Jim Morrison: Jerk, Devil, Rock Singer; Monster or Sicko?

Jim Morrison: Jerk, Devil, Rock Singer [Monster and/or sicko]

I am reading the Hopkins and other writer,  Sugerman, [both co-wrote this popular biography], which I saw a lot of when I was younger, in the 1980s. I think I saw it because of the influence of a local high school teacher, and it went more viral from there. That's a guess. But I think this was accurate for Bloomington, Indiana, as much as the rest of the world after its publication in 1980. "Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive. " A line from one of Morrison's songs, which might be derived from an earlier poet.

I am now about 150 pages in, out of around 350 or so; a few more than I was when I started this title a day or two ago.

At this point of the book I want Jim Morrison to die sooner than later. He is what I added in the first part of the title of this post, and then I added "monster", and "sicko": sycophant probably applies.   Too much alcohol, too much drugs, too much him, and too much violence and sexual depravity.

I might not be the first or the thousandth person to claim this, but Jim Morrison is a pretty despicable and sick person. Great artist, in many ways, but an awful, and dark and gross individual. Sick, to a major degree, evidenced in his teenage years but worse with time and drug abuse.

Having not finished the book, again, not quite half way through, I hope that his early death is/was better for him and all of us than if he had kept on living. Why did he hate his parents so much? For being nice, conformist, well achieving Americans? For having traditional values and codified morals?

Keep in mind, going back to the 1970s and 1980s as a youth, I listened to and enjoyed all the hits of the Doors that I knew of. I watched Apocalypse Now, and was artistically intrigued by "The End", admittedly more a director's choice for the film than the direct contribution of the band in question, but this song has its qualities, dark and foreboding for sure. I believe that I heard it a few time in my church mission in Chile, and some locals asked me to translate it. I thought it was pretty and melodic, and has a menacing yet luridly appealing message, as Martin Scorsese used it for the culminating scene of his iconic film. Into the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s, I have enjoyed all main hits of the Doors. I did not seek out the minor ones, nor did I try reading this book "Nadie Sale de Aqui Vivo", by the aforementioned Hopkins and Sugerman, until now, around the corner (the last climate season) from turning 50 years of age. Old enough, right? Old enough to be stuck in my ways, or perhaps being firmly aligned with the values that people had issues against Jim Morrison and the oft times obscene and profane art of the Doors.

I have finally read the book, one that I was acutely aware of as a younger man, in the earlier 1980s and now close to four decades (a Biblical time period) later, in my month of July and retrospect, even in the summer of the epic pandemic. What would Mister Mojo Risin' think of such times? What does the drug-induced and philosophical wizard, the life-crazed and sex-obsession poetic savant have to say about such globally catastrophic evil machinations of his distant future? Did Jim, in fact, fake his own death in Paris, France, to become the free and anonymous bard that he had wished to be by the end of his alleged drug abused and alcohol-overwhelmed life, at the rock star age of 27, following 60s legends Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin?

It has now been a few days seen I finished it; with time of a slight passage to mull over its meanings.

Is he still alive?!! Is James Douglas Morrison still creating his poetry throughout the universe? Well, in  many senses, because of and through his art of song and verses, he certainly is still alive, he is still with us. Jim Morrison is immortal.

The feelings that I had in the first 100 to 150 pages of the book for this would-be larger-than-life character, those sentiment urges of antipathy and disgust and a desire to see this man die sooner, the one who disowned his own parents, who had little regard for the forces of order and decency, or plain affection or respect for parents, transformed a bit more towards pity and some compassion, or at least some feeling of this guy was screwed in wrong and had to be the devil and artist that he had to be, much like Van Gogh or hundreds and perhaps thousands of other artists and poets across the vast generations.

Jim Morrison. There were not a lot of witnesses of your death, your body, your remains.

Whichever way your soul has gone, dead in 1972 or alive somewhere in some head case horror show or opium den Shangri La, now as old as my parents and some great grandparents poking around the globe in 2020, I am glad I finally read the book; I have a chance to entertain, scrutinize, and exorcise some of those universal or peculiar particular demons, at minimum and a small portion of yours and a few more of my own. Without all the drugs and booze.

Jim Morrison: not an easy person, not an easy read, not an easy life or death.

And so be it.

August 2, 2020 Addition. His biographers are now dead, too. Rest in peace, I will see you all on the other side. Break on through.

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq: A Retrospective

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq: A Retrospective

Here we are in the summer of pandemic (2020), adjusting and re-adjusting to the quarantines and lock downs, the social distancing and the virtual connections and the wearing of the masks. Also, with the tragedy of George Floyd, we (and I mean black, white, brown, pro-law enforcement and anti-police brutality, Democrats, Republicans, people of all faiths and socio-economic groups) are thinking and re-thinking our relationships to society, to each other, to ourselves, our politics, ideologies and philosophies, and yes, our privilige[s] and racism[s].

Thinking about my topic of Iraq, I realize that my topic is bigger than just this country; it has a lot to do with U.S. foreign policy and the threats that it perceives over time. The U.S. sees threats and does what it can to thwart or prevent them.

U.S. Worldwide Posture and Necessity

The Two World Wars, 1914-1918, and 1931-1945, first from belligerent Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empires, then later Germany, Italy, and the power hungry Japan, showed the world that the United States was a necessary part of global defenses against tyranny and genocide. If it were not for the United States ending both global conflicts, aiding Great Britain in a bereft Europe, and liberating China and the Pacific from the Rising Sun, it is likely that most of the world would be speaking either German and/or Japanese even now in the 21st century. Perhaps spoken Russian would be kept in their homeland, and English, Spanish, and Portuguese in the Western Hemisphere would have remained, but that in itself is a sobering thought. All under German and Japanese control, as some have theorized.

The United Nations was subsequently formed to prevent such existential threats in the future, but the Soviet Union under Stalin and quickly China under Mao posed further authoritarian threats to the world, more or less embedded within the foundations of the U.N., hence the U.S. involvement in the Cold War and proxy bloody insurrections ever since.The wars that were resultant of the anti-communists were plentiful, bloody, and awful throughout the world, to include devastating coup d' etats, plus actions on smaller yet closely felt levels,  espionage and maneuvers related to arrests, torture, and murder in the duel between the bipolar giants of the later 20th century.

All's fair in love and the Cold War. Millions and millions suffered and died because of this power struggle.

And yet, there were other virulent (yes, I am a Western idealist, informed by my point of view) ideologies that were in force throughout the 20th century that would wind up lasting beyond over surpassing Marxism and its attempts for power and control, which had their own ideas of economics and geo-political control, which would be: 1. militant Islam and 2. dogmatic martial nationalism. These two movements are most auspiciously identified in the 21st century in the forms of Al-Qaeda, the Iranian Islamic Republic, and the sovereign nations of North Korea, China, and Russia. One could throw in some hostile or anti-American regimes like those found in Cuba and Venezuela as of 2020, which have Marxist claims, but the two biggest strains or anti-U.S. and anti-Western movements and groups are extremist Muslim militants, to include the government of Iran, and the nations that are nationalistic to an extreme, totalitarian as opposed to democratic, in North Korea, China, and Russia. All are using capitalism for their survival and existence, but ideologically some of them vehemently oppose or more subtly subvert the ways of democratic capitalistic liberalism to accomplish their aims.

Their aims are not "our" goals or objectives, so we fight and bleed and sweat and toil in order to prevent them from gaining more power and influence, but it is a tricky and greasy and often times corrupt slope, because there is oil and energy and regular commerce that benefits all, the sellers and the consumers on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, the largest earthly body connecting the world super powers, to include always formidable Russia along the same ocean paths...

U.S. and Coalition Intervention and 2003 War in Iraq

So back to Iraq.

Saddam Hussein proved an untiring irritant for both of the above reasons: he was both a brutal nationalist and fascist dictator who, like Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot, or take your pick of sycophant mass killers over the centuries, combined the worst of authoritarian terror while simultaneously harboring those of Al-Qaeda and the deadly religious extreme of militant Islam. He even had the bald audacity to claim to be a good Sunni Muslim, thus justifying the long terrible war with his Shia neighbors the Iranis, and systematically exterminating and leveling the predominant Shia south of his own troubled land, not to mention sending them as fodder in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. But, how could we or he justify the gassing of the Sunni Kurds to the north? Certainly not for religious loyalties or reasons, right? He was simply a mass killer, plain and simple.

Did he need to be removed? Of course! Did Adolph Hitler need to be removed? Yes, same answer! But what year would be most appropriate for the latter of the Third Reich? 1935? 1938? 1941? A little late by then, as the "Final Answer" genocide of the Jews and others came into full effect, forever altering the balance of Europe and the Middle East in the newfound refuge Israel, pushing out millions of land owning or other peasant Arabs of the Holy Land...

This current day miasma, a complicated web we have weaved surrounding Jerusalem.

So people in 2020 glibly and openly declare that the Iraqi War was a mistake? Hardly.

There were many mistakes committed, very clearly, but the underpinning reason to remove Saddam Hussein in 2002-3?

It was completely and utterly justified (it was beyond the charges of Weapons of Mass Destruction, which Saddam had in the chemicals he used, besides). The U.S. and British and others, particularly the Iraqi lives lost and sacrificed to end his tyrannical reign? Like in World War II, it was done for the greater good. No question. Job well done. Mission accomplished, as the chided president prematurely declared in May of 2003. But history has and will prove him right. George W. Bush did the correct thing in toppling Hussein, intervening in Iraq. 17 years later it is more a democracy than most other Arab states.

Hussein was the one to stop, and we did. Good riddance, and blessed be the martyrs who sacrificed all for that cause of his removal. The French and other cowards who opposed it in the early 2000s? We saw what happened to you in World War Two, and you needed us to save you from a similarly despotic Germany. You're welcome.

Us Americans are not that dumb or bloodthirsty. There were huge costs at stake, and many people have suffered, assuredly. But, we, the United States, know a big, bad bully when we see one, we have learned from history, and we are not afraid to tangle with him. Hussein, the modern day genocidalist. We are used to saving millions and millions of innocent and brutalized people. And we will do it again. God bless America.

More later.

Blogged it.

Hey, White Americans! Stop Assisting the Deaths of People of Color!

Hey, White Americans! Stop Assisting in the Deaths and Victimization of People of Color! Updated 2020, Pandemic Time

In the proud and tragic history of the United States (we count it since around 1775), white people here in the continent and abroad have accounted for directly killing or indirectly assisting in the death of many peoples of color. It has not been a one way street, certainly, but "white people" have had most of the power and control for 245 years, admittedly. That control too often has led to awful and sad numbers of deaths and victimization of blacks, browns, Native Americans, Asians, and others. And generally, more people of color have died at the hands of white men, mostly. We also acknowledge that black on black violence is too much, since at least 1960. Maybe before? Whites killing non-whites has to end as much as we can influence those trends. I would like to identify that there is a new way that certain whites are achieving this act of death for the non-white in the summer of 2020. I do not think that they (these accused white people) mean to achieve this, but this is what is happening night after night, week after week this summer of '20. Allow me to explain.

Street protests and attacks on federal facilities are killing and abetting the deaths of non-whites. How, you ask? The street protests have brought the contagion of COVID-19 to more homes of people of color. This activity could be blamed on the outrage of police brutality, I understand, but people of color are disproportionately affected by the virus, and hence the gatherings of people close together is undoubtedly spreading more sickness and death among everyone, but it is worse among blacks and browns than white populations. Is this reasonable to argue? Police killing an innocent arrestee resistor is unconscionable, but when it leads to more deaths of innocents and the weak due to those who are protesting over those acts and trends... Justified? Meanwhile, criminals of all races are killing people of all races every day.

Which leads to the protests and attacks on federal facilities, or local police structures causing increased deaths and strife for peoples of color. How is this harming them? Believe it or not, our law enforcement brothers and sisters have limited time, money, and resources to "police", which is much more than following traffic violators and domestic disturbances. Police are called upon to search down leads that have been developed over time, including thousands of detectives that are searching down long term criminals, killers, rapists, robbers, burglars, to include the "white collar" crimes. 

Not easy. Made harder when a bunch of protestors-gone-rioters, many resorting to looting and outright violence, especially in the late hours of the night, when most regular crimes are committed, are directly and indirectly attacking government buildings and facilities. Be it graffiti and "light" vandalism, or assaults with projectiles or fire bombs, these street groups are using up our police resources in personnel, hours billed, injuries on duty, and taking away from the cases and crimes that are being committed in other parts of the precincts. People of color in the immediate moment and on long term criminal cases are being ignored, and the innocents go on being violated and not getting justice.

Have you ever seen a fighter distract his opponent with one hand while he pummels him with the other? Does this make sense? This is a simple analogy, but I believe it is understandable, clear, and applies to some of the protests occurring in Portland, Seattle, and perhaps other large cities in the country where Homeland Security officers and security are paid, ordered to protect those assets, to include human lives. Police officers and their buildings should not be under attack. They are protecting us and saving our lives, short and long term! If you do not like them or their practices, vote accordingly and peacefully protest during waking hours, do what your conscious dictates to change the situation and the systems in place. More power to you, act and vote your mind.

I know we all want justice; we can debate through words, social media and the press, and the democratic process how things can be fixed and modified, and how to fund law enforcement, and who should handle mental patients and what other social vehicles can handle the poor and suffering in our society, but it makes me mad and frustrated when white people, of all that do this, are distracting and threatening our law enforcement (police and security who are of all races and creeds), while the kids and the innocents in the most impoverished neighborhoods are wrapped up in body bags, every weekend, every month, every year. Why do we not know the names of the little ones killed? Why do we not demand justice for them? I think that we of all colors do not really care enough about them...

Is there an end in sight? White people? Get your priorities straight and do not threaten and attack the very professional people doing their best, under high stress and at risk to their own lives, to protect the neediest and most at risk among us.

White people? You are really prone to killing and letting people of color die. You have found a new way to do so this summer of 2020, or perhaps multiple new ways due to a deadly virus pandemic.

Let's stop at least this aspect of it this summer and into the future.

Black lives most certainly do matter. Every single one of them, not just the ones who resisted arrest and when things went the wrong way. The latter is bad, horrible, obviously, but there is a bigger picture. 

Do not attack and accost the police, threatening them and their tools and facilities, distracting them from protecting the rest of us, bring justice to the most guilty. Do the right thing and stop criminality in every place where it takes place. Save the innocents of endless crimes, detrimental to people of all colors, but disproportionately to blacks and browns. Help the police end the killings. White people, you can greatly help. Do not abuse and misuse your racial privilege to further hurt the others less privileged than you.

This summer (2020) has taken too many lives tragically, for reasons of violence and incautious recklessness beyond the normal reasons of death. Let us not perpetuate and instigate these errors now and into the future. White people and people of all races in the United States, we can make a difference for the better. Let us all save lives instead of taking them. Let us seek and find justice for all.

Did I not mention Ken Snow? I will now...

Did I not mention Ken Snow? I will now...

Outside of my home town of Bloomington, Indiana, and even within Bloomington, a lot of people may not realize how great the Indiana University men's soccer program has been for decades. They consistently are one of the best Division I teams in the nation, which admittedly is second tier compared to American football, basketball, and even baseball in the United States, but it is still a big deal to be among the nation's elite in a such a competitive sport.

Jerry Yeagley brought greatness to the men's team since I was young in the 1970s. Since then IU has won 8 national championships and been to many more College Cups, which is the Final Four, which is rarefied air in the world at this level. Yeagley was succeeded by an older assistant coach, who won a national crown in his short tenure, and not long after that his son, Todd, has taken the helm and maintained a very high standard of play at Indiana. Todd won a national title in 2012.

Recently, arguably the best IU scorer of all time unexpectedly passed away. His name was Ken or Kenny Snow, and by most accounts was the best and most prolific scorer in Indiana men's soccer history.

It was on June 21 that he died of complications, as we know now probably linked to COVID-19.

Ken was described by the coaches, opponents, and fans that observed him as the best in IU history. He played all four years in Bloomington, which helped, because nowadays he would have gone professional sooner, most believe. His brother Steve was also on the team.

He affected me my senior year, which is an honor in most ways, because the day, or even hour, his team won the national championship on our home campus I was performing in a high school musical a few miles northwest of there. Less people attended our show because of that momentous event, I believe.

I was happy we won that fall of 1988, on a rather crisp but as I recall sunny December day. Back then that was Coach Yeagley's fourth championship or so.

Todd was a player for my high school team with many of my friends. I did not know Todd personally, who ended up playing two seasons with Snow, and no national championships for them then as the University of Virginia was on a tear, but they were really good teams.

I had a crush on Todd's older sister Yvette, in middle school, back around 1983, who was two grades older than me and the same age as my sister Jeannette.

Ken Snow was born June 23, 1969, thus missing out on his 51st birthday by two days.

COVID-19 got you too young, and it seems like you were raising more soccer talent for future greatness, few of whom may ever reach your stature, but you should have lived well past this summer.

Rest in peace, brother. Thanks for bringing your talents and more glory to Old IU.

Thanks for living a really good life. We need more like you.

John Lewis, 80, Rest in Peace: and Thank You

John Lewis, 80, Rest in Peace: and Thank You

This man is a hero for many reasons. He just died last night (July 17). Most men and women who live to eighty years old are heroes for that reason alone, to survive this long on earth and contribute to their fellow humans and the surrounding habitats, hopefully aiding and adding more to the world than subtracting.

Safe to say that John Lewis did this. He worked and sacrificed for his ethnic minority when he was young, along with many other noble and bold, and humble people, to include the august Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior, martyr and amazing American and human member of our history.

He was not just sacrificing and protesting for blacks, or negros, or Afro-Americans, or African-Americans alone. No, Lewis was doing that for all of us, because all of us count. He was the first to be struck on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, by police, protesting for equal rights and treatment and justice, and he was the last surviving speaker of those who made their historic march and speeches in Washington, D.C., at the Lincoln Memorial. (Mention of great 95 year-old C.T. Vivien, too, who died beside his friend John...)

Black lives matter, as much in 1619 as they do now in 2020. All lives matter, and whites or others should not be favored because because of their ethnic heritage or color of skin.

John Lewis fought for his people, represented them, but his people was us, all of us: white, brown, black, and those of all languages and backgrounds.

Others know him better, others will eulogize him better than me, others identify with him more than me. I am not of his party and nor am I partial to the totality of his causes, but I empathize and share much of his concerns and hopes as a government servant and person of the people. I too am pro-immigration, for example, the last of his 45 arrests protesting for the sake of the foreigners who have arrived in our country, not to be expelled as quickly as some would like. He did that at age 73 in 2013.

I salute you, Mr. Lewis, and I thank you for all your contributions.

You did everything you could, from my estimation, to be the best person that you could be, and help and lift the most you could. Well done.

And you lived a superb 80 years.

--Blogged it

We Watched "Alexander Hamilton" Last Night

We Watched "Alexander Hamilton", the musical,  Last Night

     I had been hearing some of the music and lyrics of this ground breaking musical since it came out around 2016. I believe that I watched and heard interviews with its creator, the writer/actor Miranda in the intervening years. The kids and some friends watched it last week; I walked by and saw some of the cast and scenes.

I am very impressed by the structure and content of the play as written and performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Great talent and performances were replete. Huge energy, powerful ideas and themes. The stories and research necessary to portray those people and times is tremendous and impressive.

This casts U.S. history in different lights, and I believe the inter-textuality of slavery and human rights is incredibly prescient and well crafted, even more so in 2020 than the time it debuted around 2016, still before President Trump and the current anti-law enforcement sentiments, but after some of the police brutality tragedies and subsequent riots of those times in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore...

Powerful, energetic, creative and genius in parts, this is a "tour de force", as they say.

Miranda does an amazing job of combining the songs and messages, playing on universal and topical messages and themes.

Color me impressed. It inspires me to read more about Hamilton and by him, and others of those times...

--Blogged it

TWO MORE THINGS:

I am committed and I have to remind myself: I will attend at least five black churches, especially when the pandemic conditions are calmed, either near and far.

The next time that I bear my testimony, at church or whatever, "preaching the Word", I might utter, "I am not throwin' away, my: shot!"

Carpe diem.

I have spent good parts of my life inviting people to join my cause, to make good choices that will lead to the enhancement of their lives-- I have done this for no pay

I have spent good parts of my life inviting people to join my cause and make good choices that I know will lead to the enhancement of their lives-- I have done this for no pay.

I will continue to do these things, inviting and collaborating with people of all backgrounds to join in and share with what works for me and that I strongly believe will work for them.

Other times I have directly assisted in food, work, welfare, or other pro-bono efforts to assist others, of all races, creeds, ethnic backgrounds. Some of these efforts were through my church outreach, others involved separate charitable groups, and sometimes it was work related to my paid jobs or some of these efforts were simply ventures or acts on my own or with family or friends. Some of those people, to include white people, if that matters, have rejected my efforts or overtures, offers to assist or to become involved with what I believe to be helpful for them and us.

Should I feel guilty or ashamed for having done this? Should I feel guilty or ashamed for being a white male who has given and will continue to give freely of my time and energy and at times financial resources to help others? Of all races?

I hear people complaining about disparities and inequalities in the United States and across the world, but when I get involved with people on different socio-economic levels and they reject my best counsel and ministry, or advice and help proffered, is it my fault that they continue in their poor ways? How many times should they reject me before I am free of such remorse or guilt for their plight? There are lots of initiatives to change the narrative, we learn about so many in 2020, but when will some of those who complain the most listen to what works for me, and others that I know, if I offer the counsel or invitation to a better life or progress? I am inviting them to join me in my beliefs and practices!

I am trying to say that I live racially, ethnically, sociologically, and ethically correct for my own conscience, that I am happy with my efforts which I will not stop doing, and when people of different political or sociological currents lay blame on me for being over-privileged, for being male, for being white and therefore automatically oppressive, I have some serious qualms with those accusations.

Do I have to enumerate my efforts to convince you?

First of all, my general attitudes, platitudes, and counsel:

1. Come to my church. If you do not attend and participate in mine, go to another house of worship. Go often and regularly, and offer your talents and fellowship. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, COMMUNITY RELIGIOUS GROUPS HELP PEOPLE BE BETTER PEOPLE.

It is not all about what constricts your lifestyle and what is sacrificed by YOU to be in those communities, it is about helping your brothers and sisters, of all ages, all backgrounds. This is bigger than just YOU, and just YOUR FAMILY and its immediate needs. There is a bigger community that needs you to be part of it in order for EVERYONE TO BENEFIT.

Make sense?

If you are not part of a religious or at least humanitarian or philanthropic secular group, then I would argue that you are part of the problem of the "unequal society". Think about it.

2. Do not smoke. Do not smoke anything. No tobacco, no marijuana, no cocaine, no illicit drugs, no vapes, no candies, no cotton, I do not care what lights up. Don't inhale smoke. Smoking in any form hurts your lungs, body, and savings.

STOP IT. If you have medicinal needs for cannabis, I understand. Consume it responsibly. Smoking, inhaling smoke through your mouth or nose, like pot or other substances is dumb, DUMB, DUMB!

3. Do not drink alcohol. You say moderation is okay? Moderation is definitely not okay if you cannot pay bills, bills that should include good health insurance, education costs, and charitable donations to others. You say you can't make charitable donations to others, you cannot afford it? But, you can afford to drink booze? Get off it. Stop the drinking, be a better person within your family and community. If you are wealthy and drink alcohol, take that money and give to something better than your own buzz, your own inebriation, your own chemically induced high.

4. Read books, articles, periodicals, words of wisdom and find out if they work to illuminate you, to inspire you, inform you. If not, if a book or periodical does not work for you, move on to the next one. You have to read to be culturally and spiritually literate. You complain that life is not fair and that there are no opportunities for success, but you do not bother to read?  Read words about practical applications, manuals, laws, if the stories do not do it for you. YOU MUST READ SOMETHING. And, it must have an intrinsic value for you.

The Bible. The Koran. The Book of Mormon. Doctor Phil. C.S. Lewis. Deepak Chopra. Even James Patterson.  The list is almost endless. Your brain needs to be massaged by the best thinkers; reading is key to succeeding when only defeat has been the option, otherwise you will never leave the bonds and ruts that you are supposedly trapped in. You are in a cage and there are books that will free you. You do not have to read every day, or even complete the books or articles that you start, but it helps.

5. Help someone out with their needs. An old person? Visit? A young family? Bring a treat. A lonely person? Talk with them. Visit and get to know others more. Neighbors, folks at the rest home, veterans, children in clubs or nurseries. Oh, yeah: family, too. Be involved with people outside of your direct interests, even if they are family. Are some of your associates dragging you down? You must get away from them. Find other groups who do not leave you behind.

6. Don't sleep around. Get married to the one you are intimate with. Be a parent to your children, do not be a bum. Work to pay for your children's needs. Help them grow and flourish.

So, more or less, these are my minimal demands for you to follow and heed, to have a better life, and stop calling me the oppressive systemic privileged one because of my ethnic heritage and gender. I follow what I suggest or recommend, I am not a hypocrite. I share these values as much as I can and I live them as much as I can. THESE CHOICES will determine much of your success and failure in life, and they will help others that are less fortunate. I believe that they have greatly aided me and others. My parents also followed most or all of the above, and most of the people that I hung out with.

It is not just about race, or gender, or even wealth; it is about choices and consequences of those good or bad choices.

Can you not agree that the above standards would help people of all backgrounds to live healthier, happier, more prosperous lives? If not as a recipient of the results but to the greater community as a contributor?

Think about it.

Digging Deeper

Digging Deeper

    I got hold of a book from the library (end of June 2020) which has a collection of essays about J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga. I like it so far, a few chapters and authors in.  This book was compiled in 2004, not long after the Peter Jackson films were made and distributed featuring all the mythic characters and creatures. One essayist, W.H. Auden, breaks down his essay into five parts, talking about the Quest Hero, the reasons for the Quest, the Setting of Middle Earth (Tolkien's universe of The Hobbit and all the other Elf and Orc and Hobbit books, some carried on by his son and others), the Hero himself, Frodo, and the final analysis is about "The Fruits of Victory".

Accomplishing the heroic act, or achieving the hero's life, is acquiring the fruits of triumph, is being acknowledged as the hero, the champion, the victor, the winner in the end. Money or fame does not matter in many cases. Recognition by someone matters. There are the famous ones that we all celebrate, and the nearly forgotten heroes, but it is worth thinking about who our heroes are, and why they are considered heroic.

This particular essay got me thinking deeper, thinking about writing about and discussing the heroic pursuits of people and us mere mortals on the journeys of life and death, being heroes and at times martyrs. Arrogance is not a highly valued trait in the heroes, because like Frodo or the hero of the the Magic Flute, as I interpret Auden, the person who receives acclaim, laud, and honor does not necessarily know for himself or herself, or by those surrounding hem, if for sure that they are capable of pulling off the feat of heroism that they accomplish.

In ideating, (formulating the idea of) this post I originally had some notions and thoughts that excited me about discussing what Auden inspired in these thoughts for me. Perhaps I have to re-read his essay in order to know where those thoughts took me some few short days ago, or maybe those ideas that I had thought of this past weel will never be recovered to me. Alas, the mind and its travels and whims... However, maybe I will alight upon those thoughts again as I continue to forge ahead here.

Some famous examples:

Abraham Lincoln

Recognized as the keeper of the Union, the enterprise that we know as the United States of America, and the Emancipator of the African-American slaves of the United States, and then the quickly victimized martyr of his causes in a small theater in Washington D.C., Lincoln was an unexpected American and human phenomenon. He grew up poor, but was hard working and fortuitous, and when elected president of the this rising world power decided that he would aggressively fight to pull back the Confederacy of break away states, painful though it was from 1861 to 1865. His words and sentiments are forever recorded, embodying the ethos and struggle for virtue and justice, living free and willingness to sacrifice and die for it, as perhaps he unwittingly did.

Joseph Smith, Jr.

I spoke with highly intelligent UCLA American historians in 2002 that were unaware that this American religious leader and prophet had suggested a plan for emancipation of the slaves during his short lived presidential candidacy in 1844, also being martyred like Lincoln by an angry or aggrieved constituency, as it were. Only one of two presidential candidates to be assassinated in our 244 year national history, the other in 1968 (Robert Kennedy), Smith had ideas as an American, popular among certain elites and galvanizing some people across the U.S. and the world, I believe Joseph was heroic because he did inspire a younger Abraham Lincoln in the state of Illinois in terms of freedom and fairness for all. They were born four years apart in the early 1800s, but for me Lincoln and Smith both lived for advanced virtues and they ended up dying for them. Smith had more complicated ideas and legacies, to include polygamy and its ramifications, as well as other controversial religious and doctrinal claims and works, perhaps the foremost of them the Book of Mormon, a text that claims to be in line with the Holy Bible, which is no small assertion.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The religious reverend and civil rights advocate died as he lived, as other martyred heroes, a permanent testator of his causes. As posited by my high school history teacher Don Beaver, Doctor King was a principled leader and champion of Christianity, passive resistance, and the United States Constitution. In death his causes have been taken up and followed by many of all colors, creeds, and nationalities. Perhaps more so than the 19th century martyrs of Smith and Lincoln, I wish that King had lived longer, and that more people would truly gravitate to his teachings and principles. Perhaps part of the reason for that sentiment is that I almost was born in the time that he would have been alive, and I would have loved to have lived to see and hear him via television or even in person. Had Lincoln and Smith lived out their days in the 1800s I still would not have lived to see them as live exemplars of their ideas and movements, or political and military legacies.

Unknown or Forgotten Heroes, Including the Masses

Each of the above Americans depended on hundreds, thousands, and eventually millions of people to heed their causes in order for their lives and the meanings of them to signify a greater transcendent truth as a the hero that they are known as being. Therefore, in each case of an uber hero, or "super hero", or heroic paradigm embodied in human form, like the fictitious Frodo of the Lord of the Rings or Rey or her mentor Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars saga, these quasi Messianic figures, there are lesser known people, all with names, personalities, and passions, that lived and died striving for the bigger causes for which the famed individuals more accredited and acclaimed derived their glory from.

Millions of unsung heroes deserve credit for the heroism of those that we most greatly acknowledge.

For example, my last name is Clinch, which is not that wide spread a last name. Most of us Clinches, who live in the United States or Great Britain, and perhaps a few in Australia, do not know many others beyond linked family with the same surname; we regularly meet people who have not met others with our last name before. For every Clinch there is perhaps 100 Lynches, a much more popular surname, one that I have seen traces of as far off as Chile and Argentina.

At least one man named Clinch who added to the greatness of Abraham Lincoln, we can assess in clearer retrospect, was a somewhat anonymous John Clinch who died east of Richmond in the battles the Civil War around 1864, as the Union forces advanced on the Confederate capital of the South. John may have never had children, therefore he was a son and and likely uncle and cousin, but possibly not a husband or a father, so he is a distant memory to those of us these many years later rather than a man who might receive more homage for being a lifelong servant and worker in his particular trade, a father and grandfather, and more likely having a literal lineage of descendants that exist now in the 21st century.

I saw the grave of this John Clinch and by coincidence of my name was taken aback; I took a picture and made a mental note of it perhaps in 2016 or so, trying to make place for another hero whose tale goes untold to the vast majority of us, until perhaps you are reading of it now. That John, sharing my last name, again, probably with no direct posterity and no signs or historical placards commemorating him individually, was a hero that helped make Lincoln and the causes of others in the United States a bigger name. In the Army and other federal services those in command glean the notoriety, such as the victorious (and vanquished) generals and other military commanders that lead their thousands and hundreds, as well as honored emancipated slaves or fighters like Harriet Tubman, these that receive more attention and acclaim for their more notable exploits and known sacrifices. All these famed and lauded heroes depend on the consequences of many that will more or less will be forever unnamed and unheralded.

Thus are the majority of us, those living now and the billions who already lived, the followers and the adherents of the causes of the larger heroes of whom we speak. It is amazing to think that many made up, imagined fictitious heroes garner more real world honor and glory than so many other millions who actually lived, existed, contributed, and died. And they were heroes. We are now in our good and bad conditions because of the untold millions who lived before us.

Also, if we take the three hero examples above, each of them would readily admit and credit the thousands and millions who came before them. Lincoln would cite George Washington and the large group of American forefathers before him, as well as likely forbears from nascent democracies England and France, the European Reformation before them, the thinkers and philosophers of the Middle Ages, from Europe through the Middle East, the ancient records and triumphs of thought from the Romans, before them the Greeks, the Chinese or the Indian born Siddhartha Gautama, and others that one can conceive that young Abe an later the matured President Lincoln appreciated in his studies and discoveries as a reader and recalcitrant frontier intellectual.

Smith would point to the religious Reformers of his later platform of religious thought and freedom in the early 1820s in post Colonial America, going back to the Biblical prophets and heroes, to include the Divine, as well as the Book of Mormon figures which he brought to life in his efforts, and other great and small people of faith, to include personal family members or local leaders and servants who sacrificed for larger causes than themselves, or those who lived to embrace truth and virtue.

King would credit Mahatma Gandhi in his day for the practice of boycott and peaceful protest, but of course he would hearken to all the heroes of the ancient times and spiritual journeys who would inspire, ennoble, and embolden his vision and path, as all men and women (and children!) of great causes do. I am not positive when I make this claim, but I would guess that Martin's parents, other family, and a few pastors in rural Connecticut, among others from his native South, would have made formidable impressions on his conscience and soul, among the thousands of other heroes he only learned of through study and the media of his day.

Jesus Christ of Nazareth

Much has been written of Him, and much more will be. Can we the believers and followers, or even the detractors and naysayers over do it? Some think yes. A believer like me says no, we cannot overstate His position and impact, His doings and legacy. Yet, we know that part of the greatness and supremacy of Jesus, to those who believe, are the millions or billions who accept Him as who He claims to be and try their best to follow His commandments and precepts. The experiment of the multi-varied faith continues. And, as we know, to be continued...

Abraham of Ur

A figure of the distant past, with his immediate family in tow, so ancient that he seems somewhat mythic, even more so than David to the Jews (3,000 years), or Paul to the Christians (2,000 years), or Mohammad to the Muslims (1400 years), Abraham is a paradigm and father of faith to the majority of the Middle East based faiths, which influences and practices cover the entire globe in the present. His greatness unfolds by day and by century as the billions of his progeny claim his blessings and seek the external faith of which he and his wives and children lived in their ancient times, he living closer to Adam and Eve than we to him. Universally, as it were, Abraham is seen as a seminal figure of faith and good forbearance.

Karl Marx 

Millions, even billions, have considered this German economist as a hero, for developing theories and plans to overcome poverty of the masses, the working class, the proletariat. As every "hero" has those who proclaim or decry him or her, Marx is not without dispute as someone whose ideas should be emulated and followed. There are some who believe that Marxism still has its strong course to be observed in human history and the make up of our planet.

Mao Zedong

It is hard to know how many of the current 1.3 billion people of China look to Mao, the original Communist founder of the current People's Republic, as their hero. Nevertheless, his legacy, while woefully dreadful to many, like me, is a figure of tribute and glory to millions and millions, to perhaps a few outside of China as well.

Charles Darwin

Scientists and nuanced atheists or other non-religious people look to Darwin as a pioneering symbol of rational thought and purposeful human discovery. I consider myself rational, scientifically based along with my less empirical beliefs in the supernatural and divine, but I definitely agree Darwin was an amazing hero for his time and the after affects are even more pronounced and profound today, based on his trailblazing work and studies.

Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, , Barach Obama

 I count these four personalities as present paradigms and symbols of those we admire as heroes of our time. Millions and even billions of us represent their successes and hero-dom in the present age, they are each pioneers and heroes in their own realms...

We see in them heroic personas, and most likely they see in us higher principles and ideals, aspirations and hopes to overcome, learn, grow, prosper, succeed.

How do we see our heroes as making us strive to go further, try harder, hope for better outcomes, achieve greater results?

Who are the heroes? At the end of the day, it is the person who works to be the best person by the end of the day, by the end of their life. Some are better known than others, but it takes all of us to create the biggest and the smallest.

Peaceful Ennui Lead to Baseball via Television, Even Cable

Peaceful Ennui Lead to Baseball via Television, Even Cable

Getty Lee and I ... Or is it Geddy Lee? Must be the former, the pronunciation the same in American English either way.

The Rush lead singer, a guy I only harassed once back in 1987 or so. During a concert, there were no words, just some ignorant gestures and symbols. He may have realized that I was an American heartland rube, but in my defense my supposed better informed teenage cohorts had fed me bad intelligence... He was a Toronto guy, not a Montreal one, like me.

All that aside, Getty and I have a similar passion or hobby. Baseball.

I came to find out many years later that he and I became baseball suckers. It was available through cable television.

And sure, one was more the Jays, and the other more the Expos. But it was all major league baseball, North American style.

Hopefully I live to write more on this later, but for now this teaser...

The ennui of the summer days and nights with the availability of WGN and the Cubs and the Super Station in Atlanta with the Braves, late 1with a little local hometwon Indianapolis/Bloomington ChannCinncinnati Reds a mere two hours away...

Midwest cable ennui.

Amish and Mennonites and Church of the Brethren of Christ: Oh My! Published With Notes July 2020

 Amish and Mennonites and Church of the Brethren of Christ: Oh My! Published With Notes July 2020

Amish get the most ink, right? The Mennonites come in a distant second, and many, including myself who I consider somewhat well-versed in religions, did not know much about the third place Church of the Brethren of Christ until I toured some "Amish country" in Pennsylvania a few years ago.

Amish and Mennonites and Church of the Brethren of Christ: Oh My! Draft from 2015

Amish and Mennonites and Church of the Brethren of Christ: Oh My!

Draft

Eduardo

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1/2/15

This was my oldest draft in this blog, you see the date, the second day of 2015. Perhaps I started it in 2014, but the time stamp indicates the last time that I edited it.

Should I finish it? YES! Resoundingly, I really should... July 8, 2020.

The original entry below highlighted, from late 2014 or early 2015:

Amish get the most ink, right? The Mennonites come in a distant second, and many, including myself (who I consider somewhat well-versed in religions), did not know much about the third place Church of the Brethren of Christ, until I toured some "Amish country" in Pennsylvania a few years ago.

We went to the Amish country of Pennsylvania as a family, (likely in July or so?) spending a better part of the first day, passing the night at a hotel by a field somewhere near Lutz... It was likely 2011, while I had a so-so paying job in Chantilly. I had a little time to take a small vacation. The children ranged in ages from one to ten.

Pennsylvania Dutch country. Very bucolic and pastoral lands, as you would imagine.

We looked around, saw the homes with no electric lines, went to a store or two featuring Amish and Mennonite cuisines and culture, we took a horse and buggy paid tour, with a young lady who was of the third of the three mentioned, the Church of the Brethren of Christ.

She had attended college in Washington D.C., she was very pleasant and informative. Perhaps my wife or one of my children could remember her name, something simple and Biblical like Sarah or Hanna. She had a modern degree and was educated, but she represented her conservative background and people. She took us by her horse driven buggy around and explained how her sect was its own thing, separate from the more known elements of our shared American history, the aforementioned Amish and Mennonites. But the Church of the Brethren are to be accounted for, too.

What else? Consult my family, consult the photos.

We also made it to downtown Lancaster, a somewhat good sized city compared to Loudoun County, Virginia, and we saw historic remains and ruins in the basement of the high rise Marriott  Hotel, references to slavery, the underground railroad, a Jacob Smith, which I found ironic.

Then again, the Lancaster visit was probably years later after we spent the night in a Lancaster church parking lot after the 4th of July and baseball game in Harrisburg up the road.

Same areas, different tours...

All the same, the places are all the same... More or less.

And now I am more or less ready to publish my oldest of some 67 drafts...

One less, count it for posterity and the greater good of Americana and these traditional faiths...

Blog it.

Actually, a couple more comments.

When I began this post, maybe the winter of 2014 or so, I might have wanted to wax a bit more poetic, or prosaic, if you will, about memories of the Amish and Mennonites that I had observed in Indiana, or the impressions from James Michener and his book, "The Author" (read in Camp Marmal, Balkh Province), I think, and his tales of Pennsylvania idylls. But, perhaps those thoughts are captured in other places, and may be told before now or later in other venues.

Harrison Ford and the Spanish mis-translation of "Amish", made into "Mormon", and other such memories and things. A trumpetist at IU from the north, the pies of the southern Indiana regions, the house in Sherwood Oaks, and anon... Years prior of bumping into the rustic ones. Or a bit later, returning from Vincennes with Terry in Loogootee, or even later with the family in Tijuana, Mexico.

We will search out those things later.

Now blog on, dear reader.

Same Time Next Year

Same Time Next Year

Time is everyone's shared riddle. Let's riddle each other some questions related to time and memory.

Where were you when you found out the current president was elected? Did it leave you in a memorable place, or do you simply recall your reaction?

Where were you, or "when" were you when you recall your first presidential election as a child?

Don't remember?

What other things from the past, near or distant, do you recall or not?

Your first birthday in your memory banks? Were you four? Five years old? Do you remember seeing the pictures of those celebrations from when you were one or two?

Yesterday was my mom's birthday, July 7. She passed away over six years ago, but the date of her birth is still memorable. My step father spent about 28 years with her on those birthdays. From Indiana to Massachusetts to Cambodia to Indonesia and back to the United States again. Yesterday she would have been eighty years old.

Time flies.

Time soars.

Time drags.

Time bores.

"There is a time for every purpose under heaven." (Ecclesiastes, written by... King Solomon, son of David.)

That was some three thousand years ago.

My mom was born eighty short years ago (1940), gave birth to the last of her three, me, in 1970.

Here we are on the round decade once more, 2020. My five children are all born post 2000, all 21st century.

My five children.

My three sons. My Three Sons. A famous play about money profits and regrets, then a series by the same name became a television show that was mostly light family comedy. Then it was a rock band by some guys of my generation in Bloomington, Indiana, in the 1980s or so.

Rock bands of the past. Most were just garage noises and subliminal aspirations.

Some echoes of remnants remain, like the mention above.

So, here we are reminiscing on the past, the present, the future, all of it:

TIME.

Much more than a magazine, much more than a period of history, it is history, it is everything, but hard to grasp. Hard to hold on to.

But, at least we can mark the dates, bid the times and memorialize the years, like the lifespan of my mother, born Ruth Muriel, the last of five, all her older siblings born in the 1930s, now going on almost a century ago...

Same time next year, Momma, hope to recollect and commune again with you then.

Love,

# 1 Son

Eddie

Recasting History, 2020

Recasting History, 2020

     The awful and tragic death of George Floyd (May 25) has brought about a lot of soul searching and recrimination across the United States and the world. Perhaps most of us realize that things must still change for the better for African-Americans and people of color in our country and around the globe, to improve the way the police system is structured and enforced, and levy increased scrutiny of other inequalities that are prevalent in our country and elsewhere.

To start off on a note of change and reform, I believe one area where our overall society can improve or help impoverished groups of people, somewhat in the mode of reparations, a notion that some believe ought to be embraced, is for colleges and universities to offer more grants and scholarships to young people who otherwise are not given those opportunities for higher learning and the resulting improved life paths. What would this look like?

The colleges that have the most money would create outreach grant programs to at-risk schools around the nation, and also the juvenile detention systems and the adult prisons where there are many young people already locked up. Give them some funded in-roads to having a future. Also, major and minor colleges should have programs to connect to socio-economically challenged schools, helping mentor the pupils and grooming them through the college system.

Universities and the governments should have the means and the initiative to do this. We could help thousands and thousands of youth of all colors who would not have these options otherwise.

What of the former slave owners, forefathers of our history like Washington and Jefferson?

We cannot cancel our entire history. We have to keep the founders and the original framers of our modern freedoms, warts and all. I understand rebranding the names of former Confederate heroes. Good luck, Stone Mountain! Davis, Lee, and Stonewall Jackson? Hmm...

I understand the need to remove some statues and memorials.

Let us not go overboard and erase what has been done.

Our country is still great, but we have had many imperfect heroes who were products of their times...

We should not delete their places in our history.

Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King on our currency? Sounds great, let's do it.