‘ … and when my mind is wandering, there I will go.’

Mick, monster I, Me, Mine.

It’s been way too long since I’ve heard it. Thanks, buddy.

It all seems so simple and sappy now; I guess you had to be there to grok it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km5BBFQo3dc&feature=related

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barking frog:

Doing fine.

Thank you !

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Well.

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pf,

Still not funny.

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Since we’ve been posting Christmas songs, I’d like to share my own lyrics for “Greensleeves,” should anyone want to use them at an after-dinner singalong or something. Yummy…

I went out walking with my true darling
We walked all evening, I caught a cold
I did not carry a large enough hankie
So I ended up with these greensleeves

Greensleeves, I could not help it
Greensleeves for the world to see
Greensleeves, my true darling left me
She left me alone with these greensleeves

I’ll go on living, but I’ll never marry
I’ll spend my life all alone for it seems
I’ll al’ remember my true darling’s pleasure
And I’ll al’ remember these greensleeves

Greensleeves, I could not help it
Greensleeves for the world to see
Greensleeves, my true darling left me
She left me alone with these greensleeves
She left me alone with these greensleeves

Happy Holidays, everyone!

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Mick:

P.S. If you want to read one of the best books about Nam (and I’ve read probably 150) get this one:

Magnificent Bast**ds by Keith Nolan or any of his other books about Nam. He wrote about ten but is now deceased.

TAPS

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Man, they did a controllled burn at my beloved state park, what was once green is now ash. on the glorious bike ride. It’s crazy but there are green shoots already!!! Until a few more weeks, I’ll just have to-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm2PvnM7Vds

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Mary. Your official native-Merkan-injun message

We are much more attuned to the spirit of the person in front of us
than any choice of words or phrases. We can feel that.

[puts on feathers from Spencers in the mall and waving tomahawk]
Mary, Relax, man. You’re cool.

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St. Simons@9:58 a.m.

Thanks, St. Simons. I hope you took a few minutes to read my entry in my blog link that I posted at 11:03 p.m. yesterday. That post reinforces your second paragraph.

Also, I appreciate your gift to me of visual humor, but I cannot possibly change my DNA and, believe it or not, I am relaxed with myself. My reason for blogging here is not to be perceived as cool or any other compliment, but to raise consciousness, as I see it, or to do my small part, in helping to create a better world. Time is shorter for me, than for some, in order to make my awarenesses count. I appreciate being able to post on this blog. That, too, is a gift, of which I am aware. To each, his or her own. I’m glad others have fun with one another, at times, on this blog. That type of communication adds charm and cheer, more often than not. However, having that kind of fun has never, particularly, been my “style,” even though I have always liked others, essentially.

P.S. I love St. Simons island, and all of the Georgia coast. No wonder you stay relaxed! Good for you! AND, I like your voice and views; keep sharing them!

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ME
@ 11:03

“Just reflect, a little, on this. No need for a response. “

And let you have the last word? Oh, dearie me, why would I ever do that? J

“The research I had done had indicated that the term “Native-American” was perceived to be positive by that group, “

You protest against labels, but fall right back into the trap you claim to have escaped by using “that group.” There are several million of “that tribe” and each will have his or her own relation to that term which, like it or not, is used to separate “them” from “the rest of us.”

“However, you and he appear to have so rejected those words previously that somehow you perceived my using them as negative to you. “

The point Unmentionable makes is that for reasons he still can’t quite grasp, but which he refers to as a “ride down the Trail of Crocodile Tears,” Indians, Native Americans, Indigenous People, First Nations, Feather Growing Savages or whatever other label one chooses to use, are perceived as having some “special woo-woo” that others don’t have which can be “experienced” through some ritual assumed to be associated with “them.” He rejects that as one more, though theoretically positive, segregating stereotype.

“That example is how labels can harm people and can harm communication, itself”

Exactly.

“..encourage others to reject identifying with gross labels – either those that they give to themselves or those that others persist in giving them. “

Which is the point. You, as do we all, persist in giving those labels and, frankly, when countered by someone we catch in the broad brush sweep, yap like kicked puppies that we “didn’t mean YOU, but the others…you’re different, you’re not like the rest of them…There are those of whatever the group that may take that as a compliment. I do not. I don’t care to be the exception which proves the rule.

“I have more often than not enjoyed our exchanges and that has not been because I think of you as Southern, male, homosexual, Jewish, Episcopalian, or any other label, but because I think of you as a unique individual who enjoys discussing ideas.”

Likewise. However, I hope you as well as anyone else who enjoys “discussing ideas” will understand the point that I try to consistently make “AS A…whatever the label” is on no small few occasions at odds with what I may think as that “individual.”

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I thought so. It’s ME against the world, and that world needs to be saved. One can feel the true spirit of the mind behind a comment by the syntactical choices, (as I have maintained from the start). A phoney’s phrasing is so easy to spot. I called it from the very first comment I read months ago from this perpetually-clenched enzyme. Change the world? I think the world will do just fine, thank you, but by all means, keep writing about how nice it is to be nice to the nice. You’re so nice to do that, rally you are. rally. (Insert emoticon of the face of a guy who’s reaching subtly for the mouse clicker thingie and only hopes to escape to the Wingfield blog in the nick of time).

(whewww)

Okay, back to the beatles. I admit that I was disappointed in Ringo when he came out against booze and drugs and finally found sobriety after he married Barbara Bach. (early 80’s) But, it was a beatle talkin and so I, too, gave it all up and got married and raised a family. Certainly Ringo then became the baby boomer bouncer in the sex/drugs/rockandroll party that started in the sixties and ended when he publicly came out for sobriety.

about five years earlier, Ringo had covered the “no no no I don’t smoke it no more” but I thought he was just kiddin’ or simply suggesting that the boomers cut back a little, that maybe going through life drunk and stoned and sexed out wasn’t such a good idea.

I did understand one main point about the drug/sexual revolution of the sixties, however: that it was an unwritten rule that eventually everyone would give it up and get a real job and get married, (maybe sometime before we all turned thirty). I thought we were just partying to party, not that partying was a way to live an entire life. I know that many boomers are still smoking weed and/or getting drunk several times a week. (see paul mccartney).

That beatle has put away some weed. whoa.

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pf talking about drugs.

Imagine that. (Insert emoticon smoking weed)

Flipping the channels looking for a football game, I landed on Palladia with a concert in England. Place was packed . Neil Young hits the stage and jams keep on rocking in the free world. The place went crazy and now that song is stuck in my head.

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Hey all….we had some experts on the FL Keys on here last week. Anyone of you on here today? I am driving there this winter, and have some questions. What are the prettiest towns, best beaches, cheapest hotels? I want some boat tours, no fishing, just site-seeing, where are some good places for boat tours? If you see this, give me some advice, I will be checking in off and on. Thanks in advance.

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I saw Neil perform that song on SNL, and I mean it ripped me apart. He was older, but not yet Keith’d out, and he just……well, after I saw it, I had to sneak a six pack of beer into my house without my wife finding it.

Yes, she found it. curses. but that was long ago. Funny how I din’t smoke no weed from 1982 till 2009 when me wife joined the athiests in limbo. I mean, she truly was the right woman for me. She din’t let me drink neither nor no how no way. I was as sober as Ringo. I din’t even have a connection and had no plan b to get one. I was lost in a conservative suburbia in Cobb County USA.

I’m not mean spirited. I just think that Curly is underrated and if I had to rate the comics, he would be at the top, and thus I must defer to him and his associates, and tease anyone who doesn’t “get” it. The M-word is funny. It’s been funny since the snake used it to describe God to Eve, (which tipped the scales in her decision to eat the apple).

“I can’t eat the apple, God said not to, rally he did, rally.”

“God is a moron, dude.”

“CRUNCH!”

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Methinks Wonkman is yet another in the long line of escapees who wander in here when they know Jay isn’t around. Surely we all remember a few. Regardless, they all have the same M.O.: grandiose self-importance, delusions, and an overwhelming didactic purpose.

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I dont think so, you know-it -=losers. I think Jay is sick of your romper room stupidity and I know he’s tired of reading the same comments all day long for years and years from the same Schmoehawks, (sic). The idea for these blogs was to advance the discussion, and there are rules, which were first published in a little book called, “Roberts Rules of Order”. There are also parliamentary points of order, which when taken together with Robert’s can indeed advance the discussion and even solve problems, no matter how many Schmutzes (sic) try to ruin it.

Well, I’m done lecturing, I think I get a brewski. (hic).

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ZamVet

Well, it may not be a war, but….

Anyway, I don’t take it seriously…do I have to turn in my blowhard card?

And it IS Christmas…relax and be at peace with the neighbors…

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Getalife

Demonstrating that practice doesn’t always make perfect, eh?

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Come back when you can’t stay so long. In fact, don’t come back at all.

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josef@11:06

A lot of judgment of me, in your 11:06 post. Though my post at 11:03 last evening was directed to you, it was written not only to reach out to you, but to anyone who cared to explore the thoughts I shared. Some did want to explore those thoughts, based on my blog’s hits.

All I care to share, now, is to repeat a story I have shared here before of the first principal I ever worked for, immediately after my college graduation. I had left NYC in Jan. of 1970, and my father had arranged for me to step into the only teaching position available at midyear in that south Georgia town. That position was as a teacher in an all black, still segregated, elementary school. I was the only white person – of students and staff – in that segregated school.

The school was closed that summer in order to comply with the laws of desegregation that fall. Just before I left for the summer, the principal called me aside and said to me that, before I left, he wanted me to know that everyone in the school had appreciated my efforts. But he wanted me to understand, especially, that they had appreciated me not simply because I had shown empathy or care to the children. He emphasized that many white people might have had that same care toward the students. He wanted me to know that I had something quite special in terms of relating to all of the black people in that school. He told me that he knew, and that they all knew, without words, that I did not “see” any person there in any way separate from myself. It went deeper than being “color blind,” he had said; it was a state of consciousness whereby I understood we were all the same, all truly equal. And, before I had left, he had wanted me to know this, and he had wanted me to know that my “seeing” all of them – adults and children – with my eyes meant more to all in that school than anything else I had done because what I had given them was rare for them to have experienced where they existed. Throughout the course of my 35 year career, others have shared similar feelings with me in how I have impacted their lives for the better, simply because of how I “saw” them.

I was 27 years old, at that time my principal spoke such impacting words to me. I saw all others with those same eyes when I was 11 years old. And, I will see with those same eyes when I am, hopefully, 95 years old. I will keep sharing my vision so that, hopefully, some will understand that vision and will embrace it, as well. Without judgmental eyes.

Feel free to have the last word, josef.

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Getalife

He made me laugh, too…but not where I think he intended….

Sooth

Come back? He hasn’t gone anywhere is my bet…

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Thanks pf,

Try reading Comedy for Dummies.

It should help you out

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ZamVet

Me? I just wish we had left Santa for the kids…a season of miracles and wonder…reality strikes soon enough and leaves us bitter old men and women…

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ME

@ 1:04

Took the words right out of my mouth…’ course I’m of the windbag set m’self

“thank G-d for the blog…” Native American spiritual wisdom from He Who’s Already Heard It Enough

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Anyone who is color blind should pray that the traffic light was
not hung upside down.

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Ho ho ho…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIH9rSX_RcQ

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carlos

I will go withyou on the “bragging” aspect. Recognition of and respect for it, though, lend a perspective to the being of the sum of the parts which put you here. When I look to mine, what I can see is “what I would have done” given a particular time and place. It’s not always pretty. I can “brag” about great whatever grandpappy that Dumas’ based D’Artagnan on…but on closer inspection that mignon was a study in self-serving arrogance…

When Granddaddy set out to teach me mine, the lesson as he put it was “staying one step ahead of the inquisition, whatever the inquisition of the day…” His teaching was, “the past is what put you here and now. That is your inheritance. What you make of it will be your legacy. It is that legacy which will bring YOUR judgment…”

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wiccan

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ME
Speaking of Faulkner, what do you make of Chapter 7 of “Intruder in the Dust?”

And his Nobel Prize?

“Mr. Gene, what are you doing letting that boy around that lying old drunk?”
“Miz Georgia, he did win the Nobel Prize.”
“So, he’s a Nobel Prize Winning lying old drunk.”

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Someone may have already mentioned this but Saturday Night Live had “Tebow” and “Jesus Christ” on the show last night.

Do you think they will ever have the guts to bring out “Mohammed” for a silly script ?

Not if they value their lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul2dhNaQgxM

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Mary Elizabeth

Everybody labels, Mary Elizabeth; it’s just what we do, however positive or negative. The important thing to remember in living in a world of labels, however, is that we don’t have to accept the ones we don’t like.

As a thinking, feeling human being (<- label), it’s not my job or intention to ever accept the labels of others on damn near anything automatically, for that would be the mark of an absolute fool. And I certainly don’t want to ever accept others’ labels of me that way, especially if they’re negative.

Somewhere along the line, I decided that if I no longer wanted to be a victim (ugh!), I had to learn the tools of change in order to become who I wanted to be, not necessarily who others were trying to make me.

Surrounding yourself with positive people, like educators, can be helpful in the beginning, but inevitably we must move out into a competitive environment if we’re to make a living.

That requires a firm handle on the ability to become what we want to be first and last, often against intense negativity, and that, of course, means knowing how to change.

If this is your spiritually, Mary Elizabeth, then you rock. And if this is the kind of educator you are – helping your students learn the basic tools of change as the most important thing you teach – then you are the best in the biz, and may God always bless you!

P.S. And as I was fortunate enough to learn in the nick of time, those who have no one to help them have God full-on. But then I’m sure you know this, too, don’t you?

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Wish I’d been around for the start of on-topic commenting. SPLHCB is, indeed, a nice album to re-discover, as I did a few years back; I’d been one of those Beatles fans who felt compelled to say “it was overpraised” and “Revolver was soooo much more important” and all that.

But you know, it’s Sgt. Pepper’s, and it’s a great album, and like Jay says, even a throwaway track like “Fixing a Hole” is great, as well.

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Anyhow, some Christmas cheer available for streaming / download here:

http://christmas.soundopinions.org/

Truly great stuff.

back later, maybe, if not, have an excellent evening, all a’ yuz.

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josef:

I didn’t see Mohammed portrayed in that video.

I don’t “hate” other religions as I have friends who are in them.

The point was that SNL had no problem bringing out a fake Christ but would they ever bring out a fake Mohammed in a skit?

I think you know the answer and why.

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I tell you what SNL needs.

A fake obama.

Wait, that’s redundant.

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Well Obama sent out his political Iraq war over fundraising email today

Tasteless

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Mary Elizabeth

“Spirituality” … Lol

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Tom Middleton@3:18 p.m.

Thank you for such a thoughtful, impacting post to me. I am deeply affected by it. A few responses for you. . .

You write: “. . .those who have no one to help them have God full-on.”

Tom, you may have learned this in a “nick of time,” but it is obvious that you learned it well, and more than simply as a voiced platitude. I have known those who kept going only because of that awareness. And it will be with you always, now that it is within.

You write: “The important thing to remember in living in a world of labels, however, is that we don’t have to accept the ones we don’t like.”
This is so true, but it takes very strong autonomy to be able to stand against the numbers of label makers and label perpetuators. Part of the role I saw for myself as a teacher was to “see” my students with the “eyes” I knew that they were hungry to be seen as, thereby giving them the confidence that not only could they become what they wanted to be, but that they were, in fact, already what they wanted to be, deep inside. And now, the job was simply to “bring it out” through learning, skills, self-awareness, and deepening confidence.

You write: “Surrounding yourself with positive people, like educators, can be helpful in the beginning, but inevitably we must move out into a competitive environment if we’re to make a living.
That requires a firm handle on the ability to become what we want to be first and last, often against intense negativity, and that, of course, means knowing how to change.”

In the story of King Kong, Kong falls to his death from on top of the Empire State Building. Some have analyzed that “it was Beauty that killed the Beast.” It was unrequited love which Kong had for the beautiful young woman that caused him not to want to continue living. And, of course, that same theme is played out in the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” A lack of love kills, as as been shown even with babies. When we love, and especiallly when it is returned, we feel that we can overcome almost any obstacle, including that of changing ourselves. As a teacher, I sought to show my students not only that I loved them, but more importantly, I wanted them to love themselves, and not in a superficial way. Once you love and value yourself, and have genuine self-esteem, you have developed the autonomy, and the self-sustaining motivation, to keep striving in spite of negatives around you. And this sees you through the harshness of the world. All of the voculary and intellectual concepts that I taught my students gave them confidence and helped to build their self-esteem, but the love they felt from me, to them, had greater impact upon them than the knowledge I gave them, and when that love was transmuted into their loving themselves, without me or anyone else having to confirm it, I knew that I had done my job well. That was because I knew that they had the “tools,” as you say, both internal and external, to be not only who they wanted to be, but who, in fact, they already innately were, without having realized it. I never saw any student as a label. I could never have seen them that way because I loved them each, uniquely. Even the ones who were at times unkind to me. I understood why. I miss teaching. God blessed with that career. I received far more than I gave.They had loved me back.

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“I wonder if Scout was one of the people who wrote to Lowe’s to pull their ads from “All American Muslims”?”

Probably. He attacks SNL for a skit but never heard him attack the priests for molesting children then covering it up.

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Speaking of which, have you heard the latest on that with the Dutch priests?

Yes, sickening.

20,000 kids.

Lets hear scout on this one.

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Brosephus:

You make my point.

There are multitudes of shows, movies and books citicizing Christianity. Fair game in our country.

If you write one criticizing Islam ………. you had better go into hiding …………. just ask Salman Rushdie ……….. if you can find him.

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Finally.

It is the reason I stopped going to church to give them cover up money.

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Scout…

There’s something to what you said there at 4:53…Unmentionable came back from the shopping center one day not long ago complaining about the police presence having everything all blocked up. What was going on? Rushdie was at a book signing…can’t see that happening for, oh, say Hitchens before he went to his reward….

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I don’t think these priests should be preaching about politics to get the cons to blindly support the 1 % party of greed and destroying our home planet too.

When all the molesting priests are locked up for life and they get out of politics, I will go back to church.

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Josef,

I would call the civil rights movement the right thing to do but what has the con movement done?

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carlosgv:

Nope ………….. and you make my point. Thanks.

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getalife

It’s a double standard…

You said,

“I don’t think these priests should be preaching about politics…”

and, yes, I know I left out the rest of what you said, but even though I disagree with just what they are preaching, who has the perogative to triage the political correctness? The option, and the one you took, is to go somewhere else…

All I am saying is that there is a lot of good comes from the pulpit, too.

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Mary Elizabeth

And the love shows, Mary Elizabeth, not only in your answer, but in your many posts on this blog.

And while I’ve been around loving, kind people in my life, what I’m talking about is an ability to enter into a hostile environment without giving in to the negativity, like the civil-rights workers and leaders had to do to succeed in their great movement.

In my opinion, they had it down more than anyone else I know anything about, and it gave the rest of us the light, leadership, and confidence we needed to get up and help.

Without the victims to play along in providing their support, oppressors will fall flat and fail miserably in their obnoxious game. And it’s in teaching people NOT to be victims that we provide the constructive (loving) means necessary for a nation, even a world, to change for the much, much better.

Thoreau, Ghandi, Dr. King, and Jesus – especially Jesus – all gave us the principled means (nonviolent, constructive tools) we need to stop our being victims, and I might add, it has nothing to do with our becoming oppressors ourselves, as some among us would have us believe.

In case you haven’t noticed, the “Occupy” movement is all about a massive unwillingness of people to play victim, as is the “Arab Spring” as well, still going on in Syria and elsewhere as we speak.

In other words, Mary Elizabeth, it has worked in the past, is working now, and will continue to work in the future, as we continue taking this insane place we call earth to a place of lasting peace!

Keep teaching when you can, lady, for we have a long way to go and not much time left to get “there.” Time for hyperdrive, don’t you think? Peace, sista!!!!

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just ask Salman Rushdie ……….. if you can find him.

Salman Rushdie is a writer in residence at Emory University, my alma mater. He’s not that hard to find.

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getalife .. .. all Christians do not bash the gay community. I doubt the majority of Christians do that…

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