Posts

Posted on

Requiem mass for the spiritually broken

Kyrie, eleison

Lord, have mercy

I’m not Catholic, and I don’t know a lot of Catholics.  But through the years, most of the ones I’ve gotten to know are actually former Catholics.  So bitter are their childhood memories of Catholic schooling; obligated mass attendance; memorized Hail Marys and many formal prayers; built-in guilt; confession; communion; signs of the cross; and catechism of memorized saints, rituals, holy days, feasts, mass settings, and biblical passages.  By the time my ‘former-Catholic’ friends were young adults, they were more than cynical about The Church.  But other young people who were raised in Protestant denominations get burned out on religion, too, and strike out on their own, simply choosing not to attend church all the time.  Early adulthood is a time of breaking away from required childhood routines, teachings and most importantly spiritual beliefs.

The Catholic Church being a big mystery to me, not unlike the Jewish faith, I never realized what all the silent anger was about among the few Catholics I knew and wanted to get to know better—why a deliberate non-mention that they had been raised Catholic.  When the subject came up, they would roll their eyes and grit their teeth.  Seemed like they didn’t want to talk about that part of their lives especially to me, a non Catholic.

All I’ve known about The Holy Roman Catholic Church is from high school World History.  It was the original Christian church; forming after the fall of the Roman Empire around 450 A.D.; and for 1,500 years dominated Western Europe in culture, dress, law, music, art, architecture, deeds, expectations, behavior and thought.  Teachers in the public schools made sure we understood how foolish The Church had been way back when in leading The Crusades, specifically mentioning the Children’s Crusade, and that in Europe the longstanding Catholic Church had become corrupt which ushered in the Renaissance and Reformation.  For decades hence, there would be many bloody battles and outright wars between Catholics and Protestants especially in determining which would rule England and other Christian countries.  When one Christian sect was in power, the other was severely persecuted.

Sanctus

Holy

I’ve found mature American Catholics to be open minded and liberal thinkers, recalling their fight for civil rights in the 1960s as well as joining protests to end the Vietnam War, serving in the Peace Corps and providing worldwide humanitarian relief through Catholic Charities.  An image that comes to mind is the smiling nun at the Woodstock music festival who flashes the peace sign.

Agnus Dei

Lamb of God

But then again … and again … and yet again … the public is informed of another massive scandal within large communities of the Catholic Church involving sex abuse of children and adolescents by dozens of priests.  Now I understand the … shame … of those who would rather refer to themselves as former Catholics, maybe determining themselves not religious at all.  The revelations are nothing new and to a jaded society may be not only secretly suspected but remain in the forefront of the minds of non Catholics.  What are we to think?  Sure there have been the famous TV evangelists and little-known preachers throughout the U.S. who’ve committed the same sin, the same crime.  But in sheer numbers, there is no comparison, and it’s because of an ancient institution.

The latest scandal involved six dioceses in Pennsylvania; 1,000 victims; 300 priests; and an institutionalized cover up since the 1940s.  These were rapes, sex crimes that should have been reported to police … but weren’t … for whatever reasons.  In 1997 a similar scandal by a “pedophile priest” occurred within the Dallas Catholic Diocese involving almost a dozen altar boys which went on for years.  The priest was sentenced to life in prison, and a $119 million jury award practically bankrupted the Diocese.  To prevent such crimes in the future, the jury mandated the Dallas Diocese report any rumor or suspicion of child sexual abuse by priests to law officials, never to hide the unholy again.

In 2015 the Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight” was about The Boston Globe’s investigation into a sex scandal within the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.  Five priests were criminally prosecuted, not to mention a plethora of lawsuits.  The Catholic bishop kept the sex crimes secret and reassigned offending priests, as was done in Pennsylvania.  So … The Church knew all along.  The newspaper reported the scandal in 2002 and won the Pulitzer Prize.

In paradisum

Into paradise

Pope Francis is livid over the same scandal involving priests not only in America but Ireland and other countries around the world.  Obviously, to Catholics and non Catholics alike, something has to be done immediately.  One solution is not allowing a priest to ever be alone with a minor.  Some Catholics are calling for The Pope to reconsider permitting women to enter the priesthood and allowing priests to marry.  Why are these two reforms still controversial in the year 2018?

In the 16th century, Martin Luther posted dozens  of disagreements with The Church.  He also had an opinion on allowing priests to marry, writing that celibacy is not required in the Bible and that on the contrary God called humans to be fruitful and multiply.  Once the Protestant Reformation was under way, ministers were allowed to marry, and their wives were part of their ministries.  Luther also believed marriage would prevent temptation.  He also disagreed with priests as a necessary go-between for man and God.  Luther preached that everyone is called to minister to all people, which is biblical, spoken by Jesus Christ Himself.

Today’s Catholics, led by the popular and progressive Pope Francis, are allowed their own discretion on many intimate beliefs such as contraception.  What is surprising to non Catholics like me is why a billion people around the world remain dedicated to The Church.  Protestants, from the root word ‘protest,’ don’t understand and would simply switch to another church.  Given the cover ups, criminal sexual abuse against children, the perversion and hypocrisy—why do so many remain loyal to The Church?  Are they eternally dedicated though sorely ashamed and disgusted with atrocious sins and crimes by some priests involving the innocence of children?

Catholic or Protestant, we are taught to believe before we are taught to think.  The Catholic faith—with its beautiful stained-glass depictions, sky-high cathedrals, priests donning ornate robes and hats, processions, rituals, congregational prayers and songs, unified mass scripture readings and lectures—is essentially what religion should be: a sacred and profound bond of humans in mind and spirit.  There are millions on earth who still believe “To err is human, to forgive divine.”  But at what cost to our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, all God’s children?

Posted on

Who are Q? Who who? Who who?

So I’m hearing a lot about this mysterious Q.  Seeing the T-shirts and posters at Trump rallies, wanting to keep up with the latest craze, and watching Bill Maher on “Real Time” sarcastically proclaim he is the one and only Q, I decided to check out what this is all about.  Right there online, first thing I learned was “Q” is a longstanding music magazine in Great Britain.  That can’t be the American-conspiracists’ Q of which I gathered from the recent buzz.  My online search also included “Q for Beginners—Part 1” by the prayingmedic and “Q/The Plan to Destroy the U.S.” by BPEarthWatch.  Huh.

There was also an article by collective-evolution.com titled “Who is Q?  Mainstream Media Crashes the Party to Take Control of the Narrative.”  Collective-evolution, citing itself as ‘alternative news,’ presents an insider’s knowledge of what the media proclaims or has just found out about Q aka Q-anon: that it’s a far-right conspiracy theory with Trump as hero.  The article asks like-minded readers, however, to ponder if journalists actually and honestly can report on what they do not understand.  [Reporters report on just about everything they don’t understand whether they know about it, like it or even believe it.  They actually like learning about things they know nothing about and don’t understand.  It expands their minds, makes them interesting and probably turns them into liberal thinkers.]

The low-keyed prayingmedic kindly tells viewers about how Q came to be known online since October 2017.  During the informative chat, advertisement sidebars included a research group seeking “Men with depression” and website titles like “The Great Awakening” alluding to the End Times—assuming everyone now would agree our times are the infamous Last Days of mankind.  The one certainty about paranoid people is their certainty.  They got it all figured out, this without ever working in or for the United States government.

Night of the living dead

Why do millions of Americans want to live in the End of Days?  Why would anyone long to experience World War III?  Do you know how many doomsday prophecies I’ve lived through?  Too many to mention.  But since the ’70s, they all were projected by ministers who announced the exact day and time, got lots of media attention and money, and then when the fateful days came … the world kept turning.  Gravity kept us in place, the same place, our beloved home away from Home, planet Earth.

Perhaps mass depression is to blame for so many believing now is the End Time.  The mass media already theorized on a mass delusion among Trump supporters, more so with those donning Q cards at political rallies.  Constantly researching the internet is rapid paced; it can’t be good for the human brain and apparently leaves many people with no time to think for themselves.  Did you know that in Canada, school students from fourth to eighth grades study how to use the internet and when proven they have internet smarts including passing a test, they receive an internet user license.  Smart people, our neighbors to the north: rational, calm, cool-headed.  They’re not like Americans: with our puritanical Salem witch trials history, suspicions of anyone and everyone ‘different,’ gullibility, fear, alarmist inclination, and always on the lookout to prevent One World government when ultimate evil will enslave humanity in horror and degradation.  Surely it’s just around the corner.

Stephen Hawking, the brilliant cosmologist, was asked about the possibility of aliens from outer space.  He doubted a world government conspiracy to keep such things secret, logically pointing out how governments have proven time and again to be rather inept at the simplest of tasks like balanced budgets and efficiently plugging pot holes and maintaining other public works.  The man was a rational genius.

Having survived numerous dooms days and the mass anticipation of such, I am now at the point of irritation.  What kind of example are we showing young people, who haven’t even begun to live and experience the wonder and beauty of life?  We don’t have the right to discount their young lives and future by proclaiming now the End of Days.  Why is it always middle-aged and older adults who believe in such things, as if they can’t wait for it?  How dare millions of Americans insist we all are living at the End of the World?  That only Jesus Christ Himself can save us?  That the year 2018 and further into the 21st century is most assuredly when the End will come?  Tell that to our ancestors who lived through a helluva lot more war and man-made evil than any of us modern Americans—coddled and bored people with too much free time.

Get over believing Q has a clue into a Deep State government.  Trump as our nation’s savior is nonsense.  Yep, post-internet or pre-internet, the only thing certain in life, besides death and taxes, is man was born with a brain.  When you are thinking for yourself, you’re gonna find few people, not millions, who think like you do.  Lest we forget, Americans are rugged individuals not a bunch of scaredy cats.  The world is not ending.  There are no dots to connect.  We create our government; we’re in control and need to start acting like it.  Get on with living the rest of your lives.  Lay off the internet for awhile.  It’s amazing how quickly the brain restores full clarity so that we become clear headed once again.

Posted on

American WASPs still stinging immigrants

So the U.S. has the worst immigration laws in the world?  Well, let me respond with a little ol’ American folk song, parodied by yours truly, to go somethin’ like this:

This land was their land.

It wasn’t our land

from California to the New York island.

We took it from them.

Sometimes we paid them.

Now we must share this land for all.

No other nation on earth has our history—and sole purpose to admit people from around the world including our own hemisphere—especially within the past 500 years.  Everyone on the planet knows America’s convoluted, though in premise sparkling, history.  Europeans started migrating over here in the 1600s.  But the land the White man named America was not uninhabited.  There were thousands of native tribes, mostly brown-skinned people (described as red-skinned by the White man).  What would become the United States of America was born in multicultural conflict, not to mention the issue of enslaved Africans dragged in chains all the way over here to work the land for free till death.  What a multi-cultural mess: this vast territory, unstable, shocking and terrifying until forced colonization by the English-speaking Christian British.

Anglo Americans can’t forget our shameful past in ‘settling’ this land, right up to the late 20th century when Americans began to realize through public education the damage done to ancient civilizations and Native people.  And we think we have the right today to squawk about illegal immigrants?  If there weren’t jobs for them, people south of the Rio Grande wouldn’t keep coming up here.  American businessmen had a lot to do with creating the alleged illegal immigration problem rued today.

And who’s doing the ruing?  Mostly businessmen and the rich of WASP ancestry.  This is why Americans who felt our nation was not-so-great returned to electing a forty-fourth white man president.  To put a stop once and for all to illegal immigration, even in cases of asylum, the new president’s policy was to separate Central American parents from their Native speaking children.  Say what?  Some of the Indigenous families do not speak Spanish let alone English.  Despite the new get-tough deterrent, after traveling hundreds of miles and undergoing insurmountable hardships, many families crossed over, assumed the position to surrender in arrest to the United States while watching their own children taken into separate custody hundreds and thousands of miles from South Texas.  Many of the little ones were understandably traumatized by the family separation.  What an unholy mess yet again by White-ruling Americans.

Red and yellow, black and white

Something drastic had to be done to stop illegal immigration.  Not really.  Illegal crossings along the southern border have been reduced substantially: from more than a million annually during the Clinton years to less than a quarter of a million annually with the vast majority of those people seeking asylum.  Decent people cannot and will not live in Central American narco states where drug cartels rule with brutal beat downs, shake downs, gang rule, murder and rape.

Now American history is coming full circle.  It was similar hostilities—called ‘religious persecution’ in our schoolbooks—when English and European families began to leave everything behind for the New World.  Some died during the rough six-week boat ride across the choppy Atlantic Ocean.  Naturally, many arrived sick, feverish, infected, infectious, and yes dirty.  Through the decades, most European immigrants did not speak English.  Yet somehow they kept coming and coming and coming all the way over to this land right here.  The Catholic Irish were discriminated against for employment.  Then Italians were treated similarly.  And on and on with each nationality, although most Whites generally agreed to uphold equal discrimination against people of color from Central and South America, Africa and Asia.

There isn’t a plot of land in the entire country that anyone can claim free of past Native occupation.  But Native Americans did not believe the earth was something man could own or possess—only to care for, love, appreciate and cultivate.  All the earth belonged to God—their Sky God, the Supreme Being.  Whites took advantage of the sincere spiritual philosophy, offering trade for land: horses, pots, rifles, skins, whatever, maybe coins.  Who knows?  God knows.

Many supported Trump’s campaign to Make America Great Again (evidently code for Make America White Again).  Americans of fifth and sixth or more generations have had enough playing around with Spanish and English: seeing grocery signs, billboards, government documents and election ballots in both languages; infuriated with every business phone call a language selection cue to press 1 or 2.  Public schools in states bordering Mexico are becoming majority Hispanic.  Much to worry about … if you’re White and want everything and everyone to stay as it seemingly was in the last century.

Things change.  Times change.  Territories change.  Societies change.  Of this Europeans still residing in countries with bloody histories spanning a thousand-plus years know well.  Human migration is nothing new—in truth, it’s the way of the world.  But to a Baby Nation not yet 300 years old, with a ruling class still carrying on our forefathers’ prejudices and bigotry, immigration is the number one cause of all the world’s problems.

During the 20th century, America was great at assimilation: everyone melting into White privilege and culture.  But by the end of the century, when hyphenated Americans began to have pride in their diverse ancestral heritage, a social push back began.  African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, Native Americans, etc., will no longer resonate WASP prejudices.  Those days are gone.  So we Americans and all the wanna-be Americans can accept, understand and enjoy our multi-cultural past, present and future.  Or we can go our separate ways—refusing to live together peacefully.

Posted on

The cuckoo’s nest is expanding and visible at major city intersections

Every time I see one of those homeless people holding a sign at a busy street corner, I think about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  Or is it 1984?  Either way, both novels have to do with individual freedom.  Both also have to do with what it takes for a person to fit in society.

Cuckoo’s Nest, both the book and the movie, resonated with Baby Boomers who felt a connection to personal freedom and sanity.  The story is set in a mental institution in the early ’60s when along comes a criminal patient with the sardonic charm of an untamed animal.  Jack Nicholson plays the role and won the Oscar, probably for his portrayal of receiving electric shock therapy—a minute or so of tortured convulsions, every second believable and painful to watch.

The satirical novel by Ken Kesey asks us: Who is really crazy?  What is crazy?  Aren’t we all a bit crazy?  The story propelled a movement to change the courts and psychiatric care by not locking up everyone who simply doesn’t fit in with society.  Individualized and more humanistic therapies evolved in hospitals nationwide which allowed for triaging levels of psychiatric need and care.  Also, instead of leaving psych patients to vegetate, residents were encouraged to leave the premises for activities like swimming, biking, shopping and visiting movies, restaurants, amusement parks and museums.  If treatment works, which may include medication along with psychotherapy, individuals with diagnosed mental illness can hold jobs and careers and live in group homes or on their own.  The changes made for better healthcare so people who struggle with mental illness are able to live in society.

 Loony Tune

From a sociological viewpoint, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest leaves a lingering impression because of the theme: a conflict between the rulers and the unruly—the rulers being doctors, nurses, teachers, police, judges, parents, all authority figures; the unruly being the weak and the misfits.  Nice, polite, orderly, really meaning no harm, the rulers expect everybody to follow, obey, and believe in society’s rules.  Then someone like Nicholson’s anti-social R.P. McMurphy is sent inside a white sterile mental hospital where he sees pathetic patients never getting better.  Even the sedate quasi classical music sounds warped played from old albums.  The entire situation was crazy to McMurphy’s way of thinking.  He couldn’t help but shake it up, to the quiet discontent of calm and stern Nurse Ratched.

In the late ’60s, societal conflict was similar as the young counterculture bravely said no to the Man.  Youth longed to feel total freedom, allowed to make their own mistakes and choices and live life on their own terms.  Rules be damned.  It happens every few generations: the younger finally unwilling to follow the older way of life.  It’s a natural societal progression.  But it always begins with painful arguments: the mature empowered yet disrespected; youth suppressed and rebellious.

Finally McMurphy has had it with all the rules and no fun micro managed by the dreaded Nurse Ratched.  But she has the ultimate power to force his obedience.  He’ll never trouble her again.  Still all the men in the ward are influenced by McMurphy’s lust for life, rebellious spirit, fighting rules and institutions—which for most patients should be a temporary stay.  The most important lesson he imparts to the mental patients is: You’re no crazier than anybody else out there.  One of McMurphy’s disciples escapes the institution, busting out by sheer force and will, running across the manicured lawn, following his heart into the woods.  Because his character is Native American, his escape to freedom is musically enhanced by the sounds of a simple drum beat representing the heart, rattles for moving bones, and a strange flute melody personifying his unique spiritual path.

CrAzY

So back to the street people.  How do we explain our nation’s growing homeless population and the problem of chronic homelessness?  It’s got to be caused by more than unemployment or jobs replaced by robotics, low skills or intelligence, drug addiction or veterans returning from war.  The problem has got to be mostly about spiraling mental illness … and families who cannot deal with a relative amidst any or all of the above.  Families used to feel they didn’t have to.  Mental illness was society’s problem because although the majority of the mentally ill are not dangerous, there are people with homicidal and/or suicidal tendencies.  It’s tragic—a huge cosmic joke.

In the early 1980s as federal budget cuts included mental facilities, funding was shifted from large institutions to community hospitals and psych wards.  The feds expected states and cities to continue paying for such care and mental health maintenance locally.  Those in charge also were persuaded by pharmaceutical advancements that helped many patients with everything from depression to paranoid schizophrenia.  Somehow when neo mental health philosophy met the tax buck and many institutions were closed, mental patients literally were given a one-way ticket to various American cities, perhaps where they had family, and forced to figure out how to cope.

Legislators assumed the issue of mental illness was and should remain a private matter and family affair.  They did not realize the stress of modern American life: folks too busy earning a living; too tired working two or more jobs; raising kids and teens; dealing with their own issues of finances, divorce, health, depression and anxiety.  The last thing the average adult can handle is a ‘crazy’ relative, even blood kin.  Caring for a mentally ill loved one may very well require a degree in psychology.  It’s that difficult of a problem, complicated, and extremely serious, sometimes a matter of life or death.

The homeless population is increasing throughout the U.S.  Street people in Dallas increased more than 20 percent in the past year.  And wasn’t Dallas a city that enacted a law to fine citizens who give to beggars, especially those standing at busy highway intersections?  Take a good look at the homeless, who stand everywhere to be seen and ask for help.  They are severely ill body, mind and spirit.  They are not crazy-as-a-fox just because they pick the busiest intersections to hold signs promoting their plight and financial need.  A couple of bucks from strangers will not solve their problems, often exacerbated by addiction.

It appears homelessness, for whatever the reasons, can’t be fixed and has become acceptable.  Maybe homelessness remains by the powers that be as a fearful reminder to the rest of us who look away in disgust or thoughtfully refrain, “There but by the grace of God go I.”  Freedom requires people be healthy inside and out while maintaining a positive, optimistic outlook.  But not everyone is born to handle total freedom that comes with making a life in America.  Ironically, in the technologically efficient state-controlled society of 1984, the homeless, though shunned and neglected, are the ones who live freely.

Posted on

An affair to remember, courtesy of the United States Congress

What?  Was?  That?!  Our U.S. Congress—having nothing better to do this long hot summer—spent more than one work day grilling an FBI agent, live on cable news, about ‘anti-Trump’ emails.  How dare they (interrupt my daytime cable news watching)?  Have they no decency, sirs?  No.  No, they really don’t.  Particularly humorous was Texas’ own Rep. Louie Gohmert’s moral scolding of FBI Agent Peter Strzok for the many times he looked his dear wife right in the eyes while keeping secret his extra-marital affair. This from the party of Donald J. Trump.

Ignoring at least a dozen women’s claims of sexual harassment by Mr. Trump, the boys in Washington found plenty of time to brand a scarlet letter A on an FBI agent.  At issue was the agent’s affair with a female colleague whose government–issued cell phone texts became a matter of public record.  As the couple carried on conversations during 2016, they sent each other texts pondering a Trump win as president: the female concerned, the male assuring Trump would never be president, punctuating his certainty with the words, “We will stop him.”

American idiots and conspiracy buffs alike took that to naturally mean the FBI would, let’s just say ‘make Trump go away.’  Just like the CIA made President Kennedy take a permanent leave of office.  Like the Illuminati has a plan for one-world government.  Like the devil infiltrated the Vatican and continues to run loose among us to steal our very souls.  Like the U.S. Air Force redacts documented proof of extraterrestrial aliens.  See, I watch the “X-Files,” too.

But I never took the text by a secret agent lover man to literally mean any physical harm to Trump.  I naturally thought “we” referred to the People of the United States, all 300 million of us, at least 150 million, who would take to the streets if Trump were elected and never shut up about how the 2016 election was indeed rigged.  The day following that boring Congressional hearing, a dozen Russian agents were indicted by our federal government for just that: interfering with a U.S. presidential election by using the internet.  Coincidence?  [There are no coincidences.]

Have you or anyone you know ever been a member of the Party?

To those of us willing to endure a few hours of pointless testimony and pontification, party affiliation and allegiance was the focus of the very Republican Congressional inquiry.  Again and again, Congressmen questioned the federal agent about his ability to truly separate his feelings toward Trump while investigating Trump-related affairs, no pun intended.  The agent swore and attested to his professionalism in doing his job as a federal investigator even if delving into the Trump campaign.  It did not matter if the agent were Democrat, Republican or Independent, he maintained he could do his job and do it well with utmost clarity.

Nahhh, replied the Congressional chorus.  They would not believe an educated, mature, seasoned professional federal investigator with the F B I could put aside thoughts, feelings, impressions, gut instincts and educated guesses while performing a vitally important investigation.  Can’t be done, the inquisitors declared.

Yes it can.  Maybe immature kids out of college or elected officials are not yet capable of putting aside religious and political inclinations, but someone with an important federal job that calls first for an intense persona can push away unsubstantiated suspicions at the snap of a finger.  Federal investigators are that good.  And thank goodness, don’t you agree?  Though the American people continue to be divided by deeply-held yet opposing political views, more feelings than thoughts, a professional in any field is obliged to separate opinion from the job at hand.  We expect just that, or a lot of jobs won’t get done.  This dual mindset, called a poker face, is expected every day of teachers, law officers, judges, doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, counselors, surgeons, lawyers, reporters, military personnel, just about any profession.

The Congressional Inquisition really wanted to know the party affiliation of one Peter Strzok, as if they had him pegged as a pinko liberal Communist Democrat.  Nahhh, just about all the FBI agents involved in the Trump investigation are known Republicans.  And everyone knows the FBI never liked the Clintons.  It’s just that the very strange and peculiar 2016 presidential election had a lot of Democrats voting for Trump and a lot of Republicans voting for Hillary Clinton.  We’re some screwed up nation, huh?

The Congressional scrutiny of an FBI agent smacked of forthcoming loyalty oaths, something Trump reportedly had wanted from his cabinet picks and department heads, perhaps other appointments like a Supreme Court Justice.  Let’s just hope ‘loyalty oaths’ are yet another massive American conspiracy theory.  Imagine, a U.S. president demanding loyalty oaths among every federal employee.  We still have free speech, thought and ideas, right?  Americans who think differently than the U.S. president won’t lose their jobs, be publicly humiliated, or sent to special ‘camps,’ right?  (Whistling “The X-Files” theme.)

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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?