About a year ago James Carville appeared on C-Span and said that there was good and bad news about the ’08 election. The good news is the only way the Democrats can lose is to screw it up themselves. The bad news is they, the Democrats, are thoroughly capable of doing just that. He’s right of course and that’s why the apparent nomination of either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama troubles me.
Personally, I’m so completely at ease with the idea of a woman or a black person as president that, back in the day, I voted for Shirley Chisholm. But, I’ve spent my life working with white people; some very-very white people. The kind of white people who will make an extra effort to insure they, and their family members who would otherwise probably not participate, come down from the hills and empty the trailer parks to vote against a black man. That Senator Obama is half white is of no consequence to those who think blacks are inferior. As a mixed race person, who has easily passed for all white, I’ve heard those white to white conversations, the ones that were once shouted on street corners and are now whispered in private, that the slightest “taint” of black blood is the same as being all black.
The same people, the bigots I know so well, will oppose a female candidate with equal fervor. Women just aren’t tough enough. The idea that a “skirt” could effectively wield power, real power, is beyond their view of females as the bottoms rather than the tops, in their missionary position ideal concept of old testament male supremacy.
The Carl Roves of right-wing America are counting, and desperately hoping, that our race scared and religiously tortured country will again live down to it’s past and not up to it’s promise.
At other times I’d say, Fine; let’s have at it, see where we really stand. But this is a pivotal time. The next president will appoint two, maybe even three if re-elected, Supreme Court justices. If the righties with their old testament thinking, the best ideas the twelfth century can provide, make those appointments we’ll be plunged into a dark age that will take most of the new century to crawl out of; if at all.
The truth is we have a perfectly capable white male candidate, who will not only blunt the bigots; he’s also more liberal than either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. John Edwards is not only the right choice, he’s the safest.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Dream Party
This is a recent dream. Barbara is my wife, Michael Ann is her sister and Cait is Michael Ann’s significant other.
It was too hot for my jacket so I carried it in the crook of my arm with my duffel bag’s strap over my other shoulder. The address on the white picket gate was the same as on my note paper so I pushed through. Passing between two flowering bushes I was greeted with the sight of a long irregular open grass field, lined with trees, much like a golf course, that stretched up the long steep hill to a little stone house. I trudged along, head down to lean against the slope, and wished that my bag were lighter and the distance shorter. I looked up, expecting to be halfway there, and found I was somehow already at the top.
The tiny thatched roof stone cottage was clinging to the edge of the precipice, as if for its life, and in the distance beyond, laid the whole of the shining city. Suddenly Cait burst out of the open door to pull me from the vista. Dressed in tan slacks with an electric blue blouse she wore brown Birkenstocks and her signature Argyle socks. She lashed me with her happy smile and said, “Glad you could make it kid…you’re just in time.”
I asked, “Just in time for what?”
“The party,” she cried, sweeping past me. “What else is there?”
Cait threw her hands up and cried out, “Come on in…you’re all welcomed here!” Beyond her, down the long green slope, hundreds of men women and children – lots of children – were streaming through the poor little gate.
Drawn to the open door, by the aroma of cooking, I looked into the darkness and found Barbara and Michael Ann with their backs to me at the stoves. Yes, stoves; two old time black commercial wood burning stoves. They were side by side along the opposite wall with more pots and pans than in the store, hanging above on pegs and hooks. One huge table, surrounded by mismatched chairs, so dominated the small room it was necessary to side step around the edge to reach the other side. Dressed in floor length dresses with full bib aprons, their backs were to me as they stirred skillets and pans with both hands.
Cait touched my shoulder and said, “Stand aside kid yer blockin’ progress.”
I just managed to jump back out of the way as more than two dozen laughing people, a third of them kids, wedged through the little door and scrambled around the big table to take seats. Michael Ann whirled around from her stove and plopping a huge round platter of sizzling beef and pork ribs on the table, cried out, “Okay everybody…dig in!”
Barbara called out, “Look out…hot stuff!”, and placed an oblong plate with two huge baked Salmons on the table.
Michael Ann looked up at me, peeking in the door, and said, “We were wondering if you were gonna make.”
“Yes,” little brother,” Barbara added, “you just made it.”
Little brother? I asked myself as they turned back to their stoves. I dropped my bag and jacket next to the open door and when I straightened up I saw my reflection in the beveled glass. The familiar boy gazing back at me was no more than twelve, maybe thirteen. Strange, very strange, I distinctly remember turning sixty some time ago.
“Hey kid, you gonna help me or not?”
Cait was standing there with a big crystal ice bucket cradled in her arms.
“Help you?”
“Yes…with the Arnold Palmers - come on!”
Cait turned away and began scooping ice cubes into the empty glasses of the people seated on the grass. There were hundreds of them, many hundreds, sitting and kneeling on the grassy slope all the way down to the gate where even more were pouring through. Waving their empty glass in the air and all laughing and calling out in good cheer, like the huge flocks of birds you see in wildlife films, honking and fluttering on a river bank.
I turned back to the cottage and another door, a Dutch door, appeared out of nowhere next to the other. The top portion was slung open and on the shelf, atop the bottom half were two glass pitchers, one filled with lemonade and the other ice tea.
I heard Cait cry out; “Come on kid!”, and taking a pitcher in each hand I went down the line pouring glasses half with tea and then topping them off with lemonade. I glanced at Cait, way ahead of me, and was surprised to see her ice bucket was still full. And stranger still, no matter how much I poured, my pitchers never emptied. A drop of sweat stung my eye and I wished it weren’t so hot. Suddenly a cool breeze swept down the hill and some of the close by folks said, “Thanks that’s nice”, and I didn’t know if they were giving me credit for the breeze or just for the drinks.
There was a clatter from up the hill and Barbara, standing to the side of the doorway, where the people from inside were streaming out, was banging on an empty pot with a ladle, and calling out, “Okay…time to move up.” Everyone stood and surged up the slope as another couple of dozen disappeared into the little house. Then those remaining sat down and went back to having a good time.
My head was filled with questions and then Cait, suddenly at my side, said, “If we try to cram anymore inside, the house will slip over the edge and fall into the city.”
“Oh, I see,” I said, as if that made any sense.
It was too hot for my jacket so I carried it in the crook of my arm with my duffel bag’s strap over my other shoulder. The address on the white picket gate was the same as on my note paper so I pushed through. Passing between two flowering bushes I was greeted with the sight of a long irregular open grass field, lined with trees, much like a golf course, that stretched up the long steep hill to a little stone house. I trudged along, head down to lean against the slope, and wished that my bag were lighter and the distance shorter. I looked up, expecting to be halfway there, and found I was somehow already at the top.
The tiny thatched roof stone cottage was clinging to the edge of the precipice, as if for its life, and in the distance beyond, laid the whole of the shining city. Suddenly Cait burst out of the open door to pull me from the vista. Dressed in tan slacks with an electric blue blouse she wore brown Birkenstocks and her signature Argyle socks. She lashed me with her happy smile and said, “Glad you could make it kid…you’re just in time.”
I asked, “Just in time for what?”
“The party,” she cried, sweeping past me. “What else is there?”
Cait threw her hands up and cried out, “Come on in…you’re all welcomed here!” Beyond her, down the long green slope, hundreds of men women and children – lots of children – were streaming through the poor little gate.
Drawn to the open door, by the aroma of cooking, I looked into the darkness and found Barbara and Michael Ann with their backs to me at the stoves. Yes, stoves; two old time black commercial wood burning stoves. They were side by side along the opposite wall with more pots and pans than in the store, hanging above on pegs and hooks. One huge table, surrounded by mismatched chairs, so dominated the small room it was necessary to side step around the edge to reach the other side. Dressed in floor length dresses with full bib aprons, their backs were to me as they stirred skillets and pans with both hands.
Cait touched my shoulder and said, “Stand aside kid yer blockin’ progress.”
I just managed to jump back out of the way as more than two dozen laughing people, a third of them kids, wedged through the little door and scrambled around the big table to take seats. Michael Ann whirled around from her stove and plopping a huge round platter of sizzling beef and pork ribs on the table, cried out, “Okay everybody…dig in!”
Barbara called out, “Look out…hot stuff!”, and placed an oblong plate with two huge baked Salmons on the table.
Michael Ann looked up at me, peeking in the door, and said, “We were wondering if you were gonna make.”
“Yes,” little brother,” Barbara added, “you just made it.”
Little brother? I asked myself as they turned back to their stoves. I dropped my bag and jacket next to the open door and when I straightened up I saw my reflection in the beveled glass. The familiar boy gazing back at me was no more than twelve, maybe thirteen. Strange, very strange, I distinctly remember turning sixty some time ago.
“Hey kid, you gonna help me or not?”
Cait was standing there with a big crystal ice bucket cradled in her arms.
“Help you?”
“Yes…with the Arnold Palmers - come on!”
Cait turned away and began scooping ice cubes into the empty glasses of the people seated on the grass. There were hundreds of them, many hundreds, sitting and kneeling on the grassy slope all the way down to the gate where even more were pouring through. Waving their empty glass in the air and all laughing and calling out in good cheer, like the huge flocks of birds you see in wildlife films, honking and fluttering on a river bank.
I turned back to the cottage and another door, a Dutch door, appeared out of nowhere next to the other. The top portion was slung open and on the shelf, atop the bottom half were two glass pitchers, one filled with lemonade and the other ice tea.
I heard Cait cry out; “Come on kid!”, and taking a pitcher in each hand I went down the line pouring glasses half with tea and then topping them off with lemonade. I glanced at Cait, way ahead of me, and was surprised to see her ice bucket was still full. And stranger still, no matter how much I poured, my pitchers never emptied. A drop of sweat stung my eye and I wished it weren’t so hot. Suddenly a cool breeze swept down the hill and some of the close by folks said, “Thanks that’s nice”, and I didn’t know if they were giving me credit for the breeze or just for the drinks.
There was a clatter from up the hill and Barbara, standing to the side of the doorway, where the people from inside were streaming out, was banging on an empty pot with a ladle, and calling out, “Okay…time to move up.” Everyone stood and surged up the slope as another couple of dozen disappeared into the little house. Then those remaining sat down and went back to having a good time.
My head was filled with questions and then Cait, suddenly at my side, said, “If we try to cram anymore inside, the house will slip over the edge and fall into the city.”
“Oh, I see,” I said, as if that made any sense.
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