Here are contents of my first e-mail from the White House under the current administration. Let's just say that after 4 years of e-mails from He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named this is a VERY different sort of tone. Hallelujah!
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Here are contents of my first e-mail from the White House under the current administration. Let's just say that after 4 years of e-mails from He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named this is a VERY different sort of tone. Hallelujah!
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Twelve years ago I wrote...
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President Barack Hussein Obama
I believe President Obama will be one of the outstanding Presidents of my lifetime. But whatever occurs over the next four or eight years, this day will live in the memories of Americans as one of the most happy moments of our history.
We are beginning to live the dream.
God bless the memory of Charity Stinchcomb and all those who lived as slaves.
God bless the memory of Rosa Parks.
God bless the memory of those little children mistreated
as they integrated schools in the fifties and sixties.
God bless the memory of Medger Evers.
God bless the memory of those three boys in Philiadelphia, Mississippi.
God bless the memory of Dr. King.
God bless the memory of Silas McComb.
God bless the memory of Solomon Lasoi.
God bless this good man, our President.
God bless America.
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It is one of the great tragedies of our history that the presidency of this great man was immediately followed by the illegitimacy and vile criminality of his successor and that successor's enablers.
Today, Barack Obama's partner, Joe Biden, takes the reins as our servant, our unitary executive. He has, for now, the support of a slim majority in Congress and a huge majority of the American people.
He understands history.
He reads,
He knows what he knows and knows that he does not know it all.
He knows that We the People are in charge and that he works for us.
He will listen to anyone and everyone and will make decisions not for purely political reasons but to fulfill his oath.
Like Barack Obama and all of his predecessors save one he has read and studied the Constitution of the United States.
He understood the following words and swore them seriously when he declared:
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
We have a real President of the United States again.
God bless America.
For four years I have worked toward this day.
The bloodstain on our history that is the legacy of The One Who Shall Not Be Named will never be completely cleansed from our history, but the wound has been stanched, and its assailant removed from our White House.
Our republic is, for now, in the process of healing. It is still hurting. There is still much to do. But hope has returned to our body politic.
We the People are on the mend.
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We are celebrating today! |
We are so proud of our young friend Carlyn Reichel.
Here's the article in this morning's Rome News-Tribune with a headline stretched all the way across the top of page one ...
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Carlyn's service for America in the Biden-Harris administration. |
We always knew that Carlyn's heart, her brilliant mind, and her work ethic would take her far. We have been thrilled to see her work with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during President Obama's first administration and then with Vice President Biden during the second administration and after. She even occasionally wrote remarks for President Obama himself. Now I will sleep more soundly than I have in four years knowing, not only that we have a patriotic and serious president with a strong national security team, but that someone we know personally and trust implicitly is part of that team. Congratulations, Carlyn Reichel!
Carlyn has been a part of our lives since she and Brannon were cute little "birds" together in a production at Rome Little Theater and then fifth-grade classmates at Elm Street School. Several other RLT joint appearances followed. They remained close friends through elementary and middle schools and then many Rome High theatrical and choral performances right through their work on the "Howling" at the end of their senior year.
Carlyn's Mom, Sharon, became our dear friend. She was also a teacher at Rome High School and a dedicated part of the Rome Symphony Chorus and then the Rome Festival Singers. A few years ago she moved to DC to be nearer her children and grandchildren. We miss her.
Carlin's late father Charles was beloved by all. After a career as a Lutheran pastor and college professor and administrator he was head of the National Creative Society here in Rome at the time of his sudden death in 2010. I remember that back in the 80s, when I taught in the program for gifted students in Floyd County Schools, Charles was a leader among the parents of the kids in that program.
Among those very gifted former students of mine are Carlyn's older siblings Cara and Carsten.
Cara is a wonderfully talented theatrical producer, director, writer, and actor. She and her husband Pete Mills have written and/or produced many wonderful musicals through their Prospect Theater Company in New York City. One of my thrills was singing with her company in a musical revue by Prospect at Rome Little Theatre. It was my first opportunity to perform "Lily's Eyes" the dramatic and soaring duet from The Secret Garden. (I later reprised that performance as Archibald Craven in a Sam Baltzer and Brian Sikes production of the full musical at Rome City Auditorium.)
Mischievous little Carsten has grown up to become a federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice in our nation's capital as well as a husband and daddy.
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Here' is the most recent picture I could find this morning of Carlyn with Brannon and their mutual high school buddy, Rene Hickman, in 2016 at Brannon's wedding. |
Here are few pictures I found this morning:
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Brannon and Carlyn performing in a play at Rome High. |
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Strapping on the inline skates... |
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Skating on the old levee Riverwalk. Notice the City Clock in the distance. |
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Do you remember when the Riverwalks were all at the base of the levees rather than the tops? This is behind our house upstream of the Turner-McCall bridge over the Oostanaula. |
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Heading back up the levee toward the house. |
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Our niece Lisette, Carlyn, and Brannon after their Rome High graduation ceremony. |
For about twenty years on the Monday of the Martin Luther King Jr weekend I have joined like-minded folks to walk from First Avenue, in sight of the Confederate memorial, up a Broad Street filled with nearly sixty years of my memories to the Rome City Auditorium. I have written about that meaningful mile several times.
This morning I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, "Words Matter", and heard MLK's own voice reading his famous "Letter From the Birmingham Jail". I knew immediately that that recording needed to be my post for this day. Please give his words a listen this morning. Much of it can apply to the situation we find ourselves today decades later when fascism and racism has raised its ugly head so bloodily at our Capitol building with incitement from our president.
Sheila and I will meet Lillian and other family members later this morning at a graveside service for her cousin Thyle Trawick who died this week, so we may have had to miss the march anyway today, but I hate that the pandemic has stolen another important moment from us.
Here are links to a few previous posts ...
Walking for Peace and Justice - 2006
I am conflicted.
I am gloriously happy.
I am deeply sad.
I am righteously angry.
I am completely exhausted.
I am so proud of my state.
I am so ashamed of some of my neighbors, relatives, and friends.
After working so hard, hoping against hope, for months on end to save our republic from the Trumpists by helping elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff we have amazingly triumphed! We have a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, A Democratic President. Two Democratic Senators from Georgia. I am thrilled.
There are folks I truly love who are still supporting what I consider outright evil. I do not believe THEY are evil; I believe they are tragically deceived and/or else blindly loyal to undeserving, even evil, leaders. I am literally nauseated sometimes when I see their fact-free posts spreading Trumpian lies. How that tempers my joy.
How do I express myself, help call out the evil, hold those who incited and/or committed these atrocities responsible, and still maintain relationships with folks I love who have chosen to excuse the inexcusable?.
One of the great regrets of my life is that, as an adult, I never had a conversation with Daddy about his experiences in World War Two.
Oh we had some brief stories about about my Mother's visit at Camp Pendleton in California before he shipped out to the Pacific. But we did have a converstaion about it when I was about 12 or 13.
Daddy's home office was in what may have once been the second auto bay of our garage in the parsonage where we lived in Ellijay. Daddy was pastor at Watkins Memorial, the Methodist church in Ellijay, just off the square. To get to Daddy's little office you went out the back door from our kitchen into what we called the "breezeway" then through the garage to the office.
During the war Daddy had taken up photography and had taken and developed and printed photos which he kept in a small album. I saw that album many times. It included a lot of pictures from Ulithi -- if you don't know the story of Ulithi you need to read it -- including shots of the grass-roofed huts, island women walking around without tops, native men in traditional dress, he and his buddies posing disrespectfully with captured Japanese flags, himself with a cigarette in his hand, etc.
But there were also photos of the bodies of Japanese soldiers splayed awkwardly in ditches.
I don't really remember how the topic came up. Perhaps I brought it up, or maybe he did. Just the two of us were in that little office and I remember that Daddy became very serious, even somber. In that one conversation Daddy allowed himself to describe very graphically some of the cruelty and depravity of the Japanese in the Pacific where he fought and of the fascists in Europe where two of my mother's brothers put their lives on the line. I think he wanted me to know the importance and justice of the risk he took, half a world away from his young wife and two little girls. I was terrified and nauseated especially by the his second-hand description of atrocities he had heard about from those who liberated Nazi concentration camps.
Last Wednesday our current President who, his first wife reportedly said, kept a book of Hitler's speeches near his bed, incited a huge group of white supremacists,
Daddy died in 1986. I cannot know how he would have been affected by the events that have occurred in America during the last 35 years. Perhaps he would have been influenced as some others have been to believe the unbelievable and excuse the inexcusable. I'm sure I have relatives who will go to their graves believing Daddy would have been on Trump's side. I don't believe that. I do not believe my Daddy went through the hell of World War Two so that we could let traitorous cowards like Donald John Trump trash our republican traditions, our elections, our Constitution. That some of the very ones for whom Daddy sacrificed so much in 1944 and 1945 and whom I still love and in other ways admire, now support the fascistic, supremacist, autocratic wannabe is -- literally --nauseating.
I would point out that the TWO great Presidents of the United States who were my daddy's commanders-in-chief (FDR & Harry Truman) were BOTH Democratic presidents, like Joe Biden and Barack Obama NOT socialists. And like the great commander and future great president whose wartime biography Daddy gave to me when I was in fourth-grade (Ike) they were supporters of Social Security, unions, the GI Bill and other stuff labeled (deceitfully) in those days by the right-wing extremists of the day as Socialist or even Communist. Being labeled by John Birchers and their intellectual successors as "Socialist" or "Communist" or "fellow traveler" did not make Ike, or Harry, or FDR any of those things. Liberal Democrats believe in capitalism tempered by regulation and programs to protect and promote the common good.
I was first called a "Communist" during the 1968 campaign because of my support of (get this!) Hubert Humphrey. I was recently, half a century later, screamed at, thrown middle fingers, called words I choose not to repeat here shouted from dozens of threatening screeching trucks flying MAGA, rebel, and American flags emblazoned with political messages, all because I, with many other patriotic friends, peacefully promoted the election of Joe Biden, one of the most beloved by BOTH sides of any U.S. Senator or Vice President in our history.
I am so proud of Daddy for the sacrifices he made for our republic. And I have placed my hand on my heart and sworn my allegiance to that republic hundreds of times. I have done my best to live up to that pledge during these five horrible years of watching the rise and reign of Donald John Trump. During these terrifying years I have watched supposed conservative patriots bow to, excuse, promote, defend, and even extol the closest thing we have ever had to a fascist in our White House.
My Daddy warned me about fascism.
An Open Letter to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene:
As your constituent for a few days now, and your neighbor since you decided to move to Rome so you could run for Congress from our district, I hold you accountable for your public behavior. What interesting and disappointing behavior it has been.
During the campaign and during the aftermath of the election you contributed to fanning the flames of discord and contributed to an assault that, like the British invasion of 1814, damaged our temple of liberty, the Capitol. The irresponsibility of that mob and those who incited them took the lives of at least five Americans and injured many more. The reputation of our republic is stained.
Thugs --- flying our Star-Spangled Banner alongside MAGA and Confederate flags, and wearing Nazi and supremacist slogans and Red Hats --- did not just spontaneously appear. They were incited by easily debunked myths of thousands of 17-year-old voters, of shredded ballots, of electronic manipulation of votes, and of a grand nation-wide conspiracy that according to the myth fraudulently, somehow, defeated Donald Trump despite the same ballots miraculously electing you and other Republicans.
Who spread these untruths?
Primarily it was the President. But he could have been corrected and this corrosive anger assuaged and calmed by principled Republicans who listened, as Lincoln implored, to the better angels of our natures. That did not happen. Often — instead of correcting false claims and helping your impassioned supporters accept the truth, you chose to amplify the discord and stir the venom.
Congresswoman Greene, throughout your campaign, and in the days since swearing allegiance to the grand goals of the Preamble and the principles of the seven articles and twenty-seven Amendments, you have promulgated conspiracy theories and election fraud fantasies. Perhaps they seemed harmless ploys that would set you apart, garner attention, and help get you elected.
Those tales were not harmless, Mrs. Greene; we know that now don’t we?
For better or worse you are our representative under the dome that Lincoln built, in the building where Adams and Clay and Webster and many other greats have served, where Lincoln and Roosevelt and Kennedy and John Lewis and other heroes have lain in state. You, our representative, stood by as our President spread untruths and ginned up anger. You spread some yourself.
It is my sincere hope that order, civility, and truth can return to the halls of our Congress and our executive branch. You have only just begun but you’ve seen the harm done to the body politick by such poisonous rhetoric. I beg you to change your ways.
Bring honor back to Congress. Admit your mistake. Call on the President to accept responsibility by resigning immediately. Failing that call for the invocation of the 25th Amendment or impeach him and support his removal.
Enough is enough.
I had intended to write about this day and our tradition of taking down our Christmas decorations on Three Kings Day. We have not touched those decorations today. We, like all of America, have had other things on our minds. But surely today was an epiphany of a different sort. Today our eyes, if they weren't already, were opened to the fathomless evil of our president and some of his supporters.
If you still uphold the crazed claims of that president after the Epiphany of January 6, 2021, then I say from the bottom of my heart, "Shame on you."
I really enjoyed these podcasts and have copied the links and info here to save them for later. For the few who occasionally check out my blog, you might enjoy these. I want to read one of Kaye's books.
Words Matter podcast: FDR's Speeches (part 1)
This week we welcome historian and sociologist Harvey J. Kaye for Part 1 of our discussion of his important book FDR on Democracy: The Greatest Speeches and Writings of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Harvey J. Kaye is Professor Emeritus of Democracy and Justice Studies and Director of the Center for History and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
An award-winning author and writer, he has written 9 books – including:
Follow Professor Kaye on Twitter @harveyjkaye
Words Matter podcast: FDR's Speeches (part 2)
This week we welcome back historian and sociologist Harvey J. Kaye for Part 2 of our discussion of his important book FDR on Democracy: The Greatest Speeches and Writings of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Harvey J. Kaye is Professor Emeritus of Democracy and Justice Studies and Director of the Center for History and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
An award-winning author and writer, he has written 9 books – including:
I think it was Larry Sabato who said if "Day of" ballots numbered more than a million the Sedition Caucus (Loeffler & Perdue) would win. He was wrong.
While it's not over, the outstanding ballots (imo) should give each Democrat a net of at least 10,000 more votes. While there WAS a big turnout, it was a big turnout of red AND blue, as was the November election. Over 4 million voters in a run-off. As a small-r republican I celebrate that. It means we can more truly proclaim: We the People have spoken.
Well the 2020 voting stops in two hours --- 4 days and 19 hours of overtime. And though the voting stops the counting will go on till 4 million or so of run-off votes have been awarded as We the People of Georgia have intended. As a volunteer for the Democratic Voter Protection Team for Floyd County I will join Republican volunteers to monitor the paid staff of the Floyd County Elections office as they begin the election day tabulation of ballots. It will likely be a long night and a few long days for Elections staff and the Republican and Democratic monitors.
Let me state this as firmly as I can:
If you use reasonable care in marking your absentee ballot, or in touching the screen and checking the printout of your electronic ballot, your vote will be counted as you intended.
I am very impressed with the security and accuracy safeguards built into our system; it is a vast improvement over the system it replaces. Those who claim there were major flaws in the system during the November election or this one are either ignorant of it, gullibly accepting information from untrustworthy sources, or dishonest. Period.
Now, that does not mean that there are not external forces that work to unfairly influence voters or suppress voting. Those are ongoing issues that must be addressed: Gerrymandering, foreign interference through social media to influence votes, gross lies from some political leaders, voters because of slight signature differences, limiting hours or locations for voting in some neighborhoods and not in others, etc. BUT the voting system itself is an excellent one.
I have raised my hand multiple times now to swear to fairly and appropriately monitor or count or adjudicate ballots. I have watched the process, along with Republican monitors, for hour after hour during all sorts of preparation, scanning, adjudication, counts, audits, and recounts. Every one involved has seemed dedicated to doing a good job. We had a few technical issues which were handled correcly and well, and, unfortunately one truly bone-headed mistake, but NEVER a purposeful mistake and every mistake was reported and corrected quickly.
I do not know whether my candidates (Warnock and Ossoff) or the Sedition Caucus (Loeffler and Perdue) will win tonight.
I will vomit if the liars win, but I will know that despite their loathsome "socialist" mudslinging and their fawning approval of Donald Trump's efforts to overthrow our republic, the people of Georgia will have voted for them.
Likewise if, as I hope hope hope hope, the good guys win, I will celebrate the FACT that Georgia voted for the good guys.
Our politics are broken, but our voting system is reliable.
Several years ago I asked Mother to suggest a song for my post for the twelfth day of Christmas. We agreed on this joyful standard. At youTube I discovered a number of nice versions and one awful one (Michael Bolton with an unenthusiastic Placido Domingo singing backup). I considered using a different Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance, but they sang "saints and nature sing" in place of "heaven and nature sing" -- what's with that?
(An earlier version of this post was published 12-15-2008)
In 2008 Jack invited me to his church to see him in their Christmas pageant. It wasn't often during my career that a fourth-grader would so formally ask my presence at a weekend event. I asked if he had lines.
"Yes", he admitted, "several".
He didn't mention a song. He seemed so serious, yet humble in his request, I thought I just might do it.
As Sheila and I were waiting for our soup and sandwich lunches at Panera that weekend Jack & his mom popped up to repeat his request and I decided to really make the effort.
I'm so glad I did.
The large Baptist church was nearly filled that Sunday night. The center chancel area was stacked with three tall tiers for a choir of about thirty. An inn door was erected on stage left and the adjacent stable at stage right. The lighting, sound, costumes, and sets were elaborate.
The pastor talked about the Christmas story with a small group of children gathered at his feet as the lights revealed Isaiah for a monologue, then the desperate couple wandered through the congregation seeking a room, finally having to settle for the stable. Gabriel startled everyone with sudden appearances. Between scenes the choir beautifully sang "Lo, How a Rose" and "Silent Night" and other carols. Then the shepherds were surprised by Gabriel and his host (the choir).
Jack is the smallest shepherd. My quiet 9-year-old student delivers his lines with conviction and abandon! .. and even humor.
When the other shepherds visit the stable, someone must stay with the sheep. Jack's lack of seniority, I suppose, condemns him to that role. And that's when I get my surprise.
Jack as the smallest shepherd gets to imagine what he would present the newborn king with Christina Rosetti's words as he sings (beautifully!) an excerpt (the last two stanzas I think) of the beautiful poem/carol "In the Bleak Mid-winter".
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
Our God, heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain,
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty —
Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom Angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.
Angels and Archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only His Mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.
- Christina Rossetti
I have sung this beautiful song several times at Christmas Eve services. It is definitely a favorite. My voice has low notes for a tenor or high notes for a baritone, I'm not sure. O Holy Night tests the range.
Here is Josh Groban's rendition from a 2006 performance at the Rockefeller Center tree lighting program.
Another Christmas song written by a Jewish fellow. Mel Torme wrote this.
Here the composer sings it on TV with Judy Garland --- Do you suppose she intentionally substituted "rainbows" for "reindeers" ? --- with some scat and harmonies and other extra stuff:
The Christmas Song (Mel & Judy)
Here Ricky Nelson sings it on the old Ozzie and Harriet show:
The Christmas Song (Ricky Nelson)
And here's the one we listen to while decorating the tree almost every year: