Dear Uncle Sam: (at least that is how I was taught to address you), What happened to you, man? It seems that no news broadcast, nor mail to my postal mailbox ever recognizes you anymore! Are you still our “uncle” or have you died and passed your legacy on to your nieces and nephews? If so, who are they and how can we keep supporting your vision, in your legacy’s name?
I’ve been following our Presidential elections since Kennedy v Nixon, remembering Eisenhower fading back into his private life with class. Why doesn’t his kind of gracious pugnaciousness happen nowadays?
Is this how shallow our public servant talent pool is now that there is NO class nor opportunities for the electorate to see men of dignity and choose class over sass? Who is going to put a stop to this freakish generation who cannot solve a minor disagreement without displaying a weapon of death instead of discussing and resolving? These are numbskulls with no Home Training who have access to guns with runaway stupidity! This mental illness must be stopped and not with the laissez-faire treatment which became vogue in the 1980s and till recent times. When we have a nut-case, they must be removed from the general population! Not coddled and released to terrorize the normal populace again! I know from whence I speak by dint of my mom being a Special Education teacher and manager at New York City’s Creedmore Mental Institution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creedmoor_Psychiatric_Center and similar psycho places during her career and the stories shoe told at our nightly dinner table.
We deserve much better choices for President. Why do we currently only have these two retread options for President in 2024? One is too old for the job and the other is too criminally indicted, egotistical and corrupt, who never had the CLASS to, like every other Presidential candidate who fell short has done in this country, to concede to his opponent when he lost the last time four years ago. That right there should disqualify him in most American minds, from another try! His giant ego will not stop tormenting him!
It’s enough to make me want to vote like we did back in the 1970s: by not voting! Yet, too many have suffered too much to get the right to vote in America, for us to hand them that kind of victory. What happened to the Nominating Conventions which ultimately decided who would be the standard-bearer for all of the parties; I mean the two “major” parties and even the Independent, Libertarian, Socialist, Communist, et al parties? There was no “presumptive nominee” – the dust had to settle after the Conventions – until around Labor Day. So, News Directors, stop rushing s*** please!
Are the “MAGA” conspiracy theorists correct, when they imply that who is going to run is already “fixed” or preordained, and that there is no such thing as “We The People” choosing candidates anymore? We know otherwise than the cult.
*PickHitt: Another help for the republic, IMO, would to re-institute the military conscription or ‘the draft’, because that one act alone would encourage young men of all stripes to either enroll into higher education communities (get smarter and get the “gun thing” out of their systems) or fight for our country overseas with real live fire coming back at them!
flout
verb [ T ]
“to intentionally disobey a rule or law, or to intentionally avoid behavior that is usual or expected.”
[They think they can flout the law and get away with it.]
[He conducted business in his pajamas to flout convention.]
As we honor Veterans Day, 2018 and The Holidays begin again in earnest, I especially honor those of World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam this year. They fought for what the “Father of Our Country” lead his men into war over: Freedom and our Declaration of Independence, which led to our American Constitution.
When I was raised, not so long ago, we were taught that there are three things you do not talk about in polite company: your religion, your salary and who you vote for. If more people followed these traditional tenets instead of flouting them, there would be less contentiousness these days. It is the main reason I mostly refrain from writing about politics here.
I am of the opinion that ever since we noticed it – I say “we” meaning my good buddies and I who used to look out over and settle our world from a high-terraced apartment in the north Bronx – the “GOP” planned to dumb-down a significant portion of our nation, specifically those not in traditional big cities and urban areas, so that they could capture the less-educated, disenfranchised and less questioning gun-owners, often in the wilds, and turn them into supporters of whatever pablum they fed them. It hasn’t worked as well as they hoped.
This toilet paper to his shoe photo typifies FLOUTUS45’s term and character:
Attacking public education and family unity by encouraging single parenting, they almost have achieved this with a trumped-up Oval Office. We who know better can take it back – and we better before we have a DICTATOR on our hands in the “good ole USA”. I won’t dignify him by mentioning his name in my blog, but this fake “President” speaks to flouting all of the norms we have become accustomed to as a nation, including our Constitution, whether you agree with all he says or not, on a daily basis! This needs to end soonest. IMO, he is a third-party candidate that got in because both major parties laid-down and especially the “Donkeys” ran a weak horse in the race who didn’t challenge @FLOUTUS45 when she had opportunities to be a bitch. The “Elephants” were no better; remember Jeb Bush cowering and almost kneeling without a come-back when Casino Man played the dozens on him during a televised debate? It was shameful!
Someone please give FLOUTUS45 some lukewarm milk with a double-shot of his favorite bourbon whiskey – I recommend 114-proof “Old Granddad”, because it befits his style and is concocted in Kentucky, the state of his fellow good old boy Senator – maybe adding some Fruit Loops to it in a bowl, as homage to the many zanie things he “tweets” all the time would be good. Then put him on ice and to bed for a long winter’s nap in a cave somewhere, before he listens more to his closet advisor, Russia’s Putin (who wants our land by any means), and flouts us into World War III.
Where are our collective manners, common sense, etiquette, patience and respect? Not that far away, but we need smart leadership which teaches the masses to embrace “The Golden Rule”. Wake up, “to play a trump on (a card or trick) when another suit was led”! House wins…you LOSE.
Sincerely,
Tired of the Embarrassing Current Foot-in-Tweet Daily Scandal Circus
PickHitt: Ignore the Tweets from @POTUS45/FLOUTUS45 and #unfollow him. No other President has ever spoken to the nation less on TV. I think that we should check Trump’s BIRTH CERTIFICATE! Maybe he was born in Russia! It increasingly looks like a possibility. He should produce the real one!
I have been through the financial “mill” at the time of this post, having to make sure that my retro move at the age of sixty [60] is truly temporary and be able to repay the lady I want to marry for her help in 2010, while a fifteen-year younger, sick-in-the-head sibling seems hell-bent upon having me be stuck there, ensuring the failure of the remnants of our “family” while I try to help my octogenarian Mum, my fiancee` overseas and her elderly Mum! OMG! Heaven help me now, or end this madness!
I always push to leave every situation that I encounter better than when I found it. it is my “motto”.
Therefore, I now offer for better or worse, the lessons that I have learned via sixty years on this rock, with the prayer that, if nothing else, they will entertain you to maintain your cool – which in these days and times without my soul-mate in the same postal code , is so very hard to do. “Observe!”
1. Patience is a virtue because it is so difficult to consistently sustain. However, the payoff is worth it because most often, when we get what we are waiting for, it comes like a torrential rain following a drought.
2. There comes a point when I have to push the envelope to get the results I need.
3. I never liked banks and adulthood validates this thus far; they are greedy and try to get something for nothing every chance they get.
4. Driver’s licenses are much too easy to obtain (skill wise and especially with all of the distractions in the cockpit installed by automakers these days)
5. When given the chance these days, most people will cheat the laws or be lazy.
6. When It rains, most lose the ability to drive their vehicles safely.
7. To take my time; allow enough time so I do not have to rush to work or an appointment – or for love to happen.
8. Watching TV is a waste of time
9. Not to watch the “news” so as not to have high blood pressure regarding the drama of the world that I cannot control.
10. Not to watch this era’s rich millionaire athletes in shorts run up and down basketball courts while I am struggling to make ends meet! (none of them would lend me a helping hand, anyway) I do not “identify” with their values (or lack thereof).
11. To be concerned, but not to worry.
12. That there are some people that I will never reach – even those technically “related” to me – never, just move on, because “family” will disappoint more than any stranger because I have (false) high expectations thinking that they “know” me…
13. Man is his own worst enemy (our brain).
14. Technology ended common sense (the sixth one)
15. To listen to the hopeful, quieter voice in my head more than the louder, frustrated voice on the other shoulder.
16. To take my time, do not always be in a rush because you will usually get there at the same time anyway
17. The degree that I value more than my high school or college diploma is the one I earned at the “Cool School” whose classes were held on the mean streets of New York City, circa 1960 – 1989.
18. “Don’t believe the HYPE!” (an old lyric that still applies, y’all)
19. No matter when I want something, if I just put things in-place to happen, they will evolve to fruition when they are supposed to…unless my traitorous, fifteen-year younger lesbo sibling gets wind of it, to block it, for some unbeknownst reason, that it will never reveal (demonic spirit we surmise…).
20. To embrace the positives that people bestow upon me and try to earn money with them for Inna and me!
20-A. That being back in New York City briefly, has reinforced that it is not the “great” city that it was prior to “9/11’ but now an Orwellian police state, still running scared and recently managed by a Nanny Mayor who greedily over-regulated the adults who inhabit it.
21. I really believe “everything in its own time” is true.
22. That life is like cycling the hills of Nashville: we work hard, pumping-up the steep hills in order to enjoy the pay-off which is the coast down super-fast on the other side of it.
23. It is true that many dogs resemble their owners!
24. To pick my “spots” in life like a basketball player (I once was pretty good at it); there are times to be aggressive; times to give the “head-fake”; times to show patience…
25. That there are more idiots and morons in the world than ever in our past “Ossie & Harriot” youthful days! Not that I am perfect, mind you, but come ON guys, enough dumbing-down of America (and stop letting every other country’s criminals come over here just because you want more people to pay taxes!)
25A. I am not an “African-American”. I am a Black American (with a little native-American Cherokee mixed-in), the proud descendant of the slaves who were brought here from Afrika, against their will. I’ve never been to Africa, nor do I have the desire to go there (allergies), unless Nina can convince me it is a romantic trip to take, and even then we will have to meditate upon it, lol! “African Americans” are those imports since the 1980s who “look” like us, but who have much more disdain for the Brothas from the USA, and more money to spend with the traditional American establishment!
26. Things DO happen in “threes”. For-example, get one “cut” on your hand or other body part, two more are sure to follow very soon! Or, famous deaths – they always happen in “threes” (three in-a-row)!
I hope that you have comments on a similar vibe in your own cosmic existence which you can espouse here…
[Some of this material is re-posted with grateful acknowledgement to a blog post by Elizabeth Abosch who I have tried to get in-touch with/link to regarding this post, unsuccessfully.] When I was a little boy, one of the ladies who made sure that I had an after school snack and got on with my homework until my hardworking parents returned home, was our next-door neighbor, whose name was Odessa (Redus) Brown. I took the name for-granted, yet always thought “Odessa” as a regal, majestic name and I never thought to research it until my Inna, who I hope will spend the rest of my life with me as my wife, introduced me to a place in her country that she wants us to enjoy together that has an historic beach-port, called Odessa, Ukraine, two years ago. Recently, she writes: “Naphtali, check out This Unpleasant Information… By the way, yesterday there was a whole transfer on TV with participation of real girls on a similar theme…. These girls told about the histories as they were used by years… Men from USA, England, Italy, Switzerland, Australia. Men promised to marry them, met on resorts, or came to them on a visit. Or invited to itself, and after one or two months sent the women home. As, have told and have shown a photo of the man which each two years invites to itself women home in in USA under the visa of the bride. And then exposes for doors of women… And so already proceeded [has done this for] with about 10 years. Now to this to the man any more does not give embassy the sanction to invitations of the following brides. I see, the whole system of entertainments and games on feelings was already created, and it is expensive(dear) costs(stands)! I of nothing want to tell bad about you and about us. I only share with you the information and as, has thought, if You will publish this information on the BLOG. Cheerfully it is possible to spend in Odessa to American guys! [Can have a good time] You remember, two years back, you sent to me the reference from YouTube about Odessa…. Yesterday wanted to find this reference again…. But has lost…. I any more do not remember, that there spoke…. But I remember, that there there was a dirty. Also it is the truth much to our regret. But this dirty is everywhere in any city of the world. And you know it. Only it is interesting, why particular Now this time, do they began to give this more than attention?!(Why?)” Yeah, Honey, I agree. Why the sudden attention to this? And so now, please peruse parts of Ms. Abosch’s historical account. “With access to Turkey and its closeness to the rest of Europe, Odessa is an international human trafficking hub. Women and orphans from Odessa or even poorer areas like rural Moldova travel to the city to find good jobs abroad, and are promised them by traffickers before their passports are taken away and they are sold into slavery or work as prostitutes within the city.” Video from a movie about Odessa: Elizabeth Abosch writes, “In wartime and in post-war Soviet film, one man made a name for himself portraying an Odessan and portraying him as a hero. That man was Mark Bernes, the first great Soviet Star and the possible creator of what I like to call, the Odessa “Hero Myth”. Bernes (who was of Jewish ancestry) became famous for his character Arkady Dzubin, first in the 1943 movie “Two Soldiers”. He spent time with troops in military hospitals who were native to Odessa, and picked up that their dialect seemed quite lazy and was accompanied by much shoulder shrugging and lip pursing. He created an archetype for “the Odessan”, a vaguely Jewish, musical, easy-going person who could calm his brothers with humor and then rise to any bravery needed….” In “Two Soldiers” he distracts a woman from a bombing raid by singing an ironic song about a fisherman, Konstantin, and his wife Sonya: “Shalandy Polnye Kefali”:”
And also of heartfelt interest, Ms. Abosch continues, “Perhaps his most famous song as the Odessan Arkady Dzubin was “Dark Night”, which became the unofficial anthem for Soviet citizens and soldiers barely surviving World War Two. The song is about a soldier who believes no harm can come to him as long as his wife and new baby still wait for him…
The lyrics are, “Dark night, only bullets whistling over the steppe, Only the wind humming in the woods, dim stars twinkle. In the dark night, darling, I know, I’m not sleeping, And in the crib, you secretly wipe away a tear. How I love the depth of your gentle eyes, How do I want him to press my lips against you! Dark Night divides us, my love, And a disturbing, black steppe lie between us. I believe in you In my sweetheart, This belief is the bullet Dark night … Happily me I am confident in mortal combat: I know you will meet with my love To me no matter what. Death is not terrible. With time it’s time to meet. Here and now She whirls on me. You got me waiting And the cradle, And so, I know, with me Nothing will happen!” Maybe a bit more than many other famous cites in the world, Odessa is fueled by the myths surrounding it which shape perceptions about the place to this very day. Ms. Abosch’s blog from 2012 is concise, precise and enlightening – sometimes sadly so. Here is one more sample video and song with great classic pictures of “the city of the steps” that she brought to light, “I Remember Mother Odessa” (“Odessa Mama”): “Whoever has not been In the beautiful city of Odessa Has not seen the world And knows nothing of progress Who cares for Vienna of Paris, They’re puddles, jokes, no comparison Only in Odessa is A Paradise, I say. There in a restaurant They serve you beer And with it a bite Of fresh skrumbli Bashmala and balik And with them a shashlik With a good glass of wine – What could be better? Oh, Mother Odessa, You’re forever dear to me. Oh, Mother Odessa, How I long for thee! Oh, Mother Odessa, Who can forget you? Oh, Mother Odessa, I see you no more. Oh, Mother Odessa, I long for you and vow: Your avenues, promenades Are light, beautiful. The cafes, the boulevards, One can never forget. The carriages, the gypsies, The tumult, ta-ra-ram, The hotels, the young ladies Still are on my mind. Oh, Mother Odessa, You’re forever dear to me. Oh, Mother Odessa, How I long for thee! Oh, Mother Odessa, Who can forget you? Oh, Mother Odessa, I long for you and vow: Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, One cannot forget. Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay, How I should like to see you again! Hop tidl dam ti stidl didl dam ti….. Oh, Odessa-Odessa Mother, You are the most beautiful panorama; Everyone treasured you dearly. The cabarets, restaurants, You will still remember today Who knows what has become of you? Odessa, Odessa, I long for you” It is amazing that Odessa still is controversial and standing today; I guess they wouldn’t have it any other way. I encourage you to read Ms. Abosch’s whole piece here, http://odessahistory-eabosch2012.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html Out of respect for her brilliant research and blog, I shan’t devote more space to it than I already have, in order to peek your curiosity.
I feel this is a lesson in how stereotypical thinking ruins reputations on both sides of any argument. It reminds me of the rolled eyes, doubting looks, behind-my-back whispers that I am being “tricked” or scammed, that I notice when I tell some people about my relationship with Inna, inferring that she isn’t “real” or is “stringing me along”. Being a black American, I know first-hand how stereotypes, painted with a broad brush, can distort the perception of a whole people – or country.
I also can hear my late father commenting how black Americans and Jews have many more similarities historically than most people realize. A story about Jews hiding in a Ukrainian cave comes to light here: After you’ve absorbed her blog, please come back here to comment. Maybe we can get Elizabeth herself to weigh-in!
This song comes to mind from the 1970s…my college days, ever since your last email letter and until I achieve the funding solution I am seeking for the past year now – which isn’t easy for me, who never/could not because of outside interference, use “credit” here in the USA until the mid-2000s – and now I desperately wish that I could talk to you who, mired in “disappointment” and disbelief now, is silent for the most part.
“TALK to you”, like we used to not that many months ago in the scheme of things (the “big picture”) so that I can let you hear just where I stand.
Communicate by telephone voice or Skype so I can explain how the “United” States financial credit system catches dolphins in the shark net, denying and delaying those who are mature, responsible, organized and worthy of being lent money to, the chance to further their dreams, inventions, plans or in our case “The January ProjeX” family business model that I am pitching nowadays. https://gust.com/c/the_january_projex I am one such victim, but I will keep fighting until my dying breath or until you say not to – which ever comes first.
And I know that I am getting closer to getting that money that we need! Maybe the real “empty promise” is “The American Dream” for most of us…
I live ONLY to repay you by whatever means it takes to get the money, and restore your playful desires and faith in me.
Other songs that come to former disc jockey-musical mind are Al Green’s “Living For You” and Abba’s “Take A Chance On Me”.
I still want to be your forever Man.
“I, I, I, I wish that I could talk to you, baby
So that I can let you know
(So that I can let you know, I)
I wish that I could talk to you, baby
So that I can let you know
(So that I can let you know)
Oh, if only I can hear
Your voice so sweet and clear,
It would ease my lonely state of mind
Somehow I got to get in touch with you
To let you know
(Let you know, yeah!)
That my love is true
(So true)
I only wish I knew just where to find you
I realize, yeah, yeah
(Realize)
That time is turning the tides
And I’m unsatisfied
I, I, I, I wish that I could talk to you, baby
So that I can let you know
(So that I can let you know, I)
I wish that I could talk to you, baby
So that I can let you know
(So that I can let you know)
There’s no hidden plan…”
As I’ve always, since you found me, tried to gently remind you, Honey, “What I SAY I will DO, I WILL do. It may take longer than we both desire, due to factors out of our control, but I WILL get it accomplished. Conversely, If I do NOT say I will do it, you have only a 50/50 chance – if I feel like it.” With You (another song title), I always “feel” like trying like with no other woman and take every daily step to the bus stop and down the subway (metro) train to work for our eventual union.
For over forty years, she saw difficult students come through her elementary Special Education classroom doors in Mt Vernon, a northern suburb of New York City. Mrs. Jones became known as an outspoken educator who trains emotionally needy, behaviorally challenged kids. Many of them went on to become surprisingly well-adjusted citizens as adults, but when Mrs. Jones took them on they were a “handful”, as she was accustomed to describing them. Once she had a child who would assigned for him to disrupting by breaking his assigned seating desks. As Jones described, “He would lock his big feet on both sides and rear-back until the furniture came apart. He could have injured other children in the class, so I had to put a stop to it. I was a control freak.”
Her experience began as a teacher of handicapped and blind children and those years in the school wing of a mental hospital in Queens, New York honed her for the day that the principal at Garden school was trying to place for Eli, a particularly energetic and mischievously troublesome boy who had “sparkling eyes”, as Mrs. Jones would later describe them. The secretary in the main office suggested,” I bet Mrs. Jones could handle him!” So when the principal presented this new assignment of adding Eli to her class by saying, “I know Eli will be a challenge for you, but I think you are up to it…” Mrs. Jones replied, “A challenge to me? NO, I will be a challenge to him! Bring him on!”
Graham School, MT. Vernon, N.Y.
Eli was a foster child in a group home who, when confined to his room as punishment in because of his many mischievous acts, would escape by climbing out of the window using the cord of one of the electric lamps! He was also a petty thief, as were several of the Special Education children, preying upon the teachers, of all people, whenever they got a chance they would rifle the desk and try to steal their purse! One particular time, Mr. Jones caught Eli just about to reach his hand into the drawer as she returned from the hallway. “Alright now”, she admonished, “You’re going to have to come over and meet the ‘Board of Education paddle’…” Back in those days, a teacher could, with intelligent restraint, use a bit of corporal punishment, usually with the yard stick ruler. Eli submitted to three whacks on his thieving hand from Jones and that was that – he never tried it again. She recalls the time that she brought her daughter to school with her and let her read to the class. This apparently fascinated Eli, as he watched and listened intently, looking up at her daughter and then back down to his book back and forth. “I gonna learn to read like that”, Eli said in his gruffy little voice.
George was also part of Eli’s class and that year, Mrs. Jones gave a February lesson about the first U.S. President, George Washington, which included the famous “I cannot tell a lie” cherry tree incident. This must have made such an impression on George that he decided to act it out in reality. So he went home, found a hatchet and proceeded to hack down a neighbor’s scrawny tree. I’m not sure if it was a fruit tree, but the neighbor was not too happy about it and called the police who took the hatchet away after George enthusiastically admitted that he did it! What else could they do (again, this was back in the 1970s when knee-jerk overkill punishment was not the rule as it is often these days).
Years later, Mrs. Jones and her husband were shopping in downtown Manhattan, New York City when a well-dressed young man in a black sharkskin suit and fedora hat walking on the sidewalk ahead of them suddenly turned around and said, “You’re Mrs. Jones! I didn’t know that I could see you here! Do you know who I am?”
“Yes of course, you’re Eli!”, Mrs. Jones replied, extremely proud of how well her former charge spoke and looked. She introduced Eli to her husband, and he was nothing short of polite as he shook Mr. Jones’s hand before they went their ways after brief pleasant conversation and a couple of hugs.
I am particularly proud of Mrs. Jones and happily authored this piece about her because Mrs. Jones is now a retired eighty-eight year old lady – and my Mum.
Once upon a time, in Social Studies class (do they still teach that?), I embraced the whole concept and colors of the Revolutionary War, when that was our teacher’s topic de semester, which culminated in our current annual Fourth Of July celebration in the U.S.A. Part of the run-up to that conflict was an event known as the Boston Tea Party, which basically was about “taxation without representation” and the most enduring image in my mind is how the new Colonists threw crates of tea from “Mother England” overboard in Boston Harbor in protest, if my memory serves me correctly.
That image is why I know that those revolutionaries are twirling in their graves like the Twizzler maker factory because their one inclusive message of forming a new, united place, free from tunnel-visioned tyranny is now hijacked by closet bigots who give the administration of the first Brown-skinned President a much shorter “leash” (and I don’t like to use that term with President Obama) than previous Oval Office occupants and employ a big time double-standard upon his first term agenda.
Their champion is Sarah Palin? This chick and Faust-like John McCain must have had quite a romp in the netherworld some disenchanted evening while Mrs. McCain (who looks like she once was nicknamed “Bela”) watched with glee, filing her fingernails to sharp points all the while. Palin would put me to sleep always and immediately if not for her annoying way of speaking. Is that an Alaskan accent? I hope not; she is like the flies that come buzzing about me while I am quietly trying to read or write something intelligent on my front porch on a summer’s afternoon. And what is this “voter anger” they are promoting? IMO, the only “voters” who are angry are the ones who woke-up the day after the 2008 Election Day and realized that yes, the majority of their neighbors actually voted in a non-Caucasian man as our President! They are inconsolable and will always be “angry” – they are probably “angry” at what looks back at them in the mirror and have really short memories about who and what the alternatives are.
Why the news media’s apparent fascination with this Camellia sinensis? How can the pundits use this made-up group to read the tea leaves of an election? It can only be explained by the fact that many TV News Directors now are women, the “reality tv” fad is infecting that programming and of course, all little girls liked to play “tea party” and create false drama with their Susie Homemaker houses once upon a time, right? “Lets have tea! Oh, how adorable!” :-J
Achilliad's Blog! by Jimi B 