Marty and His Watch

Oh.my. I sat down and flipped on the TV, an up pops my best buddy from my days in Ellijay GA, 1958-62. Or maybe his doppelgänger? He was showing off a neat chiming pocket watch. Martin Teem, I'll give you a buck-fifty for that timepiece!

 Martin Penland Teem

I am almost as surprised that several of you actually saw it as I was that they picked me to film.

Terrell Shaw

How long has it been since it was shot? 

Martin Penland Teem

May 2013?

Terrell Shaw

Wondered if you had shaved that beard.

Martin Penland Teem

Not yet.

Gleaning Facebook: Let's Make a Deal

 Clinton is right. Without compromise (deal-making) there would have been no Constitution. We are suffering from a sick political environment where moderates are virtually extinct. We need moderates like Michelle Nunn, Kay Hagen, Alison Lundergren Grimes, and Mary Landrieu in the US Senate. 

George Barton:

One of the deals they made was that if you were a black slave, you were 3/5 of a person.

Terrell Shaw:

And as repulsive as the Three-Fifths Compromise was, it was necessary to the creation of the new nation. These guys found ways to reach agreement. 

(Actually the reality was even worse: the slaves' numbers helped to give the very people who were enslaving them 3/5 more representation than they actually deserved.)

Scandal!

 My lesser angels wish I could live long enough to give a snide ITYS to my right wing friends when their "conservative" posterity praise the very measures the current right wing so vehemently opposes, as the current right wing celebrates an end to segregation, the passage of Social Securty, the sanctity of Medicare. etc.

Peter King's tan suit comments are emblematic of the IOKIYAR attitude of many of my hard right friends. It's OK for Romney, Carson, Bush, etc. and many others on the right to support all sorts of positions - immigration reform or health insurance reform, for example - but President Obama in the eyes of the hard right is wrong regardless of what he proposes or does. He can't even get a pass on his wardrobe. "The president in jeans? Outrageous. What's with the tan suit? Disgraceful!"

John Paul Schulz

 This is just so totally disgraceful. Our country is going to the Dogs. Would Washington, Jefferson, or John Adams have worn such as this?

Terrell Shaw

Next thing you know we'll have presidents in powdered wigs! What frou-frou!

Sam Burnham

I'm with my friend Alan from Pinstripe Pulpit on this one. Really, the only thing remotely wrong with that suit was perhaps the occasion it was chosen for. 

I don't understand the uproar over the suit. We get too caught up in surface issues. People should focus on policy. There are plenty of disasters that are seriously driving our country in the wrong direction in the hands of this failed president. Picking at his suit is silly and superficial. 

John Paul Schulz

It was not polite to trash Mr.Shaw's post. 

Sam Burnham

I think the powdered wig thing might be pretty cool. LOL 

John Paul Schulz

That's better, Sam. 

Terrell Shaw

Facebook needs to add a "line Item 'Like'" so I can respond appropriately to Sam. 

There were some things good about the Confederacy. 

Sam Burnham

I was thinking similarly about your post here.

We have got to learn to deal with politicians based on policy. Not suits, skin tones, birth certificates, type of pets owned, beard or no beard, speaking style, etc. 

What is the substance of their policy? That's what matters. 

John Paul Schulz

Agreed. And I think history will show Mr. Obama to have been one of the most perceptive, caring, and careful presidents ever.

Sam Burnham

I couldn't disagree more, but I do so on my perceptions of policy, decisions, and incompetence, not his choice of suits. 

John Carlin

It should be like NASCAR. They should have all their corporate sponsors displayed on their clothes. 

 

Blame the Poor?

 

Amen. Amen. Amen.

I taught school during six decades. I observed wealthy, middle class, and poor parents. There were among all three groups ne'er-do-wells and kind/generous folk, disciplined workers and undisciplined sloths, entitled jerks and humble saints. I agree with Mailer's assessment. I'll take the the median poor citizen's ethics over the median millionaire's any day. I believe the free enterprise system, with safeguards for workers and progressive taxation, is the best economic system, but I have no patience for self-satisfied, entitled capitalists who believed it is possible for any one man to truly "earn" millions of dollars in a single year. While I accept that the the wealthy should have incentives for further economic entrepreneurship (I've had my own efforts at capitalism and revere my freedom to pursue those dreams) I believe any thoughtful wealthy person should realize that his success is dependent on much more than just his own labor, his own smarts, his own creativity.

No man is an island. It does take a village. Unless you are a hunter/gatherer hermit you depend on others as well as yourself. You did not build it by your self. Our founders were wise to base our republic on a balance of great personal liberty with attention to the common welfare. And, especially in a post agrarian society, extreme wealth disparity results in the loss of personal liberty and a deterioration of the common welfare.

Speakcheesy!

 My daughter Lillian is involved with some of her friends in launching a new business -- a food truck called Speakcheesy that will serve gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches! Here's their flyer for their "pop-up" events:

Gleaning Facebook: Baby Gators at Arrowhead

 

Our babies arrived, with little umbilicals still attached, on Friday.

Step-Mommy Viv holds a new baby

Gleaning Facebook: Macmillan Sunflowers

The Maxmillian Sunflowers (Helianthus maximiliani) are coming into their full glory at our house now. Ain't they pretty?! They are really tall --some of these must be 8 ft or more and they bloom profusely from late August through October. Gorgeous. They are native to the midwest, but are included sometimes in wildflower seed mixes.

Gleaning Facebook: Robin Williams' Doppelgänger?

Well, shoot, I gotta save this! These words are surely exaggerated but they certainly make this old retired teacher feel ggod.

Gina Richardson was my student when she was in elementary school and I was teaching classes for gifted students at McHenry (and Pepperell) School. 

Here's a picture I took of her way back when:

Gina Richardson and Matthew Smart at McHenry School. Mid-eighties?

Today she posted this on my Facebook page:

You have always been MY Robin Williams... a never-ending source of inspiration, good will, and dedication. You are an undeniable example of what is good and admirable. You taught me to believe in myself, my talent, and my intelligence at a very young age. When I denied any existence of imagination in my mind, you pushed me to explore! I cannot say one bad thing about you. The impact you have had on the lives of sooo many young people as students and so many adults through you valiant efforts and fights for good causes is far-reaching and still remains to be seen. I just want to tell you this now, because I've always compared you in my mind to Mr. Robin Williams, that you are revered and I enjoy always the adventures you seek out to affect our world. Much love to you, 'Mr. Shaw'.

I replied to her:

Gina, I am so touched by your extravagant words. 

I know my foibles well. I am, in truth, a rank sinner. I am capable of great sloth and, as much as the next guy, I can be spiteful and mean when I get my back in a hump. 

But I have always loved my students and tried to put their well-being --- short- and long-term --- first. It is very rewarding to know that some of you felt that. What joy it is to reconnect, electronically at least, with so many younguns from way back. I think I have posted on Facebook a picture or two of little Gina Nicholson from your days in my Kaleidoscope classes.

Of course my oft-stated rule "Always laugh at Mr. Shaw's jokes." would have been unnecessary if I had had Robin Williams's comic genius. 

Georgia Democratic Convention 1946 and 2014

It'll be fun to be a part of our state Democratic Convention this year. It's been a long time since my last turn as a delegate. I'm excited that in 2014, though we face tough races, we have two competitive candidates in Jason Carter (Governor) and Michelle Nunn (US Senate).

One of my prized political items (I collect them) is this ribbon and letter that were my "Daddy Shaw's" credentials for the Georgia Democratic Convention a few months before I was born. Of course, as the letter indicates, Talmadge evidently was pretty generous with credentials for the 1946 convention, and used them to drum up votes to defeat a measure he opposed. Talmadge would die in December and the next year would prove very entertaining as Georgia witnessed its famous Three Governors Controversy.

I suspect this document indicates that my beloved Daddy Shaw, one of the finest men I've ever known, would have, unfortunately, sided with ol' Red Suspenders' faction. 

Story Night 2014

Seven local storytellers will regale us with short tales at Story Night. One will be Bill Barker. Or will it be Sequoyah?

I have listened to Mike Burton's stories for 52 years! He was older brother to a great friend and later a dear friend in his own right. He has been my Sunday School teacher and my director in several films (1971-2014). He has whipped me at chess and picked gallons of blackberries by my side. We have cultivated gardens, dug wells, hauled treasures from a dump, and sung folk songs together (though singing is not his forte). He has videoed my storytelling for me, but Thursday will only be the second time we've shared a storytelling stage.

Have you missed hearing "MIss Jane" stories for a while? Me too! Come hear Rome's dean of storytellers, "Miss Jane" Cunningham, and six other tellers, this Thursday at Schroeder's…

Y'all come hear Ken spin a yarn!

Gary Greene is one of my closest Storytelling cohorts. We have told at the same events a number of times (sometimes with our wonderful late friend Debbie Brown) and are both scheduled to tell at the Peach State Storytelling Festival in Atlanta in 2015. If you haven't heard his song "Cherokee Names" you need to google it and check it out! 

 

Y'all come hear Bob Harris and other local storytellers, Thursday July 31, 7 p.m., Schroeder's New Deli, Broad Street in Rome GA. This version has one less typo. Ugh!

I'm still working on similar promos for two more great storytellers: Michael J. Burton and Gary Greene. In the meantime, I'll go ahead and put up my own bit of propaganda...

Gleaning Facebook: Story Night at Schroeders

Y'all come for ten-minute stories from each of seven local tellers, including:

Sequoyah (Bill Barker)

Mountain Man Mike Michael J. Burton

Miss Jane Owen Cunningham

The Right Reverend Ken Freshour

Songwriter/Storyteller Gary Greene

Sword-totin' Bob Harris

and ME! Terrell Shaw

7 p.m., Next Thursday,

July 31, 2014

in the Courtyard at

Schroeder's New Deli

406 Broad Street

Rome, Georgia

Spread the word!

Sponsored ny The Rome Area Council for the Arts

and Ridge & Valley™ Tellers

 

Gleaning Facebook: Michelle Nunn

To my fellow progressives:

Please get on board and help elect Michelle Nunn. No she is not progressive in a national sense, but she is a progressive compared to Tea Party darlings Jack Kingston and David Purdue. She will be someone who will work with anyone willing to deal honestly. She won't be a liberal firebrand, but neither will she be wasting our federal funds and national energy on cheap political stunts like baseless impeachment crusades, government shutdowns, political "investigations" of the Benghazi-Dead-Horse-Beatings variety, etc. She seems to be from the stable, common-sense, moderate mold of her father, who, granted, sometimes irritated us with his foot-dragging on progressive legislation, but who did work for compromise and who could actually work across the aisle.

Maybe having a moderate in the Senate could help it to actually function again. We certainly don't need another mindless obstructionist like Kingston or Purdue.

And besides: Although we Georgians were the first in the nation to have a female US Senator, that senator was appointed and served only 24 hours. Rebecca Latimer Felton's brief tenure in the Senate was little consolations for her and other women's suffrage leaders who had watched their home state be the first to vote against the 19th Amendment and one of the minority of states to refuse women the vote in 1920.

I believe Michelle Nunn will fulfill the pledge Felton made to the Senate on her one day in that body:

"When the women of the country come in and sit with you, though there may be but very few in the next few years, I pledge you that you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness." – Senator Rebecca Latimer Felton, Address to the Senate, November 21, 1922

A sad but very necessary note: one should never quote this eloquent defender of woman's rights, without also noting her evil, violent, and baffling racism. Felton is an example of the ability of humans to compartmentalize their consciences. Her attitude toward black people was no better than that of Nazis toward Jews. In that respect Michelle Nunn is no follower of Felton!

(I got carried away again!)

Howard Smith
If she becomes half the senator her father was she will be well more than twice as good as her soon to be nominated opponent could ever hope to be.

Jamie Fergerson I worked for Michelle (as an AmeriCorps VISTA) at Hands on Atlanta when I first moved here. I have never met a person who was more respectful of differences or more invested in the lives of people she was serving. My personal politics are a bit to the left of her campaign politics, but I absolutely trust her judgement, collaborative process, and heart. Besides, no where to go in GA but up from where we've been . . .
Howard Smith I, too, am to the left of her but I am confident she will be a true and faithful servant of the people of Georgia.

Gleaning Facebook: Peaches

An Avenue A angel hung a bag on our front door knob. Here are its contents. There may be a peach cobbler in my future. What big beautiful peaches! Thanks, Joan & Terry

----------

Cindy Gomez
Jealous of the peaches & definitely the cobbler I don't know how to make.

Cathy Nichols
And I know someone that may have the time now to cook one Sheila Matthews Shaw

Sunny Shropshire Knauss
We got some of those same peaches from said angel!

Sheila Matthews Shaw
Yum. I may make a peach cobbler....

Joan Ledbetter
The Shaw's make the best peach cobbler I've ever eaten!!

Sunny Shropshire Knauss
Eugenia makes a pretty good pie...maybe time for a peach party!

Sharon York
Look yummy

 

Gleaning Facebook: Vote!

"… cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you succumb to it, the regressives who want to take this nation back to the 19th century win it all." - Robert Reich.

Next Tuesday is a day for voting. Likely a very small percentage of those who read these words will vote. They will cynically accept the reasoning that voting doesn't matter. On the very day when their individual vote is the most powerful (a primary run-off election generally provokes the least voter participation) most of you will surrender your blood-earned franchise to the political junkies like me.

Go vote. Even if you are a Tea Party regressive or a rabid all-out socialist, prove me wrong. Go vote. If you are gonna get misty-eyed in a few weeks when you stand with your ball cap over your heart while the high-school band plays the "Star Spangled Banner" at Barron Stadium, then for Heaven's sake put your sorry carcass where your tears are. If you are going to stand and devoutly recite your allegiance to a republic, be a small-r republican. Go vote.

No waiting in line (but do take ID). Walk right in.

7 a.m-7 p.m., Tuesday, July 22, at a precinct near you.

------------

Melanie Collette Babb
Who would you recommend: Kingston or Perdue?

Terrell Shaw
Melanie, I don't like either one. Each is trying to out-Tea-Party the other. But if I were choosing a GOP ballot, I guess I'd take Purdue as a little less repugnant. At least I haven't heard him talking up impeachment of the president, like Kingston has.
I will vote for Michelle Nunn in the General Election.

Melanie Collette Babb

Thanks, Terrell. I will definitely be voting for Nunn in the general election. 

Gleaning Facebook: High Crimes? Where?

 If you are one of the majority ---- yes, polls say a MAJORITY --- of Republican voters who believe the president should be impeached --- IMPEACHED, it has come to the point that the Tea Party types think disagreement with them is an impeachable offense ---- put up, or shut up. If the GOP, in a 20 year span, impeaches two presidents on weak to non-existent grounds I believe they will finally be finished as a major national party.

Young folks, are you paying attention? Vote the crazy right out in November.

If you vote in the Republican primary (sheesh!) please put a political end to the likes of Jack Kingston.

Impeachment? What nonsense.

-------------

David Marlin Rains "Impeaches two presidents" should be corrected to "impeaches the last two democratically-elected Democratic Presidents." Repubs do not believe in "democracy as the will of the People" nor in "elections have consequences." Perhaps they will hold their breath and roll on the floor until they get what they want.
Sam Burnham You and I are mostly going to agree on this one. Impeachment is a nuclear option that should only be used in extreme cases of obvious criminal activity. It wasn't right with Clinton and I don't support it now. I don't agree with Obama on policy and I do believe he has shown a disregard for the Constitution but that is why we have separation of powers. Impeachment is one tool in checks and balances. And it is a severe one with unfathomable repercussions. It is not to be carried out flippantly. Besides, from a conservative viewpoint, why in the world would you do that? There is a progression to it and we sometimes forget the roles involved. I can't think of any conservative that would impeach Obama to willingly and knowingly inaugurate Joe Biden.
David Marlin Rains Sam, I love the last line
David Marlin Rains http://carlspackler.com/sounds/072.mp3
Donald Murdock No impeachable offenses have been committed, nor have any been brought before the people or the legislature or judiciary or the media by anyone with any real credibility. Thus far, though a bit heavy handed at times, the President has operated well within the bounds of Constitutional law and, for the most part, in the best interest of moving the nation and all of it's citizenry past the status quo of contemplating our collective navel while Rome burns. When bold, and sometimes unpopular, measures are taken, those who are fearful of any kind of change are gonna be quick to become reactive rather than think about the long-term consequences of willful ignorance and pretense. Not trying to make anyone wrong, but sometimes it's not a bad thing to rattle the cage a bit. Over simplifying issues is easy, but denies the rational approach to a hugely complicated process. At least this President hasn't tripped over his pecker. Yet. Meanwhile, the KKK is actively soliciting new membership by leafleting Atlanta neighborhoods. Wish I had a mini-gun in the closet. (There's always another side to the other side...my dark passenger sneaks out now and again.)
Terrell Shaw And I firmly believe that for every push of the boundaries (rattling of the cage?) by this president, a more extreme GOP example can be found from W or Ron.

Sam Burnham I think my response would be that we don't need to enter impeachment flippantly, regardless of who is president.
Laurie Craw The rest of us can impeach the Supreme Court 5 and all those House Republicans who tried to renege on their Constitutional duty to pay the nation's debts! Let's make it a clean sweep!