Author: cheriebell69@hotmail.com

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All right already, time for the #MeToo movement to practice forgive & forget

What?  Peter Yarrow, the short bald one in Peter, Paul & Mary, is now tossed into show biz refuse courtesy of the #MeToo movement?  Unknown to me and anyone born in the 1960s and the many decades hence, Yarrow served time for indecency with a teen-ager back in 1969.  He was jailed three months, and ever since has repeatedly apologized and publicly owned up to his transgression and related psychotherapy for decades now, and was even pardoned by President Jimmy Carter.  Still, in the 21st century Yarrow hasn’t paid the ultimate price of obliteration from the annals of American pop music history as well as a life of public good works and international philanthropy.  He wasn’t yet judged and executed by the #MeToo movement.  Yarrow, whose lifetime achievement honor from his New York high school was tarnished in light of the old scandal, was canceled from an upcoming festival when once again his long-forgotten crime came to light in the modern age of ‘a-ha!’

Ironically, this year “Seinfeld” is celebrating thirty years of TV relevancy, the show that in the 1990s dared to ponder if Americans have become a little too sensitive about race and, without saying it, a white person’s unintentional remarks that could be taken as culturally biased and innately racist.  The episode involved Seinfeld questioning an Asian-American mail carrier for the nearest Chinese restaurant and Seinfeld’s silent struggle to avoid the words ‘reservations’ and ‘scalper’ and the disparaging phrase ‘Indian giver’ to a gal who was Native American, a young woman he wanted to impress for a date.

Well, Americans have not come a long way since the age of “Seinfeld,” which may explain our cultural retardation as well as the show’s enduring popularity.  In fact, we as a modern society have regressed … perhaps all the way back to 17th century puritanical America and the days of witch hunts.  How the hell did that happen?

Ya-da ya-da ya-da

The problem that always has been with the #MeToo movement—a movement that also ironically co-exists during the presidency of Donald J. Trump—is the ‘she said, he said’ factor.  There are a few condemned men with more than one female witness to their inappropriate sexual behavior, such as disgraced comedian Louis C.K., chopped down at the top of his game if I recall correctly.  And then the other comedian Aziz Ansari who was downed via internet by a woman’s claim of sexual assault on a date with him years ago.  A lot of disgraced male comedians due to #MeToo; what’s up with that?

America has spent a couple hundred years suppressing women and women issues like cries of rape and injustice that now the tide has turned into a floodgate, and it’s because of the internet and social media like Twitter.  #MeToo started out bravely enough, gained traction after a couple years, to the point that millions of women have claimed on the internet of experiencing with men inappropriate behavior, sexual forcefulness, date rape and stranger rape.  The difference this time is they name names, and everybody believes them.  Considering the way things used to be against women, that’s progress in this country.

No one remembers the ’60s

So the story on Yarrow is in 1969, he was at the height of fame with Peter, Paul & Mary, playing folk music gigs throughout the land, even across the sea.  He was a staple at all the anti-war protests, happenings, and peace-ins.  If he had the hair, he would’ve supported hair peace with John and Yoko.  And all those artists, actors, musicians, beatniks and clingers-on who surrounded him indulged in recreational drugs, one of which is now legal in a few states.  Like any famous guy, he had groupies.  They all do.

A couple of teen-age sisters, the younger age 14, pursued him for an autograph. When they knocked on his hotel door, Yarrow answered in the buff.  The gals didn’t run away.  Leave it to the imagination what happened inside the room.  Not that there’s any excuse, but the feminine look back then was ‘young girl’: long hair, no makeup, short dress, thin like Twiggy.  In fact, “Young Girl” was a hit song.  But a minor cannot consent to a grown man’s desires.  A sex crime occurred, and Yarrow was summarily prosecuted and sentenced.

Men who take advantage of a girl or woman already have committed a crime.  The police and the courts handle each and every one.  But now that #MeToo is running full steam over anyone, no questions asked, it’s become un-American.  It’s old fashioned, gossip, rumor, scandal, salacious, Peyton Place.  We don’t and can’t ever know what the truth is. Worse yet, #MeToo allows for the old adage that the female accuser may bring down a man because he became rich and famous, leaving her the scorned woman.  That can’t possibly be the intention of #MeToo, was it?  Is it?

And for the men who’ve actually paid the price for sexual misconduct, misdemeanor or felony, who were judged guilty in court, have spent their lives not hiding their past but becoming better people—what of them in the age of #MeToo?  Yarrow perhaps is the best of what can come out of public shame.  #MeToo doesn’t give any credence to forgive and forget.  But they’ll come around.  They have to.  Dwelling in the past has its own dire consequences personal and individual but not societal.  We learned long ago it’s best everyone move on.  Like they sang in the ’60s: Take a sad song, and make it better.

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When world leaders are the fattest men in the room, no good can come of it

Beware a leader fatter than his people.

The more I see President Donald Trump with Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, the more I think about Mahatma Gandhi.  That’s right, Gandhi: sweet little man, docile, educated, wise, pleasant, swaddled—whose people called him Mahatma, meaning Great Soul—the man from India whose political tactics calling for nonviolent resistance to British authority and rule would impress Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’ve been so used to seeing U.S. presidents who at least appear physically fit: Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon and Johnson.  Some had their health battles of sorts, mostly age related, but they all enjoyed active lifestyles … and it showed.  Each was a man to behold, carried a presence and power in the room even among other world leaders.  This is because they had their act together.  Because they were world leaders, they could have eaten whatever they wanted.  Obviously, they exercised self control, including President Bill Clinton eventually.

Now our American president is as bloated, obese and sluggish as millions of us Americans.  And though we are enjoying a prosperity that keeps us eating high on the hog, the North Korean masses are not so lucky.  My understanding is many are starving to death.  And I understand U.S. sanctions against North Korea to halt nuclear pursuits have something to do with it.  Some high authority wants us to believe that line of bull.  But all you have to do is look at their leader.  Short people can’t carry extra weight like the tall, and they cannot hide their obesity.

For more than a generation, America has had an obesity epidemic and all the related health consequences that go with it such as diabetes, heart disease, chronic foot and skeletal pain, and doctors say several types of cancer.  Our leader indeed reflects the absolute fattest period in American history.  What President Trump, Kim and all the tens of millions of obese Americans have in common is: GLUTTONY.  It is an ancient sin, a spiritual affliction, an emotional illness, and if nothing else the epitome of selfishness.  Gandhi, by the way, was known for the spiritual practice of fasting, something out of the Bible when one wants to grow closer to God.

Namaste Gandhi

Gandhi walked among his people, not unlike Christ.  Despite his British education and good fortune, he decided to resemble his people in dress and culture because he truly cared about the masses oppressed by British rule.  Sometimes he spoke of his childhood.  The Brits were called Beefeaters, and Indian children assumed their impressive muscle and strength was linked to the consumption of meat.  So when Gandhi was about 12 years old, he decided to spend one year eating meat, not informing his parents who taught him vegetarianism is a more spiritually sound practice.  Vegetarians believe eating meat clouds the mind and body and makes one aggressive.  Each day he checked his puny muscles, but there was no change.  After the year of beef eating, he was struck by guilt of not being honest with his parents.  He confessed, and they saw fit to not punish him.  He learned a lesson, he said: to be yourself not someone else.

Hmm.    

Another lesson young Gandhi learned was dealing with his extreme fear of the dark.  He just wanted to see something in the dark, a ray of candlelight or moon or stars, some reassurance that all is well.  But sometimes the night sky was moonless and clouded especially during the rainy season.  Gandhi was so afraid of sleeping in total darkness, though that is what he saw when he closed his eyes, what everyone sees when we close our eyes.  Anything could happen.  In his mind there was much to fear: cobras, spiders, beasts.  Then one night a servant asked him, “Why do you fear the dark?  Don’t you know God is with you?”  It was a revelation that changed his life.  God would always be with him, looking out for him, caring for him, loving him eternally.  You see, Gandhi was first a spiritual being, and he knew everyone else to be the same.

OM.

That brings us to another truth in discovering the compulsion of Americans and fat leaders who overeat: FEAR.  What do people who live in the most prosperous nation on earth have to fear?  Instead of a leader who reassures us we have nothing to fear but fear itself, that maintaining constant fright leaves us paralyzed and unable to move forward, we voted in a leader who does nothing but stir fear every minute of every day of every month of every year he’s in charge of the Free World.  President Trump’s leadership has not made us free, just more frightened, fatter, self-loathing, cynical, lonely, and for some unable to believe long-held religious teachings and spiritual enlightenment centering on brotherly love. 

What must President Trump fear?  Or Kim?  One could fear he’ll be found out.  And isn’t it funny?  So could the other.  Phony undeserved leadership based on a mountain of lies, manipulation, smoke and mirrors, deceit, and in one nation brutality, enslavement and murder.  North Koreans are taught from birth to idolize their dear leader like he’s God.  With the internet, however, we can see the day when North Koreans will learn their leader is not God but a man who suppressed them while he lived a life of opulence, comfort and glorious food—the latter any human realizes already.

At least Americans can pursue the truth.  We know better than to idolize our president who will be gone in four to eight years regardless.  Our fear is actually self-induced.  As a nation we are holding onto fear for some deep psychological reason, some unspoken infantile need, stuffing our feelings instead of speaking our mind. It is no way to live in the land of the free and home of the brave.

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High school newspapers and journalism class: More relevant now than ever

Of the many bills presented in state legislatures—from strict abortion bans to a teacher pay raise and mandated pre-school—the one that caught my attention came from neighboring Arkansas.  Earlier this year a legislator, who also happens to have been a former TV broadcast journalist and with her husband publishes a community newspaper, presented a bill to reinstate journalism as a mandatory elective in all the state’s public high schools.  After hearing staunch support from a prominent university journalism professor and articulate journalism students who maintained the scholarly and societal benefits of the course, the Arkansas Legislature summarily killed House Bill 1015, sponsored by Julie Mayberry, R-Hensley.  What a brave notion, though, given our politically divisive mass media convoluted by the internet.

To think that in 21st century America an entire state blocked high school students from studying journalism seems … so 1984.  When we have a president who calls real news fake and fake news real, it is necessary for high school students to study journalism.  Not that any of them would actually become journalists.  Only a few will have what it takes: concern for mankind, inquisitiveness, above-average intelligence, determination, audacity, innate organization and solid communication skills verbal and written.  Oh yeah, they’ll need to be good creative writers yet with integrity to stick to the facts and present all sides.  So the final mark of a good journalist is to recognize what’s fair and just and to spot what’s unfair and unjust.

‘Reporting’ for duty

My appreciation for journalism came from doing the job on school newspaper staffs.  In junior high an anonymous teacher placed me on the staff.  Looking back I can see why a teacher thought I’d be good at that after-school activity.  I did well in English class, won a couple of writing awards, and was sociable and unafraid to chat with teachers and principals.  I was an independent worker and respected deadlines.  But what really made me stand out as a potential student newspaper reporter, I believe a bit ruefully, was my childhood notoriety as insatiably nosy with a big mouth.  Adolescence did a lot to suppress that phase.  In time through learning journalism, I became cautious with my words especially in print and tried not to exaggerate or use flowery adjectives or flat out lie.  It would take one tough high school newspaper sponsor, but I learned to rein myself in to become a better reporter.  Teen-age girl that I was, I still enjoyed creative writing, poetry and songs.  But there was no place for that in the school newspaper.  However, I managed to put all my writing talents together for features, columns and music reviews.

High school newspaper staffs are an eclectic bunch: the highly intellectual, self-assured photographers, the bookish, a couple of popular kids, the wannabe advertising execs, and of course the brooding nonconformist rebels.  The latter fit in perfectly with the newspaper staff.  I was somewhere in between, one of the very few who paid attention to cub reporter training: Every story must have the 6Ws and the 1H, and news articles cannot be made up.

We had to wait till tenth grade to take journalism and then by the end of the year may be invited to join the newspaper staff.  The course taught the history of American journalism—from the colonies starring Ben Franklin to New York columnist Horace Greeley who summoned city reporters to “Go West,” from Ida Tarbell’s tenacity to stick it to rich oilman John Rockefeller to yellow journalism and sensationalism, from the Associated Press’ journalism standards and ethics to the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.  We learned about the contributions from the mass media including radio, TV, film, journals, magazines and tabloids.  No cable news or internet yet.

The next year the newspaper sponsor placed me on the news section of the newspaper staff.  All the seasoned reporters wanted to write features, columns and critiques.  I wanted features, too, but figured I had another year to apply.  Delegating me to news writing was the best thing that could have happened to me in many ways.  I had to get out of my own experience to report the facts. I could not slant stories.  News had to be honest, as best a high school kid could know, find or determine.

My first sponsor let us run the school paper.  Next year’s sponsor was completely hands on and did not tolerate errors.  Staff photographers were creative and good at their craft.  Our editors were shoo-ins for top ten universities.  In fact several on the newspaper staff were all-around exceptional students, delivered sardonic wit that kept me in giggling stitches, too smart for their own good, and ended up in the Top Ten graduates at a very large competitive school.  That is a notable fact that continues among high school journalists.  Journalism produces serious lifelong learners who know about and explore a variety of subjects.

In college I chose not to major in journalism but ended up writing freelance for the town paper and then as a part-time job for the university news service.  After graduation I ended up working in the news business, covering mostly government news; writing a lot of enterprise pieces, weekly columns, features, news-features and feature series, performing arts critiques, CD and concert reviews; and shot many photos that accompanied my stories.  I survived the demise of a big-city paper and along the way was honored every few years as an outstanding reporter.  I took the job of journalist seriously, wanted to do meaningful work and write engaging stories sometimes from the heart but mostly from the head as my old journalism teacher would have liked it. 

Journalism seeks truth

Reporters have taken a beating for generations, way before our current president who blasts The New York Times and CNN, both as good as journalism gets.  Yes, there have been a couple of sorry jerks masquerading as ‘reporters’ but writing pure fiction.  The New York Times in the early 2000s and The Washington Post in the late 1970s have black marks for those hires.  But the vast majority of writers who call themselves journalists maintain an integrity few other professionals match.  That is the truth.

With the internet, instant news, bloggers pretending to be real-deal reporters and self-styled journalists who play fast and loose with the facts, a young mind needs to learn how to substantiate what’s real news from the heaping mounds of internet pop culture trash, propaganda and misinformation along with dangerous disinformation intended to destroy democracy, free speech and free press.  The far right made fun of the mainstream media, calling it the ‘lamestream’ media years before Trump was elected—one of the loudest and most popular among them who used the sarcastic characterization in daily speeches earned her degree in journalism.  How ironic.

You gotta pity the high school kids in Arkansas and any other state public education system where journalism is removed from the curriculum, the extracurricular curriculum.  Maybe there is still hope for the highly curious, intelligent and easily bored high school youth, the ones who question everything they hear and read, the ones who just want to know the truth historical and in the here and now.  Independent intelligent young people need no one to guide them into doing their own research, verifying facts and sources, then coming to their own conclusions—not their own truth but the facts.  Even without a high school newspaper and the opportunity to write news and commentary, they could become good reporters.  A great journalist once told me, “Everyone should be an investigative reporter.”  Ain’t it the truth, now more than ever?

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No Show: White House concerts & the legacy of great performing artists

The White House most evenings is dark, full of shadows and dim light, eerily silent.  The White House gig, once the highest honor for many American and world performers alike, is no more, the grand ballroom no longer the quintessential American venue celebrating performing arts and artists … and that certain something that makes them great, immortal and beloved.  During Presidents’ past, White House concerts were major celebrity events, sparkling with performances spanning every genre of musical taste.  President Carter and Presidents Bushes were keen on progressive country artists while President Obama was first to include an evening of rap featuring then-controversial Common.  But Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton opened the White House every few weeks to a variety of performers in fondly remembered concerts.  For decades the tradition of special musical evenings was magical in that they brought together politicians and performers, Republicans and Democrats, for a night of delight.  That’s the way it used to be in America.  Everyone tried to get along.  All agreed music charmed and soothed.

What happened?  Who killed the White House concerts?  PBS used to air
“In Performance at the White House” since 1978, the last show in 2016.  The only one to blame is the current President, a longtime associate of show business but lacking that certain something that springs forth from great entertainers into the living rooms of Americans watching television.

Musicians and show biz folk are for the most part liberal.  They are free-spirited, freedom-loving idealists who are not afraid to speak their minds while artistically musing on the good and bad in life.  Their songs, music, art, novels, movies and shows reflect real life.  And the one thing talented American artists cannot stand is not so much controversy but blatant lies and lying.  Artists are about truth.  Great art, from writers to performers to painters, is about what’s really going on in the world in which we live today.  Truth and lies don’t mix. Lies can’t enter the artistic realm. Honesty is the key. 

Music of the spheres

Artists … musicians … actors … writers … whether great or unknown reside in another dimension.  Talented artistic people are more often than not great at their craft for one reason: empathy.  They are not simply sympathetic toward others in crisis.  Anyone can be sympathetic.  Those with an artistic soul have the ability to place themselves, their wonderful imaginative minds and loving hearts, into the lives and circumstances of other people.  Artistic souls should be revered by society.  But society, not fully comprehending (though usually envying) the cool artistic types, only laud a few, the very few, who capture collective attention through sheer luck and happenstance.  In other words, fame, which is not the ultimate goal of an artist, is usually gained by ‘who one knows’ and ‘being at the right place at the right time.’

A commercially and therefore financially successful artist is not necessarily a great one or even enduring.  There are far more flashes in the pan, born with great talent and drive enough to get famous but maybe get bored and return to private life.  We all know that only a tiny percent of the great ones will endure and even fewer of those achieve immortality to be called an icon.  Yet they all used to perform at the White House: from Willie Nelson to Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand to Aretha Franklin, Pablo Casals to Count Basie.

And isn’t a great leader like a great artist?  They understand each other.  They both empathize with their fellow man and were born with an innate love for humanity.  They know humility, failure, heart ache and depression.  Yet they both are not averse to evolving, growing emotionally and intellectually, changing their views and moving forward.  They’re comfortable with the unknown in life.  They don’t and can’t see life in black and white but only the many shades of gray.  A great leader and a great artist are in sync.  They lead by the power of their words and the integrity of their intentions.         

Perhaps it is best the White House remains quiet as our nation contemplates how and why we’ve become tone deaf—unwilling to stand, let alone consider, another point of view; unable to listen to the same music, enjoy one hour of pleasantness seated among political opponents, allowing our hearts to soften and our humanity to be inspired by awesome God-given talent, to be temporarily swept away by the sound of music.  The White House may be silent for now. But the music of past concerts for the Presidents of the United States—the highest honor of a performer’s life—can be heard by those unafraid to travel to another realm and listen from the heart.

http://museummusic.com/musicofthekennedywhitehouse.aspx

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African folktale accepts the nature of a politician

A Kwanzaa folktale explains our present political attitude.  The tale based in African folklore is about a very charismatic man who has a way about him.  When he is around, everyone seems to forget their troubles.  He gives off a pleasing vibe.  He is the local politician.  He speaks in such a caring and loving manner.  His eyes are warm, his smile sincere.  He is indeed sincere.  His heart is in the right place, and everyone knows it.  He means well and often does good for everyone.

But like every man, every human, he is flawed.  He does things sometimes that make everyone so mad, they swear they’ll never believe a word he says again or vote for him.  And when he realizes he’s been found out, caught with his hand in the cookie jar so to speak, he cries real tears and feels so ashamed of himself.  He can’t blame anyone for never trusting him again.  He sniffs and walks away with head hung low.  He knows he’s done wrong and nobody wants him around anymore.  He banishes himself.

Months later he returns to the people, and if you can believe it, they’ve forgotten all about why they were mad at him in the first place.  Collectively they feel they were a little too hard on him because seeing him after all this time makes them feel … so very happy.  And because they’ve forgotten the rotten thing and things he’s done—in the past—they’ve forgiven him, too.  The politician smiles beautifully, laughs with the children, politely touches the hands of ladies, hugs the men and talks to everyone with love and care.  He does love everybody.  He just does wrong sometimes.  And that is the moral of the story: Politicians lie and do wrong sometimes.  But if they are good politicians, they also make life better, as their focus in life is the greater good.  That’s the way it is with politicians.  People must accept this character trait and flaw about them.  Don’t put so much faith in anyone especially a politician!  Understand their nature.

The old tale from Africa has much to tell us about American politics and why most Americans do not give a flying rat’s behind if President Donald Trump lies and hides past shady financial dealings.  And the majority of Americans do not care to impeach him, no matter what the Muller report revealed and concluded.  When it comes to President Trump, most Americans just don’t care enough to kick him out of office.  They are perfectly content to wait a couple more years to vote him out if they are so inclined at that particular point in time.  We’ve grown accustomed to waiting out all sorts of corrupt politicians for decades.  This cynicism is why most Americans don’t vote at all.

Mom, apple pie, baseball & apathy

Many modern-day voters remember the long, although titillating, President Bill Clinton impeachment hearings, and a declining number of us still can recall even further back in American history to Watergate and the subsequent resignation of President Richard Nixon.  Both acts of Congress took a couple of years—time we’ll never get back in our American lives.  And during these episodes, government was at a standstill. Nothing else was getting done, like fixing centuries-old infrastructure or coming up with innovative ways to best care for our environment and the lives of future Americans.  Priorities got smeared in political excrement.

Given all our nation’s been through with one presidential scandal after another, most Americans simply have lost their moral outrage over anything the current President has done, continues to do, and most certainly will do.  No skin off the nose, long as folks got jobs and live the good ol’ middle-class life.  Folks don’t really wanna be rich no how.  They don’t wanna be poor neither.

This latest game of Congressional chicken is up to the Democrats now.  They can proceed with yet another drawn-out, heated, politically ruinous impeachment process, a yawn-a-thon captured on live TV every day for a couple of years.  Or we can take a lesson from the ancient and wise African folktale about the true nature of a politician.  We need to ask ourselves exactly what is it we expect or want from this type of person.  Perfection?  Why, haven’t we learned by now nobody’s perfect?  That’s even the Republicans’ motto for President Trump: An imperfect man but perfect for the job.  See?  See how half the country thinks? Do we expect our politicians to lead a moral life?  Don’t make me laugh.  There’s no such thing once a person becomes elected.

Politicians are larger-than-life beings not unlike the ancient Greek and Roman gods or 20th century movie stars.  They are their own grand creation and illusion.  We the little people best wise up and accept the dark side of human nature that is celebrated and given a pass for politicians.  It’s how the powerful arise and lead and through misdeeds, misdemeanors and felonies, somehow get things done that improve life for some or many.  It’s called democracy, and it’s a mess.  What’s the alternative?

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Ancestry.com must continue TV ads about the lives & times of real American families

The dramatic scene is undoubtedly from American history circa 1850.  A young white gentleman, dressed in suit and high collar tied by a large scarf, tells a beautiful young African-American woman, wearing a cotton plantation dress, of his plan for them to run away together.  He begs her to go with him north where they can live together happily in peace and freedom.  The young woman looks kindly and deeply into his eyes yet says nothing.  She is moved by his compassion, his care for her, his love.  Their future is unknown, but the man is anxious to leave immediately, for it’s now or never.  This is their only opportunity.  Does the young couple leave or stay?  Will they be victorious or doomed?  Viewers are not let in on the tale’s ending but are encouraged to seek Ancestry.com to uncover similar hidden family stories, couplings that culminate through the decades and centuries to the people living today.

The seconds-long TV ad depicted a beautiful moment of truth between an American man and woman, a golden opportunity for them to escape a harsh reality in history when two people of different social ranks—and races—ought not be together during their lifetime.  Watching the brief scene, I didn’t see anything upsetting or racist or evil.  I saw a certain historic truth in the history of some American families.  I was captivated by the bravery and compassion and presumed romantic love of a young man.

But this television commercial raised the ire of so many politically-correct Americans that it was pulled from the airwaves, never to be seen again.  Why?  According to Ancestry.com, the ad upset and angered too many Americans.  Detractors had a lot of questions about the couple.  They wanted to know if the woman were the man’s slave, if he were taking her not of her free will but for sinister motives, and then there’s the undertone of a romantic coupling of two races way back when.

Come on, Americans!  This is the 21st century.  We just lived to see a U.S. president who was racially black and white.  Nowadays it is common to watch commercials featuring couples of various ethnicities, races and sexualities.  Modern America is not shocking.  But the past, even a couple centuries ago, still stings.  When digging into American family roots, we cannot judge our ancestors.  We ought to expect interesting and intriguing revelations that open our minds to the good, the bad and the ugly—for our entwined past is indeed a Western.

What was then was then

Investigating our deeply twisted American roots is bound to present mind-blowing truths and painful revelations.  But it’s not like 20th century Americans haven’t watched soap operas or are naive to a Southern Gothic tale where the unspeakable comes to light.  In fact, our collective TV and movie watching over the past century is probably the number one reason our society became more tolerant, present-day political polarization aside.  We think nothing of watching a show about two gay guys, a talk show hosted by a lesbian or a black woman, or a kiss between two people of different races.  In the early days of TV, all of those shows would have been banned in the South and some nationwide by a host of network sponsors, the good folks who brought us gelatin dessert, cigarettes and dish washing powder.

Americans can deal with fiction, like watching the epic Gone with the Wind or the North and South TV miniseries.  But viewing a clip of real history from one’s family in 19th century America—the way we all know it was—and the reality of a mixed marriage or the slave era smacks too close to home and heart.  That’s because given the point in time of human history, the era was not that long ago.  To this day wounds remain buried in the American soul.  The pain for some is felt in the mind, emotions and the genes.  In his PBS series Finding Your Roots, historian and ancestral researcher Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. pointed out that practically all descendants of African-American slaves have European DNA.  How could it be?  The truth should set us free.  Yet the reality of history has the power to hurt and anger descendants far removed in time but able to feel the anguish or shame of their ancestors.

Let Ancestry.com air the poignant nonfiction account of a scene in American history some two hundred years ago.  Let the database company preserving historical records create a series of ads spotlighting our American past, featuring the many prejudices and injustices found in substantiated accounts: a young woman hung for witchcraft, an African-American child taken away from her family, a Native American forced to walk the Trail of Tears, a filthy child working in a factory, a poor immigrant confused by the rude cacophony of a city street, a man refusing to tell the government his political affiliation or beliefs, a young man arrested on Gay Street …  You will discover—beneath some of America’s ugliest moments; the misjudgments of our ancestors; the racial, ethnic and sexual suppression; the outright sins of our fathers—lives intersecting in times of turmoil, and that despite their pain and their sorrow, their only hope was a better place and time for Americans living in the future. 

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What is it about Trump that reminds us of Reagan?

I remember Ronald Reagan’s presidency.  I remember turning 18 in time to vote in my first presidential election and not expecting him to win.  That’s because I loved President Jimmy Carter, thought he could do no wrong.  It was then I realized I was politically and socially unaware—shucks, young and naïve.  So I grew up, graduated high school, headed off to college where for the next eight years I watched the news every morning and night.

I could not believe how Americans adored President Reagan.  His shoe-black hair should have been the first sign something was amiss.  At the time, Reagan was the oldest man to be elected U.S. president.  He grew older with each passing year, yet always appearing rugged, robust, affable, dapper, distinguished with never a gray hair.

So when Donald Trump became the oldest person to be elected U.S. President (age wise Hillary Clinton would have shared the same distinction), I knew I had to watch him like a hawk—because I loved President Barack Obama like I loved Carter.  They were and still are endearing to the hearts of, I’d say, half the nation … let’s face it, most of the world.  Besides, we Democrats understand each other.  I never pondered their motives and actions.  They spoke with eloquence, humor, precision and most of all maintained a calm cool leadership sorely missed in this day and time.  They also spoke to the American people only when necessary.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

According to healthline.com, dementia affects “memory, thinking, language, judgment and behavior.”  A person only has to have two of these brain impairments to be diagnosed.  The online health resource goes on to state “Dementia is not a disease,” can be caused by assorted issues including illness and injury, and can be treatable and even reversed.

Dementia signs include:

Inability to cope with change

Short-term memory loss

Struggling to find the right word in conversation

Repeating tasks and stories

Confused sense of direction

Incapable of following a storyline on TV or when listening to others

Moodiness

Apathy and losing interest in lifelong hobbies and activities

Confusing people and places

Inability to complete daily routines.

As dementia progresses, other signs include personality changes, forgetfulness, inability to solve problems or express ideas and emotions.  The condition escalates into poor judgment, frustration and memory loss of one’s past.  In final decline, the person is unable to maintain body functions and to communicate.

The more we know

Now that we know dementia actually can begin at age 65, and not 80 even though half of people that age and older have dementia, I think it’s time Americans put an age limit on who can run for U.S. President.  Sorry.  I know.  The older I get, the more I think hey, I’m still vital and have a lot of living to do.  But … we all know there is something about the U.S. Presidency that ages the men elected.  Compare head shots when first elected to when leaving Office: Carter, Bush I, Bush II, Clinton, everyone except Reagan, the Hollywood actor who perhaps knew some trade secrets to look younger or not old.

But seriously, the modern nuclear-weapons’ U.S. President IS the Leader of the World.  Sorry Putin, but it’s the truth. Sorry Uncle Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.  I think the new rule should be no one can run as U.S. President unless between the ages of 35 and 65.  I will compromise with allowing the senior citizens among us to run for the Office at age 65 but not 66.  We just cannot take the chance, knowing what we are just beginning to learn about neuroscience.

The latest brain science suggests we ought to keep ours active by reading, learning a new language, playing board games and cards, working puzzles, developing new hobbies, exercise and physical activity.  Dick Van Dyke was asked to write a book about the secret to his longevity.  He said it would be a short book with two words: Keep moving.

Does any of this sound like President Trump?  Don’t all the other signs of dementia fit him like a glove?  Like they fit Reagan when we had to just grin and bear it?  Shortly after President Reagan left office for the last time, we were finally informed of his fateful diagnosis: Alzheimer’s disease, the long goodbye.  By the time he was in his last years of a very long, incredible, monumental life, he had no idea he once was U.S. President.

I remember the Reagan presidency, everything he did and did not do, his repeated Hollywood stories and corny jokes, always asking Congress to win just one more for the Gipper, his blind eye to the AIDS epidemic, diminished speech capacity and loss of verbal eloquence, his protective wife sitting beside him in TV interviews and often finishing his sentences, the complete forgetfulness like when testifying in the Iran Contra trial.  In court he repeated many times “I just don’t remember” to questions that should have rung a bell in importance, once-in-a-lifetime episodes and final decisions he made, unique and deadly serious.  Reagan forgot all about it.  That’s because he did not remember.

Well—as he typically began a comment—we believed him, never knowing the stark reality.  His wife, family, advisors and friends knew.  But no one was going to tell the American people.

We now have a U.S. President who speaks off script at political rallies, saying the same things over and over and over again.  He makes fun of people crudely if not cruelly.  He cusses with wild abandon.  And he forgets his words and family history: oranges for origins, his father’s birthplace.

When an elderly person is showing signs of dementia along with the inability to live alone, families grapple with the decision to take over affairs and turn into the parent of their aged parent.  In doing so, the law provides a competency hearing with a judge.  The elderly is asked simple questions: what is the day of the week, what’s your age, who is president of the United States, what was the name of your spouse, where were you born?  It’s about two dozen set questions that someone with dementia cannot fake knowing or even prepare for.  The judge is interested in finding if the elderly is living in the past, which is common among senior citizens who may forget what they did yesterday but remember in great detail something that happened in the 1940s or ’50s when they were young.  The judge also wants to determine if the elderly person is living in a fantasy world, thinking he’s Napoleon, George Washington or a movie star.

There’s nothing funny about dementia and Alzheimer’s.  It’s frightening to the individual as well as the family.  The loss of mental faculty is harder to deal with than loss of body function, the ability to get out of bed and dress and take care of yourself.  In the beginning, it must be like a prison.  Then thinking evolves into distrust and paranoia, child-like abandon, inappropriate behavior resulting in public nudity and thoughtless speech.

None of us know our current President’s state of mind.  But the signs every day are evident and troubling.  Americans deserve a leader who is (and wants to be) healthy physically, mentally and emotionally.  We deserve a leader who wants to learn and do the job well.  An age limitation for U.S. President may never come to pass.  But given our nation’s precarious situation today in world affairs and the merging of new and astounding revelations about the once mysterious human brain, I could see a future generation who would change the constitutional age limit for president to restrict the elderly past a certain age. It’s just life and aging, not blatant discrimination. When it comes to the President of the U.S., Americans cannot take any chances, not anymore.

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Time to put to bed the 24-hour news cycle

Newsrooms are a great place to work for inquisitive and talkative types like me.  Whether large cities or small towns, a newsroom can be quiet with writers thinking and typing, or the newsroom can bustle with wide screen TV during major crises like a mass shooting or 9/11 or the final outcome of a trial such as the OJ verdict or Supreme Court ruling in Bush v Gore.  But mostly the spacious newsroom is without cubicles, and that is the way reporters like it so they/we can talk to each other.  And no subject was too offensive as we relished open and free conversation: gossip, social trends, politics, medical advancements, music, TV, movies, history, religion, philosophy, family life and yes sex (the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal provided a couple years of laughs and disdain).  We thrived in a work community allowing the sharing of thoughts and ideas.  What we were really doing subconsciously through discussion and banter was sorting out how we would write or frame our assigned articles whether or not related to the topic of discussion.  In the end, a news article turned out clean and objective despite the jokes or pathos.

By day’s end, if we didn’t have to cover a night meeting, event or interview, we’d go home to our personal lives.  That was how I made a living and spent the 1990s through the turn of the century.  I was such a news junkie that I faithfully watched and listened to TV news every morning and evening, read national and state publications, and watched weekly news programs like Frontline and the Sunday morning staples while never missing 60 Minutes.  I did this not only to know what’s going on in the world but to figure out if there was an angle I could investigate for a story at the local level.  Every once in a while there was.

Enter cable news, the internet, online talk radio, social media, and the advent of the 24-hour news cycle.  We each have our favorites (Fox News; CNN; MSNBC; Headline News; and the TV networks CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS).  Maybe some of us watch one in the morning and another at night.  But the non-journalist lay person may feel inundated with news, news, news spread out on cable TV.  Perhaps by now they’ve discovered it’s the same old news regurgitated every 30 minutes … unless some element changes, gripping our attention once more like an old vaudeville trick to keep you in your seat.

Now more than ever the public is well aware of the slow news day.  We newsies never wanted everyone to know about that situation: how sometimes we had to pull out a story, make a mountain out of a mole hill, when there wasn’t much story there.  We had deadlines and a copy quota.  Some newspapers instigated daily stories like two or four or six per reporter.  Gadzooks.  I never worked for a paper like that.

Unlike a community newspaper or local radio/TV broadcast, the internet has provided myriad options for news both local and world.  And who’s been winning the audience is the ‘citizen reporter’ and blogger.  Readers like interesting writing.  They like a bit of fiction weaved into their nonfiction.  Keeps the brain roasting, like a soap opera.  This may have something to do with Fox News winning the lion’s share of viewers when it comes to political coverage, far ahead of the other TV networks, cable shows and major papers.  Turns out, folks like the Fox premise of mixing news and views.

Journalism is supposed to be truth and nothing but.  No slanting the story, no exaggerating the facts, no putting words in the mouth of the quoted, and no political or social spin.  There are opinion writers and editorial staff who tend to that aspect of journalism’s mission and occasional duty to fully inform the public by exploring issues that can be controversial and of course political.

The blogger and citizen reporter are freestyle, even innovative.  Journalists were known to be objective and honest and in that regard maybe staid and stale, old and boring.  Maybe the public never believed reporters told the truth based on at least three reliable sources and balanced writing and quotes to ensure all sides were equally presented.  Reporters could joke and laugh about serious situations in the confines of the newsroom, but when we wrote for publication, it was clean of leaning one way or another politically, socially or culturally.  We understood the difference between news, feature, column and editorial.  Today not only is the line blurred, many news consumers want it that way.  The public wants to be entertained while being informed, the gist more than the research, facts embellished by humorous quips more than concern with accuracy.  Funny how the newsroom journalists with their sharp humor were overly cautious when writing and editing news articles, unless the subject matter required the writing to be ‘on.’  Those were fun stories but few and far between the usual serious news.

Wake up and smell the coffee

From morning TV news shows like Fox & Friends, Morning Joe and Headline News to mid-morning, late-morning, noon, early-afternoon, mid-afternoon, evening to mid- and late-evening follow ups, news shows with plenty of opinions are a cultural constant—a soundscape to our nation’s collective political knowledge and understanding.  Names of TV journalists are well known: Chris, Erin, Anderson, Wolf, Jake, Neil, Shepard, Bret, Martha, Ali, Dana, Shannon, Brian, Tucker, Jorge,  Lawrence, Rachel, Cuomo, The Five, Don, Hannity, Laura, etc. The 24-hour news cycle seems to have been created by news people who wanted star status.  More than anything else, they wanted their own show, like Oprah.  Televised journalists are camera-ready, relatively attractive, articulate and in the know, I’ll grant them that.  But the result of ‘everyone having their own show’ has left millions of viewers emotionally exhausted, real feelings over just hearing the news. To fill a 24/7 ideal, news is repeated, pounded, hounded to death … every day, week and month.

All this news from the mass media, especially the internet and social media like Twitter and Facebook, has created maybe a better informed society. Yet the price is high anxiety.  People for the most part have all they can do just to make ends meet, working to feed, clothe and shelter their families.  What started out as a presumed necessity in presenting live coverage of war has turned into a news nightmare filled with horrific mass shootings, human tragedies from the worst weather on record, and alarmist predictions on impending climate doom and off-the-rails politics.  Heaven help us!

The mass media is not going off the air or leaving cyberspace.  So it’s up to individuals to come to terms with sleeplessness and feeling overwhelmed, anxious and depressed by the constant sounds and images of ever-changing world events and real-time evolution of clashing cultures.  Here’s what to do: Turn off the news.  Watch something else. Get some sleep.  Raise some kids.  Go news-less for a few hours, for most of the day like our parents and grandparents did in the days when we had no choice.  As someone who thrives on news and venturing into the 24-hour cycle, I can take it pretty much.  But society can’t.

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Letter to the DNC: Say it, Gun Control. Now.

Dear Democratic National Committee:

As a registered Democrat, I recently received in the mail the DNC’s official 2019 Democratic Party Survey.  I was more than happy to take a couple of minutes to check off and rank what I think should be key political priorities from the DNC’s various lists.  I am referring to categories and concerns that included: taxing the wealthy; reducing taxes on the middle class; Russian aggression in world affairs; Trump’s recklessness; climate change; job creation; saving Social Security; saving public education; college affordability; affordable healthcare and prescriptions; women’s rights; immigration; terrorism; and restoring U.S. cooperation with and leadership and support of NATO and other nations with whom we once had been friendly and trusting allies.      

But I was surprised to discover the number one issue for me apparently is not a prominent concern with the DNC.  I am referring to gun control.  Among a plethora of subtopics, including a repeated chance to select a choice along the lines of ‘I don’t have any problem with the Republican Party objectives,’ gun control was listed only ONE time.  It was included in a list of the responder’s personal objectives.  So I marked it yet was only allowed that one time, this my number one concern in America today.

I cannot believe my lifelong political party—the bleeding-heart liberal, altruistic, pacifist, promoters of the 1st Amendment, proud card-carrying members of the American Civil Liberties Union—would play down our nation’s obvious crucial Number One problem: continuous mass shootings that terrorize the minds of every single school kid and many if not most others who live and work in this great nation.  Gun control must be one of the Top Three issues Democrats address for urgent solutions and reform.

Instead, the DNC topics left me with the impression the Democratic Party is shying away from gun control.  Perhaps the two words leave a bad taste in the mouth of politicians these days.  We have yet to speak near as loudly as the adamant, brazen and emphatic other party/ies who reiterate to constituents any gun control is against the 2nd Amendment.  Because the DNC listed gun control only once for selecting, I assume this issue is not going to be a priority for the 2020 presidential election.  Why not?  Why the hell not?

Pacifists and ostriches

Are Democratic leaders unwilling to once again take up the hot-button issue of gun control nationwide?  The DNC survey should make clear how serious gun control is among Americans who think liberally instead of conservatively, and I bet even those who think moderately.  Mass shootings are a daily tragedy in this country.  It’s as if we all are living in a war zone.  The reason is obvious: what used to be illegal, military-style assault rifles—the type that sprays bullets to kill large numbers of humanity in seconds flat.  And in my America, that is exactly what happens every day, a mass shooting somewhere, only the most extraordinary gaining national media attention.

For the record let me say to the younger generations, it used to not be this way, and as you already know it doesn’t have to stay this way or get worse.  Gun control has been a controversial issue as long as I can remember, going back to TV’s “Donahue” and “Lou Grant.”  In 1980 an editorial cartoon depicted a handgun and a packet of saccharine with two lines that read “One of these killed 34,000 people last year in America, the other a few rats in a laboratory.  Guess which one was banned?” There was a little headway in curbing handguns, our most pressing cause of shooting deaths and disabilities back then, by mandatory background checks and three-day waiting periods.  Opponents rightfully pointed out criminals get guns any way possible and avoid government interference.

Through the decades, the gun lobby was blamed for America’s proliferation of guns, which has culminated in the adage ‘Americans have more guns than people: three for every woman, man and child.’  But in reality the National Rifle Association’s Washington, D.C., lobby dollars are small potatoes compared with megabucks from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and big pharma.  But I wonder if the NRA’s financial downturn is in any way caused by constant mass shootings, each year tens of thousands killed and disfigured.  Among our many rights in America is the right to sue anyone any time for any reason.  That is worth remembering in resolving political controversies, and usually it is the reason anything gets resolved legislatively.

It’s not the gun lobby that has created a nation with a number of psycho mass shooters.  Blame could be placed on parenting and neglect; crowded public schools where bullies seem the heroes; our free society of uncensored media including over-the-top grotesque horror and violent movies and computer games that by now a couple of generations have played to superiority.  When the objective of most computer games is to shoot and kill as many people-like animated characters as possible, how could the rush from winning time and again not warp a human’s psyche?  It’s fast-paced action; one sole focus; requiring a bit of hostility; power-inducing; lots of practice shooting; and not a moment to humanize anybody, real or animated, on the computer screen.

It was called desensitizing.  But that’s a term from the ’90s after everyone tried to understand Columbine.  Ever since, we’ve been reliving it somewhere in America, every day with most of us only aware of the few times the horror makes the national news: another mass shooting at bars, a synagogue, churches, high schools, elementary schools, mega stores, malls, country music concert, movie theaters, political rally, congressional baseball practice, or employee Christmas party.   

Now a military weapon being used on American streets is called the flamethrower, like the kind of weapon North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reportedly ordered to execute a former ally.  It seems a bullet-riddled body is no longer horrific enough, doesn’t leave the world to fully comprehend consummate power by a totalitarian leader so that all tremble in fear.  The flamethrower is popular in computer games and movies.  The enemy is no longer shot to death but torched.

Power to the people

In closing, I appreciate the DNC allowing me to rank your listed political issues for the coming storm of the 2020 presidential election.  Perhaps I’ve digressed, maybe with a flair for the dramatic.  You know our people tend to be soft at heart, easily persuaded to sympathy and sentimentality … yet also to reason and common sense for the common good.  If we’re to get tough with the ultimate American bully, then I say hit ’im with gun control.  This issue remains our nation’s worst and most horrible and unnecessary escalating problem.  Say this over and over again: Folks, we gotta have common sense gun control.  This is perpetual mass murder we’re talking about.  We have to deal with it now.  And let the people know there are solutions, compromises whereby 2nd-Amenders and gun-controllers give and take.   

Maybe I’ve come across as naïve, although I’ve lived all my life in gun-toting Texas yet may not realize the deep emotional attachment my fellow Americans have to their guns.  After all, these are people who will never relinquish their guns and proclaim, “You can take it from my cold dead hands!!”  How can we who prefer some kind of logical gun control counter that kind of fervor, whether it’s from thirty percent or half the country?  When it comes to ending mass shootings by military-style assault rifles, I’d rather be on the side of the angels than give up the fight to the cynical opposition whose only response is “America: Love it or leave it.”

Sincerely,

The Texas Tart

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Facebook: To stay or not to stay? That is the question

Anyone else out there considering leaving Facebook like me?  I wrestle with it every day, more and more, as I realize the enormous political divide between the views of 98 percent of my Facebook friends and me.  This contrasts to maybe two percent, of my Facebook friends mind you, who share my views and opinions, you know, left of center.  Both sides cling so deeply to opinions as well as political, social and religious beliefs as to have been settled long ago and cemented in concrete.

It’s a tough 21st century decision leaving Facebook over other social media.  A tiny part of me wants to stay in the loop with old school friends, former colleagues and teachers, and of course a great big number of kinfolks.  I really want to hear about and see the latest pictures of everyone living their lives through their ups and downs: traveling adventures, having babies and grand young’uns, living all over the U.S. or just hangin’ in Texas, retiring, new projects, hobbies, announcing loved ones’ eternal departure or their own painful health developments along with prayer requests.  I like original snapshots with a sarcastic or humorous comment, such as misspelled words or miscalculated costs labeled on mega store shelves.  I’ve shared a few myself because I think I have a sense of humor.  There’s a lot to laugh at as we travel together through this time called life.

However, the biggest and growing part of me wants to leave Facebook altogether.  Cher did.  Or be like the cool ones who never joined, such as comedian Bill Maher.  He could foresee a problem with Facebook: allowing millions around the world to know every little move he makes and that despite celebrity, and more so because of it, it’s not a good thing.  Tens of millions checked out of Facebook after the 2016 election and the 17 federal investigations that all concluded Russia intentionally and with malice meddled with our American election and will do it again.  And they mostly and easily interfered through Facebook.

How?  By sowing seeds in thought, sight and emotionalism that were sure to divide us.  Our political enemies know us better than we know ourselves.  Russia in particular not only created fake news that to the untrained eye and mind seemed believable, but they also targeted about 80 million Facebookers to send the posts.  With help from a huge unknown internet information conglomerate, they sought specific like-minded people whose accounts on Facebook were an open page to conservative political, social and religious leanings.

Sometimes alt-right images and slogans landed on my Facebook news feed, sent from beloved family and friends, people I’ve known all my life.  And to this day, this is what takes up most of my viewing on Facebook.  For example, in the eight years leading up to the 2016 election, I scanned over a number of anti-Obama, anti-Michelle Obama and anti-Hillary Clinton bots.  These pieces were either written up like a serious news account of some fantastical feat or were simply disparaging pictures of one of these well known Democrats with a slogan like ‘Obama’s grandparents were CANNIBALS!’  Millions of Facebookers believed anything negative against Democrats in particular and with a click shared them to all their contacts including suspicious little ol’ former government reporter me.

Let your fingers do the walking

Some I’d research online and figure out that Obama’s referenced grandparents were the ones in Kenya and did not eat people.  But the bots came more and more, many coming my way which assured Obama was the devil and Trump the preferred choice of Jesus Christ.  Once Trump won the election, still the bots appeared and were shared in noticeable numbers.  The most ludicrous was a picture of the long-haired, bearded, robed, sandal-footed white Jesus that WASPs hearts aglow would instantly recognize.  ‘Jesus’ was oddly carrying an old-fashioned suitcase in each hand and even more strange running toward the viewer.  The slogan was something like “Obama kicked Jesus out of America.  But Trump welcomed Him back in!”  Holy moly. The old suitcases, and that Jesus would even need to carry them, were obvious signs to me that the image came straight from the former USSR, always decades behind the Western world when it came to new and improved things like washing machines and luggage.

But people I know believed these sentiments to be true, time and again, sharing these things mindlessly, no questions asked.  I think they thought they were sharing their Christian faith, like they wouldn’t be good Christians if they just trashed it, like I always did.  ‘It was an image of Jesus Christ, so the message must be meaningful.’

Along with political slogan images are those computer-created posters, along the lines of a photographed flower or sky or tree or ocean or dog or bird, a bit of nature and slice of life meant to lift the spirit, coupled with a not too profound statement like “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”  These are not original or created by anyone I know on Facebook.  I’d rather see original photos and artistic expressions with and without poetic food for thought.  But it seems most social media users enjoy sending to everyone bland stock photos with positive and of course pro-conservative and Biblical quotes or a one-sentence musing.  Saturday Night Live’s meandering “Deep Thoughts” comes to mind.

For my part, I have shared articles and imagery/quotes on occasion when the moment in history is relevant.  In other words, I think before sharing.  And when I quip, I review and edit my post for brevity and clarity so that I say exactly what I mean.  But recently when I’m not busy and have lots of time to kill, I get into the Facebook feed more than I ought.  If and when I add my two cents to a thread, man the heat turns up … on me.  And I realize my place, alone with few liberals and Democrats.  [Come on, guys, where are all you in the recesses of Facebook and cyberspace?  You make up half the country; you say more than half.]  And another thing, my Facebook account’s got me wondering how come hardly any relatives and friends think like me?    

The thing about Facebook and any written or copy-and-paste commentary is the loss of human interaction.  No vocal inflection or tone.  Readers can’t tell if what is presented in quips and retorts is supposed to be sarcastic, witty, sad or aggravating.  Human emotion and intention are lost through our use and overuse of Facebook and e-mail for that matter.

So, why do I stay on Facebook?  Well, one positive has been participating in a few Facebook groups like for Beatles’ fans, classical music lovers, humane society, family page, travel group, and even worldwide spirituality.  That last one gets a long list of participants from various world religions.  It’s interesting philosophy, so I stick.  Also, I produced my own Facebook pages, at the suggestion of Facebook corporate, for my educational nonprofit and this blog.  So there would be a problem leaving, if either of my business pages is looked at in the future.  Darn.  What to do?

All my troubles seemed so far away

It’s not so much the Russian bot thing or proliferation of real fake news.  But the revelations, the political and social and religious beliefs—and the staunch unwillingness to support another’s right to a different view, as Americans used to and were willing to die for—coupled with the vitriol at President Obama and Hillary Clinton, and now that they are out of the picture, nonstop passed-along and shared internet-created by God-knows-who half-alarming half-sarcastic slogans about any controversial Democrat elected official and any American who remains liberal minded.

It’s like we’re experiencing another McCarthy era. Instead of ganging up on alleged commies, it’s just American Democrats, again half the population if not more I’m told.  I always knew the Right felt the Left were red commies, nowadays collectively referred to as socialists.  But I grew up in and was shaped and educated by the most liberal era in American history, the 1970s.  Today the malapropisms and bigoted rantings of TV’s Archie Bunker are revered and respected.  Millions of Americans believe that guy was right all along.  And equally loud-mouthed liberal Maude must have been dead wrong, especially when the over-40-year-old woman had an abortion.

I suppose when it comes to scrolling Facebook, I can just skip over the mounting derogatory slurs against my political peeps and views.  Someone advised I don’t have to respond to any inflammatory shares.  As for original comments with which I disagree or would like to point out another view, I get in more trouble for sending a quick counter.  There will be hell to pay.  And life is short.

Yet we are drawn to our smart phones and more often than not, we of a certain age I suppose, to the Facebook feed.  Checking its entirety takes up too much of our time and we are learning detrimentally affects our well being.  The latest fad besides closing our account on Facebook is to leave it alone for a week, with most participants maintaining a sudden sense of … happiness.  Yes, I remember being genuinely happy.  It had to do with being oblivious, of spender in the grass.

Remember how happy we were before Facebook?  Even way back before the internet and social media?  Before we knew every little thing about each other: our beliefs on the two no-no’s of conversation when trying to get along: politics and religion?  What a bunch of dopes we’ve become!  I get it now: None of us is ever gonna persuade another to see an issue like we do.  I’ve seen the threads of arguments go both ways on Facebook until finally one person decides no more—not in defeat, just out of emotional and intellectual exhaustion.  It is only then, when we close Facebook and put away the smart phone, that our brain returns to reality: still capable of seeing, smelling, hearing and feeling the beautiful world around us with all God’s creatures living together in harmony naturally.