Beethoven Number Nine

an excerpt from chapter 18 of King of Soul

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondem laβt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere! While the widening gyre of anarchy was roaring so blatantly through Altamont, another thing altogether was happening in the hub of the heartland, that humongous, meat-packin’ Windy City on western shore of Lake Michigan. In a concert hall on Michigan Avenue, a mere stone’s throw from the site where, last year, Mayor Daley’s legion of policemen had taught the boomer upstarts a thing or two about how his version of order would be enforced in the city of Chicago, a theater-full of listeners sat expectantly. They were awaiting the arrival of Ludwig Von Beethoven. His scribbled notes upon a 5- lined manuscript would soon provide the roadmap to guide them through an extraordinary experience, an o’erleaping of the bounds of time and space. At 8:07, as if by clockwork, Conductor Riccardo Ormando entered the hall from the wings, welcomed enthusiastically in a wave of applause. Now the time of his orchestra’s purple mountains’ majesty of preparation would yield forth the fruited plains of actual, musical delight. Thus would their collective soundings propel this eager audience through an exploration of rock music as it had been performed a century and a half earlier. The great concert hall came to an absolute silence when Ormando turned his back on the audience. He lifted the baton. Softly, Sustenuto Strings sounded the beginning of an event like no other, and yet exactly the same as it had always been.

Something, something very fine was about to happen, something tuned and prepared, painstakingly written, performed through ages, rehearsed again and again and again and, and then again, it began. Flutes, woodwinds joined in harmonious agreement that, yes, something here should happen, but it would not begin too soon, not too hastily. Let it develop. A brief discordant note, reminiscent of their prior tuning, then the sonorous appearance of Pianissimo notes over strong tremolos. With a wave of his hand, Riccardo gave the Horns permission to so sedately make their entrance. Allegro rhythm took hold of their soundings. Ensemble musings melted into congruous agreements. Along the way, Flutes, French horns, Oboes, Clarinets, Bassoons, Trumpets—all contributed to a mounting statement of masterful musical expectation; carefully formed a hundred and fifty-four years ago. The bundle of sound was delivered precisely, within a sonata form of melded anticipations and fortissimo fulfillments, interspersed with overlapping phrases, strings and horns alternating on descents; Violins ascending pyrrhically to the heights of their prepared assents. Passion stretched between a wooden frame, tensioned with pegs from skillful instrument-makers long dead and gone, as was the composer himself. Air, vibrating. Atmospheric molecules activated in energetic creation, rushing now through tubes of brass, squeezing ‘tween reeds of vibrating resistance. This rarified air, dispensed by accomplished lips of love, entrained through hearts of gold, it all blew through, sounding forth, offering delicate harmonies and bold crescendos intended to lift the human heart to heights of reflective joy, joy that is perhaps not fully appreciated until the depths of despair have been debilitated, and the heights of achievement have been laid out like sacrifices upon the altar of endeavor and the crucible of time. Listen to the scene on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkj0TeZeZuo%20">

Portrait of a Lady

Listen to the song: Portrait of a Lady It seems the birds are flying south; winter’s here and there’s no doubt the leaves are going to fall; and relatives will call their sons and daughter all, and tell them to be sure and stay warm. Yes, winter is that time of year when snow appears and birds make their way back south. . . prompting all the folks at home to keep their skin and chilly bones wrapped in sweaters so they won’t be cold.

The air just seems to crystalize, somehow bringing bluer skies and crisp autumn sounds. . . like the wind that brings the northern cold . . . the quilt a lady now unfolds. She sees the bare-branched trees outside the window; they seem to frown. She lays the quilt out on the bed with visions running in her head of all the things she has never done; all the words she might have said . . .all the children and the dead. . . The winter wind just blows. She sits down on the window sill; she opens up her mind to fill it with a thought of far away. . . a man she knew. . .she met him on a streetcar. . .it was a day, a day just like today. She wonders why October cold always seems to bring that old memory back again. . . of steaming coffee in a cup, and eyes that never would give up. . .as they watched across the table, her trembling hands. . . Suddenly she hears a stirring sound. . . and in the hall, the pounding of little feet. . . that bring a boy with younger eyes, to kiss, and hug her and make her sigh her silly thoughts right out the window. Yeah, now there’s just a pair of eyes that gaze at her from three feet high, and smile when she’s too sad, a childish face that wants to see all it was ever meant to be. . . till she takes it in her trembling hands. . . don’t cry, baby. Listen to the song: Portrait of a Lady Glass half-Full

American Dream

Where am I? I know I was laying in a field of grass somewhere. . . Leaves of grass. . . leaves falling. . . looking around. . . in the autumn of my life, harkening back to the roots . . . the American dream. . . life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Philadelphia 1776 . . . now, today, in Boston. . . the old north church, “one if by land; two if by sea” Am I on solid ground or am I treading water as the waves of history roll in, crashing upon the sands of time? The contest of nature and man’s controlling of it. . . the contrast of order and chaos. . .the contest of harmony and invention is playing out far beyond the scripted documents of human events. . . all men and women being created equally, endowed by our Creator with life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness. . . the right to work toward fulfilling the American dream, on a lifelong journey to make the best of every opportunity to work hard, have a decent car to drive in the morning, have a house to live in, raise a family of three or four young’uns.. . . it’s all good, y’all. Born in the deep south, watching all the changes: Martin Luther KIng Jr., having come down from the mountaintop . . . https://www.micahrowland.com/carey/Mountaintop.mp3 . And yet. . . ‘‘the contest of harmony and invention is playing out, far beyond the scripted staffs of musical history, and the yellowed pages of history. . . presenting consequences more grave than the mere comfort of American citizens.

Still to be found in the world today is the ongoing contest of order against chaos. Here’s the ever-present duel between right and wrong; there’s the Establishment beating back dissidents, with frequent sightings of the powers that be, as they take advantage of the powerless who want to be. And we shan’t neglect to mention the plight of them who think they should be running the show, being perpetually put down by them who are in charge of it. And we do learn we have words that must be said; yet we have words that should never be spoken; but someone will pronounce those words sooner or later. Yes, we do encounter in this life lines in the sand that daren’t be crossed, and prohibitions that beg to be violated; we find rules that must be broken, and sometimes we encounter the terrible consequences of convention vs. contention.

King of Soul

Steve and Tucker

Driving three kids to school, five mornings of every week, in the 1990’s I would listen to NPR Morning Edition, hearing the voice of Steve Inskeep delivering news headlines of the day. We didn’t have a TV, comfortable as we were in a Christian community and a New Testament, charismatic church. We were inclined toward conservatism. The absence of a TV in our home meant that our household was nothing like the two households that my wife and I had grown up in, both of them Catholic. That absence of TV meant that I never watched Fox News. So we had a conservative world view but no Fox influence, if you can grok that in this day and age. All that to say. . . I never thought I would hear Steve Inskeep interviewing Tucker Carlson. Never having listened to Tucker, I was amazed at Tucker’s assessment of trump’s self-proclaimed war on Iran.

The beauty of this development is that Tucker is such an eloquent defender of good ole American common sense, in his criticism of trump’s self-proclaimed war against Iran. Here are just a few of Tucker’s comments that so profoundly reveal the dilema of being an American in this time of trump’s war: “He was pushed by a foreign country (Netanyahu) to do this (war). It is the most profoundly destructive single decision a president has made in our history.” . . . “ He should have been removed from office immediately when he threatened nuclear war.”. . . “He should have been removed from office by his own cabinet secretaries the moment he threatened a nuclear attack.” (25th amendment) “There’s no greater threat than that”. . .” here you have a guy threatening to eliminate the human race.”. . . “I disagree, almost entirely with everything the Secretary of Defense (Hegseth). . . and I’m going to call him the secretary of defence because I don’t acknowledge that a decent country would have a secretary of war.”. . “The republican chairman, Bryan Mast of Florida showed up wearing an IDF uniform, a foreign military uniform.”. . . “ What you’re seeing now is the control of what was supposed to be the strongest country in the world by a country of nine million people with no resources.”. . . “None of this (criticism) is anti-semitic.” “As someone who opposed Obama. . . it took a huge amount of courage to get that (Obama’s peace deal with Iran) done.” “Iran is a regional power; it’s always going to be a regional power. It’s also the world’s oldest civilization.” …“the push for war with Iran. . .this will destroy the United States, I thought.” . . . “The majority of American Jews who were polled are not for Netanyahu.” “That was important to me, that the Republican party change, from being a tool of a foreign country (Israel) to being an instrument of uplift for the United States.” “ I would urge. . . the vice president, every member of the cabinet, everyone who works for the president, to march into his office and demand that he renoune his statements calling for the use of nuclear weapons, and if he doesn’t do that, they should quit.” “The number one thing I wanted to achieve was to get the neo-cons out of the Republican party because they did the Iraq war.” . . . “I don’t pay attention to the numbers.” “The real threat . . . is that you become a monomaniac. . . you get so mad about a topic that you can’t stop talking about it.. . totally fixated on this one thing”. . .“I know who I am.” This youtube viewer concludes, based on Tucker’s testimony, we should all know who we are, and not allow the push and shove of politics or world events or the cultural wars to interfere with our own individual missions in life. Glass half-Full

The Tragic Truth

The white man’s delusion was blown to smithereens when President Lincoln declared the slaves free in 1863. The white man’s delusion was buried in the dirt of Gettysburg when President Lincoln eulogized the slain soldiers who had defended the cause of Liberty and Emancipation in 1863. The white man’s delusion was driven into the dirt of Appomattox when Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in 1865.

The correction of the burden was memorialized at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. An episode in Glass half-Full, chapter 5 simulates the tragic truth: Marcus and Bridget visit our Lincoln Memorial. They walked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. When they reached the top, Bridget was gazing, like most everyone else who ascends here, with rapt interest at the seated statue. But Marcus, holding Bridget’s hand, gently prodded her to keep moving, slowly to the left, through the myriad of ambling visitors. They came to an inner sanctum. Carved on the white marble wall in front of them were the words of the slain President’s Gettysburg address. Marcus stopped, taking in the enormity of it, both physically and philosophically. He was looking at the speech intently. Bridget was looking at him. After a few moments: “Isn’t that amazing?” “Yes.” She could see that he was thinking hard about something. The great chamber echoed a murmur of humankind. “Supreme irony.” The longing of a nation’s soul reverberated through the memorial… in the soundings of children, the whisperings of passersby. Deep within Marcus’ soul, something sacred was stirring, and she could see it coming forth. “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.” He was reading aloud Lincoln’s words on the white wall. But for the echoes of a million people who had passed through this place, there was silence. After a moment, Bridget responded. “…and yet, there it is carved on the wall, for all to see: ‘the world will little note what we say here….’” “Right, Bridget. Isn’t it amazing?” Suddenly, amid the noise was a loud shouting. Marcus could hear where it was coming from. He moved quickly away, toward the noise, to see what was happening. Bridget felt the sudden coolness of air on her hand, in the absence of Marcus’ gentle grip. As soon as he emerged from behind the marble column, Marcus was puzzled by an incongruous, glistening wet flash of red upon the feet of Lincoln’s statue. What the hell? Instinctively, he ran over to it. He could still hear a constant shouting; it was a ranting. Then his attention settled on the man who was yelling. He had a bucket in his hand, dripping with red paint. The rant went on, and suddenly Marcus was comprehending it: “…you sonofabitch see if you can get that off and then rub it on your white ass, your sorry white ass that destroyed what this country could have been you’re a traitor to your race.” This must be a dream, a very bad dream. Marcus was noticing the speaker’s bald head, goatee, his moving mouth spouting insult. Then Marcus was deciding to do something. It seemed to him that it was someone else speaking when he asked, loudly, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The stranger, startled, turned to Marcus and looked at him. Then he opened his foul mouth: “I’m gonna make things right. There’s a lotta things need to be made right. It’s gonna start now.” A bad dream. Marcus could feel his ire rising. His voice must have quivered with “You better leave now. You’ve defaced national property. You better find a park ranger and turn yourself in. If you don’t, I’ll turn you in.” Marcus found himself yelling, as his challenge escalated through the marble edifice. The man turned and began to walk down the steps. Impulsively, Marcus thought, and shouted: “Who are you, anyway?” Marcus began following the man down the steps. “They oughta bury you under this place.” Marcus was right behind him. Suddenly the vandal turned and punched his assailant in the face. Marcus reeled. There was blood and pain in his awareness. Impetuous, he jumped on the guy with a vengeance and tackled him. They spun downward through midair, landed with a bonecrunching impact on the steps, rolled and stopped, still lost in a fierce, flailing embrace of sudden hatred. A crowd of people tore them apart. Then there was a D.C. cop. He arrested them both. The white man’s imagined superiority was buried at the battle of Little Big Horn in 1870. Listen: https://www.micahrowland.com/carey/Sitting%20Bulls%20Eyes.mp3 Glass half-Full

The Wonder of Ai

We are living in a brave new world in which the powers of electronic media can turn red presidents into blue protesters, so to speak. If you don’t believe me, follow the link to Michael Kryton’s You Tube presentation: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QOCwt4YM5bk

Here’s the message being delivered on YouTube by the Ai images and voices of four living presidents: “The country’s on fire and we’ve come down to the wire. We are face to face with what we have to do. It has become our destiny, our single opportunity. What happens to our nation now is really up to you. So we are here reminding you the power’s in your hands. Time to make decisions and to make your final stand. We’re the living presidents; oh hear our final word. Get off your ass and make it count on this November third. Sing this song and share it; do the thing you need to do. . . and let’s bring down these bastards in a raging sea of blue!” Blogger’s note: This blogation is assembled and presented here by a registered Republican who is in full support of the message that Michael Kryton has presented. The use of certain offensive words, a** and bas****s and f***, is a feature of this Ai video that obviously demonstrates our Constitutional right to free speech. “They started wars and make us pay with pain on every day. They tell us that we are the ones who really are to blame; They mock us and they F*c* us, cuz it’s in their dna, but they forget that we all walk, awake in every way. So we are reminding you the powers in your hands; It’s time to make decisions and to make your final stand! We’re the living presidents; we felt we had no choice Your nation really needs you and is counting on your voice All we have to do is grab the problem by the throat. Remember this November to get off your butt and vote. Remember this November third you know what you must do. Bring down all those bastards in a raging sea of blue! Bloggers note: this written blogitation is typed out by a 75 year-old American who is still a registered (red) Republican who is full agreement with the message.

Glass half-Full

From Eminant to imminent

The Creator of the universe is everywhere, all seeing, all knowing. YWHW spoke light into being. . . electromagnetic energy shining forth through the Universe, illuminating the planets, warming the lands and the waters. Long before Morse code, long before Fortran or Basic or C++ or html, YWHW wrote the genetic code that enables life to live, breathe and propagate. The Spirit of God was moving upon the waters, combining hydrogen and oxygen to create the waters that would supply an earthly environment with liquidity, fluidity and mobility. The Spirit separated waters from the waters, setting aside some waters that would generate new features of solidity, structure and growth, coding the elements creatively brought forth in minerals, proteins and plants. The Spirit of God sculpted mineral elements into planets and moons. Planets then brought forth plants, varying in size, shape, color, and protein, according to their respective genetic codes. The Spirit of God thereby established a garden where the plants could prosper and grow. The Spirit of God, moving right along, raised life to a higher level, enabling consciousness and mobility, and regenerative life processes for the propagation and growth of the various organisms that would be living in the garden. . . all the while, lengthening the genetic codes to establish patterns of development, growth, wired with neurons. . . time and history and evolution, empowering neurons and nerves to transmit consciousness. As the Spirit of God continued moving through the waters and the plants and the creatures, YWHW brought forth more new plants and animals. Creation took on the quality and appearance of what we call a garden. All the creatures were growing and flourishing. Seeing that it was all good, YWHW took Creation to a higher level. . . bringing forth the crown of Creation, Man. . . the creature that scientists later classified as homo sapiens, which is Latin for a creature that can walk and talk and use intelligence to supervise the other life forms. This intelligence development was originally a blessing for the man and the woman who were enjoying their life in the garden; but . . . (with homo sapiens there has always been a ‘but’ . . that is. . . a limitation, a natural boundary, a set of rules.) Understanding that this unique crown of Creation, this man. . . had been given a few god-like attributes. . . consciousness, intelligence and a certain amount of creativity. . . YWHW set limits on Adam and Eve, so they would not get too carried away with this freedom and dignity thing. Meanwhile, back at the Eden ranch, there was another critter to whom the Creator had given a certain amount of consciousness and intelligence. The snake had mobility, just like Adam and Even did, but he didn’t have any arms or legs, and I think he must have gotten upset about it. Licking his tongue on a root of bitterness, the serpent decided to take matters into his own scales and try to convince the man and the women to violate a law that YWHW had established. Thinking himself a wise guy, he raised the question of the tree of knowlege, which was bound with YWHW’s prohibition: don’t eat from the fruit of that tree of knowledge of good and evil!

. . .nd the rest is history. As a consequence of their breaking the rules, violating the limits of YWHW Law, Adam and Eve were banished from the paradise; YWHW sent them out into the world, the territories of homo sapiens, to struggle and contend with the other men and women on the earth, the neanderthals and the cromagnon peoples who were being mean and stupid and all that stuff. . . the will to power and thus spoke zarathustra blahblah and the bullsh** and you know the rest of the story.

So we understand, looking back into this revealed history, that the crown of creation, Man and Woman, blew their chance for a perfect life. Originally created as God’s eminent creature in this earthly garden, they set in motion a degenerative pattern in which human depravity dragged men and women into an imminent degeneration, which became the way of the world. . . a cycle of lawlessness, debauchery, greed, violence and magamania. and its been going on for a long time. I’m here to tell you the degeneration of decency into magamania does not have to be immanent. Read the books of Mattew, Mark, Luke and John to find out about it. Glass half-Full

The Fall

Our homestead is nestled in a forest. We are seeing the leaves fall from the trees; we are seeing the insects gravitate toward our window screens; we are seeing the spiders spin their webs in places that are not acceptable for our human habits and sensibilities. The trees sacrifice their leaves to contribute to the soil, making their contribution to the renewal of life after the tree falls dead. We are entering a season when the temperature falls, the leaves fall, and we are aware that a season of cold weather is ahead of us.

As all the signs of life fall to a lower arrangement, we may contemplate an historic event. . . a fall of a different king, a long, long time ago. . . in which a man and woman fell out of the luxury of a perfect human existence, because they broke the rule that Creator YWHW had commanded them. After Adam and Eve were banished from Eden; they had to make their way in a “fallen” world, where they had to labor for their food. They found themselves in a cruel world in which might makes right. Maybe the lion was the king of the jungle. The earliest men and women had to work for their food. . . whether they were gathering grains and fruits, or slaughtering an animal. Fruits and vegetables are good, but the humans noticed that the wild animals were killing each other, and that some of the wild animals wanted to kill them! Homo Sapiens learned early on that they needed to use their sapiens brains and their strong arms to kill the beast before the beast killed them! And then after the lion or tiger or bear had been killed, the men and women discovered that they could recover the carcass and eat it. Their motto might have been eat the beast before the beast eats me! So the paths of human survival required, like it or not, slaughter. As human families and tribes migrated from land to land, fording streams, eating plants, killing animals. . . their awareness of this world developed inside their brains and their human souls (which the animals did not have) and they began to stack great stones up to build shelters and huts and even towers, such as the tower of Babel, where their bold venture into earthly life crossed some boundaries that Creator YWHW would not allow. So the prideful bluster of human expansion and presumption got knocked back a few stages, when Creator used his ways and means committee to knock Babylon down so that a new strain or two of human endeavor could have some room to make a new start. Along came Abraham; he seemed to be on Creator’s wavelength. So YWHW, having a new leader to work with, appointed Abraham to initiate a new way of living in which the animal sacrifice would be recognized by the man as holy.

This principle of “holy” took on new significance when Moses came along and established the Hebrew faith, beginning with the ten commandments. The new rules forbade men from killing other men women or children. The expansion of the commandments, the Torah, provided a sacrificial system whereby priests acknowledged in their ritual offerings that the animals sacrificed were the Lord’s provision for the sustenance and growth of the people. So we see that religious sacrifice did not do away with killing. Rather, it sanctified the offering of precious life, so that the slaughter of the animals reminded the people of their dependence on the Lord YWHW. This blog started out with this writer’s contemplation of an awareness that the Fall season of this year begins on Tuesday, Sept 22, one day after the Yom Kippur sacrifice for the Hebrew people. But the greater signifigance for me is that the Lord Yahweh utilized the Hebrew sacrifice to change the history of the entire world, and to save this believer’s mortal soul, by the sacrifice of His only Son at Calvary, about 2000 years ago. So the fall of Man has inflicted great trouble on human history, but the shedding of Jesus’ blood constituted a salvation for me, my family, my Christian brethren, and anybody else who believes that good news! He conquered death! By good news, I mean. . . Jesus’ resurrection demonstrated that life goes on after death. You just have to believe it! So follow Him to that eternal realm, and try not to fall down. Glass half-full

Contention Too Much With Us

This contention is too much with us, day and night; Arguing and contending, we twitter into online blight. There’s little we see nowadays we can truly relate to; Do we really know each day and night just what we are to do? We have turned our attentions to magamania and greed Still yet, this natural world supplies our every want and need. The people, some complaining, some sustaining, day and night Talking, screaming, meeming, teeming so much hype and blight For this, for everything, we are clueless; we are out of tune; And yet, and yet, we are a human race who have trod the moon! Whether pagans or believers suckled in a creed outworn, We have lost our way and left our founding documents all torn!

So might I, pecking on this lit-up laptop, stretch a strand of Liberty into the web? Remember We the People, Constitution, Gospel, and common sense.

Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Glass half-Full

The Tom Dooley Tragedy

The legend lives on from Deep Gap on down of the tragic crime of Tom Dooley. The legend, it is said, never resolves the question of who killed Laura Fonda on a mountainside in the Blue Ridge, back in 1866. . . even though a guilty verdict had been laid upon a young veteran of the Civile War, Tom Dula. I first heard about the Tom Dooley tragedy in the 1960’s.from the Kingston Trio. “Hang down your head, Tom Dooley; hang down your head and cry. Poor boy, you’re bound to die.“ In the early 1980’s, my bride and I moved to Boone, about 20 miles up the road from where it happened. A couple of weeks ago, I attended a meeting of our High Country Writers group, to hear a presentation from author Sharyn McCrumb. After our meeting, I bought her book:

Sharon’s authorial coverage of this historic murder consists of personal monologues from two people: Zebulon Vance, Tom Dula’s defense lawyer, and Pauline Foster, a crusty mountain woman who was, more than likely, the real killer in the story. But we’ll never know for sure. The story that McCrumb distills from a sour mash of hillbilly ignorance and licentiousness is a tale to be told, which is why songs have been sung about that fateful love triangle in a mountaineer household that had no ole time religion to keep them on a blessed path, a path that might have saved Laura Foster’s life and Tom Dula’s as well. The tale unfolds in an Appalachian mountain community, Elkville, in Wilkes County, which is the the first county my bride and I drive through when we’re traveling “down the mountain”, out of Boone, to go eastward, through the Piedmont.

I don’t know, but I been told that this story is almost century and a half old, so I’ll not try to reveal all the details about a hillbilly love triangle that had turned fatal. I’ll just drop in some snippets about the fascinating historical background behind this legend, a profound story that. . . if Shakespeare were alive today. . . he could have written one hell of a profound tragedy. It’s an Appalachian tragedy that emerges from the foothills of time. So I’ll just drop a few details and gem quotes from Sharon’s characters: Zebulon Vance, defense attorney: “I had to practice a little law after the (Civil) War ended, before those same trifling government bureaucrats saw fit to let me back into the Congress again. I shall die here, protecting the interests of my fellow Tarheels for as long as God grants me breath and strength.” Pauline Foster, older sister of the deceased Laura Foster, and possibly a partner in crime with her sister Ann, but we’ll never know for sure. Pauline says “I reckon that, to a scared and lonesome soldier, any scrawny gal of twenty can pass for a beauty, though there is handsomess in the Foster line that some say I got a touch of.” Could there be a slightly jealous tone in Pauline’s reckoning? But the older Pauline did not, it seems, get enough “touch of” the beauty to truly win Tom’s love, even though he did lay with her at some point in time. . . and that it was probably her “poc” syphilis that infected Tom, and then the other two sisters, due to the nocturnal adventures of Tom Dula. The closest she ever got to Tom’s love was an occasional roll in the hay with him because Tom’s hankerin’ for friggin’ was a little more than he could manage with one girl, even if he loved that one special girl, aka Laura Foster, her sister, the deceased. Murder mystery, you say? Yep! Sharyn McCrumb weaves, skilfully, some historical background into the saga. Pauline said this about the Civil War, the war that both Zeb Vance, defence layer, and Tom Dula had fought in, back in the day, on the losing side: Pauline’s judgement about the Civil war: “But they never asked our opinion about secession, and most folks up here said it was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” Pauline might have been right about that. The slave owners of the South were a lot richer than those hillbillies in Elkville, Wilkes County, North Carolina. “When you see a baby-faced fellow eyeing you like a starving dog, you know that he may not live to see another spring, he wants you to give him all the springtimes he’s ever going to miss in one gulp.” So Tom Dula’s libido must have so fierce that he couldn’t settle for just the girl he loved, Laura. . . but had to give in to her older sisters who were either jealous or in heat, or both. The legend of Tom Dooley is a mysterious tale that will never be concluded. Three women in a hillbilly household. . . two sisters, one cousin. . . all three being lovers with the same hansom/horny man; the syphilis creeping in, brought in by Pauline, the teller of the tale in Sharyn’s story. . . literally, a clusterf***! If Tom Dula (Dooley) killed Laura Foster, then how was it that Pauline and Ann both knew where the shallow grove was? Why did Ann go crazy with nightmares and hallucinations, and died screaming about seeing black cats on the walls? It’s a mystery that will never be uncovered.

When I finish reading Sharyn McCrumb’s “The Ballad of Tom Dooley” maybe I’ll have more to write about that ole story that happened in a mountain holler that I heard friends of mine talking about, back in the day. (THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS, an imprint of St. Martins’s Press 2111) maybe I’ll have an update. But meanwhile, back at the Blue Ridge, The Ballad of Tom Dooley. How can there be an update? The answer to the big question, who really killed Laura Foster? And why did Tom Dula, while he was standing at a the gallows with a noose around his neck, say that he had never touched a hair on that girl’s head? Glass Chimera

Tell me, tell me, bro’ Bob, about Blind Willie McTell. Tell me.

Tell me the backstory ‘bout that Deep South that I was born into Tell me ‘bout New Orleans and Ole Man River he just keep rollin’ Tell me ‘bout the delta and the swelterin’ heat, them ole cotton fields Tell me ‘bout the delta blues, the crossroads and the cotton bolls Tell me ‘bout the Cajuns who came down from Acadia to Louisiana Tell me ‘bout NewOllins and Missippi. Tell mebout Elvis inMemphis Tell me ‘bout magnolias and moss hangin’ on the cypress trees Tell me ‘bout Louie Armstrong with his trumpet and his sweat Tell me ‘bout Blind Willie in the delta sweat and New’Awlins jazz Tell me ‘bout Big Muddy and Memphis blues and St. Louis. Tell me ‘bout Chicago jazz the blues the brassy tunes good news Tell me how them cotton bolls and ole times not forgotten Tell me ‘bout Little Rock1954, black kids at the schoolhouse door Tell me James Meredith v Ross Barnett at the Ole Miss door. Tell me ‘bout the Freedom Riders and the Edmund Pettis bridge Tell me bout Martin and letter from a Birmingham jail and Tell me ‘bout Dallas and the shot heard round the world Tell me ‘bout the red clay hills of Georgia and Miss’ippi delta and everything in between, strange fruit them delta roots Tell me tell me ‘bout Blind Willie Mctell, blues in delta hell. And that’s the way it was, back in the day. but, but Those days are gone. In dixie land land blacks took their stand and now those days are gone. . . gone. Sho’nuf and Amen! Glass half-Full

Persia and Israel

2560 years ago, King Artaxerxes noticed that his Hebrew servant, Nehemiah, “Why is your face sad?” Nehemiah answered, “Let the king live forever. Why should my face be sad when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lie desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire?” The King: “What would you request?” So Nehemiah prayed to the God of heaven, and he said to the King; “If it please the king, and if your servant has found favor with you, send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.” King Artaxerxes asked gave his consent for Nehemiah’s journey to Jerusalem. Then Nehemiah said: “If it please the king, let letters be to me for the governors of the provinces beyond the river, that they may allow me to pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, that he make give me timber to make beams for the gates for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple, for the wall of the city and the house to which I will go.” The Persian king granted Nehemiah’s request. When Nehemiah left Susa, he was accompanied by officers and horsemen of the Persian kingdom. When he arrived in Jerusalem, he had to convince his own Hebrew brethren that he had been sent by the King. But not all were convinced. Nehemiah wrote: “From that day on, half of my servants carried on the work while half of them held spears and shields. In the contentions that followed, the Persian captains were helping to protect the house of Judah. Nehemiah wrote: “From the day that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the 20th year to the 32nd year of King Artaxerxes, neither I nor my kinsmen have taken advantage of the governor’s food allowance. The Bible reveals that Nehemiah played the game of reoccupation, by the rules that had been established for him by the Persian king. That was then. Things are different now. The Hebrews have established their ancient homeland as the national home for Jews who have immigrated from all over the world, even from the holocaust of Nazi Germany. So what about the Persians now? In the last few months, we Americans have all kinds of rumors about supposed enmity between Isreal and Iran. . . especially now with donald trump’s self-declared war against Iran (Persia). All kinds of rumors are buzzing around on the internet. What are to believe? Where’s Walter Cronkite when we need him? What’s going on over there? What’s happening to our armed personnel in the Persian gulf and the surrounding countries? Now we’ve got a clusterfud of reports. Today I saw a video that seemed to portray the firing of an Iranian nuke on Tel Aviv. Say what? So I turn on the radio, searching the airwaves to hear any report about an Iranian nuke hitting Israel! But what to I find? NOTHING, absolutely nothing. As Sweetwater said back in the day. . . “War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” And apparently our journalists—the 2026 ones—did not learn the lesson of true Journalism. . . the facts, only the facts! We’re depending on these guys:

. . .fired up in the frenzy of their respective national paranoiae, to NOT let the nukes be fired! That includes the Ayatollah in Persia/Iran, and the magamaniac occupant of the Oval office! As for Netanyahu, he better keep his profile low and his mouth shut, and the the Lord Baruch Hashem Adonai to see to it that Jews are protected. As for the person, who produced a fake youtube video of a so-called Iranian nuke striking Israel . . you should make a public apology for throwing bullsh** into the public consciousness! Glass half-Full

Fall

Many moons ago, Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues spoke a recitation at the end of a song: “When the white eagle of the north is flying overhead, and the browns, reds and golds of autumn lie in the gutter dead. . .”

. . . “remember then, summer birds with wings of fire, come to witness spring’s new hope, born of leaves decaying. As new life will come of death, love will come of living.” The autumn season has another name: Fall. . . and for good reason. . . the leaves fall. . . as they will this year, as they have every year. This has happened 75 times since this writer entered this life on earth. Meditating on fall this year reminds me of the many historical falls that have befallen life and life’s institution throughout the history of this earth. There was the original fall of mankind, when Adam and Even fell out of the Creator’s grace and were expelled from garden of Eden. Since that fateful beginning, there have been multitudes of “falls”. The first one that comes to my mind is the fall of the Roman empire. As far as that goes, there have many falls of empires. . . the fall of Babylon, the fall of the third reich, the fall of America into MAGA (make America go away). . . the fall of the house of Usher, an abandoned structure that fell into ruin . . .

The cold hard truth about this life is that, ultimately, we will all go down to the grave, buried in the earth to decay, just like the leaves that fall in the autumn season. Autumn is the season when the life process seems to fall apart. The leaves fall; the temperatures fall. So autumn inspires a metaphor to commemorate the falling apart of all good things that we had earlier depended on, or appreciated. In human history and society, we notice the fall of people into moral depravity, wherein some people fall into sexual infidelity, wherein their marriage to a faithful mate is destroyed. Then there’s also the fall of societal or governmental leaders who forsake their constitutional or moral duties to uphold the standards. . . the principals and laws. . . to which nature and nature’s God had originally bound them. History reveals the fall of great institutions. The fall of the Roman empire released the seeds of Christianity into European history. Dissention among the factions wrought destructions.

And yet, still yet, we are reminded of so many entities and things that fall apart; yet they are sometimes renewed again in some unforeseen way. I am reminded of that Moody Blues recitation: after the browns, reds and golds lie in the gutter dead. . . “Remember then: summer birds, with wings of fire. . . come to witness springs new hope, born of leaves decaying”. . .

The cycle of life and death went uninterrupted through thousands, millions of years. . .until the Son of Man was crucified, then was laid into the earthen tomb, only to defy death itself by His resurrection. You believe that? Think about it. Why not choose victory of Faith over the death cycle of fallen leaves, fallen seasons, fallen years fallen, lives? Glass half Full

Roots Music

Music back in the 1960’s was a curious choice for us teenagers. We had the radio. . . the Motown sound with Otis Redding, The Four Tops. . . we had the radio buzz with Elvis, then the Beatles and all that followed. . . but I was a folky, learning how to play guitar. My friend Johnny showed me a record album that his brother in the Navy had brought from Europe or somewhere. It was a record by Joan Boaz, with her singing old ballads from times long gone. . . Mary Hamilton, Jackaroe, Henry Martin. The liner notes on the back cover were written by a fellow named Bob Dylan. He had written something about when he first heard Joan’s voice and. . . sitting by railroad tracks. . . In 1969, I finished high school and moved to the south side of Baton Rouge to attend LSU. The folk music genre was expanding widely into protest anthems, including songs like Crosby Stills Nash and Young had sung. . . “four dead in Ohio”. Somewhere in all that 1960’s-’70’s confabulation, Doc was brought into the public domain. Doc and Dylan were singing together at the Newport folk festival.

In the midst of all that counterculture passion and intensity, along came a flash from the past: Will the Circle Be Unbroken, a retro-type album by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. My memory of that album always goes back to hearing the voice of a good ole boy from Deep Gap, North Carolina. . . Doc Watson. Doc was an ole feller with a God-given gift for singin’ and pickin’ the guitar. . . a true folk singer who had had no dreams of fame and fortune when he did sing and flat-pick his acoustic until the cows came, or. . , the rest the listening world heard that deep gap sound comin’ out of them thar hills of the Blue Ridge. As Providence would have it. . . for I had never planned what later happened. . . Pat and I moved to Boone, North Carolina, just a stone’s throw from Deep Gap, where Doc, Merle and Rosalee had lived all their lives. We still live there. . . three grown young’uns later. . . about ten miles from Doc’s old homestead in Deep Gap. Around these parts, Doc is a legend. He used to play in downtown Boone and now there’s a bronze statue of Doc “sittin’ on top of the world”, (as the ole bluegrass tells the tune). As you can see, I took the liberty of visiting Doc on the bench.

Doc was the incarnation of authentic, old time, folk music, the born again entrance of authentic, old time, old school FOLK music. . . the real thing! to accompany the new wave of Baez and Dylan and Peter Paul and Mary the Kingston Trio . . . When I was in living in Asheville in the ’70’s, I met David Holt, a scholarly music historian who also had a great talent for playing the banjo, what the mountain folk call a banjer. David plucked his banjo, the old frailing style, on the Life’s Railway to Heaven track of my Revelation 5:9 album in 1979. Somewhere in time, David visited Doc in Deep Gap and interviewed him. Also somewhere in time. . . must have been in the ‘80’s, I was singing a few songs with my guitar, at the Watauga County fair, when Doc’s wife, Rosalee was listening. At the end of my set, she expressed appreciation for my songs. That was a golden memory, coming from Doc Watson’s wife! Still yet later. . .while attending a meeting of the High Country Writers, I met Patricia Payne, who had fancied Merle, back in the day. But her romantic hopes for Merle had never never been fulfilled. I had talked with her, listened to her story, which she had wanted to publish, but that never happened. She passed away. Soon thereafter, I was summoned to a lawyer’s office in Boone, only to discover that she had bequeathed this desk/ bookshelf to me.

And that’s as close as I ever got to the legend of Doc Watson. We do, however, pass the tiny borough of Deep Gap whenever we drive eastward out of Boone. I always gaze out the car window, trying to catch a glimpse of Doc’s place, the house that Patty Payne had showed me before she passed, the homestead where Doc and Merle used to pick their guitars in the Blue Ridge air, the place where authentic folk music had roots deep in Appalachian soil. That’s my Roots Music story and I’m a’stickin’ to it. King of Soul

Prufrock's Song Reborn

(This post for nerds and eggheads only) Let us go, then, now and then, when online is spread out against the real world, like an image spread against the real world; Let us go, through certain half-forgotten shows; as images glow and bestow their memes. . . what dreams may come and go; we know not what images to stow. In the world-net people come and go, striving to remember Michelangelo, when history was like a painted show, as Mona’s smile What are the memes that grow? what ideas do flow out of this electronic stream? What screen-potato fate has come of us? Why do people drum up such fuss? The clickish fog that rubs its back upon our brightened screens licks its tongue into the corners of our dreams, and lingers upon the pools that stand inside our brains. And indeed there will be time, for the brightened bloat that shines upon our screens, rubbing its back upon the window panes of memory. And indeed there will be time, for the shallowy signal that slides along our stream; there will be time; there will be time to prepare a face to greet the faces that you meet. There will be time to ponder and create and time for all the works and days of Man, that click and drop a meme on your plate; just don’t fall into hate! Time for us and you and me. . . time for a hundred decisions, for a hundred visions and revisions, before the reaper takes you and me. . . and time for yet a hundred indecisions, and a hundred visions and revisions, and yet to come a few decisions. In the internet the people come and go, trying to recall Michelangelo. . .

when labor left a scene behind, to evaluate signs of our times. . . while still we do get old; we shall store our papers rolled . . . and bound upon a shelf, upon an altar of remembrance, when ink-pins scrolled and presses rolled. . . to evaluate the chronicles of time: that is the question; whether ’tis nobler to tolerate the crimes of our times, or by opposing end them! . . . Give me Liberty of give me death! When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to break the sacred bonds that have bound us together, and to take action against a string of abuses and end them: that is the question! We have lingered in the chambers of the web, past symbols cast in red or blue, till Eternal voices wake us and suddenly we end. . . in flames of regret. . . and yet. . . and yet it’s never too late. . . to grasp the the links of Calvary’s gate, and linger there in deep repose, until we see the brightness of eternal glory. . . far from grief, far from this fallen earthly story. Yet still the people come and go, trying to grok what Michelangelo was doing up there on the ceiling. The arts may come; the memes may grow trying to interpret Michelangelo.

King of Soul

Madness

Did madness descend on King George III when the Americans refused to follow his royal madness? Did Mr. Hyde overtake Dr. Jekyll? Did Nixon’s paranoia prompt him to tape his office conversations, to send his “plumbers” to steal documents from a psychiatrist’s office? Did his “dirty tricks” clean up the mess that he had made of his presidency? Uh. . . We the People are having deja vu here. Is a whacko tyrant running the show? Did trump suggest renaming New Mexico as New America. . . renaming Lake Ontario as lake America. . .renaming the Gulf of Mexico the gulf of America? Did trump grab classified documents and hide them in a bathroom in MarLago? Did trump send a mob of delinquent to the US Capitol to steal the election from the American people? Does he know that the rebels lost the civil war? Didn’t he get the memo that those proud boys were fighting a war that had been lost in 1865?

Does trump think we need to conquer the people of Greenland and Denmark? Didn’t he get the memo? Hans Christian Andersen, a Dane,exposed the the emperor’s nakedness?

Is donald covered by our Constitution that limits his powers, assigns war powers to Congress. . . Is trump an American? Has he read our Constitution? Has he pledged allegiance to our flag? Does he believe we are One Nation, under God, with Liberty and Justice for All? Has he ever read the inscription on our Statue of Liberty, that it reads: “Send me your huddled masses yearning to be free?” Does he know that our Constitution does not say, send me fat cats so that i may fund the american devolution, controlled by the fat cats and the mad dogs and the proud boys and the three percenters and the oath bleepers? Speaking of oaths, does he even remember that he swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States? Does he want to divert American attention to blowing up Iran, then losing the war that he started without any congressional approve. Is donald trump covered by our Rule of Law? He’s a rogue president, and we are seeing his naked lawlessness. He doesn’t even see that the American people are rising up to reject him. Just like we kicked King George III and his oath bleepers and proud boys out of American in 1778, We the People are rising up to expose the emperor-wannabee who has no Constitutional clothes to cover his naked lawlessness. We the People will rise up; we will eject donald from the oval office. We will assure Americans and all the citizens of this world that the joker from maralago we no longer have the oval, and no longer have the nuclear codes! Glass half-Full

Spies

By the time the 20th century rolled around, the wheels of progress were starting to spin out of control in some places. Mechanized warfare made it possible for military campaigns to impose wide damage on people and places on a level unprecedented in history. World War I was raging between the royal houses of Europe when a horde of Marxist Bolsheviks deposed the Russian tsar and imposed a communist regime on a vast empire that stretched from the Baltic sea to the Bering sea. The Russian revolution was an unexpected problem for western capitalist nations to deal with; it happened when powers that be in Europe were not expecting it. British leaders were worried that communist troublemakers would launch a revolution in Britain. They already had their security agencies and military operating at full capacity while trying to stop Kaiser Wilhelm’s mad grab for more European power. The Brits intercepted a letter that had been sent to communists in Britain from a Russian communist, Gregor Zinoviev. That was the beginning of 20th-century communist paranoia in the minds of western European leaders. The Brits extended their espionage northward, beyond the double devilry of Prussian warmongering. When the dust settled after two world wars, imposing the surrender of both Kaiser Wilhelm’s legions and hitler’s third reich holocaustic clusterfuck. . . the British MI6 espionage agency was operating on all cylinders. Allied with the American Central Intelligence Agency, the free nations of the western world could redirect their spying toward the new threat, the international communist conspiracy.That’s when the heat of 20th-century warfare cooled; the hot war became the Cold War. A British intelligence officer, Ian Fleming, began writing his series of spy novels, featuring the escapades of a British spy, James Bond. Casino Royale was published in 1952, the year after this writer was born.

I started reading the James Bond novels in 1964, when I was in eighth grade. The ones I remember were: Casino Royale, Moonraker, From Russia With Love, Dr. No, Goldfinger, Thunderball. My English teacher, a Catholic nun, caught me reading a Bond paperback during class. She confiscated it. After the class she lectured me, explaining that it was a bad influence on my young mind. She must have known something about Bond’s reputation as a womanizer, which was not, of course, a practice that could be advocated by a Catholic nun. Even so, it seemed that the James Bond popularity in books and movies had ignited a blaze of fascination with espionage, when the Russians built the Berlin wall, tried to place missiles in Cuba. Over in Asia, the VietCong were thought to be taking control of South Vietnam. . . It was a time of paranoia, which later was lampooned by baby boomers who had not lived through the age of Stalin, Hitler and Hirohito. The James Bond craze ignited a blaze of other spy adventures on TV. . . The Man from UNCLE (fictional United Network of Command Law Enforcement). . . with Russian spies v the good guys, John Le Carre. . . The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Mad magazine published a comic strip, Spy vs. Spy, created by a Cuban expatriate.

Nowadays, I’m clueless about who is spying on whom. Putin and trump have, it seems, pasted together some kind of alliance, with golden showers of online obfuscation diluting the urgency of whatever is going on in the world of drones and moans of online reels and no-telling what’s going on in the world. Have the spies taken over? What’s in hunter’s backpack? What’s in putin’s mind? What’s in donald’s ballroom? Maybe the Russians aren’t the bad guys any more? What’s in the Democrats’ backpack? As David Crosby once said: It increases my paranoia. Not to worry, though. The only one spying on me now is Ai. But what can Ai do to me? Unplug me? Not to worry, I’m trooping with the One who already conquered the greatest enemy of all, death. Glass half-Full

Bohemians

When a vast continental empire nailed a Jewish prophet to a cross, the whole world changed forever. Messiah nullified the finality of human death when he rose up from the grave. The good news of his resurrection inspired a new, revolutionary interpretation of the ancient Hebrew scriptures. World history took another major turn, three centuries later, when a Roman emperor accepted Christian faith. Christian religion and practice took another major turn when a corrupt pope claimed church authority over secular and civil institutions. Human depravity expanded into the religious establishment when the Roman clergy throughout Europe was redirected toward earthly motivations of wealth and privilege. The age-old corruption of human institutions, kingdoms, fiefs, duchies, dukes and earls, kings and queen. Not all of them were corrupt, but rather, inclined to decisions that affected the distribution of wealth, power, and influence. One corruptive practice was the issuance of indulgences by priests who ostensibly had the power to forgive sins and shorten the terrible punishments in hell that poor sinners (everybody) would presumably have to endure after death. Institutional corruption degenerated. Corruption was rampant and nobody was really paying attention. T’was then when a new testament prophet arose. Following the example of the old testament prophets, Jan Hus stood up in the the public square and spoke correctively, prophetically against the religious establishment of the 14th century. In the city of Prague, in the region Bohemia, where the Czech Republic is today, Jan Hus delivered the corrective word of the Lord. But later paid the ultimate price for his bold prophetic act. The powers that be burned him at the stake.

In later years, a German cleric, Martin Luther, took up the mantle of prophetic correction when he acted boldly against the deceptive Establishment. Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door. . . and the Protestant declaration began. The Christian “Church” would never be the same again. It would be replaced, appropriately,by the Christian faith that spread like Holy Spirit wildfire across the European continent and, indeed, the whole world. Since a Bohemian prophet had been the original rebel against erroneous institutional authority, the word “Bohemian” was later applied to rebels of just about any identity, in any institution on the face of the earth. This writer can remember a time when our boomer generation, questioning authority, were thought to be rebellious. Some of us demonstrated alternative lifestyles, following the new rhythms of popular culture instead of the obedient paths laid out for us by our predecessors. The term “wild bohemian” was applied to rebels. . . Kerouac, the beatniks, Maynard G. Krebbs. . . later the hippies and all kinds of rebels against the Establishment. Reformers and rebels were identified, presumptively, as “wild bohemians” because their life journeys were conducted along alternative paths that did not Establishment values and lifestyles. It all goes back to the original rebel, Jan Hus, the original Bohemian upstart rebel who rattled the chains of a religious Establishment twelve hundred years ago.

In ages long ago, reformation of the religious Establishment was thought to be disruptive and troublesome. In the modern world, we discover that it is actually helpful to find a few rebellious “bohemians” who initiate the societal changes that may or may not be needed to keep everybody well-fed and content. Most important in our democratic-republican nation: Let folks live their own lives, as long as they do not break the historic ten commandments and upset the apple carts of their neighbors and fellow-citizens. You might have a bohemian living next door. Just do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and we’ll all get along fine.

King of Soul

The Benjamin Key

In 1752, Benjamin Franklin caught the spark of electric energy that would change the world.

Two centuries later, Walter Benjamin caught the spark of watching. . . and then recovering from, both mega-evils of the 20th century. . . Russian communist murder and abuse. . .and also German nazi fascism.world-class murder and holocaust. He witnessed them both, first hand, and lived just long enough to tell about it. His testimony of that experience was recovered from the ashes of history by a few simple twists of fate, faith, and the sparks of inspiration that charge the human desire for liberty. Going back even further in time, the account of brothers Joseph and Benjamin in Genesis was a testimony of our Creator’s omniscient sparks to power up His redemptive ways and means of converting the storm clouds of human tragedy into enlightenment and redemption. As for the Benjamin of our era. . . Benjamin Netanyahu— he is in dire straits, caught between a rock and a hard place. . . panicking, over-reacting, slaughtering palestinians ostensibly for the sake of saving Israel. Has Benjamin forgotten the commandment that Moses had brought down in the Ancient days? Trying to save Israel by breaking the sixth commandment? How’s that working out for ya, Benjamin? But. . . news flash! Israel has already been saved!. . . if they will but turn to Yeshua ha Meschiach, the One they executed. But not to worry. . . the Lord’s omniscience and omnipotence used that crucifixion to show the world that we can, indeed, survive death itself, when we turn to YWHW, the Creator who brought all of us into this amazing world of hot flashes and cool recoveries. Retro flash!: Read the Benjamin story in Genesis, chapters 43-45. . . a testimony of God’s omniscience and redemptive omnipotence, in spite of the violent cruelty of fascist dictators and magamaniacal presidents who think they can solve the problems of the world by lobbing bombs and drones at Persians in Hormuz. We live in a cruel world. Some day, each one of us—you and I— will leave this world and be delivered to our final destination, heaven or hell. I don’t about you, but when my time comes and I enter heaven, I will greet, joyfully, my old friend Benjamin, who lit the spark of pastoral care and brotherhood with me before taking leave from this world of sorrow, woe, loss and recovery, misery and joy. Before we leave this world, we should all catch the spark of eternal life. . . like the Quaker gentleman, Benjamin Franklin caught the spark on a kite wire, back in the early days of America.

Glass half-Full