-belching beast became the inspiration for all kinds of historical developments. So, along with the railroads,  the Brits rolled out a whole host of industrial and economic innovations that changed the world forever.

 But movin' right along on the American side, I cherish Steve Goodman’s masterpiece, City of New Orleans,  performed so admirably by Arlo Guthrie, after Arlo’s pappy, Woody, had sung, back in the day, a whole car-load of railroad (and other) good ole songs. Later on down the timeline, the Doobie Brothers cranked up their “Long Train Runnin’”, one of the greatest rock rhythms that ever rolled down a songway rail.

 And I shan’t neglect to mention Casey Jones. And what about ole John Henry swingin’ his way into railway history. . . and Tom and Dick Smothers blowin’ comical commentary hot air about the intercontinental railway being joined up at Promontary Point Utah

, where, as brutha Tommy used to tell it, they "drove a big golden spike" to commemorate the Union of East and West by way of the Railway.

Meanwhile, up at the maple leaf coast-to-coast nation, there’s Gordon Lightfoot rollin’ up his absolutely profound Canadian Railroad Trilogy.

I mean, there were so many of them that, long about 1977, I had to roll my contribution into that long train of rail songs. Listen:

Underground Railroad

Ecliptical Rant

 Here comes the sun

chasing the dark side of the moon.

The joker tried to chase away our American tune.

The joker tried to turn our Dome to Doom!

But Oh say can you see, in the 2121 light?

What we so proudly maintained after your riotous fight!

Why’d you have to screw it all up?

We had a good thing going till you showed up.

Now it’s us v them

what used to be peaceable  repub v  dem

Now we got a elephant throwin’ his weight around

Tearing our American dream down.

Washington prob’ly turnin’ over in his grave

home of the brave now riot for the knave.

Us and them all over again

though we’re just ordinary men.

Now here come the sun chasing the dark side of the moon

Figure it out pal; it time you change yer tune.

I mean why’d you have to get contentious

instigating magas to be so dam vicious?

I mean w’ere trying to assemble a team here

to work together toward  American dream so dear

to us

In God we trust!

Hop on the bus Gus

Drop you plans for Capitol bust!

in land of free,  home of the brave

not the battleground of the knave.

I mean there we were with one small step for a man and

you perverted the leap with  your command

So we don’t have a decent country any more

cuz you busted open that insurrection door!

You violated the liberty of our open door;

you dragged in that babylon hoar

cuz you just had to put on your 5th ave suit

and step out there and shoot

our Rule of Law

now with open wound made raw

yeah, you, with your elliptical rant

But we be insisting you can’t

get away with it!

We shan’t let you do it any more

cuz this aint 5th Avenue with busted golden door.

This is America!

not heretica.

You aint in jersey shore no more donnie boy.

This nation aint your casino toy!

Oh donnie boy the pipes the pipes are calling

while your insurrection gangs are falling!

In our Courts they be going down

cuz you took your shot from downtown.

The rioters be goin down like flies

as maga Court defenses  dies

They be squirmin in them prison cells

They be repenting from their rebel hells.

So you think the mouth shall rise again?!

Think again my friend.

Cuz Jack Smit he be jump'in o'er your cannon trick

after your failed rendition of  worn-out plan like tricky dick.

No not here this ain't no watergate re-run

sneakin 'round with fakey delegate plans undone!

Its all over but the shoutin’

Yeah yeah yeah hush yer pountin'.

Glass half-Full

Good Ole Mel

 Mel Brooks? Mel Gibson? Mel Torme? Melchizedek?

Yeah,that’s it. Melchizedek. It all goes back to good ole Mel, Melchizedek, whoever he was.

When you’re an ole guy,72,  like me, you have all these unidentifiable names, images, phrases, vaguely remembered snippets of this, that and the other floating around in your head. 

Maybe the cinematic recorder in my babyboomer head was ringing up some neuronic association of a hollywood producer who had floated images into my head, or maybe some necktie-bound, old-school nightclub singer who had crooned  love-song hopes into my brain while I was watching Ed Sullivan show, back in the day before we had the Web, back in the day when we had a boobtube in the living room.

Maybe that was it. Maybe that’s what I was thinking of . . or 

Maybe it goes back further than that. . . Melchizedek?

Who was that guy anyway? Some important guy that Abraham had met back in the day, back in the wayback Torah movies. You know, the ones where Moses parted the waters so his enslaved people could escape slavery and enter the promised land. 

Promised land? Good luck with that. I mean, you can’t take this stuff too seriously. . . you’re liable to get flung into the concentration camp, or worse, the gas chamber,  or neglected at the oscars or neglected at the grammys or maybe just pass into mediocrity, the veils of history, forgotten forever like your granny, or maybe remembered in some museum somewhere.

Did I say “promised land”? Yeah, that’s the place that Moses caught a glimpse of before the Lord took him to the real promised place. That’s the place that Dr. King caught a glimpse of before the magamaniacs shot him dead the next day. 

Wait, I remember now. That’s the place that Abraham went to when he left the old country, when he somehow managed to escape Auschwitz and jump on a boat that took him to New York harbor where he caught a glimpse of Lady Liberty, who was, methinks, Abraham’s cousin, and then he got off the boat and settled in the lower east side for awhile.

And then I think he headed west again, all the way to the newest version of promised land, California.

Yeah, that was it; that’s what I was thinking of. . . Mel in Hollywood. It all comes back to me now. How can I forget about good ole Mel? I catch a glimpse of his work every time that promised land crosses mind, every time I sit in my easy chair and look at my back yard, my own little promised land, my own little acreage that I was bequeathed, having driven a stake in the ground and declared that God and the county.gov granted it to me, after I had paid my dues and taken a few turns on the great mandala.

I mean, we paid for it, me and my wife, back in the day. Maybe one of these days I’ll leave it all behind and go see Abraham, Martin and John and. . . and Mel. Maybe I’ll meet Plato and we’ll talk about the shadows on the wall. Maybe I’ll meet Pythagoras and we'll talk about triangles and Trinity and the good ole days back in the old country. Maybe I'll catch up with Mel himself. We'll sit in chairs and reminisce.

Maybe one day! Yeah, that’s it. I believe it could happen, at least that’s what Mel’s great-great nephew said after he walked out of the tomb on Sunday morning. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of. 

Hope to see you there! 

Glass half-Full

George Harrison's Weeping Guitar

 When you get old, like me, you reminisce a lot. . . or, as Sonny Bono, sang it: remonisce.

I mean, I can still remember the day I was out in our Baton Rouge yard, mowing our lawn in 1967, racing through it so that I could get back into—as the Beach Boys had so perfectly harmonized it—“in my room, in my room”—where I could listen to the Beatles’ brand new Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. We had no idea what it . . .

When I had finished the mowing, I retreated to the inner sanctum, cranked up the ancient “record-player”(about the size of a suitcase, dark wood casing with a dark fabric panel in front to soften the sound) and suddenly there’s Ringo singin’. . .

“What would you think if I sang out of tune, if I stand up and walk out on you?   Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song and I’ll try not to sing out of key. I get by with a little help from me friends. . .”

It all comes back to me now. Who the heck is Billy Shears? What is going on here? Whatever happened to:   "She was just seventeen; you know what I mean, and the way she looked . . ."

And for that matter. . . who is Sgt. Pepper? (. . . we were wondering, at first. If you’re not a baby boomer, don’t worry; you’d have to have been there. . .) Even so, stay with me. There's a media/cultural history lesson to be learned from us old folk.

Paul McCartney expressed the feeling well on that Sgt. Pepper album, even though he was a young dude at the time:

“I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering. . .”

But now,  in this case, I'm going to fix a hole by allowing my mind to wander a bit. Wander with me.

So now, 57 years later, I’m getting a few answers. They’re out there in the 21st-century version of boobtube/idiotbox. . . the internet. Here’s some guy telling me all about the contentions that those fab four guys were going through back in the day. Turns out, it was no  walk in the park, certainly no Hyde Park, no strawberry fields forever. It was, in fact, most of the time, a hard day’s night for Beatle George, tolerating the power-tripping (ha! tripping, get it?) manipulations of John and Paul, but mostly Paul. 

I mean, I always knew—or at least I had figured out by, say, the 1980’s, that Paul was the real spark plug of that band. He was the real music guy, the real control freak, which is why, I suppose,  John could start a highly contagious rumor that Paul was. . . barefooted, or no longer of this world or. . . something like that. Paul and John had this quite effective good guy-bad guy public melodrama going on; it rendered them a powerfully productive public image that ultimately took them around the world and back. 

Well, as it turned out, in 1967, Ringo was opening that first Sgt. Pepper invitational anthem with the “if I sang out of tune” soliloquy (see lyrics above) by belting it out so bravely on behalf of his fellow-Beatle, George, because—come to find out—George was, all along, and for all fab-four time, the beaten-down Beatle.

I just watched an online behind-the-scenes exposition of that sad-but-true, chronic Starr-Harrison, shared rejection scenario.  It ain't easy backing up the dynamic Lennon/McCartney duo: one song-writer genius and one working class hero with a flair for outrageous poetry and showmanship. ( In one performance, while performing for the Queen, John had released the audience from any obligation to clap by explaining they could just "rattle your jewels.")

Anyway, getting back to 2024, the musician/documentarian James Hargreaves pulls back, online, a time/media curtain to reveal the sad-but-true saga of George with his faithful drummer friend Ringo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEKwAv3cKYU&t=601s 

 As it turns out, George really was the neglected genius, a guitar wizard hidden behind the curtain, among that fabulous four genii.

". . .with every mistake we must surely be learning."

I mean, we always knew that George was the quiet one, possibly even the neglected—the unappreciated— one. As it turns. . .  he was. He was the tortured soul who really meant it when he later sang the hauntingly  beautiful, profound—even Shakespearian-level tragedy—musical lament :  While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJDJs9dumZI

". . .with every mistake we must surely be learning." Thank you, George, wherever you are.

King of Soul

What Violence Descends Into

 Long about the 1600’s, and into the 1700’s, the Western world began to change in very big way. People started to think a lot more, ponder new economic ideas, revise old philiosphies, and invent new devices. 

We are talking here mostly about Europe, as the New World was still at that time, mostly wilderness, although we Americans were certainly destined to ultimately play a huge role in all the changes that brought about the modern world. 

That period of time is called the Enlightenment. The ideas of Life, Liberty and the  Pursuit of Happiness represented a progressive development in the conduct of governments and industries. Our American version was represented in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the steady development of our American government. 

A very important development in Europe was the industrial revolution. This progress brought into plain view a certain characteristic of civilization that has always been true, but became even more intense in the Industrial age: the rich get richer and the poor take a while to catch up, if they ever do.

Back in the 1830’s, Karl Marx noticed this and pointed out that, in the new order of things, this widening differentiation was intensifying into a confrontation between the people who do the work and the people who run the show. The workers he called proletariat; owners he called capitalists. 

Well, this philosophical/economic division has, since that time, evolved into a major identity differentiation that is oversimplified in the terms, the Left and the Right. Another loosely categorized expression of it has evolved to Democratv. Republican.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. What I really want to write about here is use of violence of either side to try to impose their program on the rest of us.

Looking back again to the Marxian analysis: as that developed, history witnessed the issue of violence used as a means of imposing progress. 

In early 20th-century Russia, the Bolsheviks harnessed some wild ideas to the extreme economic and military extremities of that time. There was a dispute about tactics in which, ultimately the strong man won the whole kitnkaboodle.

Josef Stalin, with his ruthlessness, prevailed over Lenin and Trotsky. Trotsky was sent packing; Stalin took control and set up trials in the ’30’s which led to an oppressive system of gulag prisons.(which Solzhenitzen wrote about) Josef Stalin was a bully who grabbed the Marxist idealogues by the balls and twisted Communism into authoritarian Fascism. So Stalin was a bad-boy dictator.

Meanwhile, down in Germany, an even more bruthal badass was mustering up a wehrmacht to out-do the Russian bully-bear.

Hitler was cunning, even more cruel that Stalin. He didn’t think twice about telling lies; he was the father of 20th-century strong-man fascism, a master of deception. He set up the most massive killing administration that the world have ever seen—the final solution  of the third reich, a Holocaust to kill all the Jews and other critics of nazi extremities.

Hitler made a deal with Stalin in 1939, not to attack Russia. Good luck with that, thought the civilized people of Europe. Then hitler reversed himself two years later. and attacked Russia anyway.  

That’s what bullies do. This gets around to my main point. As these Left v Right confrontations intensify—and then degenerate into real enmity, the tough guys are always behind the scenes waiting for their opportunity to turn civilized politics into violent overthrow. The stalinists took over Russia; the nazis took over Germany. The maoists took over China. The Viet Cong took over Vietnam. blah blah blah. . .

 Violence, in 20th and 21st century infrastructure, ultimately descends into violent insurrection, if not—dare we say it—civil war.  God forbid it doesn’t happen here. 

I mean, (wake up!) it already did . . . on January 6 2021.

Never again!

All ye Constitution-abiding Americans, do not allow the magas to follow their chief insurrectionist (see our 14th Amendment, Section 3) into a violent overthrow of our Constitutional Republic. They already had one failed attempt. The so-called Right-wingers are disposing of their classic conservatism (which was legitimate) and permitting the loudest bully on the block to incite them into a (blahblahblah) abuse of 2nd-amendment rights to foment of fascist rebellion. 

As we used to say back in the Deep South, where I was born in 1951 and grew up, Never Again! A few years ago, I wrote a novel about it:   King of Soul

Listen to my new third-verse for our National Anthem:  

Star-spangled Capitol

Nothing Like It Had Ever Happened

 The apostle John wrote later: 

 Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, 

“We will come with you.” They went out and got into the boat; and that night they caught nothing. 

But when the day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know it was Jesus. 

So Jesus said to them, “Children, you do not have any fish do you?” They answered him, “No.”

And He said to them, “Cast the net on the right-hand side and you will find a catch.” Soo they cast, and they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish.

Therefore John said to Peter, “It is the Lord.” So when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his outer garment on (for he was stripped for work,) and threw himself into the sea.

But the other disciples came in the little boat, for they were not far from land, but about one hundred yards away , dragging the net full of fish. 

So when they got out on the land, they saw a charcoal fire already laid and fish place on it,,  and bread.

Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish which you have now caught.”

Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three, the net was not torn.

Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples ventured to question him, “Who are you?” knowing that it was the Lord.

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and the fish likewise. 

This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after He was raised from the dead.

King of Soul

                                            Wonderful   things  happen  at  the  seaside. Tell everybody.

                                                        

All Quiet

 From 1914 to 1918, the European world was caught up in a dreadful war. It was the worst war in human history. It was ultimately the stupidest war in human history. . . 

But from our perspective, the armies of the German kaiser had to be defeated, so we Americans sent an Expeditionary Force over there to help the Brits and the French finish off those (at the time) deranged krauts. In my novel, Smoke, the last page (spoiler alert) describes a young American who sees, for the first and only time, the grave of his own father in a grassy field in Belgium.

But I digress, just as the world does from time to time.

I mean, that first world war was a titanic act of stupidity, initially, in its beginning, before it devolved full circle into a challenge of necessarily heroic proportions for the Allies who showed the kaiser who was really in charge in the 20th century!

At least, until the little Austrian colonel with the purloined swastika came along and cranked it all up again. 

But Germans are not like that any more, thank God!

I say that first world war was a titanic stupidity because of the way it started: In 1914, one gunman in Sarajevo, Serbia, assassinated an Austrian archduke;  a few weeks later the German kaiser sent his armies packing into Belgium and France to raise hell for the next four years. It just doesn’t make any sense.

This morning I was reading All Quiet on the Western Front, the classic (anti)war novel about that first world war. Erich Maria Remarque, a soldier in the German army during that war, had published his reflection upon that war in 1928.

I was reading this All Quiet classic this morning, this Saturday morning between Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday, or as they say in the wide world, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

I was contemplating writing this, because the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was a bloody event, like that war, and because it was a world-changing event, like that war, and because on that Saturday between crucifixion  and Resurrection, the tomb in which Christ’s body had been laid was, no doubt, quiet . . . all quiet, all quiet on the Christian front.

We have come a long time since those days, those days of 37 A.D. and now 2024 A.D. And as the tomb was quiet on that Saturday, my house is quiet on this Saturday morning as I write this in North Carolina, far, far from that garden tomb, far from those European battlefields that Remarque had written about a hundred and ten years ago. 

Here’s one memory that Remarque included in his classic novel: 

“The days go by. On a foggy morning another of the Russians is buried; almost every day one of them dies. I am on guard during the burial, the prisoners saying a chorale, they sing in parts, and it sounds as if there were no voices, but an organ far away on the moor. The burial is quickly over.”

But sad to say, in this present day, now the Russians, fiercely driven by the deranged vladimir putin, have degenerated to cruel aggression; they have reversed themselves and are now doing what the german kaiser had tried to do to Belgium and France in 1914 and then again when the little nazi colonel had tried to do in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, France, and Russia again.

But on this Saturday morning in America, 2024 A.D. I reflect on all of it, pondering the temporary quietness of the war front in that first world world war, and the quietness of that tomb in Jerusalem long ago when Jesus Christ was laid into it—but only for two days.

You believe that? I do. That’s my story and i’m stickin’ to it.

Smoke

Crucifixion

 Here's an historical event that, like it or not, believe or not, changed the course of world history . . . and my personal history:

"The soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around him. They stripped him and put as scarlet robe on him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they knelt down before him, saying “hail, king of the Jews.” They spat on him and took the reed and began beating him on the head. After they had mocked him, they took the scarlet rode off, put his own garments back on him and led him away to crucify him. . . When they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of the skull, they crucified him."

Golgatha, or Calvary, as it appears today:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lament, rendered in song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iVuCJ7_Yyo

Glass half-Full

Profile in Courage: Pence

 Thanks to the righteous Resolve and Leadership of Vice President Mike Pence, our United States of America, our Constitution and our Rule of Law survived a destructive, rebellious Insurrection on January 6, 2021. 

The Insurrection was instigated, summoned and inspired with the former President, donald trump. His rebel co-conspirators were led by the “proud boys” who were responding to trump’s command to “stand back and standby.” Along with other conspirators, most notably the “oathkeepers” and “threepercenters” and hundreds of other insurrectionists, the defeated chief officer  perpetrated a violent, criminal assault on our Congress.  Their Constitutional duty was to count the Electoral votes that already been delivered by our 50 state legislatures to our House of Representatives and Senate gathered together. 

Our Vice President, Mike President, stood ready to do his duty to God and country, which was to gavel into session by which the Electoral votes would be counted.

Outside of the Capitol, this is what trump’s gangsters had prepared for Mike Pence:   

But the US Secret Service agents whose duty was to protect our Vice President ushered him to a safe location. The hours spent in that safe space were productive and successful, mainly for two reasons: Mike Pence declined his protectors’ request to get in the car that would whisk him away from peril, possible death and the performance of his Constitutional duty to US, We the People of these United States.

As a Christian, I will take the liberty to mention that Pence’s Counsel, Mike Jacobs, made use of the time by seeking wisdom in the Bible. He later testified that he was reading in chapter 3 of the book of Daniel. Verse 18 reads this way: 

“. . . let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

This decision by Daniel resulted in his being thrown, with others, into a pit with lions. But Daniel survived, in spite of his refusal to worship the king.

Likewise, Mike Pence survived the lion-like wrath of the mob who, inspired by the chief insurrectionist’s dictate to “be strong” (what bullcrap!) had erected the scaffold outside. 

Twelve hours later, Vice President Mike was back in his dutiful station, gaveling in a early January 7 (resumed) session of our US Congress in joint session. 

For this act of valor, Mike Pence deserves an opportunity to be nominated by the party of Abraham Lincoln to serve as President in the same office that the Declarer of the Emancipation Declaration had occupied in 1860.

As for his formerly treasonous boss, donald trump must suffer the penalty of never again being allowed the privilege to occupy the Office of the President, as our Constitutional Amendment XIV, section 3 states so clearly. . .

even if the Supremes are confused on this issue. 

Bottom line. Mike Pence has demonstrated the character, courage and chivalry that any US President must embody. donald trump has failed miserable. Send donald back to Mar Lardo.

P.S. I voted for Nikki in the North Carolina primary, but I am hoping there will be a path to my marking the ballot for Mike in ’24! When the Republicans find themselves in dissent and disarray in Milwaukee this summer, let them gravitate toward true leadership: Mike Pence!

Glass half-Full

 

Profile in Courage: Pence

Climbing Jacob's Ladder

"You’re the men and women, individuals made in the image of God,  who stumble up the hill toward the Jerusalem on the hill, the shining city on a hill.” . . .“It’s the call to divine responsibility.”

You may want to hear some words of encouragement from Jordan Peterson as he addressed the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, four months ago.

 This Rubin Report youtube video brings the message online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mTS57hkAUk

In his message, the world-reknown psychologist addresses the issue of each one of us finding a place of effective family and/or societal service, even in the midst of today’s culture and identity conflicts.

Dr. Peterson makes allegorical use of the inspirational and motivational power of an ancient story. 

“Simple stories scale upward; that’s Jacob’s Ladder,  the eternal link, a vine that unites our material, proximal realm with the eternal realm  of heaven."

First, he poses a fascinating question: How do we construct and climb Jacob’s ladder? How do we even comprehend it?

The explanation begins with something as simple—yet as lengthy as—training a child. He explains how teaching a child how to clean his/her room is an effective beginning, then moving forward to setting a dinner table and other chores. Then we extend our instruction and training further and further as the child grows up. . . into the realm of co-existing with other people, accepting responsibilities, learning courtesy, generally progressing forward in personal behavior in a manner that opens a place in human society instructing us how to ascend into roles of service and responsibility.

Teaching the child a hundred “microvisions” of helpfulness, proficiencies, skills, courtesies constitutes a “glorious vision of how to unite (the purposes of) heaven and the ways and means of this earth.

In so doing, we “scaffold ourselves upward from the finite to the infinite” purposes for which we humans were created. . . ultimately, if you’ll permit me the metaphor. . . to a heavenly, communal arrangement of what we do on this earth.

As we mature past childhood, we expand step by step into a lifestyle that encompasses not only personal well-being and responsibility, but also community and societal well-being and progress.

So we are building, metaphorically upward, a ladder on which we ascend to a life of personal and societal responsibility and progress.

The ancient, biblical image of this challenge and its subsequent ascent was presented to the ancient patriarch in a visionary dream: Jacob’s Ladder. 

To illustrate, here’s the image that I used on my musical album cover, “Revelation 5:9” a long time ago:

http://www.careyrowland.com 

Stairway to Dignity

 I grew up in the deep south. Now my old age is spent in the high south of the blue ridge.  

Down in Louisiana, where I was born and raised, I had come from two strains of folk. The Scotch-Irish side came from my dad’s heritage. The French side came from my mother’s. 

My mother’s side directed me into a Catholic high school. As a senior, I served as Student Council President, an experience that afforded me some life direction for a while. After graduation, I traveled the dozen miles to the other side of town to attend our Louisiana State University.

I learned a lot there. As a worthless English major, I learned to read. After a coupl’a years I switched to Political Science, haha! I served as Chairman of the LSU Union National Speakers’ Committee. In that capacity, I was privileged to introduce Dick Gregory and William Buckley to audiences on campus. Imagine that! Dick Gregory and William Buckley, ha!

I later wrote a novel about it, King of Soul, which you can buy on Amazon, thanks to Jeff Bezos! Obviously, there’s a place in this world for both the big people and the little people. My education in the school of hard knocks has proven productive.

Since bustin’ loose from University,  I have spent a life as jack-of-all-trades. Somewhere in all that I was able to attract, by the grace of God, my wife, Pat. God bless her. She gave me three young’uns, who are now grownups like me and you, and one grandaughter, so far. 

A few years ago, I built this stairway onto our mountain home, so’s we could have guests through Air Bnb and VRBO and Furnished Finder.

That has worked out advantageously for us.

Before learning the carpenter trade, back in ’80’s, I had put food on the table by means of a hodgepodge of jobs: shoe salesman, advertising salesman, insurance salesman, printing salesman, log-cabin-factory worker, rodbuster on the Blue Ridge Parkway Linn Cove Viaduct, and a few other oddity jobs here and there, including one or two from which I was fired. haha! nananaboo.

As for the stairway, I can remember the day I was cutting the boards in my driveway, while listening to Congressional hearings on NPR.

I mention that because, I generally like to keep up with the news. 

Speaking of the news, I will conclude with this mention of Heather Cox Richardson’s blog on substack today. Here’s her comment, which I approved, about our President, Joe Biden:

Biden responded to the RSC budget, saying: “My budget represents a different future. One where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and biggest corporations no longer get all the breaks. A future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms, not take them away. A future where the middle class finally has a fair shot, and we protect Social Security so the working people who built this country can retire with dignity. I see a future for all Americans and I will never stop fighting for that future.”

And I do confess, y'all, that I am now living on that infamous "Social Security." Read 'em and weep, ye magamaniacs!

Postscript: Along the way, I was able to publish four novels, record two record albums, and compose 1200 blogs, such as this-here piece of journalistic shenagnigans. By the grace of God, y'all! because I did get, as they say, "saved", along the way, 1978.

Glass half-Full

The Tragedy of Soul

 Ever since Cain killed Abel, we’ve not been able to shake this tragic trait from human experience: Men killing men. 

Sometimes the killing happens between two men. One walks out while the other never sees the light of day again.

Other times, the killing is in organized battalions. We have graveyards where brave soldiers are laid to eternal rest and memorialized with in a gravestone identity. At Gettysburg, President Lincoln lauded the fallen soldiers who had given their “last full measure of devotion” for the cause of freedom.

In war—especially in modern, mechanized warfare, the Tragedy is most often a friggin’ mess. In Edward Dvorak’s book, Elite Bastards, the Combat Missioms of Company F LRP Teams in Vietnam, Ed describes the battleground tragedy that took the life of his platoon buddy Dickie Gross:

“ The willie peter (grenade) had hit him square hit him square in the face and his face looked like someone had taken a torch and melted it! Where his eyes, nose and mouth should have been were nothing but holes partially covered by burned and melted skin.”

It sho’nuff ain’t pretty when men blast the life breath out of other men.

But it has been going on for a long time, since Cain killed Abel.

Other times, the killling is just random, as when some rabid murderer decides to open up with his lethal tool, for no good reason, as happened at Sandy Hook, or Joliet, or Austin, or Lewiston, or Philadelphia, or Allen,  Henryetta,  Nashville,  Half Moon Bay,  Monterey,  Enoch, or Chesapeake,  Colorado Springs, Charlottesville, Raleigh, Uvalde, Buffalo, San Jose, Indianapolis, Boulder, Atlanta, Muskogee, Chicago, El Paso, Virginia Beach, or Parkland Florida.

In 2017, I wrote and published a novel, King of Soul, about what happened to our nation during the war in Vietnam. The story I tell is concluded when the main character, Donnie, and his friend take a road trip in early May of 1970. While night-driving through Ohio, approaching their destination of Kent,  the car radio  in the lamenting voice of Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues when radio airwaves bring in the wafts in the musical lament  of Moody Blues’ , Ray Thomas, singing:

 “When all the stars are falling down

  into the sea and on the ground 

  and angry voices carry on the wind. . .”

Hear the lamenting voice of Ray Thomas as he sings:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0SFTA24M-M

The next day, when they reach Kent, what they find is: (Jeff)

In ancient times, there was one man whose death came when he was nailed to a cross. But He survived death three days later, by Resurrection.

My personal victory over death will come when He retrieves me from that that death event. Perhaps you’ll join us in that victory. See your local Bible for the key to that victory of Soul over Tragedy.

King of Soul

Life's Mountain Ascent

A long time ago, the Prophet Moses ascended a mountain called Pisgah. From that lofty perspective, he was able to view the land below, where his people would settle, after their escape from slavery in Egypt. Since those days of ancient history, Moses’ last ascent before leaving this world has been an inspiration for many people. 

Several millennia of time have passed since that Exodus ascent.

In our present era, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke prophetically on the night before he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968. Harkening back to Moses’ historic example, our nation’s pioneering Civil Rights leader said:

“. . . 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!”

Dr. King was one of many Americans who have found inspiration in the mountaintop quest and its accompanying  experiential peak.

For instance, on a lighter note, John Denver brought forth a song in 1972, about his personal mountaintop challenge, a life-changing experience on a Rocky Mountain peak.  In one verse, he sang: “. . . Colorado Rocky Mountain high, I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky. You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply. Rocky Mountain high. . .”

I, too, have had mountaintop moments of inspiration. In 1975, I left my homeland in the Deep South and moved to Asheville. Near that vibrant North Carolina city, I ascended Mt. Pisgah, which had been named after the biblical peak from which Moses glimpsed the promised land.

During my 5-year season in Asheville, I attempted to start a newspaper, which we named The Eagle. On the masthead was printed a line from Denver’s song: “. . . though he would be a poor man if he never saw an eagle fly.”

The newspaper didn’t pan out. But at least, I won't be a poor man. haha!. We saw our Eagle fly for a few issues. . . I suppose, just for the experience of it. The learning experience was worth the effort. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh? Now I write novels and blogs. Go figure.

But soon after that, I was given, thanks to Tom Behrens, access to a Nashville sound studio. Among the eleven songs that I managed to record there, Mountaintop was my tribute to Moses and to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  The song was included in my 1977 album, Something for Everyone, Songs of Rowland.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3hQNMr0A48

This tribute song and five others can also be heard on Spotify: 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1hP0FJaURz0jJ3zRIrHHsu

http://www.careyrowland.com 

RIP: Republican Party

Well, it was a good run, while it lasted, for 170 years.

 The Republican party, founded by Abe Lincoln and an alliance of anti-slavery ex-Whigs and Free Soilers, was founded in 1860. But now, in 2024, it has ceased to exist.

Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1860, became the first Republican President. His principal duty during those Civil War years was to preserve the Union and to eliminate the practice of slavery in the rebel states of the South. During that war, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, setting free the slaves. He then promoted the 13th Amendment, which Constitutionally abolished slavery.

After Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, Ulysses S. Grant served as the second Republican President.

Other Republican presidents followed in later years:

 Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, George W. Bush.

The last Republican president was donald trump. When his term was terminated by American voters in 2020, he concluded his term in office by mounting an insurrection against the US Congress on January 6, 2021, thus disqualifying himself, as per the 14th Amendment, Section 3, from ever holding the office again.

During the three years following his term in office, donald trump has absconded the Republican party, terminating the GOP’s traditional role as defender of the Constitution, destroying the party’s historical emphasis on the rule of Law. 

donald trump’s Make America Go Astray (MAGA) rebel faction absconded the Republican party in 2016. Since that time, the main purpose of the MAGA has been to assist donald trump is his campaign to establish his identity as the most obnoxious jerk to ever occupy the oval office. For that role, he has earned his place in the history books. 

Glass half-Full 

Supreme Court foot-dragging

 We the People have Federal Justice Department that acts on our behalf to protect us from criminal activity.

On January 6, 2021, the outgoing President summoned a destructive mob to attack our U.S. Representatives and Senators as they were preparing to count votes. In so doing, donald trump was attempting to steal the election so that he could continue his occupancy of the White House.

The former president's attempt to steal the election is a crime that is now being indicted by our US Justice Department. A special prosecutor, Jack Smith, has been appointed to raise the charges against trump. 

In trump's attempt to delay the trial, his lawyers dreamed up a fantasy defense that he was somehow immune from prosecution just because he was a president. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, after hearing arguments, that trump is not immune from prosecution that would hold him accountable for his attempt to steal the election.

Now, our US Supreme Court has decided to render a judgement on the DC Circuit Court's decision to deny trump's so-called "immunity."

If  our US Supreme Court unmasks itself as a delay-inducing institution whose revised purpose is to enable trump's purloined hegemony over our government. . . then loyal American patriots may find it necessary to storm the Supreme Court while it is in session, in a manner similar to the trump-magas attempted occupation of our Congress on January 6, 2021.

Let us hope that our Supreme Justices decide to do their duty in a timely manner. The Court must thereby allow our Peoples' prosecution of the chief insurrectionist in a timely manner, especially since the question of trump's fantasy "immunity" has already been settled. 

We the People need to have all the facts of trump's Jan6 attempted coup--we need those facts to be public-- as we prepare to vote in November.

Glass half-Full

Mactrumph, a play

 A tragedy by Willem Shakespurs

Act 1, Scene 1,  whereupon Mactrumph and Bankeroo, at a swamp near Ovalhovel, happen upon the three weird magas, November 2020,  Thunder. Enter the three weird magas.

Hag Eastman: This election shall be tempest-toss’d. Oh, look what I have, a magaplot, fully loaded for insurrection. But hark! a drum, a dumdum  drum! Mactrumph doth come!

.Enter Mactrumph and Bankeroo.

Mactrumph: So foul an affair I have not yet seen. But lookee here, who might this be? 

Hag Rudy: All hail, Mactrumph, thane of N’York!

Hag Bannon: All hail, Mactrumph, bane of AtlanticCity!

Hag Eastman: All hail, Mactrumph, who shall be KING hereafter!

Mactrumph: excited, Stay! you rowdy speakers, tell me more!

Hag Eastman: Double, double, toil and trouble, election will turn and cauldron will bubble!

Hag Bannon: Mactrumph shall ever powerful be, when maga hoods shall move against congress’ game!

Hag Rudy: Mactrumph shall ever POTUS be, ’til Judges’ gavels shall Mactrumph’s game unravel!

To be discontinued. . .

Glass half-Full

Let America Be Good Again

 Hey, y’all listen up.

“I was a stranger, and you did not invite me in; I was naked and you did not clothe me; sick and in prison, and you didn't bother to visit me.”

“When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of you?”

Then he will answer them, “I’m not kidding, y’all. To the extent that you didn’t do it for one of these, the least of my people, you didn’t do it for me.” 

Let 'em in, y'all. Your paranoia is poisoning your once-great democratic republic. Let 'em in--the humble masses are yearning to be free!

And if that wasn’t enough, he said. . . “I bless those of you who are poor in spirit, who are humble; I bless you who are gentle; you will inherit the earth (while the magamaniacs are trying to take it over by force, by playing their riotous trump cards.)

The strangers are not poisoning your blood. They are bringing in new blood, as your forefathers did.

I bless those of you who hunger for things to be done righteously. I bless you who are merciful—I will show y’all mercy (when your time comes.)

Not only that, but I will bless you who are pure in your motives and your intentions.

I will bless you who make peace; ( really, you are my people.)

Yep, that’s it; that’s the bottom line: 

Blessed are the Peacemakers!

King of Soul

The Court's Avoidance of Duty

January 6, 2021: You’ve heard of that day, right?

If you haven’t heard about what happened on that day, you must have been on a desert island somewhere, or perhaps sleeping in a hayloft while the little foxes were out in the barnyard trying to spoil the vines and get drunk on the grapes of wrath. 

Seriously, though . . .

  On that historic day, our former Vice President, Mike Pence, saved our Republic from what might have been a fatal attack. He acted alone, very bravely, in his persistence to perform his Constitutional duty: to assure us— the American people— that our Electoral votes would be properly counted, to determine who would be our President during 2021-2024.

On that fateful day, Vice President Pence’s dutiful action seemed to be a singularly solitary decision. But we later learned—thanks to the US House Special January6 Committee—that Mike had some help. He had help from God.

You think I’m kidding? I’m not kidding, y’all. Here’s how it happened. For one thing . . . Greg Jacob, Pence’s assistant, was seeking divine wisdom when he turned to the Bible for some guidance. He later testified that, in that hour of extreme danger, hidden with Pence and others beneath the Capitol. . . he was reading, in the Old Testament, about the ancient prophet, Daniel, who had endured a similar test in his role as advisor to an ancient emperor. (See Daniel chapter 6.)

Meanwhile, in tense those moments, our Vice President made two very important phone calls. He called former Vice President Dan Quayle for advice. He also called Judge Michael Luttig. 

Today, February 11, 2024, I listened to Michael Popok’s  interview with Judge Luttig. They were discussing a new case—the 14th-amendment “insurrection” case that is currently before our Supreme Court.

If you are a citizen of these United States, I recommend that you listen to this interview on YouTube, or, as the saying is these days, “wherever you get your podcasts.”

In their discussion, Judge Luttig calls Section 3 of the 14th Amendment “the Constitutional safety net for American democracy.”

Hear the Judge explain the importance of that “safety net”:

Popok and Luttig

Judge Luttig's explanation clarifies the present controversies surrounding Section 3 of the 14th Amendment . . . better than any other explanation that you may hear anywhere. 

But hey, there was a constructive development in another Washington court last week: the decision by the DC Circuit Appeals Court, 3-Judge panel, that donald trump—like any other citizen— has no immunity against criminal indictment and conviction. Popok and Luttig also discuss that decision, which enables Prosecutor Jack Smith to proceed in his insurrection case against trump in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s DC Circuit court.

If, however, you are weary of all these legal perplexities, perhaps you will find some amusement in the song I composed when Justice Kavanaugh was being nominated, a few years ago, by the Senate Judiciary Committee: 

Ballad of Brett and Blasey

Glass half-Full 

Federal Election Consistency

 Our US Constitution states the following words in the 14th Amendment, Section 3, to whit:

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold an office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemiesthereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

Like any dutiful American who is fortunate enough to have some time to comprehend a Supreme Court live argument, I listened to one today. 

It’s not every day that we have the privilege of eavesdropping on decisions of such national importance. But thanks to Ben Meiselas on YouTube, I was able to drop in, aurally. I stumbled upon it suddenly. Unexpectedly, there it was.  Sounds of lawyerly arguments and Judicial questioning were intersecting with my brain waves as I retrieved my Constitution for reference. 

I will not attempt to explain what I heard, except that I did hear the voice of every Justice as they posed questions for the two lawyers.

As usual in this scenario, any comprehension of what I thought were the main issues was eclipsed by the complexity of legal fine points and references to previous Court decisions. 

When the Court concluded their session, Ben Meiselas returned on my laptop screen with a few comments, including his assessment that the Court would decide against  Colorado’s decision to remove trump from the ballot.

And I must say that I would, in that case, agree with the Court, even though I, and so many of us Americans are doing everything we can to keep trump out of the White House.

As an American citizen who takes every opportunity to vote in elections, I do believe that all of our States should have identical candidate choices in Federal elections. 

I fully agree with all my compatriots across the nation who are making every effort to see trump suffer extreme punishments for the insurrection that he provoked on January 6, 2021.

But I also believe that, in any election in which a President is being elected, the candidate choices should be the same in every state.

So, in that respect, a Supreme Court decision that assures consistency in all states’ ballots is of a higher order than other ballot considerations.

As for donald trump suffering the penalties of his crimes, that will have to be decided by the Judges and/or Juries who are hearing  prosecutions by Jack Smith, Fani Willis, Letitia James and their legal teams.

"Let Justice roll like the waters, and Righteousness like a mighty stream!" (saith the ancient biblical prophet, Amos)

Glass half-Full