Day: May 15, 2022

A Certain Place, A Certain Time

Fandango9 Comments

Edna was a note taker. She was always jotting down in her binder everything she saw, she heard, and how she felt about what she saw and heard. And Edna felt deeply about all of it.

She was an active observer who was intrigued by the way her fellow human beings behaved. It’s not that she was a self-righteous prig. Far from it. She accepted how people were, be they the politicians in the halls of government, the billionaire entrepreneurs in their mansions or on their yachts, or the derelicts who lived on the street and barely got by.

But she wasn’t prepared that day when her keen observations of her fellow humans took her to a certain place at a certain time. She heard the thunderous cracks of rapid gunfire from a semiautomatic weapon, mowing down those that most intrigue her, solely due to the color of their skins, the way they prayed, or who they loved.

And then she, herself, felt the searing pain, a pain like everything else Edna felt, she felt deeply. Her note taken days ended abruptly that day, as one of those by whom she was most intrigued betrayed her.

Written for these daily prompts: E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (jotting), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (active), Your Daily Word Prompt (prig), The Daily Spur (accept), Word of the Day Challenge (derelict), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (thunderous).

E.M.’s Sunday Ramble Prompt — To a T

Fandango4 Comments

It’s time once again for E.M. Kingston’s The Sunday Ramble. Her prompt is based upon a certain topic about which she asks five questions. We are invited to ramble on about that topic however we wish. Today’s topic is “The “T” in the Road.”

E.M. is switching things up a bit this week, giving us a scenario and then asking us five questions about said scenario. The scenario is:

In your dream, you are standing at a T in the road. You have to choose which way to go (backward, forward, left, and right). Behind you is something you fear. In front of you is an obvious destiny. To the left is something you really want. To the right is something you really need.

Alrighty then. Before I answer her questions, let me point out that dreams aren’t always logical and don’t always abide by natural laws. So please bear that in mind when you read my answers. Now, with that out of the way, here are her questions and my answers.

1. What is the fear behind you?

A taxman from the IRS claiming to want to take all of my retirement savings away from me, which would leave me destitute.

2. What is the obvious destiny in front of you?

Directly ahead is a tax haven that is an idyllic world of clean air and clean water that is populated by free-thinking people who worship human rights and our planet’s environment with more fervor than they worship an imaginary god and their own unenlightened self-interests. (E.M. prefaced this by saying it’s a dream, right?) To the left (what I want) is a get out of jail free card. To the right (what I need) is a good tax lawyer.

3. Would you choose to go back where you came from if the path would bring more good than bad?

Considering my responses to the first two questions, my answer to this one should be obvious.

4. If going forward had a negative consequence on your path, would you consider going forward if it was the path with the most reward than the other directions?

I don’t know what the negative consequences of going forward to an idyllic tax haven could be, so I think I’d still go forward.

5. After final consideration of all of the paths, which way did you go, and why?

Forward. Duh.

Please note that I don’t cheat on my taxes and I’ve never been audited, so my responses to this somewhat nightmarish dream scenario are totally concocted.

Who Won The Week — 05/15/22

Fandango30 Comments

The idea behind Who Won the Week is to give you the opportunity to select who (or what) you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

For the first time since I started Who Won the Week, I am designating another blogger, Jill Dennison, as this week’s winner. This morning she posted something (a bit of a justifiable rant, in my opinion) on her blog. It’s a rant that I consider a must read post. You can read her post by following this link to get to her blog. I’ve also copied and pasted her post below.

WHOA … THE HYPOCRISY!!!

What, exactly, is the ‘Right to Life’? Whose life? To what extent are we willing to go to preserve life? And what, exactly is life? I’m frankly sick of hearing people say they are “pro-life” when all they really mean is they are against abortion. Something in the news yesterday, though, connected some dots and made me stop … and after a bit of cursing and punching the coffee pot for not heating quickly enough, I sat down and said, “WHOA … the hypocrisy!!!!” What was that something? The second mass shooting of the weekend yesterday afternoon in a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, where at last count, 13 people were shot, 10 murdered.

Folks, let me make something perfectly clear here: the nearly-uncontrolled right to own guns is completely inconsistent with the right to life. Completely. If a person buys a gun, he or she does so with the intention of using that gun to kill. Guns literally have no other purpose than to maim and murder.

Next time someone tells you they are ‘pro-life,’ ask them if they own a gun. If they say ‘yes,’ then you can inform them that they are a potential taker of life, so no, they are not pro-life at all, they are just using the term to justify their stance on taking away women’s rights.

The shooter in Buffalo was an 18-year-old white male who apparently hates Black people for some reason, for the government is treating this as a hate crime based on his ‘manifesto.’ Gee, I wonder where he got that prejudice from? Look first at the parents, but then look at society today. Wonder why an 18-year-old kid even has access to a gun? Last Wednesday, a judge in ruled that California’s ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to people under 21 is unconstitutional. What’s next … will it be ruled unconstitutional to ban giving guns to children age 14? Age 10? Age 5? The gun culture in this nation is truly insane. In no other nation is a civilian allowed to own an assault weapon, let alone an arsenal!

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know my stance on guns … they do not belong in the hands of civilians. Full stop. Need further proof?

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Friday night, there was yet another mass shooting that left 17 people injured, but no fatalities thus far, miraculously. This one took place late Friday night shortly after fans left a nearby NBA playoff game. Two other shootings in the same general vicinity took place earlier that evening, leaving an additional four people injured.

My message to every single member of the United States Congress is this …

Do not offer ‘condolences’ to the families of the victims in Milwaukee or Buffalo. Do not offer meaningless ‘thoughts and prayers.’ DO SOMETHING! Initiate and pass serious and meaningful gun legislation to get the guns out of the hands of people! No 18-year-old child has the need for a gun. Nobody who has EVER been accused of abusing another person in any way should be allowed to own a gun. And NOBODY anywhere, ever, for any reason has a need for an assault weapon! Shut down the gun shows where even the most basic rules are openly disregarded. Override with federal legislation the individual state laws that allow for carrying concealed weapons, for possession of a gun without a license, and make the federal law ‘One Strike, You’re Out’!

But alas, mine is a pipe dream, for those very people who claim to be ‘pro-life’ would scream, yell, and threaten any who even suggested such laws. No matter that gun violence is the leading cause of death in the U.S. You have a roughly 1-in-315 lifetime chance of death from gun violence.

For those who would claim that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives them the right to own as many guns of any sort as they wish, let me clarify the exact wording of that Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

NOWHERE does it say that people should be allowed to keep a gun in the glove compartment of their car or walk into a grocery store with one concealed in pocket or purse. NOWHERE does it say that guns should be freely available to teens. NOWHERE does it say that a person should be allowed to own an assault weapon that didn’t even exist when the Constitution was written in 1787!

Those who believe that abortion is an infringement on the right to life, better wake up and look at the gun culture, the lack of gun laws in this country, for already this year 15,862 people have lost their life to a person with a gun. That is more than the total gun deaths all year in 2016! But yet, do you hear anybody speaking for the ‘right to life’ of those victims?

Friday it was Milwaukee, Saturday it was Buffalo … will your neighborhood be Sunday’s statistics?

If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

What about you? Who (or what) do you think won the week?

The Letter G

Fandango27 Comments

Deb, over at Nope, Not Pam, has this weekly challenge called A Letter a Week where she gives us a place, an emotion, an adjective, a verb, and an animal all starting with the same letter. Then she asks us to write a post using those items and the letter she has given us, which this week is the letter G. I missed A through F, so this is my first time participating. Hey, better late than never, right?

Anyway, this week’s G challenge is:

Place – garden
Emotion – gloat
Adjective – goofy
Verb – grasp
Animal – galah

“I don’t mean to gloat,” Jean said, “but isn’t my garden the loveliest garden you’ve ever seen?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m distracted by your parrot over there,” Nick said. “I can’t quite grasp what it’s saying.”

“He’s not a parrot, Nick, he’s a galah,” Jean corrected him. “And don’t let that bird distract you. He’s just being goofy.”

Song Lyric Sunday — Hair

Fandango19 Comments

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt, Jim Adams’ is, once again, going with a suggestion from Paula Light of Light Motifs II. Paula gave us the theme words Head, Hat, Hair, and Scarf. For my choice I’m going with the song “Hair,” my personal theme song from when I was a hippie and had a head of hair, long, beautiful hair.

“Hair” was the title song to the 1967 musical, Hair, and the 1979 film adaptation of the musical. The song “Hair,” like the rest of the songs in the show, has lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni, and music by Galt MacDermot. The song is basically an ode to long hair, at a time when men had just begun to wear it long again, during the hippie era, which is what this musical is about.

In the musical, the song was performed by Claude, Berger, and the Tribe. They sang, “Give me a head with hair,” “as long as God can grow it,” and listed what they want in a head of hair and their uses for it.

Later the song takes the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner” with the Tribe singing, “Oh say can you see/ My eyes if you can/Then my hair’s too short!” Claude and Berger’s religious references continue with many a “Hallelujah” as they consciously compare their hair to Jesus’s, and if Mary loved her son, “why don’t my mother love me?” The song shows the Tribe’s enthusiasm and pride for their hair as well as comparing Claude to a Jesus figure.

The song was a major hit for the Cowsills in 1969, although their version cuts out most of the religion-themed lyrics, changing “long as God can grow it” to “long as I can grow it,” and removing some other verses. The Cowsills’ version reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. It was kept out of the number-one spot by another song from the Hair cast album, “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” by The 5th Dimension.

Here are the lyrics to “Hair.”

She asks me why
I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night
Hair that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low
Don't ask me why
Don't know
It's not for lack of bread
Like the Grateful Dead
Darling

Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for buzzing bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!

Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short

Down to here
Down to there
Down to where
Down to where
It stops by itself

They'll be ga ga at the go go
When they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond
Brilliantined
Biblical hair

My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son
Why don't my mother love me?

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

And here is the Cowsills’ cover of “Hair.”