Righting on the Wallz

Monday, July 3, 2017

“All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Monday Morning Hendrix: Freedom

Good morning, good lookin'

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Lee Marvin Sings: I was born under a wandering star

by Angela K. Durden

From "Paint Your Wagon", Lee Marvin croaks his theme song, but what a croak it is.

Kumbaya, my Lord. The old spiritual written during the Roaring Twenties, the official version sung in Gullah and called Come by Yuh. Everybody knows it — or knows of it. These days “kumbaya” is used as a snarky comment or a call for a group hug. Flexibility is its strong point. The song is a simple melodic and lyric repetitions consisting of:

Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya (3x)

Someone's [singing, laughing, crying, praying, sleeping] Lord, kumbaya (3x each)

All followed by: Oh Lord, kumbaya (for a total of 7x throughout the song)

**Job Creation: H*ll, yeah; promise kept.**

This flexibility of audience attraction [and might I point out: Job Creation] has put certain pastors and therapists in paradise because of the current worrisome political climate, something they have named “Trump Anxiety”.

More and more are seeing their parishioners and clients exhibit signs of “Trump Anxiety” leading to public meltdowns such as this woman who wrote on her Facebook page:

I actually had a very long and vivid dream the other night about him, and what made it a nightmare was that I had to be his babysitter/keeper. He was at times a self-centered 5 year old in a man's body, unable to sit still, listen, behave, or focus on anything but himself. I really did have this dream….

We really do believe you, lady.

Quoted on baptistnews.com after mentioning a "very stable man" who had a meltdown in a meeting: “It reminds me how brittle people really are,” said Julie Pennington-Russell, senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. “We are in that kind of time when churches have so much to offer. As much as ever, churches have a beautiful opportunity right now to reach people who otherwise wouldn’t think of reaching for God.” Further, she added, “We must keep grounding our congregants and ourselves in what is not shakeable.”

And from his Facebook page, Atlanta therapist Andrew H. Gee: “I would be glad to see people who are suffering from anxiety and depression, or other concerns, related to the current political and cultural situation.”

Who's hitching up their gitalong?

See? Job creation centered around kumbaya moments. No matter if you are singing, laughing, crying, praying, or sleeping, Trump has thought of you.

Of course, I believe the vast majority having crying meltdowns right now are Democratic Progressive Socialists (DPS) watching their dreams die. See, the DPS have lived in fairy tale land for so long they assumed their lives would always be this way. But God loves them, too. I know this because the Bible tells me so, right?

Anyway, for those of us who have been living in the real world and praying, we’re not having any meltdown in this current political and cultural climate. We've been fighting against it since The Sixties when them radical proFESSoars took over the campuses with illegal power grabs. Heck, we'd have already been "back in the USSR" if we hadn't been #standingfirm against them.

So, we’re the ones putting on our boots, hitching up our gitalong, pushing them recalcitrant DPS dogies, and hollering “Gitterdun!”

Budweiser: Ya done good.

Saturday, July 1, 2017

What I did on on my Summer Staycation, or the case for taking responsibility for one's own actions.

by Angela K. Durden
Before I got married, when I was asked if I wanted an IUD as my birth control method of choice, I naturally asked how it worked. The IUD prevents pregnancy by blocking sperm from reaching an egg. Okay. Sounds good. But, the doctor and nurse continued helpfully, if by chance the sperm does reach the egg and it manages to get the job done, no worries because the IUD will aggravate the hell out of the fertilized egg and get rid of it and — very importantly — you'll never know a thing.

At this my brain began to grind.

You must understand I was never that little girl who dreamed of having babies. I didn't like to babysit. I always preferred the company of adults. I chose to marry a man who also didn't want children. I had it all planned.

No children for us. Whew.

At the same time, we made the decision not to kill a child for our convenience — no matter which stage of growth that child was in — or kill a child because we were too lazy to take advance precautions. (Yeah, those late-in-the-night snuggled-in-the-warm-bed quickies can ruin all sort of plans. You know what I'm talking about.)

You see, we actually believed we were responsible for our own actions and the life those actions could bring forth. Never once did we ask any boss or company to take on the responsibility of paying for our contraception.

All politics aside — and I mean all politics aside — responsible adults always sacrifice themselves for the children. They never sacrifice children on behalf of the themselves.

That's why when I found myself pregnant (except for abstinence, no method is 100%), I had that girl child, and then a boy child; my husband and I never once thought of abortion. We raised those children, did right by them, and did a good job of it. While the marriage is over, we now have two grandchildren from the daughter.

I am writing this as I end yet another annual two-week Summer Visit by the Grands, one of which is almost 15 (visiting week two) and the other almost 12 (visited week one). We have a blast. If anything ever happened to their parents, I'd take over in a heartbeat.

"Yeah, I love them all and I wouldn't take a million dollars for any of them. But I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for another."

And that quote, dear friends, is taken directly from my mother-in-law's most wonderful mother after she had five children (and raised them all by herself when her husband died) and was in turn loved by multitudes of grands.

I have a feeling she and I would have gotten along like a house on fire.