Gun Rally - MLK, Jr. Day

To have a gun rally on MLK, Jr. Day is akin to parading a Nazi flag in a Jewish Cemetery.

It breaks my heart to see these misguided "patriots" prancing around like schoolyard bullies, snickering and egging one another on. And it breaks my heart all the more to see how unscrupulous politicians are playing these people for fools.

I have no sympathy for their cause whatsoever, simply because their cause isn't about gun ownership, but about gun supremacy, and all the fear and hatred associated with the darkest kinds of thoughts, fueled by racism and male belligerence, along with women in tight t-shirts sporting red MAGA hats.

Nope.

These are not friends of democracy.
These are not people of intelligence and wisdom.
These are not hard working folks who make a nation great, but a people who drag it down into the gutters of bitterness and violence.

There are better ways, and I pray, better days coming our way.

Yet the work ahead is going to be demanding of our every fiber of being. Every fragment of goodness, every bit of virtue, every dream of hope and peace, will have to be marshaled to save this nation from the darkness once again rearing its ugly head.

"I have a dream," said he, and so must we all.

A dream that makes us strong to endure and strong to keep up the work.
A dream to energize our efforts to build a just society.
To cleanse the culture.
To make life good and safe for our children and grandchildren.

It can be done.
It must be done.
It will be done.

"No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satis­fied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mig·hty stream."To have a gun rally on MLK, Jr. Day is akin to parading a Nazi flag in a Jewish Cemetery.

The House March into the Senate

Watched the "march" of House Representatives to the Senate ... a solemn procession with a most serious purpose.

I'm moved ... in part dispirited by the present issues clouding our nation's life and threatening its future.

I'm hopeful that the Senators who declared their partiality will repent and then take seriously the oath of impartiality.

Every day that passes, our nation suffers damage, and so does the world, for much of the world, by design or accident, depends upon us, for good and for ill.

From the get-go, I saw this all coming - a criminal narcissist cannot change his or her behavior, and for reasons historians will study for decades, if not centuries, a lot of Americans believed the man's lies and admired his presumption.

While the man lost the popular vote by a considerable margin, the age-old problem of the South once again reared its ugly head with the Electoral College, a device created to give the less populous Southern Slave States a greater weight than actually deserved - including the infamous "Three-Fifths Compromise" of 1787.

And, then, into the calculus, Russian Interference.

From the environment to immigration, from voting rights to jobs, from international treaties to education, America has been in turmoil and decline.

From the top down, aided and abetted by Southern politics, the odious idea of nullification, foolish and mislead evangelicals, and the insidious racism still bedeviling our land, the Union is clearly under attack and daily threatened by a cabal of beliefs and behaviors inconsistent with our Constitution and our Democracy.

I'm heartened that we still have a lot of people who care for the nation's wellbeing - women and men of good character and reasoned faith, who exhibit good cheer and a fondness for knowledge and learning, who desire to do the best they can for the greatest number of people, irrespective of race, religion, language and culture.

I'm heartened by the evangelicals of good conscience who are emerging out of the shadows cast by the extremists, to challenge the distortions that have crippled much of the American evangelical church.

And I give thanks for women and men of the mainline churches who are sustaining their convictions on voting rights, inclusion rights, and fundamental kindness and mercy for all.

Where and how it all ends, no one knows, but I hope that we can do what Christ did in the Holy City - when entering the precincts of power and commerce, he overturned the tables and shut it all down, declaring the awful truth: that which pretends to be holy is nothing less than a bunch of robbers stealing the wealth of the people and feathering the nests of the 1 %.

That 1% saw to it that Christ was killed, but truth cannot be destroyed so easily, and there was a resurrection, much to everyone's surprise.

I hope and pray that we'll be surprised by goodness and mercy, wise government and faithful servants, who indeed seek the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

Baghdad Airport

The pictures of Baghdad Airport shocked me ... reminding me of any major airport anywhere in the world.

How would we feel if some superpower sent a guided missile to O'Hare, or LAX, or anyone of our major airports?

This is clearly an act of war.

Will it unify the people of Iran?

An act of terrorism against any of our airports would likely unify us, at least for the moment. It's the very nature of a nation to rally around the flag in a moment of crisis.

Have we really stepped in it this time?

Has the President made a disastrous move from which there may come a great deal of harm?

Iran is no third-rate nation ... its power doesn't match ours, of course, but it's powerful enough, and has the means to retaliate.

What hath this man's insanity wrought?

Will the State of Israel now loose the dogs of war? Netanyahu certainly could use a crisis to avert eyes from his malfeasance.

And the evangelicals, of course, can only cheer, because Armageddon will usher in the Second Coming of Christ, and a new world order wherein LGBTQs will vanish, women will know their place and be pregnant all the time, and evangelicals will sit on thrones to rule the world, singing fervently, "Just as I Am."