Civics Literacy Test To Vote: How Many Tea Baggers Would Have To Switch To Coffee?
Former Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo told attendees at a Tea Party convention that President Barack Obama was elected because of
“people who could not even spell the word ’vote’ or say it in English.’”
Tancredo delivered the remarks Thursday at the convention in Nashville and said it was a good thing that Sen. John McCain was not elected because President Obama has
“mobilized an uprising.”
Tancredo made a run for president but dropped out in 2007. He’s best known for his stance against illegal immigration and has frequently been criticized for his comments on the topic.
Tancredo also told people at the convention that a civics literacy test should be required to be allowed to vote.
Tancredo was born in Denver, Colorado and both sets of his grandparents emigrated from Italy.
Wonder if they could spell “vote” or say it in English?
As a Republican student activist Tancredo spoke in support of the Vietnam War and after graduating from the University of Northern Colorado he became eligible to serve in Vietnam in June 1969. Tancredo has said he went for his physical, telling doctors he had been treated for depression, and eventually got a “1-Y deferment.”
Another example of a leading Republican politician who is willing to send young adults in to harms way with out ever serving themselves. See list of leading Republican’s and Democrat’s service to America at the link provided.
The other night, I was listening to the radio at work.
An acquaintance heard that it was the President and made several off handed remarks about the President and how the “Tea baggers” are right. Then he asked why the President was on the radio. I answered, “State of the Union” and he replied, “What’s that?”
“Here’s your sign” as Bill Envol would say.
It would be interesting if everyone did have to take the test that new American citizen take when being naturalized. 100 simple questions.
Then, maybe, a natural resident of the United States who ran for President would know the difference between North Korea and South Korea, or even that seeing “Russia from their house” is not some sort of foreign policy experience.
Secretary Of Defense And Republican Hold Over Supports Getting Rid Of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Defense Secretary, and Republican hold over, Robert Gates said this morning that he supports President Obama’s decision to seek the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military and has appointed a “high-level working group” to figure out how to do it.
“I fully support the president’s decision. The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we … best prepare for it. We have received our orders from the commander in chief and we are moving out accordingly.”
President Obama stated during the State of the Union address last week that he will work with Congress “this year” to repeal the controversial policy, renewing a campaign pledge that fell by the wayside last year as the president devoted his energy to health care reform.
Secretary Gates, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, cautioned that no matter how much the Pentagon studies the issue, the “ultimate decision” rests with Congress.
As many of our DTD readers know, Barry Goldwater is a hero of mine and many of my political views stem from his platform and base.
The Arizona Senator once stated, when asked about “gays” serving in the military:
“…why in the hell shouldn’t they serve? They’re American citizens…” and it was “more
important for the bullet coming out of the weapon to be straight than the issue of being gay or straight.”
If “Mr. Conservative” saw no problem with this issue, then it is time for the “right” to re-evaluate their stand and take it out of the realm of religion for as Senator Goldwater insisted so many years ago:
“fellows like Pat Robertson and others…make a religious organization out of it (Republican Party). If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.”
Over the last year, I’ve joined the frustration of many on the “progressive” side of the Democrat Party. It would appear that we have let the “minority” define the issues, phrase the language and write the rules for the debate.
Two events have restored my idealism and faith that we can do it better.
First the State of the Union address. After it was over I quietly said to myself, “A Statesman will win out over a political rabble rouser every time.”
Second was the President’s visit to the Republican House Members. Like Daniel in the “lion’s den” he proceeded to show leadership, strength of character and resolve.
One could even argue that he was “Presidential”, so “Presidential” that even Fox News must have been weary, because they cut away from the President’s Q and A session, only CNN and MSNBC covered the complete event.
So Glenn Beck and “gang” can distort the “Progressive” label, praise the “Tea Baggers” and incite contempt for what they perceive is a “liberal mantra,” but I am renewed and refreshed.
I joking told a friend that I was a “Percolator Progressive, for a percolator expose ideas to a higher degree of temperature in debate and re-circulate already tested, debated and proven ideas to an end product.”
All of a sudden I have an urge for a cup of coffee, and didn’t the Founding Fathers drink coffee as a way to show independence from “tea” and Great Britain, how American can you be?
Every morning I wake up listening to Cleveland’s WTAM Radio and the Glenn Beck Radio Show.
Many of my friends ask me why I put myself through the “mental anguish?” My answer is very simple, “I want to learn all I can about what he stands for, says and reportedly passes off as the truth.”
It’s the same way with O’Reilly, Hannity and Limbaugh. If I don’t hear what they are saying, I can’t really make a judgement on the issues as they present them. I am not afraid of opposing points of view, for the fact is that the hearing, reading or watching someone who differs from your ideology can spur growth to a new view or strengthen the views you presently hold.
Now, this post is not about ideology but civility and most of all respect.
While in the service I had a base commander who was an “old” style academy officer. His big issue was saluting those of rank. I remember clearly him telling NCOs that even if you didn’t like him, salute, for it was a salute to the uniform and respect to a symbol of our Nation. His favorite line was, “Salute now and give me the ‘bird’ when we’re in civilian clothes.”
The point I’d like to make is simple, do Fox News Commentators know that “He, Him, Obama” has a title, and it is, President?
It would appear that Fox News Commentators, Hannity and Beck especially, drop that part of the discussion as tho it would be demeaning to use the title, but it is the fact, he IS President, The President or President Obama.
If you do not respect the man at least respect the office and the Nation that elected him.
In this week’s landmark decision, by the Supreme Court on campaign financing, one may argue that in their precedent setting decision the Court has opened the door to a new political party and to a new form of American Government?
In stating that basically corporations are people too, the Court has set America on the path to Corpocracy.
Corpocracy, or Corporatocracy, is a form of government where corporations, conglomerate or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country. As much as the “right” rants against the Obama Administration taking us down the path of socialism, Corpocracy is considered to be a form of fascism.
Corpocracy has two factors: campaign finance and special interests, also can include government ownership.
Corporations provide financial support to competing political parties and major political party candidates. This would allow corporations to hedge their bets on the outcome of any election so they are assured to have a winner who is en-debted to them. As politicians are increasingly dependent on campaign contributions to become elected, their impartiality on issues which have corporate interest is compromised.
I believe this is far from what our “Founding Fathers” envisioned when they wrote the Constitution.
Under a Corpocracy, former corporate executives could be appointed as powerful decision makers within government institutions. They would be in charge with the regulation of their former or future employers which would lead to regulatory capture. Rules for lobbying would be a thing of the past.
Those who dismiss the Corpocray theory will say the only way it is possible is if it were legal to buy the votes of our politicians and that is illegal. However, under the terms of at-will employment, corporations can require their employees to vote certain way in exchange for (continued) employment.
It does not take an overt effort to buy a politician’s vote. Making a substantial donation to a certain politician’s campaign can be seen as a signal that the money is there if they vote in a way the corporation desires. Conversely, the money could be donated to an opponent if the vote does not go the way of the corporation.
President Dwight Eisenhower even saw fit to argue against the strengthening corporacy and the evils of such a government. I join him in that argument.
Guest Post: Elecpencil
As I tried to write a post on the Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance, I was just unable to put my frustrations and thoughts on this issue into words, but much to my delight, I read a blog post from a blog that I highly respect and asked to re-post his thoughts on this subject here for Dare To Dream readers:
Democracy For Sale
In 2000 the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Bush V. Gore. In a ruling of five to four they ruled for GW Bush. The five conservative judges basically ruled that if their candidate was winning it was time to stop counting all the votes. It was surely a vote against democracy. A strange part of the ruling had never happened before. It was the part that said, that this case could not be used as precedence in any other case. In other words, next time the conservative candidate might be the one who doesn’t want the vote counting stopped.
Somehow after that vote the people of the United States rolled over. They did not lynch these five judges for destroying the democratic right to have your votes counted. Americans are just to polite or more likely dumb and easily distracted.
When Bill Clinton was elected president he did not win by a 50% majority. That was because of third-party candidate Ross Perot winning 19% of the vote. During the Clinton presidency, Rush Limbaugh started his shows with an America held hostage countdown. As far as he was concerned because Clinton didn’t get 50% of the vote he was not the legitimate president. In 2000 GW Bush won election by court decree, despite Gore having 500,000 more votes. Rush had no problem with GW winning this way. He never announced, “America held hostage by the Supreme Court.”
Once again while Americans were distracted taking sides in the Leno/Conan war the five conservative members of the Supreme Court stabbed democracy in the back. They didn’t this by ruling for the corporate take over of our country. They have made it legal for corporations to spend any amount of money they want to advertise for the candidate of their choice. They will also be allowed to spend unlimited amounts in attack ads against the candidate they don’t want (you know the one against corporate control of our country).
Don’t expect Rush or any of those corporate stooges over at FOX NEWS to have any problem with a corporate owned USA.
Explained better by President Obama
Here is one politician on the side of the people fighting to end corporate control of elections.
There is a section on my blog called, “Armchair Activist.” I think it’s important and you may have ignored it in the past. This issue about corporations taking over our democracy cannot be ignored. Therefore I am putting a link you need to sign to fight back right in this spot. Here are more sites as you can’t sign enough to protect your rights: For Fair Elections and Move to Amend.
Says Senator Charles Schumer, D-New York: “The Supreme Court just predetermined the winners of next November’s elections. It won’t be Republicans. It won’t be Democrats. It will be corporate America.”
Rep. John Boehner of Ohio doesn’t understand the ruling as he has said, “The Supreme Court ruling is a victory for fee speech.” I searched various Tea Party sites around the country and found they all think it’s a victory for free speech. Which just confirms as many people having been saying, that the Teabaggers are corporate pawns.
All of this corporate controll reminds me of the 1975 movie Rollerball. I note that the movie is set in 2018 which isn’t far off. Just a movie or a premonition?
States of Mind: A Song for the Herd
Tim Hawkins: Corporate Worship Song
“Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.~ President Grover Cleveland
There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done … Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Guest Post: Steve Oravecz, Former Political Editor and Columnist.
I urge Sen. Brown to become a co-sponsor to S391, the Healthy Americans Act sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Robert Bennett, R-Utah.
I share Sen. Brown’s vision of a universal health care plan. But the public does not seem to understand or support the current bills.
Furthermore, Democratic health care strategy seems to be in a state of chaos with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying she does not have the votes to pass the Senate health care plan without amendments.
No bill is perfect. Changing the way employers contribute to health care may be a tough sell.
But S391 seems to address the main issues I am looking for in a health care reform package — access, affordability and pre-existing conditions. And it already has bipartisan support — something the current plans have failed to achieve.
It is time to scrap two current Democratic bills and jump start the debate with S391.
And maybe this time Democrats can control the debate instead of letting conservative Republicans define the issues.
Guest Post: Steve Oravecz: Former Political Editor and Columnist.
A comment on your recent post about Glenn Beck and George Bernard Shaw read:
“Where does Glenn Beck get the idea that George Bernard Shaw was an evil man? He gets the idea directly from George Bernard Shaw:
“The notion that persons should be safe from extermination as long as they do not commit willful murder, or levy war against the Crown, or kidnap, or throw vitriol, is not only to limit social responsibility unnecessarily, and to privilege the large range of intolerable misconduct that lies outside them, but to divert attention from the essential justification for extermination, which is always incorrigible social incompatibility and nothing else.”
So, in this case, Glenn Beck is absolutely correct. George Bernard Shaw was as evil as evil gets.”
That sounds pretty awful, especially the part that says, “to divert attention from the essential justification for extermination, which is always incorrigible social incompatibility and nothing else.” This sounds as if Shaw wholeheartedly agrees with genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Maybe Shaw is evil because of his unorthodox religious views. If being socialist makes one evil, Shaw is guilty as charged. However, he should be condemned after reading what he actually wrote, not by the dishonest cherry picking of quotations taken out of context.
The words in question come from the preface to Shaw’s play “On the Rocks” (1933).
The preface begins with a section called “Extermination.” It begins:
“In this play a reference is made by a Chief of Police to the political necessity for killing people: a necessity so distressing to the statesmen as so terrifying to the common citizen that nobody except myself (as far as I know) has ventured to examine it directly on its own merits, although every Government is obliged to practice it on a scale varying from the execution of a single murderer to the slaughter of millions of quite innocent persons. Whiles assenting to these proceedings, and even acclaiming and celebrating them, we date not tell ourselves what we are doing or why we are doing it; and so we call it justice or capital punishment or our duty to king and country or any other convenient verbal whitewash for what we instinctively recoil from as from a dirty job. These childish evasions are revolting. We must strip off the whitewash and find out what is really beneath it. Extermination must be put on a scientific basis if it is ever to be carried out humanely and apologetically as well as thoroughly.”
Reading on, it becomes clear that Shaw, while writing for a serious purpose, is engaging in satire, as in Swift’s modest proposal to solve poverty in Ireland by having rich Englishmen eat Irish babies.
Shaw writes:
–“In India the impulse of Moslems and Hindus is to exterminate one another is complicated by the impulse of the British Empire to exterminate both when they happen to be militant Nationalists.”
–“When the horrors of anarchy force us to set up laws that forbid us to fight and torture one another for sport, we still snatch as every excuse for declaring individuals outside the protection of law and torturing them to our heats content.”
You get the tone that Shaw is using.
He goes on, “The extermination of what the exterminators call inferior races is as old as history. … All this is an old story: what we are confronted with now is a growing perception that if we desire a certain type of civilization and culture we must exterminate the sort of people who do not fit into it.”
He says, “In a really civilized state, flogging would cease because it would be impossible to induce and decent citizen to flog another.” In place of flogging, we might substitute the extreme isolation of prisoners in maximum security prisons.
In his preface, far from advocating genocide, Shaw is arguing against cruelty and for toleration. Some historical individual cases of extermination Shaw uses include Joan of Arc, Galileo and Jesus Christ.
Near the end of the preface, Shaw writes: “The case is that a civilization cannot progress without criticism, and must therefore, to save itself from stagnation and putrefaction, declare impunity for criticism. This means impunity not only for propositions which, however, novel, seem interesting, statesmanlike, and respectable, but for propositions that shock the uncritical as obscene, seditious, blasphemous, heretical, and revolutionary. … The difficulty is to distinguish between the critic and the criminal or lunatic, between liberty of precept and liberty of example. I may be vitally necessary to allow a person to advocate Nudism; but it may not be expedient to allow that person to walk along Piccadilly stark naked. Karl Marx writing the death warrant of private property in the reading room of the British Museum was sacred; but if Karl Marx had sent the rent of his villa in Maitland Park to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and shot the landlord’s agents when they came to distrain on his furniture or execute a writ of ejectment, he could hardly have escaped hanging by pleading his right to criticize. Not until the criticism changes the law can the magistrate allow the critic to give effect to it.”
It is laughable for anyone to try to paint Shaw as a genocidal lunatic based on an out of context quote. And while conservatives will forever demand their right to free speech, Shaw’s argument for tolerance of all points of view in a free market for ideas will surely fall flat with Beck and his followers who would silence those who disagree with them. Who is more evil?
As Shaw said, the difficulty is to distinguish between the legitimate social critic and the lunatic. In this case, I would argue that is isn’t that hard to spot the fraud.
And by the way, if Beck seriously wants to censor Shaw, he should demand television stations stop showing the Academy Award winning film “My Fair Lady” which is a close musical adaptation of Shaw’s play “Pygmalion.”
“Don’t let your children read Shaw. If you see that your children bring home a book by George Bernard Shaw…call the school and have them stop teaching Shaw. He’s an evil, evil man.”
Beck’s minion blurts, “Ya, he’s more than a lovable old Irish writer.”
I personally think “Storm Trooper” Beck would be the happiest person at a book burning and obviously believes in censorship.
On this mornings radio show, Tweedledum Beck was railing against modern “progressives” and linking them together with Karl Marx, the Fabian Society and Shaw, who had been a member in the early 20th Century.
“We are going to tell you things that even the history books don’t tell you” Beck pontificates. “I’m going into the documentary business.” This in reference to his new, and I use the word loosely, documentary he’s releasing in partnership with Fox Network on Marx and the present progressive movement.
Since Mr. Tweedledum says he’s telling things the history books don’t tell us, I will state a few things they do: 1) The Fabian Society was for a minimum wage 1906. 2) Against hereditary peerages 1917 and 3) For the creation of a universal health care system 1911. They fought for slum clearance, a better military and a national educational system because
It is in the class-rooms that the future battles…for commercial prosperity are already being lost.
Beck trying to tie all this with Karl Marx and Communism fails since the “History Books” show that Leon Trotsky, a Bolshevik, revolutionary socialist and former Red Army General wrote:
Fabianism was an attempt to save capitalism from the working class…throughout the whole history of the British Labour movement there has been pressure by the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat through the agency of radicals, intellectuals, drawing-room and church socialists and Owenite who reject the class struggle and advocate the principle of social solidarity, preach collaboration with the bourgeoisie, bridle, enfeeble and politically debase the proletariat.
Maybe Mr. Beck would like children not to read Clement Moore’s, The Night Before Christmas, since it obviously teaches them about getting something for free or even distribution of wealth.
While many discuss the validity of the “DiVinci Codes,” it would seem that Trijicon, the maker of high-powered rifle sights that are provided to the United States military, has given a new meaning to “Bible codes.”
An ABC investigation has found that coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by the Michigan based company.
One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament:
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Other references include citations from the book of Revelations, Matthew and John which all deal with Jesus being the
“Light of the World.”
Trijicon has confirmed that the codes are inscribed on the gun sights but that they have broken no laws.
Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military, disagrees:
“It’s wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws” and he added, “It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they’re being shot by Jesus rifles.”
Spokespeople for the military have stated they were unaware of the biblical markings and are discussing what action to take, if any.
Weinstein further commented that
“This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in the country…it’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.”
To paraphrase Gandhi, what profits a man to kill another for the name they use to call God?
Obviously Trijicon is making much “war profit” off the name they call God.
Update: 22 January 2010, WASHINGTON — A Michigan defense contractor will voluntarily stop stamping references to Bible verses on combat rifle sights made for the U.S. military, a major buyer of the company’s gear.
In a statement released Thursday, Trijicon of Wixom, Mich., says it is also providing to the armed forces free of charge modification kits to remove the Scripture citations from the telescoping sights already in use. Through multimillion dollar contracts, the Marine Corps and Army have bought more than 300,000 Trijicon sights.
As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s Birthday on Monday, and the approaching Black History Month with its many famous and remarkable people who fought for “civil rights” and the equality of “All God’s Children”, I must pause and remember three very remarkable, yet not very famous people, who did a big part in local “civil rights” in Northeast Ohio and influenced me during the turbulent 60’s.
Reverend George Glock and his wife Doris Hand-Glock will never go down in history as “civil rights” leaders, or well known marchers, but they were there, standing side by side with those who sought justice and equality.
From Austintown Methodist Church to Tod Avenue Methodist and then Braceville Methodist Church, Pastor Glock and wife practiced what he preached throughout the Mahoning Valley.
In 1963, Pastor Glock and Doctor Dulaney, from Braceville Baptist Church, joined together as “Brothers” and worked together in unity and fellowship.
Pastor Glock invited Doctor Dulaney to preach from his pulpit at the Braceville Methodist Church along with an invitation to The Baptist Church Choir to perform.
They accepted and what a history making Sunday that was to behold.
Doctor Dulaney in return invited Pastor Glock along with his choir to preach and sing at his Church, which was another history making event.
Neither of these events made the news, wire service or will go down in the history books, but both men and events were just as important in establishing mutual respect and in teaching me the real ideals and truths that shaped the 60’s.
Later, when Doctor Dulaney was killed by a passing car while walking along the side of the road, Doris Hand-Glock was asked to sing at the his funeral, for the bond that was forged in unity of life was still strong, even in death. I can still here my Mother’s voice singing “How Great Thou Art.”
Doctor Dulaney, Dad and Mom, I thank you for all you showed me, taught me and instilled in me.
Thank you for taking a stand when others hid.
Thank you for showing me the truth in the fact that “all it takes for evil to conquer is for good people to do nothing.”
Thank you for being “good people” who did something.
All are gone now. I pray that the labor of their convictions have not gone in vain.
Since when did Glenn Beck become an expert on the “Founding Fathers” and their religious intent for America?
A day doesn’t go by when this “hate monger” of the air waves doesn’t spew forth some sort of misinformation on one issue or the other.
This morning on his radio show, “Tweedledum” Beck was going on about Sarah Palin and her interview of how she sees America straying from the “faith” of the “Founding Fathers.” Of course this is one of Beck’s talking points which he has duped his listeners into believing he has expertise.
Dare To Dream has posted before about Beck’s Mormonism not being one of the “Founding Faith’s” and how it is not closely aligned to Christianity, or the even writers of our constitution but there’s Beck giving out pearls of non fact as tho he knew Madison, Monroe and Jefferson personally.
Several years ago DTD posted about a book I had read and wanted to share with our readers. It’s time to re-post.
Repost:
The one thing about having a “Blog” is the fact you can write about anything that comes to mind. It’s like writing a newspaper editorial but without deadlines plus the added constraints of what will the newspaper advertisers have to say about the topic. “Blogs” are “open air journals” for all to read and decipher.
I was really interested in how many on Fox News approached last weeks National Prayer Day and what President Obama did or didn’t do. Unlike his predecessor, he did not invite evangelicals to the White House for a “really big show” and he played it low-key, and if I might add, as he should have.
Both Jefferson and Madison rejected any sort of “National Prayer” and the fact being it wasn’t until Harry Truman, a Democrat, that the national Prayer Day was established.
Last Summer I read an interesting book, Stephen Waldman’s Founding Faith. It delves into the minds of the writers of the Constitution, especially Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Washington along with Madison, and their thoughts on “separation of church and state.”
To best sum up what Founding Faith reveals is to quote the jacket cover fly page:
“This fast-paced narrative begins with earlier settlers’ stunningly unsuccessful efforts to create a Christian paradise, and concludes with the presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, during which the men who had devised lofty principles on the proper relationship between church and state struggled to practice what they’d preached. We see how religion helped cause, and fuel, the Revolutionary War, and how the surprising alliance between Enlightenment philosophers such as Jefferson and Madison and evangelical Christians resulted in separation of church and state.”
I must admit to a lot of naïvety in the fact that early “America” was so religiously intolerant towards each other and how brutal the punishment was for those who differed from “norm” in each of the colonies run by their individual sects, Pennsylvania Quakers (the most tolerant of “states”), Maryland Catholic, Virginia Anglican, Massachusetts Puritan and so on.
It seems we have reversed the rolls over the last 200 plus years. Early “churchmen” wanted the separation of church and state. They didn’t want politics to influence the church and now we seem to have “churchmen” wanting to have the church influence politics.
Waldman’s book is a good read.
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to lay the terrible carnage in Haiti’s earthquake on president Obama and it didn’t take long.
Yesterday, Rush “Limburger” stunk up the air waves with a quick assessment that the President’s concern and quick action was mainly motivated by his wish to win over “dark skin and light skin” African-Americans.
Also, seemingly to forget his “pastoral” calling, Televangelist Pat Robertson joined in with a comment that “Haiti had made a deal with the devil”, in the 1800’s to rid them of the French, and now they were reaping the product of that “pact.”
As DTD readers know, I keep asking why the “far right” tends to be strongly evangelical but lacks the “compassion” which Jesus instructed all who would follow him to possess?
If the Pastor Robertson, and Limbaugh, don’t even bring their faith into the situation, where is their humanity?
Today would have been my Mom’s 85th Birthday and I keep hearing her voice telling me that “no matter how old you get, you’re always my little boy.” I’m still her “little boy.”
Gosh how brilliant our parents become the older we get.
This Holiday Season has been a most introspective one for me, hence the slow down on postings for December. Turning 64 at the start of the year, as well as having January Mom’s birthday month, has me thinking many deep thoughts but most thought provoking is that January is the month that I lost both my parents.
January for me is a month of celebrating birth but also a month of remembering death and how it takes us all.
Mom had asked me once what I wanted out of life and without much thought I said “not to die ordinary.” Yet as I listened to Garrison Keillor on PBS this weekend he started me thinking about that statement when he commented that we “all become ordinary.”
Maybe ordinary is not bad, for as John Gardner once stated, “Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be exploring and posting on the subject of ordinary, as well as the political comments that Dare To Dream readers expect, for maybe the accomplishing the ordinary is what life’s all about.
As for now, I wish to share a poem I wrote shortly after Mom’s passing.
It’s Alright
As a small boy,
When bad dreams caused me to wake in tears,
Mother’s hands would softly stroke my head,
Her tender voice would calm me,
“It’s alright my son
I’m right beside you.”
Youth brought scraped knees
Plus many growing pains.
Mother tended my wounds,
And soothed my frustrations,
“It’s alright my son
I’m right beside you.”
When adulthood came,
It found me in uniform.
A nation in conflict upon a foreign soil.
Mother’s letters would arrive,
“It’s alright my son
I’m right beside you.”
Careers have come and gone,
I’ve search for myself
In varied identities,
And always my Mother’s prayers,
“It’s alright my son
I’m right beside you.”
Recently, Mother passed away
As gently as she lived.
The other night, as tho in childhood again,
A dream caused me to wake in tears,
And I heard my Savior’s voice,
“It’s alright my son
I’m right beside you.”
In memory of Doris “Pat” Hand-Glock
1-11-25/1-17-94
I’m wondering if I should accept some of the blame for this weeks weather?
The reason I pause to think about such a statement is simple: January 8th 1986 was the blizzard that buried Northeast Ohio on the night of my birthday party and January 8th 1996 found the Northeast buried in a blizzard while Bob and myself were celebrating in New York City.
So here comes my birthday again and with it non stop snow.
Hmmm. Think it would be snowing this much in March or April if my parents had married in June or July instead of early April 1946?
Hate to think what’s going to happen on my 70th Birthday. Maybe I’ll take the advice of the Time Square Hotel clerk that advised us to take my birthday celebration to Jamaica.
Don’t think that would work either, temp today in Montego Bay will be 73 degrees and cloudy. I’ll stay home with the snow.
One of Dare To Dreams most visited posts has been my birthday post of January 2008 when I turned 62. So not to be one to deny a good thing, I’ve revisited the post for this year and did some editing to make it current to my now turning 64.
I must admit that this post is about me.
Of course if you’re my age you know that Liverpool is also the home of the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black, Rick Astley and so many others.
Joking, I use to say that I was one of the original Beatles but I was to tall for the rest of the group so they got someone else. That joke has gone by the wayside and especially since a lot of the younger generation, here in the States, don’t remember or care who the Beatles were.
Growing up I always said that as I got older, I would not be pointing out my numerical number when birthdays rolled around…guess I lied. I can see why senior citizens reinforce their age, it is a mile stone when so many of your family and friends have passed before you and there is a validation to some sort of success and achievement in getting older.
When I was a teenager, I used to snicker at older adults on how they talked to their dogs and cats in conversation, as tho they expected an answer. I don’t snicker anymore and find myself “chatting” away with the puppy, Shadow (Sophie passed two years ago) and the cats, Snowball, Moses, Teatro, like children of the family…which I have grown to understand that they become.
As a youth I loved Winter and I remember in later conversation with my Dad he made a predication. “The older you get, the more you’ll hate Winter and the older you get, you’ll find I was always right.”
Dad was right, I hate Winter, and the older I’ve gotten, boy oh boy, the smarter he has become.
Now I find myself turning 64.
You hear all the comments…”oh, age is just a number”…”your as old as you feel”…etc, but it doesn’t change the fact, things are different.
Different indeed. It takes a little longer to get out of a chair, find where you put your glasses and the up and down trips at night to the bathroom seems like a gym workout.
Having your birthday so close to Christmas as a child was always a downer. The Christmas card on the gifts would say, “Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!”.
“No,” yelling silently in your thoughts, it’s suppose to say “Happy New Year”.
Envious of those who were fortunate enough to have Christmas gifts and Birthday gifts you smile, muddle through by opening the gift and saying your “thank you”.
It’s been fun having my birthday on Elvis Presley’s birthday. I’ve always told people that he and I get together on January 8th at the local Pizza Hut for dinner. Then I usually have to explain the joke about Elvis, the theory he’s not dead and the correlation to Elvis sightings. At that point it no longer becomes a joke and over the years I’ve stopped making the comment.
Of course growing up and being from Liverpool, one has to follow the FA Cup (soccer to us “yanks”), I must admit I am a “Big Red” supporter.
Here’s where I have to give equal time to the Everton Fans, which several of my relatives are followers, for Liverpool has been blessed with two great football teams.
Gerry and the Pacemakers recorded a song in the 60’s that has become synonymous with the Liverpool football team. If you ever get to Liverpool and go to Anfield for a game, you’ll hear over 85 thousand singing the song You’ll Never Walk Alone.
One last statement to make in connection with my birthday, thanks Bob for “walking” with me these last 20 years.
I think it’s fitting to end this post with a poem I wrote for my 50th birthday and a Beatles song.
A Dragon Lives Forever…
Little Jackie Paper,
Where have you gone?
Where is the noble kings and princes?
Who frolics in the Autumn mist
By the sea?
Why silently lays the string and sealing wax
Along the cherry lane?
Who watches for billowed sails?
Who hears the roar of Puff’s magic name?
Painted wings and giant rings have given way
But what toys have taken their place?
Dragons live forever
But not so this little boy.
Just a simple poem I wrote many years ago and thought I’d post as our New Year Greeting to all our friends, family and Dare To Dream Readers.
Happy New Year from our family to yours.
If interested, you can read my entire manuscript of poetry at All Alone in a Crowd.
New Year’s Eve
So it is,
So it has been,
So it will be.
In the middle of a Winter’s night,
We mortals deem to end
A cosmic fragment we call a year.
With a solemn stroke,
A clang of chimes,
A blow of horns,
With shouts, hugs, kisses.
Watch the dawn
And yearn for Spring.
Warren Do Something was a slogan that I threatened to have made into a button and sent out to leaders of the City back in 2004 and 2005. It has been a driving theme for many of the local business people and residents since the late 90’s and every time a new plan or study is proposed.
Dare To Dream has, for the last couple of years, been highly critical of all the former so called “plans” that seem to evolve from City Administration to City Administration.
City Council President Robert Marchese, in a move we highly support, has laid out a 12 point plan of action for the next two year term, that heavily relies on citizen involvement and committees. Finally, a voice in the wildness trying to bring all the previous plans, studies and proposals into one comprehensive direction without spending more City monies.
His plan includes creating citizen ad hoc committees to study a charter form of government, examine the future of Packard Music Hall and focus on youth recreation needs in the city.
Other parts of Marchese’s 12-point plan include:
Development of a One Stop building proposal for the city and a plan for what to do with the remaining parcels. Mayor Michael O’Brien said last week that the city’s Water, Wastewater and Operations departments will be combined into a Public Works Department in March, which is an initial step in the process.
- Revisit the City Park Utilization Plan, which was presented to C Sept. 8, 2004.
- Creation of a standing Council committee to advance the city’s strategic plan. Marchese said this process already has begun and a committee will be named soon.
- Appointment of a subcommittee to serve as a liaison with all of the city’s neighborhood groups. He also said he encourages council to become actively involved with the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative, which is assisting the neighborhood groups with implementation of the strategic plan.
- Creating a subcommittee consisting of Main Street Warren, Packard Music Hall, the Warren Community Amphitheatre and the Mahoning Valley Greenway Bike Trail.
- Creation of a group of representatives from Warren, Howland, the Trumbull County Engineering Department and Ohio Department of Transportation District 11 to assess the appearance of state Route 82 between North Road and Howland Wilson Road.
- Creating a regular meeting process with each of the townships that abut Warren such as Howland, Champion, Southington and Bazetta to discuss joint services and possible Joint Economic Development Districts.
- Strengthening relationships with Warren City Schools on issues vital to students and residents through council’s education subcommittee.
- Expanding the work of the energy subcommittee created by Councilman Dan Crouse, I-at large, during his term, which expires Thursday. He said the subcommittee is especially important as progress is made on the green energy incubator planned for downtown.
I am pleased that the Council President is reviving the “Parks Plan” that was given to Council back in 2004 and which Andy Barkley chaired and I was Vice-Chairmen. This proposal will go a long way in strengthening the neighborhood identity and Warren City in general.
The Recreation Center idea has been floating around for many years. In-fact, present Downtown Business Association President Jim Cicchillo, proposed to then Mayor Hank Angelo in early 2000, that the “old Armory” on High Street, be used for such a venue when the City was discussing tearing it down.
Dare To Dream now feels that the utilizing of the closed Western Reserve High School might just fit the Recreation Center concept. The former high school has a swimming pool; basketball court; tennis courts; theater; nursery for agronomy and a planetarium which makes it an ideal location for a supervised recreational facility.
Western Reserve may even be big enough to house the so-called “One Stop” City Building being contemplated.
As DTD reader know, I have been a big backer of the Warren Entertainment District, which I proposed to Council back in 2001. I feel that this would be a great time to revisit the idea. Since citizen committees are being formed, let them review the idea and bring it back to a manageable size and for the designated concept that was originally proposed, the Historic Downtown Area.
All in all, it’s time for Warren Do Something and I’ll still buy the button.
Back several years ago, Helen Rucker and I had used the idea of a “Business Incubator”, for the City of Warren, as a campaign issue.
Helen was a successful candidate and I, alas, lost but the idea of the incubator has been a small glowing candle that might soon be a raging fire.
Over the years, the Youngstown Business Incubator has created more than 250 well-paying jobs and has become a model for other facilities around the country.
But can the same idea work for downtown Warren?
Encouraged by the success of Youngstown’s software-based business incubator, that’s what officials in Warren are hoping. And the city could soon have a center of its own focusing on new energy technology.
Thanks to more than $2 million from a federal energy bill and another $500,000 from the new state budget, officials will now begin the process of choosing a site and recruiting potential tenants.
Rebecca Bagley of the Cleveland-based Northeast Ohio Regional Technology Council, or NorTech, will act as an adviser to the incubator’s local steering committee.
While lawmakers admit starting new businesses in this tough economy is never an easy task, they claimed those allowed to grow through incubators tend to be more successful.
Organizers hope to have a location for the incubator chosen within the next 10 months and think as many as 70 new high-tech jobs could be created there within its first three years of operation.
As Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus near the same time that Jews and Muslims celebrate important religious holidays, I would like to take the opportunity to wish Dare To Dream readers, and particularly our founder and editor Tristan and his partner, Bob, a joyous holiday celebration! Here’s hoping that the coming year will be one of peace on earth and genuine good will to all. From the snow-covered coast of Virginia, may your holiday celebration be a festive one, indeed!
Rudolph the Red Nose Raindeer or It’s Ok To Be Different
I just love it when people send me trivia in my emails and I think it would make a great post for Dare To Dream. Today I received the following and it really is heartwarming.
A guy named Bob May, depressed and brokenhearted, stared out his drafty apartment window into the chilling December night. His 4-year-old daughter, Barbara, sat on his lap quietly sobbing. Bobs wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer.
Little Barbara couldn’t understand why her mommy could never come home. Barbara looked up into her dads eyes and asked, “Why isn’t Mommy just like everybody else’s Mommy?” Bob’s jaw tightened and his eyes welled with tears. Her question brought waves of grief, but also of anger. It had been the story of Bob’s life. Life always had to be different for Bob. Being small when he was a kid, Bob was often bullied by other boys. He was too little at the time to compete in sports. He was often called names he’d rather not remember.
From childhood, Bob was different and never seemed to fit in. Bob did complete college, married his loving wife and was grateful to get his job as a copywriter at Montgomery Ward during the Great Depression. Then he was blessed with his little girl. But it was all short-lived. Evelyn’s bout with cancer stripped them of all their savings and now Bob and his daughter were forced to live in a two-room apartment in the Chicago slums. Evelyn died just days before Christmas in 1938.
Bob struggled to give hope to his child, for whom he couldn’t even afford to buy a Christmas gift. But if he couldn’t buy a gift, he was determined a make one a storybook! Bob had created an animal character in his own mind and told the animal’s story to little Barbara to give her comfort and hope. Again and again Bob told the story, embellishing it more with each telling. Who was the character? What was the story all about? The story Bob May created was his own autobiography in fable form. The character he created was a misfit outcast like he was. The name of the character? A little reindeer named Rudolph, with a big shiny nose.
Bob finished the book just in time to give it to his little girl on Christmas Day. But the story doesn’t end there. The general manager of Montgomery Ward caught wind of the little storybook and offered Bob May a nominal fee to purchase the rights to print the book.
Wards went on to print Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and distribute it to children visiting Santa Claus in their stores. By 1946 Wards had printed and distributed more than six million copies of Rudolph.
That same year, a major publisher wanted to purchase the rights from Wards to print an updated version of the book. In an unprecedented gesture of kindness, the CEO of Wards returned all rights back to Bob May. The book became a best seller. Many toy and marketing deals followed and Bob May, now remarried with a growing family, became wealthy from the story he created to comfort his grieving daughter.
But the story doesn’t end there either. Bob’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, made a song adaptation to Rudolph. Though the song was turned down by such popular vocalists as Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore , it was recorded by the singing cowboy, Gene Autry.
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was released in 1949 and became a phenomenal success, selling more records than any other Christmas song, with the exception of “White Christmas.” The gift of love that Bob May created for his daughter so long ago kept on returning to bless him again and again.
Bob May learned the lesson, just like his dear friend Rudolph, that being different isn’t so bad. In fact, being different can be a blessing!
Guest Post Katie Giallanza
A Christmas Carol From My Childhood
Just in case you didn’t read the old comic strip POGO POSSUM here is a carol sung by all the animals in the strip, that me and my brothers were so fond of…Guaranteed to make you smile! We had a turtle named Churchy after one of the characters in the strip…Ah fond memories!
Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., an’ Kalamazoo!
Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!
Don’t we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou?
Trolley Molly don’t love Harold,
Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!
Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker ‘n’ too-da-loo!
Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloupe, ‘lope with you!
Hunky Dory’s pop is lolly gaggin’ on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!
Chollie’s collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarm bung-a-loo!
Dunk us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an’ polly voo!
Chilly Filly’s name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly’s jolly chilly view halloo!
Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, woof, woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, goof, goof!
Fractured Christmas carols were a regular feature of Kelly’s holiday strips. Churchy LaFemme once came up with a version of “Good King Wenceslas” that went: “Good King Sauerkraut, look out! On your feets uneven…” No question about it, Kelly was a genius. The lyrics to “Boston Charlie” and many of the strips in which the verses were introduced may be found in Outrageously Pogo (1985), edited by Mrs. Walt Kelly and Bill Crouch, Jr.
Bob’s clock radio is set on WTAM out of Cleveland and at 9am this morning it went off with Glen Beck pontificating about the World Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen.
In his tirade he went off on the “one child proposal” which some have championed as a way to combat Global warming. He blurted out, “Stay out of my wife’s uterus” and added, maybe that didn’t come out right but “they have no right to propose such a thing.”
Ironic that this is coming from a man who supports the Abortion Amendment added to the Health Care Bill.
The hypocrisy is blatant and demeaning.
The Wish
There is a story told ’round fires bright,
Of an ancient birth, which was to set the world right.
But due to man’s inhumanity to man,
Turmoil ruled throughout the land.
So in that Spirit of the birth of old
May we wish you a season and a year of gold,
Blest with love, faith and humanity.
This we pray to God, in all sincerity.
Tristan, Bob and “gang” (Snowball, Moses, Teatro and Shadow)
Read all of Tristan’s poetry at All Alone in a Crowd
Beyond
Rejoice,
Silently Christmas approaches.
That Spirit filled time
When humankind united,
Turns to thoughts of peace and joy.
It comes,
Like the first one,
Without orchestras,
Slogans and jingles,
But humbly,
Softly,
Foretold and awaited.
Join with me,
Pray with me,
That this Advent
Will last beyond the tree and glitter,
Beyond the gift and tinsel,
Beyond the ringing bells,
Beyond the tears,
Till the Lamb rules us
“One and all.”
*View all of Tristan’s poetry at All Alone in a Crowd
