State of the Disunion

 It's  No Secret...

The country is going to hell in a handbasket that is fraying at the seams.  We might not even make it to hell;  the basket may just come completely apart and dump us all off into the Endless Void.

And I blame Peach Pennywise and his evil Klown Kar Kabinet, as well as assorted politicians, sycophantic media mouthpieces, and wealthy enablers of the Orange Menace.

The economy?  Gone to shit because nobody knows (or cares) how economics works.  But Orange Chucky still gets his burgers and fries and golf outings at Mar-a-Lago, so we're really doing well.  Right?  Well, of course right...unless you're a traitorous "Dumocrat."

Our world standing?  Gone.  Well, imploded, again thanks to a sagging travesty of a man who just can't stop himself from posting insults and threats toward various countries and their leaders.  You've heard of "diarrhea of the mouth," right?  Well, Orange Chucky has "diarrhea of the fingers" so bad, it looks like he wiped his shitty ass with them.

Our military supremacy?  We just got our asses kicked by Iran...and they didn't even have to fire any kind of ICBM-adjacent rocket at our shores.  All they had to do was lock down a skinny little body of water that just happens to carry a huge portion of the world's shipping.  And now, the hornets have won:  Calvin is covered in stings that look like they're swelling to the size of golf balls, he's got to pay through his badly-swollen nose to rebuild Iran, and the only thing we have to show for it is a depleted arsenal and a pile of big bucks gone up in flames (a little over $1,000,000,000 per day - that would have bought a helluva lotta safety-net services for a lotta needy Americans).

So yeah, we suck right now.

But there are rays of hope in the darkness.

A portion of MAGA folk are starting to wake up to the fact that the mess they voted into office is ricocheting back onto them, and they're realizing that writing "Dear Don" letters on X or "Truth" Social is about as effective as stringing Christmas-light messages on the roof to contact aliens.  I, for one, want to see some real change in behavior and attitude before I extend a welcome to any ex-MAGA, but...it's a start, at least.

Some supposedly "red" states are starting to take on some "blue" characteristics, mostly because of what's been happening to their people (see above paragraph).  Voters are mobilizing on the local levels -mayoral races, school boards, city councils - and electing more liberal people to those positions, and those people are reversing some of the crazier policies of the White "Christian" Nationalist groups.  And even though the WCNs still hold a scary amount of power, real believers are starting to get up and call out how a supposedly "Christian" movement is failing to imitate Christ in its behavior.

In "blue" states, they are taking steps, both social and legal, to mitigate the damage Orange Chucky is doing to the environment, the social safety nets, and the rights of vulnerable people (women, minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community).

And of course, all across the country, people are protesting.  Hell, they aren't even waiting for No Kings days - I recently saw one guy on a street corner with a sign that said NO WAR on one side and IMPEACH TRUMP on the other!  He was there as I walked past that morning, and again as I passed that evening - the only difference was that he was on the opposite side of the street!

So Now What?

We keep at it.

We protest, we vote (and help our neighbors vote), we do whatever tangible things we can to help our fellow-humans in our community and in other communities.  We network.  We do what is right, even when it's hard.

As John Stuart Mill said,  "Bad men need nothing more to compass [accomplish] their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."

Let's not do nothing, friends.  We can't all do everything...but we can all do something.

Calvin and the Hornet's Nest

 A Cartoon Parable

One of my favorite modern comics strips is Calvin and Hobbes, which chronicles the adventures of a boy and his tiger.  The boy, Calvin, is often naughty, foolish, and loath to admit his own failings;  the tiger, Hobbes (who is a stuffed toy when others are around, but "real" when alone with Calvin - we never find out if that reality is objective or subjective), can be just as foolish, but is often more cautious and reasonable.

One of the daily strips features Calvin yelling at Hobbes to run because a bunch of angry hornets are headed that way, ready to sting anything in their path.  When Hobbes wonders why the hornets are so angry, Calvin replies that he's been throwing rocks at their nest all morning!  The final panel shows Calvin, stripped down to his jockeys and hung from a tree branch by said same, shouting,  "A real friend wouldn't take their side!!"

Now, I said this was a parable, right?

Yes, I did.  In this scenario, the angry hornets are Iran, and Calvin is...us.  The USA.  And at this particular moment, the visible face of the USA is Peach Pennywise, the evil clown in the White House...along with his (equally evil) Clown Car Cabinet, most notably the Secretary of Defense War, Pete Hegseth.

We've thrown a bunch of "rocks" at Iran over the last seventy-five years or so.  To wit:

• It started in the late 1940's, when Iran's Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, demanded an audit of a British oil venture in the area, the Anglo-Iran Oil Company.  AIOC were supposed to be paying royalties to the Iranian government (then an incipient constitutional monarchy, with their Shah having very limited power).  AIOC refused to turn over their records, and the Iranian Parliament (majlis) decided to nationalize their oil fields and throw the foreign companies out.  Needless to say, the British were not happy.  So they started an embargo on Iranian oil to pressure Mossadegh into compliance;  they also inserted agents to undermine the Prime Minister.  British PM Winston Churchill reached out to the Eisenhower administration for help in this nasty business, and Eisenhower, worried not only about oil supplies but also Iran's Tudeh Party (a communist organization - this was the early 1950's, and the "Red Scare" was rolling right along), agreed to send in CIA agents to help the Brits.  And it worked;  Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953, and the Shah, Reza Pahlavi, regained much of the power he had lost.  (Note:  Earlier, the Brits had tried to get President Truman to help them.  Truman refused, because he was worried about the precedent that would be set by using the CIA to mess around in another country's internal affairs!)                                                                                                                                                
• In the 1980's, some senior officials under President Ronald Reagan sold arms to Iran to try to get them to persuade Hezbollah to release seven US hostages being held in Lebanon.  The money from those sales was used to fund the Nicaraguan anti-Sandanista contras.  Now, mind you, our relations with Iran were (to put it bluntly) shitty, and to add insult to injury, we were blatantly supporting Iraq in its war with Iran.  Naturally, although Iran did buy the weapons, they refused to lift a finger to help us in return.  Color me "not surprised."                                                                            
• In 2015, a deal was brokered with Iran to limit their nuclear program to peaceful uses.  The agreement was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and was signed by the US, the UK, France, China, Russia, Germany, and the EU.  The deal would be fully implemented in 2016, pending certain changes agreed to by Iran.  Iran made the necessary changes, and the agreement went into action in October of 2016.  I bet you can see where this is going, right?  Yep!  Orange Chucky withdrew the USA from JCPOA in 2018.  He had been a pretty loud critic of the agreement up to then, so it was really no surprise (especially since it was an Obama accomplishment).  The rest of the original coalition tried to keep JCPOA going, but it didn't work out.  Despite a few half-hearted US attempts to negotiate in 2025 (remember who got re-elected back in Nevember!),  Iran has ramped up its purification of fissionable material, and it could very well join the Nuclear Club sooner rather than later.

About That....

Let me break in here and paraphrase Billy Joel:  When it comes to nuclear weapons and the influence granted to their holders, We did start the fire!!!  All five permanent members of the UN Security Council - Russia, the UK, China, France, and the US - are nuclear powers.  Is it any wonder that other countries might get the impression that the only way to get the UN to listen to them would be to develop nuclear weapons?

Given that, I'm not surprised that Iran wanted some of that power for themselves.

And Now, the Final "Rocks"...

• In June of 2025, the US military bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities suspected of enriching weapons-grade uranium.  The military success of this action is murky - it seems that Iran succeeded in moving the purified fissionables (not weapons-grade, but close) before the facilities were destroyed - but one result of this boneheaded move is that a number of senior Iranian clerics issued fatwas against the current President, calling him an "enemy of God."  When Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu came to visit back in 2025, he reminded Orangey all about those edicts, which may explain why some senior members of the administration have said that "Iran declared war on us" after...                                                                                                                                           
• ...We started bombing the shit out of Iran again in February of this year.  One of those initial strikes killed the Supreme Ayatollah, Ali Khameini;  his son Muktaba was promptly named as his successor.  But Iran was now good and mad.  It didn't help at all that one of the "military targets" we hit - a Revolutionary Guard compound - had been defunct for years, and an elementary school (Shajareh Tayyabeh) was located in one of the buildings.  Over 100 children, plus 68 parents and teachers, were killed in that strike.  Orange Chucky insists that the Department of Defense War is doing the right thing.  Anyone else wanna call "Bullshit" on that one?                                                                                                                                                                

And Now the Hornets Are Furious!

Iran's response to this has been to blockade the Strait of Hormuz (through which a great deal of shipping is routed, including oil tankers), attack US facilities in nearby countries, and wage an animated AI propaganda war on social media.  Results?  Soaring prices for anything that has to come through the Strait, dead US personnel in those facilities, and worldwide condemnation against both ourselves and Israel (who have also been bombing the shit out of Iran).

Seriously, can you blame Iran for their response?  We've been doing shitty things to them for decades;  personally, I'm surprised they held back as long as they did.  And even if Darth Donnie decides to back off (like he does with anything that goes on longer than his attention span can handle), Iran probably won't;  in fact, I predict that those original fatwas will be joined by one from the Supreme Ayatollah...and as Salman Rushdie found out, a fatwa only ends when the one who issues it dies.

Congratulations, Calvin.  The hornets are swarming.

Sources:  Wikipedia, the US State Department, the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Amnesty International, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1970 edition.

The Weight

Welcome to Dystopia (formerly the USA).

There is a trope in movies, TV, and literature that if you say  "Wow, everything's going to be okay now,"  or  "Well, at least things can't get any worse,"  it's a signal that things will not be okay, and they will, in fact, get worse.

I'm nobody's Pollyanna.  I knew this second term for the Moldy Orange was going to be a nightmare.  But every time I was sure we had hit absolute bottom, he found another manhole and somehow managed to squish both himself and us down into the sewage channel beneath.

2025 sucked.  I can't even enumerate all the ways:  There was DOGE, the innumerable Executive Orders, the smothering of the Epstein Files (which Peach Pennywise had promised to release, but somehow decided not to), the pressure put on news and entertainment networks to suppress certain voices (including that of Stephen Colbert - he's on until next May).  They tried to do that to Jimmy Kimmel, and he was indeed cancelled...but thanks to a massive multi-national boycott against the Disney conglomerate, his show was restored in less than a week.  Never underestimate the power of the pocketbook, folks - those fatcats do love money, and when ordinary people withhold theirs, it matters!

Then there was the Big Bullshit Bill, which cut funding for school lunches, Medicaid, WIC, SNAP, the ACA--if it helped ordinary people, it got cut.  But the same bill turned around and gave that funding to corporations, wealthy individuals...and ICE.  This agency is now so super-sized that the only reason it isn't called GLACIER is because nobody in this benighted administration is clever enough to think up a coherent matching acronym!

Which brings me to...

...the reason I am horrified, grieving, and enraged right now.

Minneapolis, MN is not the kind of place you would consider dangerous,  But you can't say that to Orange Chucky, because he's convinced that the Somali immigrants who live there are all bad, violent people.  (BTW, he really, really hates Ilhan Omar.)  With Supreme Court backing (they ruled that ICE are allowed to profile based on race and language), Noem and Miller rolled into Minneapolis and began tossing their goons at everyone who looked or sounded "wrong."

Of course, the citizens are pushing back - some brilliant person invented a tactic called the "whistle brigade,"  where people blow whistles to signal the presence of ICE in the area, or of an active raid.

Which was what was happening on Wednesday of this week, when a recent transplant to Minneapolis - one Renee Good - had just dropped her 6-year-old son off at school, and apparently encountered an ICE raid.  She backed up to allow their vehicles to pass;  only one did.  The others stayed where they were, and a couple of agents approached the car, a smaller version of an SUV.  Renee's partner got out of the car and began filming and talking to the agent who was examining the car, checking the license plate, whatever.  But when Renee's partner was getting back into the car, the agents began to demand that Renee herself get out - at one point, they shouted  "Get out of the fucking car!"  She didn't do it, because you don't have to do that unless you are being arrested or there is probable cause (also, ICE has no authority over citizens).  They even tried to grab hold of the driver's-side door handle.  So Renee executed a 3-point turn so she could leave.  At which point, another agent came up, pulled a handgun, and shot Renee Good through the corner of the windshield.  He claimed she was ramming the car at him and his partner, but the video evidence (there are several vids from different angles) shows he is lying - even later-released footage from his own phone doesn't corroborate his story!

The agent - Jonathan Ross - shot at Renee's car several more times, causing it to crash.  A doctor who was at the protest tried to help her, but was blocked by ICE agents;  they also refused to allow EMS to approach and help.  By the time any help was allowed, Renee Good was dead.

This is the part that's really sickening...

Kristy and Co. got right to work flinging sewage propaganda by the bucketful.  Good, they said, was a "paid agitator" who "weaponized her car," and therefore Ross had no choice but to shoot her in the face and kill her.  When Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey demanded that they be allowed to investigate the crime, Noem said that they had no jurisdiction since it involved federal agents.

Noem's smear campaign was repeated ad nauseam by Fox, Newsmax, and other ass-kissers of the current President.  Karoline Leavitt basically spewed the same sewage at a press conference about the tragedy.  Orange Chucky himself embroidered on Noem's "weaponized car" story and said that Ross had been run over and taken to the hospital...a lie on par with the "eating the dogs, eating the cats" whopper from the Presidential debate!  (And also debunked by Ross's own phone footage!)

How this is all going to end, I have no idea.  All I know is that I am carrying a weight of horror and grief and rage, and I don't know how to use it in a constructive manner.  A mother is dead, the federal government is smearing her reputation without cause, and the guy leading this shit show is cackling gleefully at the chaos.

But one thing I cannot do is drop the weight.

Because someday, when all this mess is cleared up, we are going to have our own Nuremberg trials.  ICE and Noem and Miller and Orange Chucky (if he survives - he hasn't been looking so good lately) and Vance and Hegseth...all of them will be there, and all this footage which will never go away (thank you, Internet!) will be brought out.  The witnesses will come forward and point at the accused:  "They shot my mom." - "They dragged my husband out of our house." - "They fired me because I told the truth."  It's all going to come out.  And when the villains start protesting that they were "only following orders," that's going to have just as little impact as it did when the Nazis said it at the original Nuremberg.

Then - and only then - will I drop my weight.

Right on their heads.

A final note...

I wrote this in a hurry.  As a result, there were a few minor errors and things I later realized needed clarification.  Worst of all, I had consistently misspelled Renee Good's name throughout this post.  These things have now been corrected.  Thanks for your patience.

The Colbert Cancellation

They Finally Did It...

Paramount, the parent company of the CBS network, has cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

I found out about it last week, right after Colbert had come back from vacationing in Turkey.  He did one monologue about his mustache and something that Orange Chucky had done to CBS...and bam, the next day he got the news and announced it on the show that night.

Now, you have to understand that Stephen has been on TV for twenty years - nine of those as the star of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, which was seriously deep satire;  Colbert basically played a right-wing news anchor who unknowingly and unironically demonstrated just how ridiculous the right wing actually was.  Also, he added a word to the English language:  truthiness, which basically means "feeling" the truth to others, rather than telling them the truth.  So, it's being passionate and sincere...and most likely false.  Hey, but at least it's truthy!

Stephen took over The Late Show in 2015, right after the end of The Colbert Report (he always, BTW, pronounced "report" to rhyme with "Colbert" - with a silent "t").  Orange Chucky was running for office the first time;  Stephen helped us laugh at him, and doubled down on laughing at him when he got into the White House.  Stephen Colbert is probably single-handedly responsible for saving the sanity of our entire nation during that horrible first term;  he even hosted a socially-distanced series of videos during the pandemic lockdowns, which he called A Late Show - smaller, no audience, filmed at home, often with his wife Evie laughing off-camera.  But still relevant, still funny.  And when he returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater and his live audience, he was better than ever, and has stayed that way.  The show is even up for another Emmy Award!

So, What The Frak Happened?!

Depends on who you ask.

Paramount and CBS say it was for financial reasons;  sure, Colbert was popular, but there are too may late-night competitors, and nowadays you just can't get the market share that something like, say, Johnny Carson's Tonight Show would have averaged.  And they insist it's not because of Stephen;  they're not replacing him, they're just cancelling the show.

But there are others who are looking at other things that happened right before Stephen came back from his vacation.

Like, for example, the settlement of a lawsuit.  (This is that "thing" that Orange Chucky did to CBS.)

Orange Chucky sued Paramount over a 60 Minutes episode that featured an interview with Presidential candidate Kamala Harris;  he contended that they had edited an answer given by Harris to make her look better.  (He himself backed out of even appearing on the same program in October of 2024, but he was on in both 2016 and 2020;  he has never been happy with how the interviews have gone, no matter how softball the questions have been.)  It was a bullshit accusation, and Paramount could have fought it and won.  Easily.

BUT....

Since Mango Mussolini is now President again, he has control of the Federal Trade Commission, which has to approve a merger before it can go through (this is supposed to protect the general public, but it hasn't done so for decades).  Stephen's popularity notwithstanding, Paramount was in financial trouble and was aiming to be bought out by another media megacorp known as Skydance Media.  They weren't likely to get approval for that merger if they were fighting with the President, so they settled out of court for $16,000,000.  Colbert called it out for what it was:  A "big, fat bribe."

The next day, the hammer dropped on his show.

Coincidence?  Mmmm, maybe.  But Orangey has always hated Colbert - and, indeed, anybody in the public eye who laughs at him.  And since this second term seems to be all about getting back at all his haters, - whom he refers to as "failing," "not funny," and "liars" - it would be exactly on-brand for him to make Colbert's firing a condition of the settlement.

And wouldn't you know it, apparently $16 mil isn't enough for Velveeta Voldemort - he has been crowing about how Skydance will also be giving him another $16 to $20 million in advertising and PSAs once the merger is done!  Paramount denies this, and Democratic Senators are pressuring Skydance to reveal any such "side deal."  (This addendum is fresh from the Daily Beast, and it has the ring of truth;  our current President is a greedhead of the first [polluted] water!)

Yes, I Am Angry.  And Sad.

But there is one consolation:  The firing wasn't immediate.  Instead, CBS is letting the show run to the end of Stephen's contract - which means it won't end until May of 2026.

And he's going out swinging.  So stay tuned!

Are We Great Again Yet?

 Six. Months.

That is how long since the Orange Guy moved back into the White House.  181 days.  And let me tell you, it feels more like 181 years.

Reality started setting in pretty quick, especially since DOUCHE - oops, excuse me, DOGE - started doing their "job."

If you go back and read my last post, you remember that I predicted that Peach Pennywise's new Cabinet would break the government.  I also said that DOGE would knock out the safety net.  Unfortunately, I was dead right on both counts.

F*@% the poor!

They've gutted USAID, which among other things provided food to needy countries around the globe.  Mango Mussolini insists that we give too much help to foreign countries, and that other countries need to shoulder more of the burden.  To which I would reply with the words of both Jesus and Paul:  "To whom much is given, from him much is required," and "Instruct those who are rich in this present world...to do good, to be generous and ready to share."

A truly evil thing I just found out is that there was an entire warehouse in Dubai where we were storing tons of high-energy biscuits, each of which could keep a starving person alive for a day.  Taxpayer dollars had already paid for the food;  it just needed to be delivered.  But since USAID was no longer functional, the deliveries weren't happening.

The biscuits had an expiration date of sometime in July.  But all the way back in March, several aid agencies from other countries sent word to the State Department (which presently has oversight of the agency), asking that they be allowed to distribute the food, since we weren't doing it.  State did not respond, and remaining USAID employees were forbidden to communicate with the agencies.  However, some smart, brave soul pointed out that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to let the food go to waste, so about 600 tons of the biscuits were able to be given to those agencies and delivered to the needy.  But, that left nearly 500 tons.  The expiration date passed, and that food was incinerated.  Enough food to give 27,000 starving adults and children another month of life:  Gone.

The administration played CYA by accusing President Biden of having ordered too much of the food;  but there are always disasters that leave people without food.  We could have found needy people to give it to;  but Orange Chucky and his minions simply didn't want to.

Come fly with me...or maybe not...

The new Secretary of Transportation is, like all his fellow-clowns in the Clown-Car Cabinet, singularly unqualified for his job.

So what does he do once he's in, at the behest of DOGE?

He fires 400 FAA employees.  Not air traffic controllers, true;  but those controllers have backup staff, such as people who monitor weather conditions and people who create navigation maps of which planes are in the air and where they are in real time.  With all the various flights all over the country, these maps are an absolute necessity to keep air traffic moving smoothly and safely.  It's like knitting or crocheting, only with flight paths:  Drop a stitch, and you get a tangled - and possibly crashed - mess.

COBOL lowball

DOGE also got its grubby little hands on the Social Security Association (which, as you may remember, is a big fat target for Project 2025).  They fired a bunch of employees there, including telephone workers, which has a biiig impact on senior citizens who don't have Internet and/or can't get to an SSA office to conduct business...oh, and DOGE is closing many of those offices, too!

The Lone Muskrat and his gang of young programmers also got into the SSA database, and they thought they found a bombshell:  A list of people born in the 1800's who were receiving Social Security benefits!  Oh, and how the Orange Man chortled:  Fraud!!!  See, this is why we need these guys!

Except, it wasn't fraud at all.  Dead people were not getting Social Security.

The SSA database was originally programmed in a computer language called COBOL.  They were still teaching it when I was in college.  It's a clunky language, but also very sturdy, and damn near unhackable.

When entering the data for people eligible for benefits, there were older rural folks for whom accurate birth records weren't available - like when a child was born at home with no doctor present, which happened even up into the 1940's.  For those people, since a birth date had to be entered, they put in a random date in the 1850's, which was just code for "We don't have an accurate date for this person."  That was all.  When Orange Chucky began shouting about the so-called "fraud," a bunch of my-gen COBOL programmers jumped in and explained what was really going on.

But that didn't prevent some seniors from being cut off from their benefits because they had been declared "dead."  And remember those fired phone workers, and those closed offices?  That meant that restoring those benefits was astronomically harder.  But that, in fact, is the point:  The people in charge are hoping that senior citizens, disabled people, and the surviving spouses and children of deceased Social Security recipients (who are entitled to that person's remaining benefits - known as "survivor benefits") will just give up and crawl away to die.

Not likely.  This is an issue that I expect people aren't going to give up on.  Because we pay into that fund, and nobody - least of all some South African apartheid-lover and his wet-behind-the-ears crew that doesn't even understand one of the most foundational of programming languages - will be able to stifle our outrage!

The ICEmen cometh...

Of all the "promises" made by Velveeta Voldemort, the one about deporting "illegal immigrants" always sounded the scariest to me.

Unfortunately, it is also the one promise that is being kept to the letter.

Led by Kristi Noem (a former governor most famous for shooting a young "misbehaving" hunting dog and [for some unfathomable reason] a goat) and Stephen Miller (who looks like he was kicked out of the SS for excessive cruelty, and who was the author of the family-separation detention policy of Orange Chucky's first term), the DHS and ICE have begun rounding up people and detaining them in conditions that make "deplorable" sound like the Hilton.  And it's not the drug dealers, human traffickers, and gangbangers who are getting caught - it's basically anybody who's brown, poor, and either speaks no English or does so with an accent.  American citizens have also been rounded up and detained without due process or even access to an attorney;  the standard accusation by ICE is that they "interfered" or "assaulted a federal agent."

The ultimate aim, of course, is to deport all these people en masse.  But the Supreme Court has been on-again, off-again about it;  at present, it's been mostly men deported, many of whom are not in any of the criminal categories that Don the Con insists they are.  Many have no criminal record at all, either in the USA or their country of origin.  And it's also children being captured, detained, and deported - some of them young American citizens born to immigrants, who are allowed no legal counsel at all.

And not just "illegals" - people who have residency permits, DACA recipients, and even naturalized immigrant citizens are all in the crosshairs.  ICE is looking for any excuse, however flimsy, to get rid of them.  Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, for example, was granted asylum from El Salvador.  He came here in 2011 at the age of 16, trying to escape forced recruitment into Mara Salvatrucha, a.k.a. MS-13.  Fast-forward to 2019, when an immigration judge granted him asylum and forbade him from being deported back to El Salvador.  Fast-forward again to 2025, when ICE agents grabbed him, accused him of being part of MS-13, and sent him to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador!  After a lot of legal butting of heads, Abrego-Garcia was finally returned to the States...but he is still being charged with...something.

This is all completely demonic, but it gets worse.

Peach Pennywise sent ICE into California to start raids in "sanctuary cities" and farms where people were picking crops, as well as construction sites, retail outlets, supply stores, and more.  This  was at the behest of Stephen Miller, who was mad that more people weren't being taken and who set a quota of 3,000 people per day.  (A lot of ICE officials were dismayed by this - they had been concentrating on the gangbangers, human traffickers, and drug dealers.  You know, the "bad people" PP kept yammering about.)

But they didn't stop there.  When Californians took to the streets and protested, a few bad actors on one block got crazy, and local law enforcement got involved.  Orange Chucky got cray-cray his own self and federalized the CA National Guard (without Governor Gavin Newsom's request or consent) to march in and "restore order."  He also sent in some US Marines - an unprecedented use of the US military against US civilians, and highly unconstitutional.

But people continued to protest, especially when ICE began raiding farms.  There has been one confirmed fatality in these raids:  Jaime Alanís Garcia, who fell from a roof on the Glasshouse cannabis farm while trying to escape ICE agents.  Protesters were also arrested for "assault" - throwing rocks at vehicles or tear gas canisters back at their original hurlers.

Kristi Noem insists that there were bad people on that farm, based on the discovery of unaccompanied minors working at Glasshouse;  but if she really cared about children, she wouldn't be allowing ICE to capture and deport children at all.

And then there's Alligator Auschwitz.

Actually, Noem and her ICE goons call it "Alligator Alcatraz."  It's located right in the middle of the Everglades, and it's basically a tent city with cages in it - thirty beds to a cage.  Toilet and cleaning facilities are public and minimal (the sink sticks out from the side of the toilet, so that these guys are basically drinking and washing up in the same place where people are pooping...and if the toilet is standard prison issue, it has no lid, meaning that when flushed, waste particles are sprayed everywhere), food is meager and substandard (the staff get much more and better food), and the place is infested with bugs - grasshoppers and mosquitoes.  The AC is intermittent at best.  Oh, and it floods when it rains - imagine what's going to happen during a hurricane!

The people incarcerated there are supposed to be the "worst of the worst," but again, many have committed no crime, and some are not even "illegal."  At this point, I am sure that Noem and the rest of them just don't care, as long as that "quota" is met.

Scariest of all, ICE are appearing as "anonymous" agents - no insignia, no names, wearing full military gear, weapons ready, and rousting their captives into unmarked vans with no license plates to take them to unknown places for detention.  No contact with attorneys, no access to needed medication, and no answers for frantic family members.  Oh, and no entry for Congressfolk who are supposed to have oversight over facilties in their district.  This all screams "fascism" to a lot of sane folks.

And it's starting to at least whisper that to some MAGAs, too.  I am seeing people who are astonished that their Dear Leader would be rounding up the people who pick the crops, milk the cows, put on roofs, clean up hotel rooms...all those heavy, hot, crap jobs that no one else will do.  They're horrified that valued friends, significant others, and even relatives are being taken.  They're realizing that it's going to affect food prices (which are already high) and cause labor shortages (because replacing trained employees is not the easy thing Dear Leader thinks it is) and cause trauma for their families and communities (because their disappeared people aren't "the bad ones").

Six months.  And we're already on our way to becoming a fascist state that doesn't give two shits about its citizens.  Can we recover from that?  I think we can...but just remember what it took to get Germany back on track, once Hitler took power.

That's a hell of a price to pay.

An Open Letter to MAGA

Hey, guys...

Well, it's a little more than three weeks since the election.  Your boy Trump gets to be President again.

Notice I'm not congratulating you.

I don't need to, because y'all are doing enough self-congratulation for both of us.  A lot of gloating and snickering, too:  Gloat, gloat, gloat, ha, ha, ha, nyah, nyah, nyah, blah, blah, blah.  There has also been some truly venomous spewing from various right-wing social-media personalities, like that funny little guy who shouted "Your body, my choice" at the women of America.  Wow, that didn't end so well, did it?

Or the Faux Noise--oh, excuse me, Fox News--personality who exulted that he would be laughing when "illegal immigrants" were dragged from their homes.  I believe that Jesus was right in saying that "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."  Which makes me glad I can't pry into that guy's heart, because I would be reaching for the strongest cleaners and disinfectants in my janitorial arsenal.

And then there was the social-media mass message to a lot of Black people, directing them to report for "cotton-picking" duty at the nearest plantation.  The FBI and the Justice Department are both investigating;  as of this writing, they have no clear idea who is behind the texts.  Some of those messages went out to middle school students!

But I digress.

So, election done, Trump goes back to the White House.  And you think you've won.

But you haven't.  None of us have.  In fact, when you pulled that lever for Trump, it was actually the flush lever on a gigantic toilet tank, and that sound you're hearing right now is the entire country going down the sewer line.

Far from "owning the libs,"  well...how can I put this?....

That bridge was never for sale.  Death Valley is only beachfront property if you like beach with no ocean.  You just handed over your money for a bag that contains a large rock instead of a pig.

In short, you've been had.

"Prove it!"

Okay.  Those tariffs?  They won't "punish" China or any other country, because the country doesn't actually pay the tariff to the U.S. Government.  The company that imports the goods does, and then they pass on that cost to the consumer.  In fact, if there is a middle man between importer and retailer, they will add to that original cost, and the retailer will add yet more, so that by the time we buy those tariffed products, they will cost far more than the addition of the tariff should account for.  Plus, if fuel is also being tariffed, the transportation of other goods will go up, adding to the general misery.

Trump promised to lower the costs of groceries and fuel.  With a 60% tariff on anything from China, a 25% (threatened) tariff on anything from Mexico and Canada, and a 10% tariff on anything from everywhere else, he is doing the exact opposite!

Here are a few examples:

Pharmaceuticals, both for humans and animals - Many are made in Ireland or Europe.  So at least 10% higher prices on those (25% if they're made in Canada).

Fruits and vegetables - A lot of those are grown south of the border, so 25% higher if it's from Mexico, 10% if it's from further south than that.

Electronics - China, mostly.  That new iPhone is going way, way up!

And on, and on, and on:  Contact lenses, aluminum, paper and paper goods, wood, chainsaws, books (if printed elsewhere;  lately I  have been seeing a lot of "printed in China" notations on book jackets), roller chain, clothing and more clothing...oh, and crude oil, 60% of which we get from Canada.  (They're pretty pissed at your boy Trump, by the way.)

And even with things made here in the USA, many of the parts and materials come from somewhere else.  Ford is just one of the auto manufacturers who imports parts for their home assembly lines (one new van's sticker says that some of the parts come from Turkey!).

Another example?  Okay, how about...

...Project 2025?  Yeah, that thing that Trump said he had nothing to do with, hadn't read, didn't want to read.  Well, it's for real, and it will happen.  Or at least as much of it as he can get away with.

If you've never heard of this steaming pile of bullshit, then let me tell you a little about it.

It was written up by the Heritage Foundation, a highly-conservative-leaning (I would say toppled over) think tank that exists only to promote extreme conservative policies in government.  An earlier edition of the document was presented to Ronald Reagan, and it shaped some significant aspects of his administration.  Remember the "Star Wars" (Strategic Defense Initiative - shooting down ICBMs with other missiles) debacle?  A Heritage original!

Here is some of what Project 2025 wants to do:

• It proposes ending a number of government departments, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education.
• It advocates privatizing NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the parent agency of the National Weather Service.  This would be a disaster, both for people who depend on those free TV/radio/text weather bulletins (tornado/severe thunderstorm/hurricane watches and warnings) and for scientists who study both weather and volcanic activity...oh, you didn't know that was part of NOAA?  It is.  Say goodbye to the nice public service, y'all.
• It strongly advocates removing experienced people from government agencies across the board and replacing them with party loyalists.  This is insane...but it's already happening.  Or have you not been paying attention to the people Trump is choosing for his Cabinet?  TV personalities.  Congressfolk who are actively hostile to the agencies they will control.  People who are totally unqualified to oversee their own households, let alone a government department.  And if they are confirmed, or if Trump persuades the Senate to stay out of session and allow those candidates in without confirmation ("recess appointments"), then you can bet this new Cabinet will sweep their various departments clean of anyone who has the guts and the ability to do their actual jobs.  In short, it will break the government.
• It opposes any efforts to mitigate climate change, and favors the "drill, baby, drill" mentality.  (Note:  Fossil fuels are a finite resource.  If current demand increases at the same rate as we discover new reservoirs of oil, gas and coal, these resources might last another hundred years or so.  If technology is developed that can extract said resources from more difficult-to-reach sources, it might be longer.  But eventually, it will become more efficient [and profitable] to focus on renewable energy than on fossil fuels.)
• It proposes the end (or significant reduction) of what a lot of the GOP calls "entitlement" programs, like SNAP, WIC, TANF, Social Security, SSI, Section 8 Housing, Medicaid, Medicare, the ACA...basically, any program that helps the poor, elderly, and/or disabled.  The proposal is larded with a bunch of pious rhetoric about how Democratic policies have created a "culture of dependency,"  but what the removal of these programs will do is leave a lot of vulnerable people out in the cold...literally.  There will be more homelessness, more poverty, more illness, more hunger, than we have had in decades.

And, oh, so much more.  The end of abortion, and the restriction of birth control;  restrictions on LGBTQ rights, including ending gay marriage;  removal of any teaching of Black history, including the truth about slavery and systemic racism;  getting rid of PBS, and indeed any government-funded media;  slashing of USDA programs that help farmers;  mass deportation of immigrants;  et alia, ad nauseam.

The entire doc is online, if you want to either read it there or download it.  But expect it to become a "banned book" pretty soon.

Some kind of Christian...

A big part of Trump's rhetoric (and another part of Project 2025) is about how the USA is a Christian nation.

We are not.  We never were.  Most of the Founding Fathers were not Christian, and they didn't want the new government to favor any one religion over another.  The Constitution forbids it, and also forbids any religious test for government officials.  What the Founders did want is for everyone to be able to worship (or not) as they choose.  That seems to line up with Jesus' attitude;  rather than call down fire from Heaven on a Samaritan town that wouldn't allow him in, He went elsewhere to stay.  And then later, sacrificed Himself for the sins of all the world...including everyone in that Samaritan town!

However, Trump has plenty of support for his views, from a loose aggregate of people known as "Christian Nationalists."  They think all our present troubles stem from our country having "fallen away from God,"  and they think if they just put the Ten Commandments in schoolrooms, institute school prayer, teach Biblical morality, and put Christians into positions of power, we will be blessed and everything will be perfectly hunky-dory.

Couple of problems with that, folks.

Problem the First:  It is impossible to force people to be born again.  The Holy Spirit must draw someone to Christ, or it just doesn't stick.  If you try to legislate morality, or require proof of faith in people, I can promise that what you will get is the form of Godliness that has none of the true Power thereof.  That's if it doesn't make people actively hostile to Christ.  I've already met plenty of folks who want nothing to do with Him because of the actions of some of His followers.

Problem the Second...this guy you elected....Didn't Jesus say something about knowing a true Christian leader by his/her fruits?  By how well they showed forth His values and teachings in their lives?

I don't have the standing to determine Trump's status with God.  But his fruits are as rotten as that bag of oranges you left in the car a month ago (so that's what that weird smell is).  As such, it seems to me that no Christian should be listening to what he has to say...which reminds me again that if  "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks,"  aren't y'all worried about the hatred in this man's heart?!?

We need to talk about Elon!

Okay, what the fuck is this guy doing in Trump's administration?!?

He's not an elected official, or a trained diplomat, or anything other than an extremely wealthy--Oooh.  Okay, I get it now.

Elon Musk seems to have insinuated himself into Trump's orbit for good.  Your guy has already trumped up (snicker) a brand-new government agency called the Department of Government Efficiency, of which Musk is co-chair.  You can bet that the "inefficient" parts of the government will be the parts that help us all (another way to fulfill the requirements of Project 2025).  But we will still have a bloated military, and those Congressional and Presidential salaries will still be fat as ticks.  Count on it.

So, there you have it.

You got what you wanted.

In a couple of years--assuming we still have anything resembling a free country--you can come and tell me whether you want what you got.

Pot Shot

Welp, It Happened...

...Somebody took a pot shot at Donald Trump.

It was at a rally yesterday in Butler, PA.  The guy shot at Trump's head and mostly missed;  the bullet nicked his ear.  Another attendee, however, wasn't so lucky - that person was killed.  The Secret Service killed the shooter and hustled Trump off the stage.  Trump himself didn't look too rattled - he raised a victory fist as he was taken away.

So Trump is just fine.

At the time, though...

At the time it happened, I had no clue what was going on, because I was working.  I would have known nothing for a lot longer if a shopper hadn't been talking about it on her cell phone;  when she got off, she was checking updates and saying,  "There's going to be a war if they don't cut it out."  It didn't take too much skull sweat to know which "they" the shopper was talking about.

And damn, was I scared.

I don't like Trump at all.  His policies are senseless and cruel, and his personal character is about the same.  Having him back in the White House would be a disaster for our country.  But as President Biden said, right after the attempt (as opposed to watching it all on TV for three hours),  "Political violence is unacceptable."  I want to beat Trump at the ballot box and send him away to obscurity and prison, not make him a martyr (he's already slated for prison;  one down, one to go).

But if the termite-ridden MAGA branch of the GOP started blaming us Democrats...what then?  Would they start doing drive-by shootings on any house with a Biden-Harris sign in the yard?  Kidnap and kill our pets?  Honestly, I was hoping that my house would be intact when I got there after work.  Because at the time, I had no data to work with other than "Trump got shot."

Now we know...kind of...

The FBI got right to work on the case, and it only took them a few hours to find out that the shooter was Thomas Matthew Crooks, from Bethel Park, PA.  He was 20 years old, a registered Rebublican whose first vote was in the 2022 midterm elections, and an extreme gun enthusiast (he was wearing a Demolition Ranch tee shirt at the rally).  Why he chose to take a shot at Trump, I don't know yet.  Neither does anyone else...but the conspiracies are flying already.

I will write more when I know more.  Stay tuned.

That Facepalm Moment...

People Say the Darndest Things...

Well, it happened again.

I had to counter another round of dis/misinformation.

This time, it was to a customer.  He was browsing, and I asked if I could help him.  He said no, he was just looking around.  He had decided to shop at our store from now on, and would no longer be shopping at our rival because they were putting out Pride merch in honor of LGBTQ+ Month.  He complained that the LGBTQ community were "shoving it in our faces," that doctors were gender-changing little kids who had no idea what was happening, and that drag queens were doing strip shows in libraries.  When I pointed out that the queens were merely reading books to the children, and that the aim was to get them to love reading (as any Story Time reader is trying to do), he backtracked and said that "children were going to drag shows."

I'll pause a moment to allow my readers to slap their palms firmly onto their faces.  Okay, hands down as I continue...

Here is what I told my dis/misinformed customer, in no particular order:

1) Pride Month (the informal name) is primarily about information.  Its intent is to clear up all the stupid stereotypes and show that all the "letter people" are just people, with the same rights and privileges as anyone else.  Also, learning about people who aren't like you removes fears and stigmas that are based on bad info (like the kind my customer was repeating;  he also mentioned a school in a nearby town that had supposedly put a litterbox in a kids' restroom for a child who said she was really a cat.  That internet rumor has been going around for so long, with a different school in every repeat, that I wonder how anyone can still believe it).

Now:  Are there "letter people" who go overboard?  Yes, there are.  The parades can bring out the flame, for sure.  And that can drown out the voices of those who just want to live openly as a valued citizen of our nation, without being subjected to hateful slurs and physical violence.  But the outrageousness doesn't change the need for acceptance, just as the riots during the BLM protests don't change the need for radical improvements in our policing system.

2) Re drag shows - the queens and kings are not strippers!  A drag show is a chance to flaunt inner beauty by dressing up to the nines.  Some of the performers cosplay as their favorite divas (or divos), but many have their own original personae.  It's actually really fun and the people look absolutely fabulous!

And as for children going to the shows, I did some research and found that one of the venues in our nearby city does allow youth 13 and up into the show.  Because of the humor and adult-themed jokes expressed by the performers, attendance by anyone younger than that is not recommended.  However, the proprietors say that it's up to the parent.  (Kind of like a PG-13 movie.)  Another place - the oldest and most famous venue in the city - will not admit anyone younger than 21, since they serve alcohol.  A third is a designated Safe Space for youth in crisis...and I really doubt that an abused teenager seeking help is going to be damaged by seeing a few people in drag, especially if those people are helping him get out of a bad situation.

3) Doctors are not performing gender surgery on little kids!!!!  I have a friend who had gender dysphoria, and it wasn't until he grew up that he was able to get a truckload of counseling and then begin his treatments.  Most of the stress involved came from the way other people reacted to his revelation of who he was inside.

What sympathetic parents are trying to do with their kids is help them identify who they are, then help them live it as best they can before they come to an age when they can safely do something about it.  So a trans girl will dress like a girl if she wishes (clothes have become more unisex) and use a family/unisex restroom.

("But how can they know when they're little?"  asked my customer.  Well, how does anyone know who they are?  They just do.  "But teaching about all that gender stuff just confuses the kids."  But it also helps a kid realize that the way they feel isn't some weird mental illness.  The confusion will shake itself out with the help of those sympathetic parents.)

The customer admitted, after I had told him all this, that he needed to do research before he repeated everything he heard.  But he did say that if we ever started displaying Pride flags, he would shop elsewhere.  Which is his choice.

I Hate Liars. Don't You?

 Truly A New Low...

I get a lot of unsolicited text messages.  Mostly, this is because I put my name on both my state and national "don't-call" list.  Unfortunately, there's a loophole, because there is no such list for texts;  so I usually just glance at strange texts, delete all the organizations I don't recognize, and let it go.

But over the last two days, I have gotten a couple of texts that really disturb me.  The anonymous sender says that "left-wing organizations" are "collecting your data" for nefarious purposes.  After this, s/he instructs me that if these people ask for my name, address, and signature, I should "decline to sign."

A second such text makes it sound even scarier:  "out-of-town strangers" collecting the data for "left-wing extremist" groups.  Again, there is the "decline to sign" instruction, and I am further urged to "protect yourself from fraud and theft!"

Are These People Serious?!

Now, I have signed quite a few petitions in my day.  Most of them have been for ballot initiatives, which are a way for the people of a state to get a law passed when the state legislature won't do it.  Things like Medicaid expansion, the legalization of recreational marijuana, and the reformation of highway funding are several things that have gotten done only because We the People of my state started a ballot initiative.  

The way it works is that canvassers either go door-to-door, set up a table in a public space, or just approach people and ask them to sign their petition.  They have to explain what the petition is for, and they are not allowed to accept any kind of donation or gift from those with whom they speak  (I know this because the last petition I signed was on a chilly day, and I tried to buy the workers a coffee...which they politely refused).  If they can get enough people to sign the petition by a given deadline, it becomes a ballot initiative and will be voted on in the next general election.

And yes, they do need your name and address, because they have to prove that all the signatures they get are from residents of the state.  Only state residents are allowed to determine whether there is enough interest in an issue to put it on the next ballot.

Let me make this absolutely clear:  Your identity cannot be stolen just because someone knows your name and address.  And if your signature were another way for someone to defraud you, then signing your name on those touch screens at the store or at the restaurant would be way more dangerous than signing a piece of paper with lines all down the page.

So, What's Really Going On?

Funny you should ask.

There are two hot-button issues in my state right now:  "school choice" (a.k.a. vouchers) and abortion.  The GOP super-majority in our legislature is really on board with a near-total abortion ban, and they're practically drooling at the idea of defunding public schools and siphoning the money into vouchers that supposedly give parents a choice in the way their kids are educated.  Private schools are supposedly better than public schools, with better curricula, better teachers, and safer environments, so hey!  Instead of that run-down public school where the teachers are paid peanuts and the textbooks still call Myanmar "Burma" and the nerds get swirlied on a regular basis, a parent could use public money to send her little one to that fancy private academy where he will do so much better!

Except, those private schools can accept or reject whomever they want.  A transfer student from a public school would still have to meet the private school's standards for academic performance and good behavior.  Paid tuition or not, any kid who couldn't keep up his grades or stay out of trouble would be expelled.

Moreover, it might be a lot harder to get to and from a private school, especially in a rural area.

And lastly, those vouchers would make it impossible for public schools to improve.  It's like giving someone else a transfusion, but being expected to put in a full day's work while doing so.  It's crazy!

But the GOP love the idea.  To gain support, they have focused on a bunch of non-issues, like "woke" ideology, trans- and homosexual infiltration, critical-race theory, "bad" books in school libraries, etc. 

So, in defense of public schools, some (yes, left-wing) groups have gotten together and are now circulating a petition to keep public schools funded.  If it makes it to the November ballot, the entire state gets to finally decide the issue for themselves.

The same thing is happening with the abortion ban.  The petition is circulating, and if it gets enough signatures, we will decide in November whether to allow a woman to choose to abort if she needs to, or if she is too young, or if her life is at stake, or if it's a rape/incest/abuse case...and also, whether that woman and anyone who helps her is a criminal.

Now, the anti-choice crowd - the Right to Lifers, the conservative religious groups, and so forth - are up in arms about abortion.  The only thing they think about is "saving the unborn."  That would be all fine and good if that were really the case.  But most abortions are done within the first trimester;  the embryo isn't viable--it cannot survive outside the womb.  One of the reasons that the six-week ban is so stupid is that many women wouldn't even know they were pregnant yet!  (A woman can miss a period for several reasons other than pregnancy;  stress, medication, and malnutrition can all affect a woman's cycle.)  

And once a pregnancy reaches the viability stage, the only reason an abortion is done is because of a fatal birth defect, such as a missing vital organ, or because the life of the mother is in danger.  Needless to say, such late-term abortions are very rare, and only a few doctors are trained to perform them.

Besides which, no woman is getting an abortion on a whim.  It's a tough choice, and any woman in that position has already thought seriously about what to do.  It should be her choice, not the government's or that of some misguided religious group.

However...

....The right-wing coalition is perfectly free to oppose these initiatives.  And they might just win.

But they aren't being honest about it in those "decline to sign" messages.  When they, or anyone allied with them, conceal their true position by fear-mongering ("They're stealing your data!") about things that have nothing to do with the real issues (vouchers and abortion), then they have lost the moral high ground.  They are, in fact lying to you.  And I really, really hate liars!

Do You Feel Like I Do?

Then spread the word.  If you get deceptive "decline to sign" texts, or you have friends who have gotten them, then set the record straight.

Because it's not data collection those mystery texters are afraid of;  it's your taking a stand in favor of something they don't like.  So let's go scare the shit out of them, shall we?

The Ones who Never Return

 Another Reason I Hate Modern Country Music...

It's no secret that I can't stand the stuff that passes for country and western music music nowadays.

But it's not for the reasons you might think.

I'm not upset when country artists borrow elements from the rock and soul genres, or even rap and hip-hop, if it helps them tell their stories.  (Full disclosure:  I've never heard a country song using rap that was really effective in getting its message across;  it always sounds like they could have done it better using a more traditional format.  For one thing, their rhymes are weak!)

I don't bat an eye at rockers who "go country" or country artists who cross over to rock or pop.  There have been crossover artists since rock and country first became identifiable genres.  Glen Campbell, Anne Murray, and Kenny Rogers were equally lauded on both country and pop radio;  more recently, Cheryl Crow, Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowfish), and Shania Twain have successfully crossed over from rock to country and vice-versa.  The blend of Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus produced a really weird sorta-country, sorta hip-hop hit with "Old Town Road."  (Further disclosure:  I still think Lil Nas X got shafted by Billboard!)

Nope.  What really puts hay down my tank top is the subject matter.

In particular, the whole superiority thing.  As in, the home town or the farm is so wonderful and perfect, and the city sucks.  Jason Aldean's tone-deaf "Try That in a Small Town" is just the most extreme example;  there are plenty of others, like the one about the good ol' boy who went away for a while, but oh, he's back now and he's never, ever gonna leave!  Or how about the guy making fun of his ex's new boyfriend, who doesn't drive a truck, hunt, or fish, and who probably can't even change a flat tire on that hybrid?  (The song doesn't say he's a city slicker, but how many hints do we need?)

But worst of all is the trope about the girl who leaves the small town or farm to go to college or work in the big city, but finds that something's missing, so she comes back...and lo and behold, she finds that the blue-collar boy she left behind is all she really needs to make her life complete!  (These songs are always performed by men.)

I call "bullshit."

I am one of a pretty big group of both men and women who came from small towns or farms, and we could not wait to get free.  And we are never, ever, ever going back.

Why?  Well, when you are different - any kind of different - you aren't really accepted as a member of a small-town community;  there's very much of a herd mentality at work.  That's bad enough if you're an adult, but it's hell when you're a kid.  Smart kids, gay/trans kids, neurodivergent kids...they're going to have problems in a small-town or rural area, because most of the residents don't have the mental tools or experience to know how to accept those kids for who they are.  The good news is that if the kids get a chance to see what life is like in the outside world, they'll become less likely to suffocate in their given toxic environment.  They'll be looking for a chance to escape.  And when they do, they will have their own story to tell about that so-called "paradise" known to modern country as a small town!

Just once, I would like to hear a country song about one of the ones who never returned.

In fact, why don't I write one?

Maybe I'm a Mondegreen

I know, it's true

I just don't fit in

But it's not me, it's my situation

This is a monolinguistic town

And I got lost in translation

Or maybe I'm a mondegreen

A lost lyric that they don't understand

Try to sing it, but it comes out wrong

A faux ami in a foreign language

Sui generis 

A tribe of one

Always at war with all the rest

I just can't help that I'm not their kind--

It's time to leave this cuckoo's nest

Yeah, maybe I'm a mondegreen

A strange phrase they just can't believe they heard

But it's a wider world out there

And somewhere

There's a song that needs my words...

Okay, maybe more Natalie Merchant than Tanya Tucker...but think it over.  And if you are a small-towner yourself, maybe you can look at those "mondegreens" with more compassionate eyes.

A "New Yorker" State of Mind

Chosen...But why?

I had an interesting letter show up in my mailbox last October.  It came from The New Yorker, offering me 26 issues of the magazine for the incredibly-low price of $26 (plus an extra $2 for my state's sales tax.)  After thinking it over, I decided to go for it.  Two weeks after sending off my check, the first issue arrived.

Now, four months later, I have decided not to renew the subscription.  Because really, it just isn't my thing.

Okay, don't get me wrong....

There is nothing wrong with The New Yorker.  The reporting is almost BBC in its calm staidness.  The humor is often provincial (meaning, if you aren't from New York, you may not get it), but the cartoons are cool.  And it always has something to expand my mind about some subject.

It's when it starts talking about the "arts" that it loses me.

There is a way of talking about art, whether it's literature, cinema, theater, dance, music, or visual art, that makes you want to learn more about it.  A way that assumes that some readers may not be familiar with So-and-So, but here's why this person, play, movie or album is worth a listen or look.  A way that uses common language to express those sentiments.

The New Yorker doesn't talk about the arts in that way.

Not a non sequitur, I promise!

I cannot stand Ann Coulter.  She's a mean girl, especially when she's talking about people and situations that she's never met or experienced.  But after reading almost 16 weeks of New Yorker reviews of new plays and profiles of trendy artists of various and sundry kinds,  I found Ann's brand of mean words infesting my thoughts:  Rarified air.  Ivory tower.  Out of touch with the norm.  Liberal elitism.  Bleah!

So what the hell does that mean?

Well, after a great deal of thought, I found that what it means is that The New Yorker (or at least its arts section) isn't written in my native artistic language.  My Language of Art boils down to a single phrase:  "I may not know much about art [of any sort], but I know what I like."  The New Yorker's Language of Art boils down to a different phrase:  "You should like (or hate) this."  The reviewers never seem to really give their own reasons for liking or hating a film or exhibit or whatever;  instead, the reader is made to feel as though they ought to like, or hate, the art or the artist--but the reasons given are so esoteric that only the "in-crowd" of artistically-fluent people will understand them.  I'll be the first to agree that art is in the eye of the beholder, and that this is not only okay but necessary;  but I refuse to let someone else define art for me...no matter how "ironic" or "iconic" it's supposed to be.

So I guess I'm not trendy enough for a magazine like The New Yorker.

Two different cities.

There are two different New York Cities that share space in my head.

The first is the one that N.K. Jemisin and other authors (and filmmakers) made me fall in love with.  That NYC is a mixed bag of folks from all ethnic backgrounds and walks of life, trying to live, love, and make a living;  a whole lot of little communities balled together in one city.  That was what I was hoping to see more of by subscribing to The New Yorker.

The other NYC is the one from The New Yorker, and I don't like it much.  I don't speak the language, and really, I bet that if I actually went to the city, a lot of real New Yorkers wouldn't speak it either.

The Trouble With Jason...

I've Heard This Song Before...

Back in May, a new track by Jason Aldean entered the 10-song rotation on the "Modern Country" channel that we play at our store.  It was called "Try That in a Small Town," and it sounds a lot like several other "country good, city bad" songs that have appeared from time to time...same jingoistic "respect the flag or else"-"the gummint's comin' for my huntin' rifle"-"good ol' boys are the only decent people" straw-man claptrap that I have heard before.  In this case, though, it all appears in one song, sung in heavy-duty aggro mode.

Jason says that the song is about helping your neighbor and having a sense of community.  But there's already a perfectly good song with that theme:  "You Find Out Who Your Friends Are" by Tracy Lawrence.  The best part of that song is that anybody, anywhere who has ever been down and out and been rescued by true friends can relate.  But "Try That" is a definite threat, not only against big-city criminals who might try to bring their mess to Jason's town, but also anyone who might be raising awareness of police brutality, mass shootings, or the evils committed under the aegis of the American flag.

This was my problem with the song as it is, mind.

Then Came the Video!

I owe much to NPR, the Washington Post, and the "Now This News" YouTube channel for filling in the blanks for me on why everyone started calling the video--and by extension, the song--racist.  I already mentioned the implied "country good, city bad" vibe;  I could see that all the crime backgrounds in the video were urban.  The implication was that stuff like that never happens in small towns.  (This is complete bullshit;  I'll get back to this statement a little later.)

But what I did not know was that when it shows Aldean singing, the background is a courthouse where a lynching took place.  In 1927, an 18-year-old Black kid named Henry Choate was accused of attacking a 16-year-old white girl;  allegedly, he confessed, even though the girl never named him as her assailant.  A mob grabbed Henry from his jail cell, dragged him through town behind a car, and finally hung him off the courthouse balcony.  The courthouse in question--the Maury County Courthouse--is located in Columbia, TN, which was the scene of a "race riot" in 1946 (this is the white-supremacist term;  it was way more complicated than that, and it wasn't the Black people that started the trouble).  In the 1990's, it was the venue for a so-called "Good Ol' Boys' Roundup," which featured racial slurs and a pretend lynching.

Yikes.

The company that produced the video says that Aldean did not choose the video's location, and that the Hannah Montana movie was also filmed there (though I bet she never sang any racially tone-deaf lyrics against the background of a courthouse reflecting film of burning American flags).

That may be true, but...seriously.  You can Wiki both the Choate lynching (not the only one to happen there) and the 1946 confrontation.  The idea that the company didn't know Columbia's history rings false somehow.  It seems more like they didn't care.  Aldean obviously didn't;  he has consistently defended the song and said that calling the video racist is going too far.

But CMT pulled the "Try That" vid out of their rotation after the controversy heated up, and it makes me wonder if somebody there did some Wiki research of their own.  It's frighteningly easy to pick up a racist vibe from the video once you know Columbia's racist history;  CMT was doing the bare minimum of the right thing by pulling it.

Oh, and to all the Aldean fanfolk screaming about "cancel culture"...the Dixie Chicks (now just the Chicks) would like a word.  All they did to get cancelled was say they were ashamed to be from the same state as George Dubya.  Nobody I know was defending them when they disappeared from every radio station owned by Clear Channel.  So kwitcherbitchin'.

And Now, Back To My Comment...

Remember Aldean's implication that big-time crime didn't happen in small towns?  Remember, too, how I called "bullshit" on that?  Well, let me tell you a story.

Back in my hometown, there was a bachelor brother and his spinster sister, both middle-aged, who lived together in the same house.  This was in the 1980's, and things were still relaxed enough that hardly anybody locked their door unless they were leaving for a while.  The brother often came to our house of an evening, toting a case of cheap beer in the front of his overalls (he didn't own a car or truck, though he would gladly help you fix yours, or indeed help you with any odd job you needed) as a contribution to the evening's festivities (usually music played on the front porch).  His sister was a science-fiction fan like me, and we traded books and got together with the school librarian for road trips to large cities with book stores.  Neither sibling had a job, so I'm guessing one or both of them was on disability, or perhaps a military pension in the brother's case.  But if that was the case, they weren't getting much--enough for basic needs and a little beer (and book) money.

One day in the late 80's (I was away at college at the time), while the siblings were taking an afternoon nap, several teens from a neighboring small town (not city kids, mind you) walked right into the house looking for drug money.  They killed both of the siblings in their sleep, and got away with just a few dollars...not a hundred, or even twenty.  Less than that, and no jewelry or other saleable loot, since those people had none.

According to my mom, the whole town went up like a firecracker, with all kinds of threats if those punks ever showed up in town again.  The punks got caught by the county cops, they went to jail, and the only lingering effect of the murder was that now everybody locked their doors, even when they were home.

So, sorry, Jason.  Small towns do get their share of heinous crimes.  But you know what doesn't help?  Vigilante mobs.  All you get from those are lynchings.

In Memory of Ajike Owens

 What I Wanted to Do Today

Today, I was going to write another post about Juneteenth.  I was looking forward to it, in fact--I had the day off, the weather was much milder than it had been in a month, and the subject is both worthy and pleasant.

But I can't write about Juneteenth today, because I have to write about Ajike Owens.

She was a Black mother of four, who lived near Ocala, Florida.  She was a manager at McDonald's and worked hard to provide for her kids.  And I'm having to use the past tense here because she's dead.

Not from natural causes, mind.  Ajike--AJ to those who knew her--is dead of a fatal gunshot wound to the chest.  The gun in question was fired by a white woman named Susan Lorincz, who was safe in her own house, but didn't like it when Ms. Owens pounded on her door to confront her about the way Lorincz had treated her kids.  Lorincz shot AJ Owens through the door!

What Happened...

It was Friday evening, and AJ's kids were playing in a field next to a quadruplex.  One unit of that 'plex was rented by Lorincz, and according to neighbors, Lorincz had a long history of harassing not only the Owens kids, but also all the other kids in that neighborhood, who all liked to play in that field.  The field was apparently a sore point with Lorincz;  she called it "her property" (she didn't own any of that complex or its land) and did everything she could to chase the neighborhood kids off of it.  She would shout racial slurs at the kids, rev the motor in her truck or blast the horn in order to intimidate them, and even wave a gun in their direction!

So:  Friday, June 2nd.  Lorincz yelled at the Owens kids to get off the field.  Eventually, they did, but one of the kids had left his iPad there, and Lorincz went out and took it.

The details get a little confused here.  In one account, when the kids went to Lorincz's apartment to get the iPad back, Lorincz threw the iPad at the kids, hitting one of them and cracking the screen.  In another account, Lorincz threw a rollerblade and hit one of the kids in the toe.  Still another account has Lorincz poking an umbrella at the kids.  At any rate, her behavior caused the Owens kids to go and get their mother to handle the situation.

Owens went over to Lorincz's apartment and began to knock, good and loud, on that door and demand that Lorincz come out.  Lorincz, for her part, called 911 and told them that Owens was "pounding" on her door, and that she was "breaking it down."  And then Lorincz fired her gun through the door, hitting Owens in the chest.  One of her sons attempted CPR on his mom, but Ajike Owens died before an ambulance could get her to the hospital.

So, the Cops Arrested the Killer.  Right?

Wrong.

The sheriff on the case hemmed and hawed about how when you get to a crime scene, sometimes you only get "one side of the story."  He emphasized a "long-running feud" between Owens and Lorincz, as if that somehow explained how an armed white woman shoots an unarmed Black mom through a closed door.  He didn't want to interview the Owens kids right away because he thought they might not want to talk to officers; he was waiting for "trained counselors" (or some such bullshit term) to talk to the kids.  Oh, and they were also trying to determine if Florida's "stand your ground" laws were applicable. 

Dear God.  An unarmed Black woman is dead, and the cops are wondering if the armed white woman who did the shooting is protected by a stupid law that wouldn't even fly in the so-called "wild" West, where many towns required you to check your shootin' irons at the local sheriff's office.

But the Owens family were not about to take this in silence.  They hired attorney Ben Crump to represent them, and they got the word out about AJ and how she died.  As awareness grew, pressure on the local law did, too, and they finally arrested Susan Lorincz on Tuesday, June 6th--which also happens to be the anniversary of D-Day.  Rather appropriate.  By Friday, she had been charged with manslaughter, culpable negligence, two counts of simple assault, and battery;  her bond was set at $154,000.

Lorincz has pleaded "not guilty" and claims that the Owens kids--ranging in age from 3 to 12--had threatened to kill her, which I find laughable considering who had the guns (turns out Lorincz had a second gun in the house) and who did the actual killing.

The Thing I'm Really Afraid Of...

...is that Susan Lorincz will walk free.

Florida is a bad state for justice of any kind if you are a Black person.  Trayvon Martin's killer is free to this day, and it's looking like the only judgement he will ever face is when he dies and stands before God.

Lorincz has "outed" herself as a racist;  by her own admission, she called the Black children in her neighborhood the n-word and also "Black slave."  She was "afraid" that Ajike Owens was going to break in her door and kill her.  But her fears were imaginary.  Like so many white people, she looked at the color of her neighbors'--and their children's--skins and assumed them to be troublemakers and killers.  So she became a killer herself.

But will a jury see it that way?  I have my doubts.  Because Lorincz's lawyer will be damned sure to pile on as much victim-blaming as he can, and will dig up any dirt he can on AJ's character, work habits, parenting...anything to smear that good mother's reputation and make poor Susan look like the brave old lady protecting herself from a female Black thug.

Nevertheless, I pray that truth and justice will prevail.  The state of Florida owes that to both the family and the memory of Ajike Owens.

Update:  Justice for Ajike!

It took me a while to catch up, but I can now happily report that in August of this year, Susan Lorincz was convicted of manslaughter.  In November, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

AJ's kids are still orphans, and her family's grief will never quite go away.  But they can at least take comfort in the fact that Susan Lorincz did not walk free.  At the end of this long, sad day, there was justice for Ajike Owens.

I Love My Country, But... : A Few Thoughts About Patriotism

The Last Refuge of Scoundrels

I have kind of a weird quirk:  I refuse to fly a U.S. flag.  Or wear a pin.  Or hang up anything "flaggy" like a wreath or one of those distressed wooden signs.  And I absolutely refuse to clothe any part of my body with anything red, white, blue, starred and striped.

It's not that I "hate America" or favor burning the flag or any such nonsense.  It's just that I feel the same way about patriotism that I feel about my Christian faith:  that if I'm a true patriot, it should be obvious from the way I act and the attitude I have toward my fellow Americans.  (Which, on the Christian side, is why I don't wear a cross, either.)

This whole "more patriotic than thou" flag-waving dates back to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  Flags sprouted up everywhere, and it was considered a mark of support for our country.  All very well and good;  but as the years have ground on, that sort of patriotism has taken on the air of being more "the last refuge of scoundrels" than the genuine article.

And Just What Do You Mean by That?!

Oh, I can hear it now:  "Well, if the flag offends you, I'll help you pack!"

Hey, I'm not condemning the flying of the flag;  but when you see it everywhere, all the time, doesn't it sort of lose its meaning?  When you see full-size U.S. flags waving off the back of pickup trucks, or bandannas and other flag clothing being worn by all and sundry--not just on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July or the several other national holidays that call for flying the flag, but all year long--well, frankly, I'm tired of it. 

 The flag isn't supposed to be an object of reverence in and of itself;  it's a symbol.  It's supposed to be a symbol of goodness and doing the right thing and all that, and sure, some of that is true...but to be brutally honest, we've also done some massively awful things throughout our history.  From enslaving Black people to persecuting and killing Native Americans to meddling in the internal affairs of other countries (cough-cough-Iran-cough-cough), our record is far from spotless.  But a real patriot faces those actions and says,  "Yeah, it happened, and we were wrong to do it.  From now on, we need to do better."  What's so wrong about that?

Excuses, Excuses!

 And I'm sorry-not-sorry, but I have no use for any politician who waves the flag--either literally or figuratively--as an excuse for why he or she won't do something or help somebody or take a certain course of action.

A perfect example is the hate-on that the modern GOP has for a national health care program.  Heaven knows, the ACA is a patchwork solution at best, relying too much on the non-existent goodwill of Big Pharma and private companies who care more for the Almighty Dollar than for the well-being of their clients.  A single-payer system similar to that of Canada would do a lot to rein in the runaway horses pulling the private-insurance wagon, and would cost less for everyone, including the government.  But what do Republicans say when the idea is voiced?  "It's socialism!  It's not American!"   

Which is nothing but red, white and blue bullshit.  

The Preamble--the "mission statement" for the country--says that "we the people" were, among other things, aiming to "promote the general welfare."  Meaning, create an environment that was beneficial for all people to live in.  Health care for everyone is a natural fit for that part of the Preamble.  And as I have pointed out before in another post, keeping the American population healthy is a sensible investment;  healthy people can work better and produce more.  And when regular checkups and routine scans are free, serious diseases can be caught before costly treatments are needed;  even better, when people are following their doctor's advice, many ailments can be prevented.

So if a politician's only argument for failing to act is "But it's not American," he or she just might need to get voted out.  Because the concept of what is "American" is decided by all Americans...not just a few reactionaries who fear change.

Flag of Hate

Of course, there are those whose only real use of the flag is as a banner of hate, and I would be failing in my duty as a patriot if I didn't call those assholes out.

Yeah, that would be you, "Proud Boys" (notice it's not "proud men"...hmmm).  And you, too, "Oath Keepers" (any connection to the Promise Keepers?  Gotta wonder).  Yep, you Klukkers get a cyber-boo as well.  And every other stupid militia movement and white supremacist cabal sliming up the American flag while claiming to defend it.  You know why Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the National Anthem?  It was because of know-nothing hate junkies like them.  When people believe that justice and equal rights are only for those who look and believe the way they do, they reveal themselves to be fake patriots.  No one who truly loves this country should ever look to people like that for guidance.  And if any politician is following some hate group's guidance...well, on Election Day it would be an excellent idea to vote him out (but do be informed, lest you vote in someone worse).

And Finally...

I know I'm coming across as something of a doom-and-gloomer;  with Memorial Day approaching, most folks are looking forward to cooking out and hanging with the family, and the last thing they want is some little Worm like myself raining on the party!

But we need to be thinking about these things, now more than ever.  Muddy thinking has led us to this pass, and if we don't start defining terms like "patriot,"  we will continue to see the term misused and misapplied.  On this holiday, we are supposed to remember the many men and women who have lost their lives to defend the freedoms we have;  let us also remember that those freedoms have a flip side of responsibility.

So here are a few things a real patriot is and does:

• A real patriot loves her country, but not blindly.
• A real patriot is willing to admit when her country's people have done wrong, and is ready to make things right.
• A real patriot never calls another person's opinion "treason";  if the opinion is wrong, she will lay out the facts that demonstrate this, and not simply call her adversary names.
• A real patriot may disagree with what someone else says, but will always defend his right to say it.

And finally:

• A real patriot treats all other citizens and would-be citizens with respect and kindness, and does everything in her power to ensure that they are afforded the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.

 Have a safe and fun (but thoughtful) Memorial Day!

Juneteenth Is for Everyone!

 On This Historic Day...

I would like to formally welcome our nation's newest Federal National Holiday.

Also, I'd like to say:  It's about damn time!

Juneteenth--the celebration commemorating the full emancipation of the slaves in the last Confederate holdout state of Texas--originated in Galveston on June 19th, 1965, with the reading of General Order No. 3 by Union General Gordon Granger.  Celebrations of Juneteenth date to at least 1866, with local church-based gatherings (because white people refused to allow Black people to celebrate anywhere else);  from these, the holiday has spread across the nation--first through the South, then to the North--and has grown into a celebration not only of Black Independence, but also of Black culture and food.  It has even made its way to Mexico, courtesy of the Mascogos, descendants of a group of Black Seminoles who escaped slavery in 1852 and settled in Coahuila.

All this is more or less regurgitated Wiki.  But this lowly worm would like to advance the radical notion that Juneteenth is not just a "Black holiday."  This holiday is for everyone!

Okay, before anyone gets mad...

No person is an island.  We all need each other.  And back in the Bad Old Days, when a Black individual was considered 3/5 of a person for census purposes, there was a group of allies who shone brightly in those dark times.

I speak, of course, of the Religious Society of Friends, better-known as the Quakers.  Among other things, they were the most vocal of the Abolitionists.  This was no accident, nor was it a stance of convenience;  the Society's founder, George Fox, claimed to have received a direct revelation from God that slavery was wrong, and that Fox should spread this word to others.  However my readers may feel about people who claim to have heard the voice of God,  I would have to say that in this case, Fox did hear rightly.  His obedience, and that of other members of the Society, led to the publishing of much anti-slavery literature, petitions to various levels of government (local to [post-Revolutionary] federal) for an end to slavery in the nation, and the founding of the escape network widely known as the Underground Railroad.

Efforts such as these contributed to the attitudes of other Abolitionist groups and individuals, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin sold some 300,000 hardback copies in the United States alone.  The novel raised the debate about slavery to such a pitch that President Abraham Lincoln, upon meeting Mrs. Stowe, referred to her as the "little woman" whose book had caused a "big war"--meaning, of course, the Civil War.

Meanwhile, down on the plantation...

...The slaves were freeing themselves!

They ran away from their so-called "masters" and headed North, where they built new lives and told their stories, which were published and spread by Abolitionists.  Some of them became "conductors" on the Underground Railroad, returning to the South to help free more of their people from slavery.  The most famous of these was, of course, Harriet Tubman, who never lost a "passenger" and has been lionized in stories and (finally) a major motion picture.  My favorite book about her was one I read as a kid called Harriet Tubman:  The Moses of Her People.

Now, the slaveholding South believed that whites were inherently superior to Blacks, and that slavery was the "natural state" of the Black person.  But you couldn't prove that by the actions of Black people, who were not only escaping to the North, but also rebelling in ways large and small.  The best-known rebellion was that of Nat Turner, who led an uprising of over 70 Black people, both slave and free, who killed 55 whites before the revolt was shut down by white militia forces.  (An interesting side note:  This rebellion almost led to a gradual emancipation.  Nat Turner's confession was published as a book, and some white folks in Virginia, reminded of the dangers of slavery, presented petitions that would gradually end slavery.  But the majority, not wanting to lose their slaves, ixnayed that.)

People who want to be free and are willing to risk their lives to get that freedom are not "natural slaves."  That this was finally recognized and fought for by allies and others does not diminish the spirit of the Blacks who escaped and rebelled;  it affirms that their spirit is strong and true.

This, fellow worms, is called facing reality.

The culmination of all that blood, sweat and tears was a set of Constitutional Amendments.

Amendments don't pass by themselves, you know!

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution--known as the Reconstruction Amendments--were passed by the required 2/3 majority of Congress in 1865 (the 13th, which freed the slaves; the Civil War wasn't even over yet), 1866 (the 14th, to counter white southern opposition to the 13th), and 1869 (the 15th, which was passed to counter--you guessed it--racist opposition to Black voting rights).

But remember, that's only part of the process.  After their passage, the amendments had to be ratified by a whopping 3/4 of the states.  The miracle is that it not only happened, but happened quickly:  The 13th Amendment took only 10 months and 6 days to get that majority;  the 14th, 2 years and 26 days;  and the 15th, 11 months and 8 days!  In fact, by 1871, 31 out of the 37 states had fully ratified the 14th and 15th Amendments.  There were 11 original members of the Confederacy, so that means that five of those ratifying states were originally rebels to the Union.

It wasn't only the Black vote that achieved that.  It was good white allies, many of whom were probably involved in the Abolitionist movement before the war;  but that vote probably also included a number of white people who were just plain ashamed of themselves.  Shame may be a poor reason for doing the right thing, but it sure beats doing the wrong thing because of cowardice.

What I am not saying...

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the "white savior" factor.  Movies such as Driving Miss Daisy, The Help, Hidden Figures, and most recently Green Book, have been strongly criticized for their portrayal of helpless Black people who needed the help of whites to get the respect and credit they deserve from society.

When I say that Juneteenth is for everybody, I am not saying that "if it weren't for white people, Black people would never have won their freedom."  No, what I'm saying is that bringing this holiday into the full view of all Americans gives every one of us the chance to learn some history and celebrate together...and declare our commitment to doing better by each other than our ancestors have done.

In Conclusion...

If you are invited to a Juneteenth celebration, or there is a Juneteenth street fair in your area, by all means, go.  See some great art, hear some great music, eat some great food.  Listen to the readings, be humble, and definitely be sure you know all the words to "Lift Every Voice And Sing."

We've been backsliding, children.  Time to repent and move forward.

Happy Juneteenth, everyone!