Daily Blues & Views

 Last night I witnessed one of the most memorable speeches made by an American president.  Oh, I wasn't there, but observed and listened for just about an hour as the current inhabitant of the White House delivered his comments to the White House Press Corps at their annual dinner.  The nation was curious to see this version as the originally scheduled one this year was abruptly cancelled due to another assassination attempt on the president's life.  Also, it was the first time that Donald Trump personally attended this event while president.  The exceptionally thin-skinned POTUS is not one to appreciate the subtlies of sarcastic humor directed toward his majesty.   So, what made his remarks so memorable?  Their lack of sheer relevancy to anything currently troubling this divided country.  Often one to ramble and drift into the weeds surrounding his prepared text, Trump was in rare form last night.  He was more concerned with the light fixtur...

 It stops with me.  This invisible burden that I've carried for decades definitely stops with me.  I'm the last of the line on my father's side and I have no children.  The name, in all its forms stops with me.  But, it is much more than the name, isn't it?  It's the legacy, the family, the historical continuation.   Maybe it's just a construct.  We are all brothers and sisters, right?  The family of man, or more accurately stated the human family.  That helps to ease the burden.   I don't think about it all that much and I recognize that the word burden may be too excessive.  What I have begun to think about is what will happens to all the evidence that the family did exist.  I have become the keeper of all that remains.  The photos, documents, important papers that once held such import as to be kept secure and protected.   I opened the storage tub that houses this archive today.  Envelopes that contain fa...

 With America poised for a big 250th anniversary party, I'd like to offer my thoughts on the verge of the huge star-spangled, ultra patriotic orgasm about to take place.  Rather than go with the explosions that linger far into the night and the one after that and probably the one after that, I offer a rather thrifty 250. What I am going to do, and what I recommend my fellow Americans do is the following:  Search and find the first verses of Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land.  Then, read, sing, or recite them slowly out loud to yourself and anyone else you might be near or able to hold captive.  The key here is slowly.  You might want to practice first.  Read the words over slowly in your mind.  Then, when you think you've read them slow enough, do it again, but even slower.  You don't have to belt them out, but find the volume you feel comfortable with.  The slower the better.  Something might reveal itself much like the detail...