Meanwhile, back in the good ole USA, a little update:
But Smith has argued that even if the court were to rule for Fischer, the charges against Trump could still go forward because they rested, in part, on efforts to use false electoral certificates at the joint session of Congress.
Memory is a funny thing. It bounces around in the brain like a ping-pong ball (remember ping-pong?). After a while it lands on the floor.
Time is a floor, a very long floor, like a mall, or an airport concourse, or a walk in the park.
Just now I happen to be thinking about John and Yoko walking in Central Park. . . more about that later.
As I was saying, time is a floor. But it ends somewhere, at the edge of the building, at the edge of ? a lifetime. . . your lifetime, my lifetime.
In this electronic age, the lives of famous people are inextricably linked into our brains. The floor of my lifetime stretches from 1951 to . . . ? We shall see how far . . .
Then there’s the floor below the one that I happen to be on; that’s the level on which my parents’ generation walked. . . Roaring ’20’s, Depression, Wold War II, the bomb, Eisenhower.
Every now and then some amazing person will enter into this time mystery and somehow get a glimpse into those lower levels, unveiling historical truth and profundity.
And sometimes, now and then, some gifted, inspired person enters into the time frame and gets a glimpse into the upper floors, the ones that don’t even exist yet. (I don’t know how else to say it). The prophets of old, most notably, Daniel, Ezekiel, John the Apostle, Jesus himself the author of it all.
Or let’s say, in earlier centuries, such as the 1500's, a specially-equipperd person, Nostradamus, with his mysterious quatrains. So what’s up with that? I mean, how could he see up on the floors above that didn't exist yet . . . uh, but never mind. I digress.
Anyway, I was noticing that in my particular “baby-boomer” view of time, music has a lot to do with it, “it” being. . . whatever it is.
Perhaps because I am a musician, the music of my youth is closely connected to the memory tags of my lifetime, especially so in these late-life (72) years. And. . . well, long story short. . .I was remembering, on this particular day, the Beatles.
What is presently so fascinating is that the two remaining members of that fab four, Paul and Ringo, have managed to, with a little help from their (techie sound engineering) friends. . . to use an old home recording that John had made, to produce an incredibly meaningful song, “Now and Then” that brings to memory, post mortem, the rich heritage that those fab four guys were able to present to our g-generation.
Thanks to John’s wife, Yoko, who volunteered the tape for Paul and Ringo to use as a basis for their last project together.
You may want to hear it, maybe listen to it, as I do, every now and then:
Old news, from Rusty Bower, Speaker of the Arizona (state) House of Representatives, testifying to the “January6th” investigative committee of our US House of Representatives, on June 24, 2022, speaking to Rep. Adam Schiff at a session of the Special Committee investigative hearing:. . .
(Note: For purposes of simplicity, I , the blogger, have minimally redacted some incidental or repetetive phrases of this interview.
Rep. Schiff: Did you ask Mr. Giuiliani for proof of these allegations of fraud (election interference) that he was making?
Rusty Bower: On multiple occasions, yes.
Arizona Speaker Rusty Bower: He (Rudy Giuliani) said that they did have proof, and I asked him, “Do you have names? For example, we have 202,000 illegal immigrants, some large number, five or six thousand dead people, etcetera, and I said, do you have their names?
Rep. Schiff:So Mr. Giuliani was claiming in the call that there were hundreds of thousands of undocumented people and thousands of dead people who had purportedly voted in the election?
Bower:Yes.
Schiff: And you asked him for evidence of that?
Bower: I did.
Schiff: Did you ever receive from Giuliani evidence either during the call, after the call, or to this day?
Bower: Never.
Schiff:What was the ask during this call?. He was making some allegations of fraud, or a couple of things . . . He had a couple things that he wanted you to do? What were those?
Bower: The ones that I remember. . . that we would hold . . . that i would allow a an official committee at the (state) Capitol, so that they could hear this evidence and that we could take action thereafter. And I refused. Up to that time, the circus (I called it circus) had been brewing with lots of demonstrations both at the counting center and at the Capitol and at other places, and I didn’t want to have that in the House. I did not feel that the evidence granted in its absence merited a hearing. . . .and I didn’t want to be used as a pawn. If there was some other need that the committee hearing could fulfill. So that was the first ask—that we hold an official committee hearing
Shiff: And what was the second ask?
Bower: I said, to what end(?) the hearing. He said, well we have heard that there is a legal theory or that you can remove the electors of President Biden and replace them; we would like to have the legitimate opportunity, through the committee, to come to that end and renew that. I said that’s totally new to me. I’ve never heard of any such thing, and he pressed that point. And I said: You are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath, when I swore to the Constitution, to uphold it.
(So that was conversation that took place in 2020. Meanwhile, now shifting this blog time line back to present era:)
New news: June 2024: After enduring trump’s slings and arrows of outrageous lies and ranting during their debate, President Joe Biden went to Raleigh and spoke to the people there. He told them:
“I don’t speak as smooth as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. . . I know what I do know; I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong . . . and I know how to do this job.I know how to get things done . . . and I know what millions of Americans know; when you get knocked down you get back up!”
So we notice that, in presidential politics, sometimes there are lies and sometimes there are attempted lies, such as Giuliani and his team of insurrectional lawyers were trying foist upon the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives in January of 2020. That insurrectionist strategy launched by trump is a far cry from the honesty and integrity of our President Biden.
Well i was born in Louisiana in 1951 and spent most of my youth there.
So I noticed that that state has mandated posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
I wasn’t thinking much about that until I noticed that Michael Moore hath posted his recommendations for a new ten commandments.
Well ok gollee i mean this is America and people can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t. . . you know. . .(later)
You can view/hear his commendations at michealmoore.com, or something like that. iI think it is on the same online platform where I write blogs, Medium.com.
Let’s get to the point here. I have some things to say about Michael’s suggestions, but first some background about this commentator, me. So you understand the context of my analysis.
After being born in Louisiana, I was raised in Catholic schools, in the Catholic faith, although my dad was a lapsed Baptist who never went church. That said, I do think that my 12 years of Catholic education prepared me well for life and whatever it was that I have been doing with my life. See http://www.careyrowland.com for more about that.
I did the college thing at LSU, the hometown state university. It was a great time of learning. Although I was a useless English major with a sort-of minor in political science, I did learn how read and write (you be the judge of that) fairly well.
But I digress. Getting back to the Ten Commandments. . . they are very important. They are a good guide for living and treating people properly in this world.
When I was 27, I was born again. I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and He still is.
Now the relationship between Christianity and its parent religion, Judaism, is complicated. Since I am no authority on these matters, I will just say that you should not be antisemitic. As a Christian, I love Jewish people. I applaud our nation’s armed forces who went over to Europe on Dday, back in the 1940’s and chased the damn nazis back into their holes. Let’s just hope that they never succeed in taking over this nation, as they were attempting to do at Charlottesville a few years ago and may were attempting to do on Jan6.
But really, getting back to the point: the Ten Commandments are a good starting point for a correct understanding of what human behavior and Law should express.
But we Christians found through Christ a more appropriate working out of that moral Law, through the life and teachings of Christ. You can find more about that in the gospels of the New Testament. The essence of Jesus message can be discerned in reading his sermon on the mount and other teachings throughout those gospels.
Here are a few of the primary principles that, I believe, take precedence over the Law and the Ten Commandments: Blessed are the peacemakers. Love your enemies. Feed hungry people; clothe people who don’t have enough. Visit people in prison. Love your neighbor as yourself. To that I would add: have some respect for your political enemies.
Now I think I have written enough here to convey what I think needs to be said now and maybe even what you need to hear, or to read. So I will conclude by getting back to original impetus for this blog.
I was amused by Michael Moore’s attempted revision of the ten commandments. It was about what I expected from a liberal filmmaker like him. I found his opening a little too irreverent, perhaps even sacriligious (since we were both raised Catholic.) He certainly had moments in his revisionist zeal of inspiration and even quality advice, but of course his liberal bent propelled him beyond the boundaries of propriety concerning identity issues. I mean, this present trouble that we have in America really started when somebody dragged the identity issues into what was called “woke” when “woke” was originally about civil rights and racism issues, which are totally relevant and we were seriously in need of improvement. The bottom line on the sex thing is, in this world, people are free to do whatever they want.
But the better bottom line is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Selah! Glass half-Full.
“I was born and raised as a child” is a phrase that I heard many moons ago, spoken by my friend John before he passed away.
Well that’s an interesting array of topics to just toss out, out of the blue, while undertaking to write meaningful thoughts upon a blank screen: Birth, childhood, friends, and death. . .
There’s a lot I could say about these subjects, but what I’m really getting at is insanity. . . er. . . not exactly, no. . . that wasn’t the idea at all. What WAS that thought I had? . . . must have been an inspiration. I mean, I just watched a vid doc about the Beatles because they were a big deal back in the day when I was a young fool on the hill and in the concluding comments the video producer used the word “insane” in a manner that—it occurred to me for the 7th time lately. . . this word has changed meanings!
I mean, when I was still a young fool on the hill the word was used to identify persons who had literally gone crazy, like, um, in a loony bin kind of crazy.
But now that the word insane is used to describe—I’m not sure exactly what—um, um (the new word for and, um) . . . let’s just say nowadays it seems to indicate, um, beyond what’s ordinary, or maybe, in some contexts, even beyond the ordinary in a good way, like, like (like, the new word for “I’m thinking about it” ) maybe even “inspired”, like. . . what a great idea!
So maybe “insane” has totally switched places with “inspired” or . . . quite an inspiring idea or . . . or maybe just different.
I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet. I mean, I don’t like to think of the other possibility that. . . um. . . like the world has gone insane and maybe nobody has really noticed the societal change, nobody except, um . . . me?
Or maybe it has something to do with January 6th being thought of as some kind of legitimate historical event. If that’s the case, maybe the world is going insane, I mean, um, like attacking our Capitol and trying to debunk our Constitution was just, like, a walk in the park.
Yeah, that’s it. Jan6 was just a walk in the park, like, you know, from the Ellipse to the broken window in an upper hallway while Nancy and Ted just happened to be running for their life and Mike was down in the bunker praying for wisdom.
I mean, somebody has to stand up for America instead of, you know, “stand back and stand by” while all hell is breaking loose.
Yeah that’s it. Most likely methinks the world has indeed gone bonkers and now I’m starting to figure it out.
Yeah that’s it. The world has gone insane. Or, wait, maybe its just the US, maybe its just US who have gone insane and now everybody is starting to realize it. . . like, um, when Dorothy woke up and hey, what in the world?
Maybe I should be looking for my ruby slippers? Seems I ain't in Kansas any more, or even, like, Oklahoma, or . . .
Oh, that’s insane. Fuhgedabowdit! Maybe its just that the fox hath stolen the henhouse.
Go find the farmer in the dell and tell him the fox hath stolen his henhouse. Insane? Yeah, maybe. That could be it. Come to think about it, I knew we were in for a rough ride when I started hearing things, like. . . the little birds started tweeting in my ear.
Or maybe it was when the fox stole the henhouse.
Insane? you say? Join the club. Methinks this must be what English majors do when we get old.
No worries! Fugedabowdit! So you think the world is going crazy? That's just, like. . . insane. It’s all in your head. You can’t make this stuff up. Reminds me of an old musical, Oklahoma!? No way; that's just insane.
