Them Infamous 1960's

We babyboomers grew up in a world of newfound electronica. We had a glowing glob of circuits and california fairy tales in the living room. We had a tube-newyork buzz, a memphis beat and a british invasion. 

We had dad bringing home the bacon; we had mom cooking in the kitchen. We had grampa squelching memories of Omaha beach and Guadalcanal; we had gramma reading fairy tales at bedtime.

We had it made! 

A few years rolled by, We had a president slain; he had a brother who suffered the same. Fate. We had Vietnam; we had thousands dead; we had millions of miles traveled on brand-spankin’ new interstate highways. We got a spankin’ every now and then.  We had joy, we had fun, seasons in the sun; we had rainy days and wednesdays. We had Saturday morning cartoons. We had Johnny come marchin’ home again; we had Johnny’s memorial on a Washington wall; we had Johnny crackin’ jokes on NBC late night.  We had a dream of what all God’s children, black and white, could do if we could join together. 

Last night we had a trip down memory lane. There we were all in one place, a generation caught up in memory lane, comfortably numb in the space of a theater,. yet alert to the magic of media bringing it all back. . . being entertained in the windmills of our collective mind. ’T’was a great show assembled by some traveling band of musicians; they had summoned up a stream of old audio, hitched up with video snippets carefully selected for our boomer ears. Together a far out staged trip down memory lane, brought to us by  https://toscomusic.org

A groovy time was had by all! The song selections might have been a bit hollywoodish, as compared to what this ole boomer would have chosen, if you know what I mean… they had more Monkee shines than Beatle hits. We did, however, catch  glimpses of Joan Baez and Peter Paul and Mary, but no song selections heard from that folky strain.

We heard a broad assortment of hit songs, Light my fire. . . Raindrops fallin' on my head, Imagine you and me together . . . For every time, there is a a season. . . a time to every purpose. . .

I kept wanting to hear a snippet of my earliest  Beatles’ memory . . “well she was just seventeen; you know what i mean . . .”  but no. So I was thinking that the barefooted Beatle—the one who survived after being “dead” for a while, haha— having perhaps turned somewhat walrus-ish in his old age, might have imposed some very cost-prohibitive copyright limitations on this “ ’60’s” band of meandering memory-makers. But I don’t know. Toward the end, however, a very touching tribute to George Harrison lit up the stage with a presentation of his greatest song: Here Comes the Sun.

In a black-and-white video snippet, a young Bob Dylan’s gentle, but insistent, argument with some reporter was indeed a sign of those times.  That video snippet was followed, appropriately, by one of the “60’s Show” guitarist’s solo-sung tribute to the times and to Dylan’s: The Times They Are a-Changin.

While we Babyboomers had an awesome trip down memory lane at the Knight Theater in Charlotte last night, we do cherish the era and the people who made it all possible. 

I especially enjoyed it because my novel, King of Soul, covers that period of time.

 

The Double Curse

 We Americans are now enduring civil warfare from the Left and from the Right. 

The curse from the Right is obvious; it is the curse of trump and it is extremely dangerous. The last time we had a curse this destructive was during the Civil War.

The curse from the Left was discreet until it came out of the closet.

Here’s how that happened:

We all have two legs. We all have, between those legs, sexual organs that we are born with. Every human being has the right to decide how s/he wants to make use of their birthed organs; and every person has the right to form a personal identity and lifestyle around their sexual preferences.

Our original doctrine of personal identity is found in our Declaration of Independence, which declares that we all have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

I think we can all agree that each person’s pursuit of happiness encompasses their choices about sexual behaviour and identity. 

As sexual organs are (along with their reproductive functions) also organs of pleasure, we find  a vast array of lifestyles associated with these physical features.

The very large problem that has arisen in modern times is this:  the raising of children (and therefore the gradual formation of their sexual identity) during school-years is the sole responsibility of their parents, not the school, not the teachers in the school. 

Why is this?

Because when you are tampering with sex, you are messing with the very essence of human identity. This is not a matter for public indoctrination. This is directly connected to our Constitutional, 1st Amendment Right, Freedom of Religion. Children are, until their age of adulthood, subject to the Religion of their parents, not the religion of the school, school board, nor the teachers. 

The curse of the Left, mentioned above, is this: Democrats and Liberals wanted to extend public education beyond the issues of human rights and civil rights. Sexual identity issues have no place in public schools.

As the old song says. . . Don’t play with me, cuz you’re playing with the fire. Playing with childhood sexual identities is playing with fire.

And if that were not volatile enough, the Liberals (for lack of any other descriptor) chose to vastly confuse the issue by cramming it into the Race issue. They did this by tacking the “woke” tag onto the sex issues.

It is true that white folks have needed to make some changes in their personal attitudes and in their public institutions. They needed to wake up to the fact of equality between races. This troublesome issue was inherent in the historical tragedy of slavery. Slavery is closely connected to the curse of the Right, because rich white people used it to abuse black folks for centuries before we managed to, societally, put an end to that oppression.

The curse of the Right is this: donald trump and his violent minions took advantage of the “woke” confusion to mount an insurrection.

And now we are having a cultural war— maybe even a civil war. It  began on January 6, 2021 because trump dog-whistled the already-mad-as-hell conservatives and the Republicans and the magamaniacs to dump all their discontent on the steps, the halls, the chambers and the public servants in our Capitol.

The dictator wannabee detected all that rage and rounded it up for his own use. This is exactly the way hitler, mussollini and other tyrants have built their mobs in years past.

And we must not let donald trump get away with it. Vote for Nikki Haley. . . or if that doesn’t work for you, vote for our President, Joe Biden, even if he is an old geezer. 

The orange freak is also an old geezer, but he is a self-obsessed, rotten-to-the-core one who will rip this nation to shreds if we allow him back into the oval.

Do not take a chance on the curse of the Right: donald trump.

Glass half-Full

Nikki Haley to the Rescue

It is appropriate that the person who rescues our nation from donald trump is a patriot who has worked for him and with him. 

Now is the time for Nikki Haley to come to the aid of our country, because we need a proven Republican to do the delicate work of rescuing the party of Lincoln, and the Republic for which he stood, from this present insurrectionist faction that has taken control of the Grand Ole Party. 

Ambassador/Governor Haley spoke with profound truth and courage in 2016 when she insisted:

“I will not stop until we fight a man who chooses not to disavow the KKK. That is not a part of our party. That’s not who we want as president. We will not allow that in our country.”

In February 2021, only a month after trump’s insurrectionist thugs had stormed our Capitol while attempting to destroy our Constitutional Rule of Law, Ambassador/Governor Halley criticized trump because he had taken no action to protect Vice President Mike Pence.

A week after the Jan6 insurrection, Ambassador/Governor Halley advised us with these words of brutal truth and admirable wisdom: 

“We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path we shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

And now, three years later, We the People have a great opportunity to protect and defend the the integrity of our Republic by accepting Nikki Haley’s request to be elected President, thereby preventing the chief insurrectionist from absconding the reins of power again and corrupting the oval office with his traitorous presence. 

So let us go forth in the noise and the confusion of 2024 and stand firm to accept Nikki Haley’s bold leadership. Let us send donald trump back to Mar-a-Lardo where he can spend the rest of his days with Aileen Cannon perusing the classified documents that he stole from us. We can only hope he will not sell any of those classified secrets to the Saudis or the Iranians or Russians.

Let’s get busy supporting this seasoned Republican who is willing and able to rescue us from the curse of donald trump.

All ye Republicans. . . and Democrats who are willing to join us, now is the time to come to the aid of our country.

Thanks to Chris, Tim, Vivek and Ron for getting out of the way so that Ambassador/Governor Nikki Haley can send donald trump packing, back up the escalator.

Glass half-Full 

The Pieces v the Magac

 In this day and time, I am observing a massive confrontation between  two vast segments of American politics. I have noticed several characteristics of this escalating political civil war. It is a political/cultural war betweeen the pieceniks and the  magacians.

1. The people who read. . . the Dems, the academics, journalists, lefties, progressives—they stand mostly united in our desperate efforts to ensure that donald trump never occupies the Oval again. 

Here is one communication tool that the pieceniks like to use : the “piece.” 

Formerly known as an essay, or editorial, or written opinion, or news report,  this word, “piece” is a meaningful term  among the anti-trumpers. It is understood to be a written essay, probably published in the Times or the Post or the New Yorker, Atlantic, or some blogging platform online that is read daily by lefty eggheads, academics, deep-staters, Democrats, journalists, columnists or any citizens who oppose trump.

2.On the other side, the people who love trump, the magas, the used-to-be Republicans, the rebels and insurrectionists who are willing to destroy public institutions and ignore the Justice system so trump can return to his bully pulpit—they stand mostly united in their determination to outfox the lefty piecenicks. 

The trumpians have conjured up a spirit of rebellion that summons a special kind of "magac." This accursing power is their main weapon against the academic, erudite drivel of the left. Maga magac is not generally cast in written form;  it's mainly noticed as whatever detritus was left in our Capitol, or on the Capitol grounds,  after January 6, 2021. Since that insurrection,  the magacians have expanded their curses, empowering the fox to raid the henhouse. Now they're cracking the eggheads, scaring hell out of the chickens and generally taking command of ole GOPpy caucuses and the three-ring circus of American politics, while poo-pooing what used to be political discourse and what used to be called Rule of Law and the Constitution.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence. . . the Dems, the academics, journalists, lefties and progressives post their pieces in publications and discuss them politely as the foxes busy themselves raiding the henhouse while casting their magac spells far and wide.

The trump-instigated magacal event that conjured up Jan6 insurrection was a spell cast by donald himself  when he summoned the spirits of rebellion to begin dismantling our Democracy so that the magacians could replace Constitutional procedures with a dictatorship that trump has planned for his first day of having, once again, dinner in the oval while watching our American democracy being torn apart.

But hey, if the magacians do manage to get  trumpty-dumpty hoisted up onto the wall of obstruction again, they will surely discover that he is unable to put all the pieces of American peace and prosperity back together again and we'll have a giant clusterfud on our hands as the sh** hits the fan. 

There's my piece and I'm stickin' to it!     Glass half-Full

MLK Last Day

 On the night before he was assassinated in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a prophetic  message to the people who needed his help and inspiration. The sanitation workers of Memphis had gathered, along with a church-full of supporters  at the Church of God in Christ. Little did they know. . . they would be the last listeners on this earth to hear Dr. King's bold message of deliverance. 

As Dr. King  spoke boldly, he already understood that he was a target. He had been warned by the murderers themselves, although he did not know how, when, or where it would happen. Yet his continuing mission to deliver his people from oppression was of a higher order than the mere prospect of staying alive. So he persisted in his life's divinely-appointed mission. He told the people who had gathered:

“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. 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 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. "

Standing in the prospect of what he knew to be an unjustified death sentence, Martin's reference to the mountaintop clarified the prophetic role that he had undertaken to liberate his people from honky racist oppression. . . even as Moses had stood atop the pisgah of Mt. Nebo, knowing that he had been allowed a glimpse of the Promised Land; but he would not enter therein with his people, the Jews of biblical antiquity.

Fifty-seven years ago, I wrote and recorded a song about the life-work of these two bold prophets. Listen: Mountaintop

The news of Dr. King's death was tragic the next day, after he was shot dead while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. And yet. . . and yet . . . when we look around us today and see the roles performed by so many black Americans in the year 2024 . . . we discern that Dr. King understood fully the significance of what he was doing. And if you don't believe me, well, well . . . go ask Joy Reid, or Barack Obama, or Tim Scott, or Morgan Freeman, or Ketanji Brown Jackson, or millions of other citizens of color, maybe next door or down the street or at the desk next to yours.

King of Soul

Ancient Words

 Words of  Zophar,  found, so far,  in an old book, chapter 20:

Do you know this from our heritage, even from the establishment of man on earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless momentary?

Though his loftiness seems to reach heavenward, he perishes forever like his stinky refuse. Those who have seen him will say “Where is he?” Though deception is sweet in his mouth (he hides it under his tongue). . . he swallows riches, but will vomit  them up; God will expel them from his belly. He sucks the poison of cobras. He doesn’t bother to notice the streams, the rivers flowing with this world’s offerings. He has oppressed and forsaken the poor; he has seized a house which he had not built. 

Because he knew no quietness within him, he does not retain anything he desires. Nothing remains for him to devour. . .  nada, zip.

Therefore his prosperity does not endure. In the fullness of his plenty he will be cramped; the hand of everyone who suffers will come against him.

 He may flee from the judicial weapon, but the long arm of the Law will grab him.

Judgements strike heavily upon him. The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him.

The increase of his house will depart; his assets will slip away in the days of his anger. 

This is the wicked man’s portion from God, the very heritage ultimately decreed to him by the Almighty.

Glass half-Full

National Anthem Updated

 

I'm updating our National Anthem to  honor the valour of those police officers, soldiers and citizens who defended our Capitol, our Congress and our Flag, January 6, 2021.

Star-spangled Capitol, (verse 3 proposed):

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!

Listen:

Star-spangled Capitol

Glass half-Full