Off my chest!

I try not to comment on all of the allegations connected with the Trump Presidency. It is increasingly hard not to, but common sense and common decency now require it.

In respect to Mr. Trump’s recent visit to the middle east and Europe, one episode in Rome struck me as overtly and deliberately cruel.

Sean Spicer the beleaguered and berated and battered White House press secretary was apparently looking forward to being in the presence of the Pope. Spicer is a devout Catholic.

He was not with the family or staff list to make the trip to the Vatican’s inner sanctum to meet the Pope. Spicer is the press spokesman. He should be there. It is de rigueur.

That’s mean. That’s this administration. That’s Trump!

JFK's Birthday

Yesterday was JFK's 100th birthday. The tributes and images of his life and death were there for all to see.  It is the day that the Kennedy family would prefer people remember the slain president, but most remember November 22nd, the day he was assassinated in Dallas. The family understands the need and desire of many to honor the fallen president, but they prefer the memory of JFK be focused on the day of his birth, May 29th.

That may take a long time, for there are many of us alive today who remember that November day. Only when the generation is gone to whom the torch was passed, might the memory move from his death to his birth.

We honor Lincoln on his birthday and not the day he died.

Very few remember that assassinated President James Garfield died on September 19th.

William McKinley's assassination date is now generally forgotten. He died on a September 14th.

It takes time to bury the pain and change an ache to honor. It takes time to have a tragic memory stand without sorrow. The Kennedy family has learned, through many tears, that once you acknowledge the death, you must let it go and remember the life.

A Time to Remember

So many of us were able to enjoy the weekend and today Memorial Day is a bonus day of delight, barbecues, picnics along with family/friend gatherings and dodging the rain drops as least in my area.

In my youth, The celebration of Memorial Day was different. It was a day of remembrance, honor, and appreciation of those who died in the service to our nation. We had our gatherings too, but they were always after a parade.

I lived in a small village and parades were loosely organized. School bands marched playing Souza’s tunes and the service anthems. The Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Cub Scouts marched in uneven lines as the local fife and drum corps headed up the volunteer firemen and a police contingent. The Ladies Auxiliary from the VFW posts marched too. They always seem to strut with a grace that the vets couldn’t muster.

My friends and I rode our bikes festooned with red, white and blue crinkled crepe paper woven in the wheel spokes. We inserted a piece of cardboard attached to the bike frame into the spokes. It rattled like a motor as the wheel turned. We kids would ride between the marching groups; little American flags taped to our handlebars fluttered in the peddled breezes.

The guests of honor were always the veterans. Some wore their old uniforms and proudly displayed battle and campaign ribbons. Tight fitting uniforms never kept the bulges of time from being noticeable. Their step, however, was proud as they kept their eyes ahead and heads held high.

The veteran contingents marched together by the war in which they served. In my small town in central New York, the largest groups at that time were the vets from World War Two; that war had ended only a few years earlier. Then came the doughboys from World War One. They were older and fewer. The oldest veterans, two from the Spanish-American War rode in a convertible at the head of the parade. The next year they were gone, and a Medal of Honor recipient rode at the head of the parade.

The parade ended at a local monument honoring all those from the area who died in war. Their names were embossed in bas-relief bronze on a plaque bolted to chiseled granite.

Memorial Day Celebrations in those days engendered a reverence for the fallen. Even as youngsters we felt a connection to those who had passed. We all knew someone whose Father didn’t come home, and we all stood straight and still for Taps.

Little did we know then that Korea, Quemoy and Matsu, Vietnam, Iraq one, Grenada and Iraq two and Afghanistan and so many other places would follow, and there would be new war veterans marching to honor the fallen.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful that in some future time Memorial Day would have no new names to remember?

FYI

I'm busy for the next several days, so I will not be posting until my project is finished. Thank you for tuning in.

RGS

The FBI Firing Fall Out

The political pundits are having a free-for-all in their discussions of the President and the Comey firing.

The analysis is one thing, and it is based on one’s experience and intellect. Viewers or listeners will accept and support what is said depending on their personal and political preferences, not necessarily on the known facts.

The truth always lies below analysis and above the ascertainable facts in the reportorial process of the media. Investigative diligence from both the news media and the FBI is essential. The truth will always emerge from solid reporting and investigation. One will bring truth to the public and the other exoneration or charges in a court of law.

There is another item that needs to be exposed or at least talked about. It is the question of demand loyalty from those in power. It is reported and acknowledged that Mr. Trump requires loyalty to him and his vision of America.

To me any loyalty pledged is to the republic, and not to the person in power.

Where we stand!

The USA is morphing into something that would be foreign to our founders because theyh found a way of disagreements.

It does not matter whether one is a democrat or a republican. It does not matter if we choose to be a conservative or a liberal. What matters is our commonality based on our belief in the rule of law. That is what a republic is.

Right now we have contention in all aspects of our collective society. Respect for different shades of opinion is missing.

Democrats choose policies and arguments favorable to their political thinking.
Republicans choose policies and arguments favorable to their political thinking.
Conservatives want less to be the national base.
Liberals want more to be the national base.

What each of us, no matter our thinking, no matter our personal or party preference, must choose what is best for our “Republic, ” or we may crumble the foundation of our democracy.

Congressmen and women choose not for your party. Choose only for the Republic, for the rule of law. Neighbors and families in political disagreement choose not for your singularity of want, but for our commonality of life and living.

We have pledged allegiance to the republic which stands for the United States of America. Let us stand united and acknowledge with respect the diversity within our oneness.

Trump fires Comey

Trump fires Comey:

If you are doing what every citizen is supposed to do, you are listening and reading everything you can on this issues to make a fair and logical conclusion, but as history and nature will attest most will not do so.

I’m not going into this, but I do ask reluctantly rhetorically.

What would Ed Morrow and Fred Friendly do with this story?

The Congressional Rich

Over two-thousand years ago a man said, “forgive them for they know not what they do.”

What happened yesterday in the House of Representatives should invoke those words again.

The poor, the elderly, the ill and so many others would lose affordable health care if the Trump care bill were to become law in its current form. It is unlikely that will happen, but just for the record. The Republican majority voted for the largest redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of this country.

The reason, “they know not what they do” is part of this post is that most, if not all, but a few, ever read the bill for which they voted.

We will see if "forgiven" is in the national mindset when the mid-term elections take place in 2018.

A sad day to remember!

May 4th. It is a sad day in American history. It is a distasteful memory and inimical to the liberty for which we stand. However, there are profound lessons in the remembering.

1970 Kent State, a college in Ohio. It was a time of volatile tension and confrontation in this country over our involvement in Vietnam. It was a moment of regrettable action in our history. Four young lives were lost when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd of anti-war protesters.

Dissent, through the right of assembly, is a guaranteed freedom of our constitution, but on that day frazzled nerves and ambient fear prevailed, and tragic mistakes happened.

Democracy, for those who practice it and for those who seek it, can sometimes be painful in its quest for fulfillment.

Russia knows it.
Lithuania knows it.
Poland knows it.
Hungary knows it.
The students of China’s Tiananmen Square know it, and Kent State knows it.

Perhaps proof that the four students did not die in vain is the fact that America remembers a terrible event in the continuing expression of freedom and demand that it never happen again.

Note: To the White House

Note: To the White House

The reality of the common man is often lost on the super-rich and the pampered powerful of the world.

Not one of us will begrudge the right of anyone, including Presidents, to spend their money any way they choose, but to spend public money in elective public service, in the seemingly normal daily extravagance of privileged living is not proper.

The problem comes when what is common for the wealthy is opulence to common folk. It can be viewed as over the top, detached arrogance, conceited and out of touch with real life and it would be true. How many of us live with gold-plated faucets and toilets? How many of us can move from home to home and not take anything we need with us.

This old world has a lot of prejudice, pain, and hatred harboring in the minds and hearts of so many. Disproportional wealth has something to do with it. Taking that away does not solve it. Adding to the comforts of life for all is a start.

This old-world needs fixing for the future to be sustained in a balance of compassion, honor, dignity, revered culture and sacred beliefs.

Too many eyes are glazed over when seeing children with bellies distended in the body’s ache and search for nourishment. This old-world has millions dying daily from hunger and hunger-related diseases because some believe abundance is security. Millions in this old-world are uprooted in regional diasporas as the ignorant, cruel and dispassionate take by force and kill with pleasure for they know not their interconnection with the dying.

Can you imagine what would happen in the world if governments spent the billions they do on arms and wasteful projects on making a cripple child walk, the blind to see, the hungry to be nourish, and the chronically ill cured? How about just the everyday joy of a meaningful and a fair wage job, so that common comfort is not always tainted with worry.

Oh! There is such a list.

The Bureaucracy

I’ve often thought that the bureaucracy is collectively ignorant. Now I am convinced of it.

Out in the northwest, a guy reconfigured the timing sequence for a series of traffic lights for a better traffic flow.

I don’t remember where or who it was, but after he had submitted his results to authorities, the local authorities fined him $500 for engineering without a state license.

The bureaucracy is run by people, and people are sometimes stupid.

An old Poem and Lesson

One of my favorite poems is Edward Rowland Still’s The Fool’s Prayer. I hope you like it too. He was born in 1841 and died in 1897

THE FOOL'S PRAYER

The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the Monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool

!

"'T’is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'Tis by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept--
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say--
Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders -- oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"