Hey, a shout out.  Happy Birthday Dad!  Getting’ older y’know!

So, alone, and no responses or comments yet on any of my posts- and this will be my ninth I think.  Anonymity- it speaks volumes about being left alone.

Not much time to write today as time is running out on me.  Things had best get done at a record pace and this world had better clean itself up lickity- split (is that how you spell that?)

Music tonight- a concert.  Music is good, I think most everyone would agree with that right?  Maybe the definitions of what each of us thinks makes up good music is different but, still, like life and love and religion and politics there are opinions to be held and shared.  What are yours?

Please speak to me.  It’s mighty lonely in here, all alone and by my lonesome.  Is it me?  Something I said or perhaps should have said, or not said, or done, or not done…?

Have you ever felt that every turn might be the wrong one?  Sometimes I feel that way and sometimes I just hide away and remain uncounted, and unnoticed except perhaps by those who really are no longer there.  Just echoes of what once was and can be no more.  Is that too sad for you?

Music is good.  It helps me to shake or sometimes deepen a mood.  It reminds me of what was and what might still be.  It is often so beautiful and revealing by its very nature.  I really respect those who can write it, who can play it, who can bring it out for all the rest of us to hear and enjoy.

Where would we be without it I ask.  But no question marks here, not again.

Where would we be without music; or art; or books; or family; or friends; or sports; or hobbies; or likes and dislikes; or just the simple beating of our very hearts?   Question mark that, okayokay.

Time is telling and it has indeed told me so much over time.  I wish I had more time to share what it has taught me.  But I don’t so I just ask again where would we be without all of those wonderful things?

No answer?

I have one.  I would be right where I am today, right here and right now.  Alone and misfitted into life and wondering where would I be, really moreso, if I still had any of those things.  Doing without I have done.  Doing with appears to be something that I’ll be doing without.  Maybe for an unending amount of time.

Time to wrap it up I suppose; time to get on with something, anything.  Whatever that may be.  For me, for later, that is music and a concert.

Near the end my dad stopped listening to music and I never knew why- he had loved it so much and taught me so much when I was younger.  But I never knew why he stopped listening.

Today though, this day, I believe that I am beginning to understand.

Heard that another celebrity was heard from- did you hear?

Seems that Oprah (last name withheld because I’m sensitive to these sorts of things) has decided that a good bit of any criticism aimed at our current President is not motivated much by simple disagreement with his or his party’s policies.

Seems she believes there is at least one other fundamental driver behind any such disconnects regarding how this country is to be run.  The fact that some of the policies being put into place, the rules being made, so directly and intimately impact all of us in such a very personal way is not to be considered any reason to express opposition to any of this.

Now I may not have heard the entire interview (with the BBC I believe- isn’t that a bit like bringing up family problems with your sister’s ex-husband?) but in what I heard I did not hear her cite any other possible sources for what she calls the “level of disrespect”:

“There is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs in some cases and maybe in many cases because he’s African-American.  There’s no question about that and it’s the kind of thing that nobody ever says but everybody’s thinking it.”

Really?  Just how does she know all of this?

There’s NO question about that? Really? Based upon what specific evidence (Joe Wilson’s inappropriate interjection notwithstanding)?

NOBODY ever says…?  Really? I hear it all the time in the news, on the talk shows…is she kidding?

…EVERYBODY’S thinking it?  She really knows this?

Look, if she doesn’t really know it- and she doesn’t- then, and this is worse yet, it is something that she really believes.  It’s hard enough to change someone’s position with a set of facts or a line of logic that erodes that position but when it is based on belief then it is perhaps so deeply ingrained that it may never be addressed and eradicated…in her, in anyone.

And I guess that wasn’t all there was.  A further statement included this:

“…there are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die.”

Really?  Really??

It seems to me that if she believes the treatment of a single person is due to the color of his or her skin and then tosses that into a big pot of roiling racism then, by the same token, one might assume her accusation based on a single incident (did she cite anything other than the Joe Wilson comment?) that then fans out to envelop an entire race of people should likewise be tossed into that very same pot.  Isn’t racism racism?

Just who is the actual, identifiable racist here?

There is hardly any doubt that bias and prejudice still exist- and likely always will.  That is indeed unfortunate.  Real racism is alive and well and is so in ALL communities, don’t lie to yourself on that.  I hardly think that Oprah (last name withheld) and her comments have done much to help fix all that.  Really.

Is it just possible that she has marinated in some of the same sauce?

If so then I wonder if she would then suggest the same ultimate solution for herself.  Really.

Yeah, I know, I missed an entry yesterday but it was Sunday and a day of rest…with some football thrown in as well.  Bad weather day here in the once-great state of Illinois.  November tornadoes just don’t seem natural.

So, what did I miss?  What did you miss?  Are you happy yet?  Ooops, did that last week, sorry.

Here we are then, a new week with a fresh slate in front of us.  Have things improved much from last week?  Why am I asking so many questions?  Shoot, there’s another on.

Coming up on the 50^th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination and we still don’t really know the whole story do we?  Not saying it’s anything beyond what is typically believed to be the straight skinny- it was Oswald and Oswald alone.  Just saying there are still a good number of questions without very good answers.  50 years now.

Coming up on Thanksgiving and, for us, a family visit down south.  Maybe we can ask them to come here instead.  Probably be ok but there is always the unexpected when it some to family, especially in-laws.  Eh?

Coming up on Christmas all too fast.  When will we be able to get the outside lights hung up?

Also, when will I get the bathroom vent situation fixed; or finish putting away the lawn furniture; or drain the sticky 10% ethanol gas from the mower; or fix the grout; or get started on what I really need and want to do with the rest of my life?

All standard questions that regular people ask themselves all the time- at least similar I suppose.  No time really to worry about all that’s happening in the country and the world, still I sometimes have to wonder…

If I protest or complain too much will I get flagged as a dissident?  Is it now dangerous to speak up in the United States?  States.  United.  America.  It took four words to describe us; five actually…THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

How do you believe that the world started?  Are you a Creationist or Bigbangist?  Either way it didn’t seem to start perfectly- one with a beautiful garden, evil snake, bad apple, and family murder if I recall correctly; the other had a bunch of stuff, very highly compressed to say the least, just blow up and take around 15 billion years to get to today.  To get to us.

Neither started perfectly and neither appears to be headed for a perfect ending either.  But, for the most part we accept it for what it is and we do our little bit to make it better, or at least make it a little different in some way.

We accept it and really don’t figure it’s worth it or even possible to try to amend what has already passed.  That would be foolish yes?

So why then do some folks insist on doing that with THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?  It didn’t start perfectly but was certainly a damn sight better than the other options out there at the time.  And, unless I missed something in my history lessons, we have done more than a few things to make it better, to correct the original flaws.

Even if you consider the flaws to be sins there is no real way to amend the beginning.  You really can’t go back again, you can’t change things and just start over without throwing out everything that happened in between;  baby with the bath water as they say.

So what do you want to fix- the way we started or the way we are today?  Think about it in your own life.  Even if your own beginning was bad you really only have the ability to change what is in the here and now and not the there and then. You can acknowledge what has passed and focus in on what is yet to come.

As was said in a movie I believe: “You can get busy livin’ or you can get busy dyin’”  Choices; decisions; again.