Author: cheriebell69@hotmail.com

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Shoot, what’d you think would happen?

It must have been 1996, after Texas approved that right-to-carry law, allowing citizens to acquire a permit to wear concealed handguns in public.  I was a reporter at a small newspaper in northeast Texas.  Soon as the law went into effect in January, folks from all around came to the newspaper office.  They stood in line outside the photo studio, and one by one entered for a head shot for their legal permits, like a driver’s license.  They all left smiling and chatting with one another, happy to finally see this day come to pass.

I, on the other hand, kept my big fat liberal thoughts to myself.  Still, I thought, “What in the world is going on out here!?!!”  Seemed like I’d stepped into a parallel universe.  To my mind, everyone carrying a gun in public was unimaginable throughout my lifetime, at least to the people I knew, mostly city dwellers.  But ever since that mass shooting in 1991 during lunch at Luby’s, millions of Texans remained on edge.  One of the survivors, whose gun was restricted to her car, swore she could have stopped the murderer if she had been allowed to carry her firearm into the cafeteria.  She determined to get legislation passed so everyone in Texas could have a shot at stopping a  public massacre next time … because, even though back then we didn’t know it, there most definitely would be a next time—dozens and dozens of mass shootings across the nation to this very day.

Back in Dallas for a New Year’s Eve party in 1995, my city friends and I laughed and laughed at the ludicrous gun law, a Wild West solution inappropriate to modern times given the nation’s enormous population most who live in close quarters.  We made fun of how gun-slingin’ might go down, pointing our fingers like a gun or holding a pretend rifle at each other: “You better smile when you’re lookin’ at me, cowboy.”  “You lookin’ at me?  I don’t see anyone else around, so you must be lookin’ at me!”  “Why you starin’ at me?” “What do you mean I owe $40 for a bar tab?  I don’t owe you s&^$!”  Pow!  Pop pop pop.  Rat-a-ta-a-ta-a-ta-a-ta-a.  We laughed so hard, we cried real tears.

At the time most of my city friends were not Texans and indeed hailed from way up north.  They’d never heard of people carrying guns in public.  Well now Texas is not called the Lone Star State for nothing.  Yet I shared my northern buddies’ ‘blown minds’ at the reality of allowing everyone to pack heat.  Even with so-called background checks, we could see what was bound to happen with more people carrying guns everywhere they go: more bloody shootings, maybe more shootings with the right-to-carry law than if we civilians weren’t allowed to have guns in public.

During the state’s controversial gun debate, I covered every step and talked with police chiefs and sheriffs, men who did not support the forthcoming law no way no how.  They stuck to their guns, so to speak, and tried to convince the public everybody should not be allowed to carry guns.  And then off the record, those same law officers advised me, a single young lady at the time, to keep a handgun for my protection and suggested tucking it underneath the driver’s seat of my car.  No way, I protested.  I was a city girl and didn’t like guns at’all.  I didn’t think anyone except the military and law officers should carry them.  It was how I was raised, the era in which.

Pointed right at me

So everyone was allowed to carry concealed guns including a fellow reporter.  This was brought to my attention with silent alarm during a weekly editorial meeting.  The staff would sit around the editor’s desk and toss story ideas for upcoming issues.  My reporter colleague folded one leg across the other so his foot was resting in my direction.  I could see his shoe and pant leg … and a small handgun pointing right at me.  He wore it in an ankle holster.  Unbelievable!  What in the world!?!  Guns everywhere I turn now!?  Trying not to make a scene, I got up and moved to another chair across the room and allowed someone else to take the bullet just in case of a discharge.  We hear about accidental gun blasts all the time, usually in homes.

After the disconcerting staff meeting, I privately talked with the editor about the situation, how unsafe I felt at work now with a co-worker packing heat, his desk right next to mine, and sitting next to me in meetings with a gun in an ankle holster.  Seemed like my right to work in a safe environment was being violated, I pointed out.  Weeks later businesses began posting “No Guns Allowed” signs including the newspaper where I was an employee.

As a reporter, on occasion I inadvertently raised the community’s ire, whether a column promoting a politically or socially liberal stance or news articles about a lawsuit against a major industry or how city committees were spending tax dollars.  The newspaper was embroiled in a lawsuit with the city before I came on board as government reporter.  Unaware of the suit, in my early days I sensed hostility from city directors.  They didn’t want to answer questions for articles or work with me as I reported on city affairs.  Nevertheless, I persevered.  I had to play hardball every once in awhile when it came to government entities all the way up to the feds.  A thoroughly redacted document comes to mind from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.  What I learned as a government reporter is government officials do not like reporters questioning anything they’re doing.

The loop

Having worked at a half dozen newspapers since high school, I was not surprised to hear about an irate citizen storming into a newsroom with a gun and commencing to shoot everyone in sight.  Reporters have a long if not ancient history of dealing with those who would shoot the messenger.  Security officers were provided at major city papers where I’ve worked.  Officers were stationed in the front and back entrances of large looming downtown buildings.  There were monitors and cameras on every floor, too, along with computerized entry cards we employees had to use to unlock steel doors, probably impenetrable to bullets.

But the small-town papers had no such security measures.  They were much more laid back with friendly staff and doors open to the public.  Anyone could step inside, even ignoring a “No Guns Allowed” sign.  And America has hundreds of community newspapers still in business by having websites with breaking news and advertising.

What is different about this day and age, besides everybody’s right to openly carry guns, is a leader who proclaims ‘the media is the enemy of the people’—as if we are living in an Orwellian society—and furthermore calls ‘fake’ news real and real news ‘fake’ just to confuse the masses and control the truth.  The American media is not and never has been the enemy of the people.  Free press is listed in our nation’s Bill of Rights.  It is and was that important because our Founding Fathers respected and expected the press, which would evolve into the mass media, to watch over the day-to-day work of all government branches—this to ensure our still burgeoning democracy.

Another difference in this era from the past is more reporters, usually war correspondents, have been killed doing their jobs: informing humanity about what’s going on and why it matters.  Here in America, now a newsroom enters the mass shooting loop: blood and gore, fear and panic, thoughts and prayers, family condolences, candlelight vigils, funerals and community mourning, sustained grief and emotional trauma … and then as always the deadly silence.

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The lines of a Willie Nelson song: etched in his heart & face

Three cheers for Willie Nelson, the national treasure of Texas!  He’s turned 85 this year.  He and his fans probably thought he’d never live past 50.  But as he’s been willing to talk to the media all these decades, we can already guess what’s kept him rolling along.  (And I don’t mean the reefer, even his own mind-blowing brands, although he does say pot made him less prone to anger.  And that’s gotta do the heart good, right docs?)

Why, everyone knows the story of Willie Nelson: abandoned little boy raised by his grandparents in the tiny Hill Country community of Abbott, Texas; a stint in the Air Force; door-to-door salesman; radio dj; playing country bands; move to Nashville; hit songwriter.  His songs are standard in the American songbook: Night Life, Crazy, Whiskey River, Funny How Time Slips Away.  His songs were often first recorded to fame by the unique and memorable country and Western voices like Patsy Cline, Johnny Bush and Ray Price.

But back when Willie tried to emulate the country star image of groomed hair and suit circa 1960, it just wasn’t his style.  And they made fun of his singing, too.  Laughed him all the way back to Texas.  And as the life and times of Willie Nelson go, he just happened to be at the right place at the right time.  He grew his hair long and wore jeans and t-shirts or muscle Ts.  His beloved guitar Trigger always faithful to perform, he met up with other country artists ready to rebel against the polished Nashville sound, more skyscraper than honky tonk.  He released Red Headed Stranger, the album cover depicting him in a wanted poster from the 1800s.  The album featured his vocal style somberly singing Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain with his signature melodic guitar picking.  The album received wide appeal.

Along with country music friend Waylon Jennings, in 1976 Willie co-recorded an album that would top the charts for years.  Wanted! The Outlaws featured Good Hearted Woman and My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.  They say Willie brought together the rockers and the rednecks.  Willie went on to headline his famous Fourth of July picnics, support Farm Aid, and invest in bio fuels as well as marijuana.

And he’s received just about every music award America has to offer, including: Grammy Hall of Fame; Kennedy Center Honors; Academy of Country Music Entertainer of the Year in 1980; and Grammy Awards for Best Male Country Vocals in 1976, 1979 and 1983.  Talk about doing your own thing and believing in yourself!

The Tao of Willie Nelson

Yep, there’s a book melding Eastern philosophy with the life attitude of Willie Nelson.  Given the way he’s chosen to live his life, happiness is evident to the rest of us.  In figuring out what Willie has to offer us about life, assumptions could be:

First, do your own thing.  In retrospect, Willie was of his time: growing up in the Depression and loving country music.  He simply took the style and set his own plain yet poetic words.  Hint for songwriters out there, according to Willie: Melodies are in the air.  Just pick one.

Second, impress yourself.  Willie writes good songs because he knows it.  He didn’t need anyone to tell him a song like Crazy would be a huge hit.  But he was at the right place again: talking to Patsy Cline’s husband at Tootsies in Nashville.  Everyone in the country music business already knew Willie wrote great songs.  The topic was bound to come up.

But what didn’t come up was letting Willie sing his own songs his way.  Yet once again the Tao of Willie is about believing in himself.  He always thought he had a pretty good voice.  It just took a cultural change in America’s music tastes—the preference for denim folk rock with a lot less polished recordings.  Willie was already out there performing.  Audiences were willing to listen to and appreciate his own style and renditions of his songs, already nationally known melodically, lyrically and emotionally.

Third, don’t live to impress others.  Willie chased fame and fortune, but then the famous started chasing Willie.  When he decided to quit the music business, his attitude changed.  He may have been hurt and angry, but when his feelings turned to don’t give a damn, wham!  That’s the key to real happiness.  He split with the Nashville scene, returning home to Texas and found a personal freedom that allowed him to sing his songs his way, making a living doing what he loves.  Among the workforce, this is rare.  Willie would say he was determined more than just lucky that life worked out for him.  The lesson is to be in control of one’s life and pursuit of happiness.

Fourth, keep active.  As long as he’s been able, Willie has been athletic, running races and golfing.  He’s out there, breathing in the fresh air, taking in the sun, enjoying the day.  He found as a famous entertainer, he does not always have to be ‘on’ all the time.  He was able to handle success.

Finally, keep an open mind.  Willie has a sense of humor, can see the funny in time slipping away, allows himself a good laugh not necessarily produced by the wacky weed.  And though the once red-headed scrawny young man never would have imagined his life turning into a national celebration and social influence through the gift of time and age, Willie stayed true to himself: from the braided hair, twinkling smile, love and heartache, versatile endeavors, heart of gold—the face of human life.

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Something’s missing: American suicide rate coincides with high-tech times & loneliness

There are cultures in the world where suicide is seen as an individual choice, a private matter, a somber affair to be wrestled within one’s own mind and sense of well being.  This philosophy dates back to the Ancient Greeks who believed anyone could end one’s own life whenever he or she wanted, for any reason, at any age, no questions asked.  Thousands of years ago, the humanity that formed Western civilization did not think suicide as the worst thing a person could do.  They certainly did not consider it a sin.  Maybe the collective thought was a shared empathy: Life is hard.

Long since B.C., Americans and Westerners do not agree with the Ancients or any society that condones suicide.  We have grown to believe in the sanctity of life, something precious and God given, even divine.  We agree that people should never end their lives no matter what.  Suicide is not only terribly sad and confusing, it leaves an emotional scar on family and friends who wonder why and what if, who will carry the guilt while pondering anything they could have said or done to change the permanent outcome.

Ah, look at all the lonely people

Our nation’s suicide rate has increased 30 percent since 1999—close to 45,000 deaths in 2016, the highest number in decades.  Which state has the highest suicide rate?  Montana.  The lowest?  New York.  Texas statistics reveal a large increase, too, but the highest incidents of suicide were in the northern Midwest states.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teens, second among 15- to 24-year-olds.  The most likely to commit suicide besides youth are elderly white men.  And suicide among the elderly, ages 65 and older, may be under reported by 40 percent, according to the American Association for Marriage and Family.

Every day 20 soldiers who’ve returned home from war overseas commit suicide.  In other sobering statistics, gay youth are four times more likely to die of suicide.  Guns are the most common method for males especially elderly; females, suffocation and poisoning, according to Suicide Prevention Resource Center.  Half of those who died from suicide had diagnosed mental disorders; other reports set the figure at 90 percent.  Such mental disorders, according to health.com, are depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder, and personality disorders.

Other causes that lead to suicide are substance abuse; incarceration; family history of suicide; job loss; abusive relationships; terminal illness or debilitating health diagnosis; social isolation including bullying—this according to Healthline, an internet resource.

Warning signs of suicide, from mentalhealth.gov, are: talk of wanting to die, hopelessness, no reason to live, or burdening others; actively seeking a method; feeling trapped or enduring unbearable pain; and increased drug and/or alcohol use.

Suicide is so prominent that teachers and others who work with youth are trained annually on the signs of depression and suicidal thoughts in hopes of preventing a tragedy.  Everyone assumes we should get involved.  Still, suicide numbers rise.

That’s the thing: There are all of these resources … online … and yet we have this increasing traumatic intentional end of life—good lives, all worthy of living to full measure.  But many have forgotten how.

Where do they all belong?

Organic reasons that may lead to suicide run the gamut from age to brain disease.  When suicidal thoughts center on feelings of worthlessness, that life has no meaning and never will again, that is a sign of depression.  In overcoming or dealing with depression, there are several options.  “60 Minutes” broadcast journalist pioneer Mike Wallace was candid about his lifelong battle with depression and even suicide, feelings and thoughts amplified after the death of his son in the 1960s and again in the 1980s during a potentially ruinous libel lawsuit against him.  But with constant psychotherapy and newer drugs, he lived—his later years perhaps more content than he’d ever imagined.  He died of natural causes at age 93.

The Baby Boom generation may be another factor in increased depression and suicide.  The way we were raised with instant gratification, embracing technology, and producing our own personal solitary confinement.  Who wouldn’t be happy?

High tech has deluded more than one generation into thinking we are virtually independent beings.  But we never stopped being human.  We have forgotten to pursue first human connections, not crazy answers, blather and dubious history in the palm of our hands.  We have to realize what it means to be human.  We are emotional beings who think, not thinking beings who feel.  Humans are no different from other mammals.  A dog needs companionship.  A person needs a person as we need one another and each other.

When it comes to contemplating suicide, there isn’t a human being on the planet who wouldn’t understand.  Life has a lot of bitter than sweet, for some more than others or so it seems.  Misery may be in the mind of the beholder.  Talking about it helps.  Writing about it can help, if another person reads it.  Some people may have trouble bonding enough to feel secure to speak the unspeakable and seek help.

The late Anthony Bourdain, a consummate Baby Boomer, spoke of former drug abuse.  He found living in the aftermath of addiction comes with a price.  Some former addicts no longer experience an inner joy from just being alive.  The feeling or lack of joy is just a scrambling of the brain’s pleasure sensors, and it may not be permanent.

Aside from severe mental illness, the reason for our society’s increased suicide rate has to do with an inner longing of the soul.  Church and organized religion doesn’t work for everyone, certainly someone as sardonic as Bourdain and many of his generation.  Yet there is an obvious missing link among the chronically depressed.

The search for something more to life than stuff has always been, from the ancients to modern man.  The answer remains silent, buried deep in every human.  It is the spirit, the thing that makes us human, that is wounded and needs addressing and healing.  The search for inner peace makes life on earth an individual choice, a private matter, a somber affair to be wrestled within one’s own mind and sense of well being.

Please input the following as a smart phone contact: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255.

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Roseanne!?! Man, oh, man!

Having gushed about comedienne Roseanne Barr a year or so ago—how I’ve seen every episode of her original series so many times I could teach a college course on the subject—I figured it best to address her latest controversy.  About the only good thing may be this will be her last public controversy, if at all possible.  I mean, we’re talking about loud-mouthed and ornery-tweetin’ Roseanne here.  Perhaps she didn’t realize the times have changed.  At least her fan base has evolved during the past twenty years, those of us who cheered on her former show’s blue-collar character.  That Roseanne was authentic and in many cases reflected the hard-luck working ranks of the lower-middle class.  But as we all change while growing older, becoming more curmudgeon and often more conservative than our radical youth and moderate middle age, so has Roseanne.

Still, how could she not have realized tweeting racial slurs about famous political people of color would be socially unacceptable; a career killer; just plain wrong; reprehensible; and to put it in Roseanne’s own vernacular of understanding, uncool?  How did this Baby Boomer, hippy, Grateful Dead-listening, product of the Woodstock Generation evolve into a renowned bigot?  Good thing Roseanne was nowhere near one of her former co-stars from the old show: singer Bonnie Bramlett, who is righteously notorious for having punched Elvis Costello in the face after he called James Brown AND Ray Charles the ‘n’ word.  That’s how you change white folks a lot of the time.  Throughout our own American history, white people en masse have proven to be quite hard headed when it comes to race relations and progress.

So not only was the new “Roseanne” series summarily canceled by ABC, where the network’s boss is a black woman, Roseanne’s former highly-rated and very entertaining and often poignant original series has been wiped from TV land altogether.  Wow.  But hold on a minute.  So was “The Cosby Show” some years back.  Yet it’s still listed for viewing today.  And Bill Cosby is a convicted criminal awaiting a possible prison sentence.  The old double standard, eh, Roseanne?  No doubt she’s cooking up some wise-crackin’ counter to her fate.  She was even dropped by her agent.  Now that says a lot about today’s entertainment world.

Roseanne was quick to blame her late-night racist tweet on prescription drugs.  Just like Mel Gibson blamed his anti-Semitic tirade against the police on alcohol or alcoholism.  OK, we’ll go there.  Let’s not blame an inebriated person for whatever comes out of his mouth or her tweets.  But, see, the sober can’t go there.  People believe at some level anything said or written while under the influence is really lurking in the back of one’s mind, a little insight into how the individual really feels or thinks.  Is this true?  Maybe.  When you’re rich and famous, though, it doesn’t wash.  Bad behavior is even more inexcusable.  Word was that Roseanne’s grown children kept her away from tweeting while her new series was taping.  They must have known something.  Perhaps as a new generation, they realized the times had changed, and even brash Roseanne can’t get away with popping off a tweet anymore especially with comments meant to disparage another person racially.

Take Roseanne, please

Maybe she thought she was the female Don Rickles.  Remember how we all laughed and laughed at anything the guy said, no matter what?  He made a career out of making fun of everybody and anybody for any reason including looks, speech or physical limitations—just like our president does and Roseanne thought she could do.  If Don Rickles were alive today, he may very well have toned down his act a bit.  He was beloved for putting down people, all people, usually because the rest of us couldn’t do so and get away with it.  But I’m not sure he harbored any racism.  Roseanne will go down in modern history as a famous entertainer who was racist even though she says she isn’t and never has been.

It is telling that Roseanne thought there would be people, most of us in fact, who would chuckle along at anything she said or tweeted.  She has a sharp wit and is dead-on in her comedic musings about ‘life and stuff.’  But in the tweet of an eye, she lost everything.  Sure, she apologized and then came up with an explanation.  She’s done this before: referring to herself as an incest survivor, telling Barbara Walters she suffers from serious mental illness including multiple personality disorder.  It was at a moment when the media and the Hollywood suits loved to hate her while millions of loyal fans remained supportive.  The big star was trying to explain her penchant for erratic behavior and troubling unruly opinionated mouth.  In the spotlight she seemed not to give a damn what anyone thought about her.  Yet deep down, she really did care and was often hurt by rough treatment mostly by the tabloid press almost always involving her weight, looks and marriages.

This time, however, she crossed the line, the race line.  She knew better.  Her old series covered American white racism in a couple of episodes, with Roseanne the hero of sorts, the supporter of all people, claiming blacks are just as good and bad as the rest of us or if rephrased white people are no better than black people.  She remained a working-class hero for decades in reruns.  But she allowed that damn 2016 election to sway her and in so doing turned into the TV character she most despised: Archie Bunker.  If there is anything to learn from Roseanne’s fall from grace, it should be a concern for sensory overload with technology devices in the palm of our hands bringing us Facebook, Twitter and the internet—where word now travels at the speed of sight not sound.

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Who among us can hold a candle to Nobel Peace Prize recipients?

The loudest American who had been vying for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was U.S. President Donald J. Trump himself.  But Trump is first and foremost a braggart, more brass than class.  [That’s a turn off to the international Nobel Peace Prize selection committee.]  Compared to past recipients—Americans and others around the world, individuals and organizations—our current president lacks a certain … humbleness … selflessness … humanitarian empathy … quiet dignity … grace … compassion … wisdom.    In short, Trump’s no Albert Schweitzer, who earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.

A list of past recipients sheds light on certain shared qualities among those chosen for the esteemed Nobel Peace Prize: 2017, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (a world policy still rejected and unsigned by the United States of America); 2014, Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for attending school yet survived to fight for girls’ education rights around the world; 2013, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons; 2009, Barack Obama, for his early order as U.S. president to end perpetual war in Afghanistan and Iraq; 2007, Al Gore; 2002, Jimmy Carter; 1999, Doctors Without Borders; 1993, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk; 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev and not Ronald Reagan; 1989, the 14th Dalai Lama; 1985, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; 1983, Lech Walesa; 1973, Henry Kissinger; 1964, Martin Luther King Jr.

Reading this list brings to mind another human characteristic: bravery. Established in 1895, the Nobel Peace Prize recognizes academic, cultural or scientific advancements.  It seems cultural advancement is an underlying reason for bestowing the international peace prize upon Dr. King, the Dalai Lama, Gorbachev, Walesa, Mandel and de Klerk, Presidents Carter and Obama, and VP Gore.

A loud-mouthed bully is usually not awarded a peace prize; it wouldn’t make a lick of sense among the cultured world intelligentsia.  President Obama won because the world absolutely loved him.  And the world doesn’t hold President Trump in the same esteem.  Trump’s goading of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to a High Noon nuclear showdown is not worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize and may not be the reason for North and South Korea possibly ending their decades-old war.

If anyone ends up deserving the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, it very likely could be Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, president of the Republic of Korea.  The world recently witnessed a meeting like no one could have fathomed between those two leaders.  Yet they stood together with sincere smiles and mutual laughter, bonded by common language, culture and history, and talked about ending their countrymen’s long, long stalemate.  It was as if neither man could remember what all the fuss was about.  They are from a different generation that started the Korean War many moons ago in the last century.

Another brick in the wall

Trump can’t claim the Reagan route for insisting a nuclear nation change from communism to democracy.  That’s because Reagan alone did not end the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR.  The East/West ‘war’ already was ending by a new generation, the product of changing times, people who readily admired American and Western way of life and harbored such feelings secretly for decades.  Through the black market of the Eastern bloc, Soviets loved American blue jeans, watching TV shows like “Dallas,” and listening to good ol’ rock ’n’ roll especially riotous punk bands.  In the 1980s Western entertainers were allowed to tour Soviet nations.  But watching Western TV in the privacy of tiny cramped apartments is what really broke up the old Soviet Union.  The people want to be free, live and speak freely, choose their leaders, and pursue their individual and unique passions in this one human life.  American TV, movies and music—dominating the world while echoing freedom in every human thought, desire and need—brought down communism throughout Eastern Europe and finally Mother Russia Herself. And something else was happening, too: 24-hour cable news and personal computers.  These world-conquering concepts and revolutionary inventions brought new meaning to putting the genie back in the bottle.  Can’t be done.  Gorbachev knew.  He realized his fate and the future of the world, thank God.  He let it happen.

Change of heart is another human characteristic worthy of the world’s attention and consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Why Kim Jong-un seemingly has had a public (and humbling) change of heart from his ambition to proceed toward nuclear war and annihilation remains unknown.  But … we’re gonna find out.  Communist Korea along with the rest of the world can’t keep anything secret anymore.  Those days are gone.  Can I hear an Amen?

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Casting perspective on immigrants living in America

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

The Oath of Allegiance

Basically, naturalized U.S. citizens swear to:

  1. Support the Constitution;
  2. Renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen;
  3. Support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
  4. Bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and
  5. Bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; or
    B. Perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; or
    C. Perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law.

——————————————————————————————

NOTE: Naturalized citizens are NOT required to speak the Queen’s English.  They can speak any language they want as free citizens living in the United States.  If they need to do certain business related to almost all aspects of government, they most certainly need to read, write and speak English or be accompanied by an interpreter.  It takes about seven years, by the way, for a person to learn a language well enough to speak with confidence.

So, my fellow Americans … why are we giving these people a hard time?  Given all American immigrants must learn, like really knowing U.S. government and American history better than anyone who just took the courses way back in high school; not carrying guns unless serving in a military capacity; supporting and defending the Constitution and the U.S. laws against all enemies; and totally and completely renouncing the nation of their birth—why are we giving these people a hateful hard time?

According to 2012 statistics, 40 million immigrants were living in the U.S.  Practically half of those immigrants were naturalized American citizens.  The other half could be living here illegally.  But more likely and rationally, the great majority of the other half could be living here legally while waiting to become naturalized American citizens, which is their human right.  There’s a group among us ‘naturally-born Americans’ who would have us all believe that our country has a huge illegal immigrant problem at close to 20 million people.  But given our hard-ass U.S. disposition, from the feds to citizens, I think the number of truly outlaw illegal immigrants daring to live among the likes of us in this day and age is considerably much lower than 20 million.

Out of approximately 325 million people who now make up the U.S. population, immigrants are slightly more than 10 percent, and again half of those are naturalized American citizens.

Why are we giving these people a hard time?  Yelling at them in grocery stores to speak English, like the language is American or something?  The U.S. has no national language because we’re from every nation on earth.  Even the Native Americans spoke various languages among their tribes.  Makes me wish we could communicate telepathically like the real aliens we need to fear.  But I digress …

The real number of immigrants living in these here United States is practically 100 percent of us save the Native Americans, which by the way due to the great majority of our forefathers is now only 2 percent of the U.S. population.  The issue is not about immigrants, language, odor, food, culture, hair, religion, creed, color.  Wait, that last one is probably hitting the nail on the head.  American prejudices have a lot to do with skin color, that involuntary pigmentation that none of us can control.

White people in America have a lot to learn when it comes to getting along with other people on the planet.  God made humans all different, and yet many people just hate that about His creation, His doing, even to the point of thinking people of color are not really human beings; therefore, they can be lynched, imprisoned, hassled, segregated, isolated, scorned—and there will be no price to pay.  Oh, there’s a price to pay.  It’s morality and humanity and decency.  Immigration, legal or illegal, is not the most pressing problem we face as a nation.  As Americans on earth, our number one problem is what it’s always been from our beginning: puredee hate and hostility for anybody not ‘white’ in skin, culture, religion, and language.  Talk about strangers in a strange land …

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Recalling a grandmother’s life & times and practical faith

That little girl on a TV Western, the one that ends with her frolicking in a meadow, wearing a pioneer dress circa 1907—she is my grandmother.  We called her Maw Maw, so named when her first grandchild could not say ‘grandma.’  Like all grandmothers, she once was a young vibrant girl, maybe not so much carefree given the times.  Her name was Rosa, named after her father’s most beautiful girlfriend, he would joke, referring to the woman he married.  Rosa was raised with a bunch of rowdy older brothers.  They gave her a nickname not fit to be printed here.  That’s how sexist they were, perhaps all males at the turn of the 20th century.  She was born in 1901 in Indian Territory, soon to be renamed Oklahoma.  She called it God’s country.

Her family was apparently homeless, traveling in a covered wagon along dirt roads and through wild terrain town to town.  Perhaps they were day laborers.  The wagon could not hold all of them, so each one had to take turns walking alongside the horse-drawn transportation.  Maw Maw told the time when her dad finally saved enough money to buy a plot of land, but his sons defied him and wouldn’t let him.  So he didn’t make the purchase, and according to her, not too long after that property was found to have oil.

She taught herself to ride a horse, a scene in which her brothers busted out laughing, claiming girls can’t ride horses.  She showed them.  By the time she was of a young lady, she was raising chickens, a trade she’d continue through the 1960s.  I recall dilapidated stacked coops behind her house, adjacent to a large vegetable garden.  But the Maw Maw I knew was getting too old to deal with feisty feathered friends.  Even gardening, always while wearing a hand-made bonnet to avoid the sun, was hard on her bones.  Besides, the times were changing.  Townsfolk weren’t allowed to keep a bunch of chickens and coops due to mandated sanitation standards.  A small grocery store had opened just a short walk from Maw Maw’s house.  She had to cross a major highway to get to the store.  Fortunately, the highway running through Maw Maw’s sleepy town was rarely busy, so not only could she manage the occasional walk, her grandkids merrily volunteered to run to the store and gather her list of foodstuffs.

Maw Maw was an excellent country cook, never using a recipe, her specialty buttery soft yeast rolls.  Mmm.  She could sew, too, making good use of flour sack cloth to dress her young’uns, even sewed my dad’s blue jeans.  And, of course, she was a quilter.  She gave me one when I went off to college.  I keep it stored in a cedar chest just like she would have done during the summer.

She married young and started having kids.  I wonder if she were old enough to vote when women finally were granted that right in 1920.  She raised chickens and vegetables and taught her eight kids to do the same.  Their daily chores, as my dad recalled, included milking a cow and chopping wood.  In those years, the family lived isolated in the country.  But their house was not their own.  Paw Paw plowed the land as sort of a sharecropper’s deal.

When the Depression hit, my young adult grandparents got religion along with millions of Americans in the rural South.  Prior to that, they attended outdoor dances where they’d uncomfortably watch drinking turn into brawling.  Maw Maw was a musician, playing what she called the French Harp, which is a harmonica.  She may have had other musical abilities like piano and guitar because several of her children were musically inclined.  But the family left all ‘worldliness’ in the past; any music would be strictly gospel.  And they lived a holiness lifestyle in dress and deed for decades, ruled by the dogged determination of the family matriarch.

Maw Maw was not even 5 feet tall with petite features.  How did a little woman with raven hair and blue eyes come across as the Mother of all mothers?  But her kids would mind her in fear as those were the days parents would hit their kids and yell at them for misbehaving.  She only had an 8th grade education.  But in her day, prior to a world war, high school was not required.  She read the Bible more than any other book.  She actually studied it.  And whenever the church doors were open, her entire family was there, even if it meant throwing a quilt on the floor for a new babe to sleep.

She lived a long time, surviving Paw Paw’s death at old age.  I remember their 50th wedding anniversary, probably in 1968.  All her kids and grandkids crowded into their wood-frame house.  During the festivities, an aunt placed an empty tissue box on my head and a cousin, telling us we’d be the flower girls in a pretend wedding ceremony.  It seemed the entire town dropped by to congratulate my grandparents’ monumental anniversary.

Maw Maw would go down in family history as the talker, the social one.  Paw Paw preferred to take to his room and sit in his rocking chair whenever friends or family dropped by.  He was more content to listen than speak, maybe his way of avoiding disputes.  Maw Maw and Paw Paw had separate bedrooms after the birth of their last child, when she was 42.  This was not uncommon for their generation.  But after Paw Paw died and Maw Maw had to get used to living in their house alone, one night she heard him calling her from his bedroom.  She opened the door and slipped into his empty bed.  That became her bedroom.

Almost a decade later, Maw Maw had a stroke when she was 81.  She never recovered, remaining bedridden and incapacitated for five long years.  Before the stroke, she always expressed her greatest fear: having a stroke and lingering for years in a nursing home.  Family made sure she remained in her own home, her daughters and nieces taking turns caring for her every day, never leaving her alone at night.  She couldn’t talk anymore but to anyone who dropped by to visit, she’d greet with a very tight grip.  Capturing us by the hand, she’d look deep into our eyes.  She was desperately trying to tell us something.  What could it have been?  “Help me!” maybe?  I’d rather think “I love you!”  Perhaps simply “Love!”

She passed away on the afternoon of the Challenger explosion.  Maw Maw never believed man walked on the moon.  Those thoughts of certainty were her charm.  Throughout her life—a link to our pioneering forefathers—Rosa was self sufficient; surviving childhood diseases and worldwide financial crises; able to live off the land; believing in the good earth; knowing from  the soul despite any appearance to the contrary, God provides all needs and leaves no one forsaken.

 

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Holocaust survivor marked physically, emotionally, but not his spirit

The tattoo on Michael Jacobs’ arm was a number: 118860.

The mark remained skin deep his entire life.  It served as a reminder to him, and for others, that he had spent his teen years in a Nazi concentration camp.  From 1939-45, the former Mendel Jakudowicz of Poland was forced to live life in one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz.

After the war, Jacobs found a home in Dallas.  A few decades ago, he started traveling the country, telling his story to congregations at churches and to anyone who would listen.  He called himself a Holocaust survivor.  He’d even traveled back to the Old Country and toured the death camp he somehow survived.  He wanted to remember every detail; every injustice; the loss of human dignity; the macabre sights and sounds; the ancient hateful prejudices unleashed ferociously among his neighbors, the German people.  He told me his story when I was a reporter in a small Texas town where he was booked to speak at the Methodist church.  Listening to his horrific ordeal, I envisioned gray scenes in the dead of winter: people with somber expressions frozen in black and white images, silent yet dignified.

A bright-eyed 15-year-old boy entering Camp Auschwitz, Jacobs first saw ovens.  Optimistically he thought his captors were going to teach him the trade of a baker.  He soon found the ovens were used to destroy human remains.  Nothing was joyous about life in Auschwitz where prisoners were sentenced to slavery or death.  Their crime was their religion.

As the Nazis were coming to power—incited by their beloved leader Adolph Hitler—Jacobs’ family was forced to leave their home and move into ghettos.  And from there, residents were collected and packed into trains heading to various concentration camps.  His family divided, Jacobs faced uncertainty in a concentration camp alone.  He was stripped of his clothes and issued a numbered wool uniform with black and white stripes and a matching cap.  The tattoo procedure was painful.

Jacobs was assigned to accompany a young Nazi soldier and told to follow his orders.  He obeyed, wanting nothing more than to survive the times.

Back in prison, Jacobs and other able-bodied males had to search Allied planes shot down by the Germans.  They were to break down the parts into salvageable piles of scrap metal.  The forced laborers had to be very good, as Jacobs said, “One wrong move and we went under the oven.”

Ironically Jacobs was learning a lucrative trade.  When he immigrated to America in 1951, settling in Dallas, he founded a scrap metal business which became prosperous.

During internment, Jacobs dealt with deep depression.  In whispered conversations, inmates would encourage each other.  “Why don’t you look up at the sky,” he recalled one man saying to him one night when he was feeling particularly down.  “See how the stars smile at us?”

As he lay on a filthy bunk in a cold, crowded dormitory, he would close his eyes.  He imagined himself as a bird: soaring above the screams, gunshots, and stench.  Meditation was a form of escape.  “At that time, I was free,” he told me.

After enduring hell on earth for several years, one day the prisoners awakened to find the camp’s cruel commanders gone.  The prisoners had heard the Allies soon were coming.  Jacobs took cautious steps to leave, unsure if this were another hoax and he would be shot.  Slowly he gained confidence and then ran away.  Tired and weak, he stopped at a house and was welcomed inside.  Still wearing his prison camp clothes, he didn’t recognize himself when he looked in the mirror.  He had aged decades.  He stood on a scale and weighed less than 100 pounds.

Eventually he would learn that 80 of his family members, including his parents and siblings, did not survive the war.  Jacobs was alone to learn the ways of the world.

He said what got him through the horror he endured was positive thinking.  He held no bitterness toward his captors.  Life, he could say as an old man, had been good.

The power of positive thinking is the human spirit.  Jacobs’ survival skill was his tolerance of those who hated him—and his understanding that the world had gone mad for a little while.

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“The Queen’s Rules” still should apply today

For what seemed to be the longest time, the only major fast-food chain in my Dallas suburb was Dairy Queen.  It had no competition, or so it seemed to me as a little kid in the 1960s and early ’70s—until McDonald’s and all the rest came to our town.  Dairy Queen was on the other side of town from where my family lived.  For a 6-year-old kid, it was a big treat to get to go out to eat every once in awhile, and Dairy Queen had ice cream!  The next few years spent dining at Dairy Queen, I collected many fond if not fuzzy memories of a bygone era.

When I was a young reader, I noticed a large poster on the Dairy Queen wall near a booth where we’d sit.  The poster was of the Dairy Queen girl, dressed in Dutch attire, holding a public decree that displayed “The Queen’s Rules.”  I learned several big words reading the rules at Dairy Queen.  One was ‘profanity.’  “Mom, what does proh-fan-eye-tee mean?”  And Mom explained, “That means no,” she stopped to continue softly, “cuss words.”  Seeing my confused innocence, Mom would have to give me some examples of bad words so I’d know what not to say inside Dairy Queen.  My parents didn’t cuss much; well, Mom had her two choice words so we’d know when she was extremely mad about something.  In those days, cuss words were never spoken on TV, which was all network, pre-cable and pre-DeNiro.

Another big word for me was ‘loitering,’ a real trouble word as I attempted pronunciation.  “Mom, what does lo-eye-teh-ring mean?”  And Mom would explain, “That means no one should be hanging around here without buying something to eat or drink.”  Oh, I see.  I learned at an early age that restaurants were no place to hang out without purchasing food or drinks.

Bell bottoms, bare feet and halter tops

As I grew a bit older, around 8, I clearly realized the generation gap between parents and teens.  Dairy Queen was a ‘happening’ on Friday and Saturday nights.  I liked to go at those times and people-watch, especially any hippies I might spot.  They were called freaks back then: usually bare footed with torn jeans or short-short cut off jeans, girls in halters (that meant no bra!).  The high school teens and young adults played the absolute coolest songs on the jukebox: “Green Eyed Lady,” “One,” “American Woman,” “Cross Eyed Mary,” “How Many More Times”—a real hard rock concert, man!  The older teens were so cool.  I couldn’t wait to join them in ten years.

But they also were rude and loud: guys horsing around, dating couples who couldn’t keep their hands off each other then kissing—wooooo.  Actually, I was kinda embarrassed to see that sort of thing.  I didn’t understand—hormones still a mystery of life.

“No dr-uh-gs or al-ko-hahl,” I continued reading from the Queen’s Rules to Mom.  I knew nothing about drugs.  But once in awhile among the teen crowd, a loopy guy would float about giddily.  Maybe he was on something.  Because smoking was allowed, teens openly smoked cigarettes inside the restaurant, some laughing loudly, carrying on with their crowd, having fun, eating, drinking and being merry.

“No loo-woo-d cohn-duk-t,” I read aloud.  “What’s lewd?”  Mom explained about appropriate dress and behavior, pointing out a teen couple who was on their way to a full make-out session.  My nose crinkled in disgust as I’d remark, “Ooooooo.”

The Queen rules

Even as a kid, I figured the Queen’s Rules were put in place because of the growing Woodstock counter culture: the loud rock music, the long hair, the penchant to go bare foot, the suspected drug use, and the psychedelic clothes, halters, short-shorts, and touchy-feely coupling.  It seemed all this was inappropriate inside Dairy Queen because it went against the Queen’s Rules.  I followed the rules, because I was 8 and Mom was sitting across from me in the booth.  The older teens rockin’ Dairy Queen were unaccompanied by their parents.  Having their old ladies around would have put a damper on their … freedom.  Yet through the years, I noticed the Queen’s Rules had been taken down at most Dairy Queens for some reason.

So when I heard about the Starbucks’ incident whereby two men asked to use the restroom without purchasing anything, I did not think the business unkind or unfair.  If anyone can sit at Starbucks, small yet cozy coffee shops, and not be obligated to purchase coffee or something to consume, that’s news to me.  The race factor may have contributed to a manager’s rush to call the cops within minutes of the men asking to use the facilities sans purchase.  But why didn’t one of the men buy a cup of coffee, tea, bottled water or soft drink?  Starbucks is not a public lounge, after all, but a business.  They exist to make money off everyone who enters.  How did we lose sight of that?  Is Starbucks to blame for its casual, laid-back atmosphere?

When traveling the highways and heeding nature’s call by stopping at a gas station or restaurant to use a restroom, the courteous thing to do is purchase something before we leave.  Doing otherwise would be rude of us.  Taking advantage of any business, no matter how world renowned and prosperous, is impolite.  Kudos to Starbucks for nipping what is perceived by the masses to be race discrimination among staff.  Shame on those who jumped on Starbucks to protest what may not have been a purely racist intention.

In the near future, Starbucks should take a cue from 1970s’ Dairy Queen.  Evidently, time has come today for restaurants to once again publicly post their own set of patron rules and expectations—so everyone knows and understands we ought not take advantage of a spot that’s open for business.

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What we post and see online is known by all

Who among us did not realize when posting stuff on Facebook that advertisers were watching our every word and pix?  Facebook, and the entire internet for that matter, is free for one reason: advertisers.  They monitor what we say and reveal as well as what internet sites we roam from Facebook and other social media.  That’s how we get all the news we can use from the internet for free.  The internet never promised us security and privacy.  It’s been routinely hacked.  Some users are trolled.  And the Russian bots and fake news proliferated, in accordance with our nation’s guaranteed right of free speech.

So why did the U.S. Congress make a federal case out of Facebook’s lax security?  Why did they feel the need for a public scorning, scolding, and intellectual crucifixion of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg last week?  Our nation has a heap more problems than the privacy settings of Facebook accounts.

Was the Zuckerberg testimony some sort of search for evil, as Americans are known to seek when bad things happen to us?  Was this some sort of dog-and-pony show by our elected officials, democrats and republicans, still smarting over the Trump presidential win and subsequent leadership?  Why not grill that computer guy with the pink hair and body piercings who blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica and its connection if not command and directives by one Steve Bannon?

Now we are supposed to wait around until Facebook lets each of us know if we were one of the 80 million users whose accounts were sought to persuade a Trump victory?  Here’s the deal: Trump was going to win whether or not 80 million Americans were inspired by Facebook’s political ads, Russian bots and unknown demographic influences.  Hillary Clinton actually won the majority vote by two million, but she did not win the Electoral College because she lost Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Who even looks at the ads on Facebook anyway?  I’ve managed to turn a blind eye.  And while scrolling the Facebook feed, most of what I see is a resent internet poster on life being full of love and loss.  If anything would make me want to drop Facebook, that would be it.  Yet I remain a participant for the occasional real news from families and friends.  That’s maybe two percent of what I get from Facebook these days.  It used to be fun years ago.  Remember Throwback Thursday?  Keeping up with that was tedious and tiresome especially as I was swamped by work in the real world.  But it was a fad, and so is Facebook and maybe social media altogether.  We bore easily after a few years.

The In Crowd

The cool thing nowadays is to remove your Facebook account.  A few million have done just that (as if the Russian bots can’t find some other way to influence, tantalize and confuse us on the internet).  The internet has always been a deal with the devil.  Computers are just switches using 0s and 1s.  And that’s the problem in trying to maintain some kind of security such as online purchases with a credit card.  Simply put, it can’t be done.  We’ve seen time and again hacking of major accounts from banks to department stores, government departments to hospitals and colleges.  It’s a modern man-made mess.

Because of privacy concerns, I was late to Facebook.  I didn’t want everyone to know my business: where I went on vacation, when I went on vacation, my news and blues and latest hairdos.  But like practically every American, I figured ‘What the hell?’  Why not get on social media and mix it up?  Things went smoothly enough … until the 2016 election.  It was sad to see how comments for and against Trump, Hillary and Obama were taken by long-time friends and family.  I’d say relationships will never be the same and patched up.  Some would say I have a big mouth—but no more so than others on Facebook. Besides, I always supported free speech, even if Obama was called a n**&^% by my Facebook friends.

Free speech is what I’m all about.  I put up with comments I don’t like.  To keep peace among my kin, I turned to tweeting my all-out sassy quips against, well, you know who.

The idea of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook in a data breach scandal is just too overwhelming and scary for some folks.  They feel violated, their deeply-held political, religious and societal views being studied and used to swing an election, or so the tale goes, wagging the dog.  We need to grow up and face the technological age in which we live: Anything we say on the internet and social media can and will be used against us.

One final thought on the subject: There really is no way to delete what’s said online.  It’s out there now in cyberspace … to be found out by someone, somehow, someday, somewhere.