"Nellie And The Mayor's Hat" by Charlotte Baker, A Fine Old Children's Book From 1947

Sometimes, a good dose of children's literature is a great thing to give us all a break from the horrible political events going on in America today. I have read and written about many children's books over the years, both those beginning reader books and adolescent literature can be fun and educational to read. I especially like to read books which have won or been finalists for awards such as the Newberry, Caldecott, and the National Book Award which also gives an award in the category of Young People's Literature. So far as I know, this book, "Nellie And The Mayor's Hat" never won any awards, and might not have even been nominated for any. I cannot find any significant information about the author Charlotte Baker. The search for information about her is also made more difficult by the fact that a currently living Right Wing Radical "Christian" woman of the same name is currently making waves in the country. But Charlotte Baker, the important Charlotte Baker who wrote "Nellie And Mayor's Hat" was an interesting writer and person as proven by this book alone. The book was published in 1947 with simultaneious issue in both the USA and Canada. It is a hardback book of 96 pages and published by The Junior Literary Guild and Cornwall Publishers. It is probably most appropriate for readers in the third to sixth grades. The title of the book refers to a little dog, Nellie, who is owned by a family of Hispanic children and their grandfather in a town somewhere, presumbably, in Texas. They are poor and the grandfather is trying hard to feed the children while at the same time Nellie has a litter of five puppies which are growing fast and eating the family out of house and home. Nellie is actually the heroine of the story which in today's parlance can be said to be a story about DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The grandfather tells the children they have to find homes for the puppies very soon or they will have to "go away". The children talk about finding a home for the puppies which will have plenty of food, a good yard with a fence, and children to play with the puppies. They decide to "investigate" several people they know whom they believe to be appropriate people to care for the puppies. They begin with Miss Bliss, one of their teachers in school and that is a miserable failure when Miss Bliss leaves the puppies alone in her small apartment and they wreak havoc and disturb the neighbors. Then they "investigate" the service station man who has to tell them he can't keep the puppies because there is too much traffic around his service station. Finally they decide the mayor who lives in a big pink house and has two children would be a good person to take the puppies because he has a big yard, lots of money, and children. They try to see the mayor and have to sneak into his back gate and hide in the shrubbery until he comes out to walk in his yard. But he says he doesn't like dogs and refuses. The mayor has just been given a big hat, actually a sombrero by the mayor of Monterray in Old Mexico and is planning to lead a parade for Founders Fiesta Day wearing the hat and riding a big palomino horse. The children convince their grandfather to take them to the parade along with the puppies in a little wagon. At the parade, the dogs spook the mayor's horse and he loses his hat which falls in the river. But Nellie, who has been a big part of the book and the multiple "investigations" all along, jumps into the river and drags the mayor's hat back to shore just in time to return it to him which causes the crowd to cheer loudly for Nellie. The mayor instantly gives a speech to thank Nellie and finds himself backed into taking Nellie's puppies which saves the day. It is fascinating to find a book this old, written for children, which addressed issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in a time when almost no children's books approached subject matter about minority culture, equal rights, or other issues of discrimination or human rights. It is a wonderful surprise of a book from the late 1940's and can become a great classroom tool in today's public schools if enough copies can be located. In all honesty, this is a book for which a legitimate argument can be made to have it reissued in a new edition. Find A Copy! Read It! Tell The World About It! Use it to support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Reflections On Reading "Accordion Crimes" by E. Annie Proulx

E. Annie Proulx, or Annie Proulx as she is sometimes known, is one of America's best known and most successful authors.  She is the author of the short story on which the movie "Broke Back Mountain" was based and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for her novel "The Shipping News" in 1994.  This is actually the third of her works which I have read and yet I have not yet written about any of them on this blog which is an unjustifiable error.  At times, she is a wonderful writer and her prose can flow smoothly, interestingly, and in a manner which consistently draws the reader deeper into her works.  But, in my opinion, at times her work falls measurably short of her best.  I like this book as much or better than either of her others which I have read.  But I have to admit that I enjoyed the earlier reads enough to go back for another dip in this one. Perhaps part of that higher level of pleasure on my part comes from the fact that, as a child in grade school in Knott County Kentucky, I was exposed on a monthly basis to live gospel accordion music from Alma Heibert, of the two "Bible Women" who were allowed to visit each small, rural grade school in the county on a monthly basis as a part of their missionary work with Camp Nathaniel in the county.  As always when I mention my experience with these two women and that fact that missionaries were allowed to visit public schools in the county, I am morally and ethically bound to state that the fact that they were allowed to do so in public schools was a clear cut violation of the Separation of Church and State and never should have been allowed to happen. But, yes, I do have fond memories of having known those women and of accordion music.  

The main character in this novel is not a person but an accordion, hand made by a native of an Italian native who emigrated to the United State with the instrument he had made and eventually sold it.  The human characters come and go in the novel as the accordion passes from hand to hand, being used by members of different ethnicities to play the particular music of each culture as the instrument passes along its life.  The accordion is variously owned and played by Mexican Americans, African Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, and other members of other cultures. Along the way during the story, Proulx weaves in a great deal of historical and musical information about accordions, their instrumental relatives, and many of the cultures which are historically connected to accordion music.  along the way, the instrument is loved, played, admired, and sometimes abandoned much as a human character might have been.  It is an interesting and unique method of constructing a novel and, I believe, is some of Proulx's best work.  In my opinion, the language and written structure of the novel is more skillful than that in either "The Shipping News" or "That Old Ace In The Hole" both of which I have also read and will, perhaps, also write about on this blog.  The accordion becomes a living, breathing character in the book.  It is more than just a musical instrument.  It is a delivery vehicle which deposits musical and cultural history at the reader's doorstep. It becomes the glue which brings all the other characters, cultures, and histories together.  And those histories are both documentations of cultures and of people, families, and individual and shared lives.  It is a book well worth reading, especially if the reader is not familiar with the work of Proulx it is a fine place to begin a relationship with the author and her work. 

Take A Real Vacation--Go Somewhere You've Never Been

The photo above is a little bar on US 2 in Northern Wisconsin where we had a spontaneous lunch.

At about this time of year in the area of Eastern Kentucky in which I live, I see or hear people I know who are extremely excited because they are going on vacation to some spot they have been going for the last many years.  Generally, these people have never been on a real vacation to any other spot in the country.  Once in a while they say they "went somewhere else and I didn't like it" or "I went somewhere else and I had to drive all the way to get there" or "I went somewhere else and it was too expensive".  For me, the only one of those statements that has any validity whatever is "...it was too expensive".  But there are dozens of great spots to take a vacation within a reasonable distance at a reasonable price near just about anywhere anybody in America lives.  I love to see places I've never seen, meet people I've never met, do things I've never done, and have new experiences of almost any kind.  Why does anybody want to go to the very same place for a "vacation" year after year, frequently staying in the same hotel or bed and breakfast, eating meals in the same restaurants which are often other locations of the same chains they eat in at home, and often seeing the same attractions year after year?

This photo is on a tour boat in Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin. 

In the area in which I live, there are about a half dozen locations I see people visiting year after year and most of them are not places I would ever want to visit twice.  Those areas include Gatlinburg, TN;  Virginia Beach, VA;  Myrtle Beach, NC;  and Cherokee, NC.  These people come back saying how much fun they had going to Dollywood or swimming at the beach where they have been on numerous occasions.  I do not understand that kind of thinking.  Yes, I have been to Dollywood, Gatlinburg, Cherokee, and Virginia Beach, most of them one time each.  I have been to one of two of them twice.  But I have also been in thirty-one of the 50 US states and can't wait to get to the other 19.  I have been from New York state to Arizona, from South Florida to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Nogales, Mexico, and I loved nearly every minute of all those trips.  I despise going to some place I've seen a dozen times before, staying the same, now deteriorating hotel, eating in the same restaurants, and often seeing the same dull people who are stranded in the same low paying jobs.  I even see a lot of these people I am referring to who could easily afford to take a vacation anywhere they wanted to.  

This photo is at the Alamo in Texas.
 

For me, the ultimate vacation is to get in a good vehicle with my wife, and point it in a direction toward some destination I have never been.  We do usually book a place to stay every night along the route because my wife has been in a wheelchair for over 20 years and has trouble sleeping in ordinary hotel beds.  But we also often schedule little of what we are going to do on these vacations and let the route dictate what happens.  Twice on our way to visit her family in Wisconsin we have taken spontaneous, totally unplanned trips which turned out to be two of the best trips we were ever on.  Once we suddenly decided to go visit the University of Wisconsin-Platteville where she went to college which is in the northwest corner of Wisconsin.  Her family have always lived about an hour north of Milwaukee in the southeast portion of the state.  We hung a left in southern Indiana and crossed into Iowa at Clinton, Iowa, and then hung a right and drove up the old US highway along the Mississippi River to Dubuque, Iowa, and into southwest Wisconsin to Platteville.  It was a great trip up the Big Muddy.  We stayed in a little motel in Clinton, Iowa, and had a great pizza for supper from a little pizzeria in that town where, most likely, many of the locals eat every day.  On the other trip to visit her father, after her mother had died, she suddenly said, somewhere in Indiana, "I've never been in Michigan.  Let's go up through Michigan, across the Upper Peninsula and south his house."  That's exactly what we did.  We drove up the western edge of Wisconsin, stopped in Grand Rapids, spent a night in Saint Ignace, Michigan, spent half a day on Mackinac Island, drove across the Upper Peninsula, bought dried fish in a little store with antique coolers just like the ones in my parents' store when I was a boy, and drove down the eastern edge of Wisconsin to her father's house.  We ate fresh cherries from a roadside stand, saw the National Park on Mackinac Island, shot some photos of some Lake Michigan lighthouses, and had a ball.  

This is with friends in Nogales, Mexico. 
 

Once in South Louisiana, when we were staying in an AirBNB in Jeffersonville, LA, we took a day and drove down an old two lane highway to the Gulf of Mexico stopping at a few little restaurants which caught our eyes along the way.  We got the best pork roast I ever ate in a little restaurant stuck between a bayou and the highway, and some of the best fried shrimp and crawfish etouffee I have ever had in another little place with gingham curtains sitting beside the highway in a little town most people never go to if they visit New Orleans or Baton Rouge.  On that same trip, we also toured the LA state capitol, saw the spot where Senator Huey Long was assassinated, and had a fine experience with the security people at the capitol which you could have only had in a southern state before gun violence and bun related domestic terrorism became rampant in America.  We had parked in a free lot on the banks of the Mississippi and walked to the capitol a block away.  I never thought a thing about having my pocket knife in my pocket and when I got to the metal detector I remembered the knife, showed it to the security people, and asked "don't you just put things like this in a box or envelope and hold them till people leave" to which they said "no, we can't do that.  But do you see those bushes at the bottom of the steps.  Just take it out there, pick out a bush, and hide it under the bush till you get done" which is what I did.  You can't have that kind of experience in Gatlinburg or Myrtle Beach.  

The photo above is sitting in the porch swing on the porch of the boyhood home of President Lyndon B. Johnson in Johnson City, TX. 
 

And the beautiful sign below was on a carpet store marquee sign in El Paso, Texas, in October 2017.  I went inside to meet the owner and thank him for speaking out and defending America.  

Some Immigrants I Have Known

As I have watched the steadily increasing coercion and terrorism being directed at immigrants by TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump, I have thought frequently that I needed to write this blog post.  Yet I have put it off time after time since January 20, 2017.  Due to current circumstances in American politics, I can no longer procrastinate about this post or this issue.  I will insist on saying that I have not avoided speaking my mind on this topic to anyone when the subject arose and I have always been willing to say that it is my considered opinion that any immigrant who wishes to come to America is worth more to this country than the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  During the course of their first year in America, nearly all immigrants will pay more in taxes to the US government than TRAITOR & International Terrorist Trump can prove he has paid in the last twenty years.  Any immigrant who is being forced out of the country by the current illegitimate and TREASONOUS Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate which lives in the White House would be welcome in my home to which I will never invite any Right Wing Radical Repugnican supporter of TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump. 

Now that I have prefaced this post about some of the immigrants I have known, I will get down to the meat of the writing about these people who have crossed my trajectory and, almost without exception, enriched my life.  I honesty do not remember clearly the first immigrant I met but I remember stories I heard in childhood from old Appalachian coal miners about the immigrants they worked with in the mines of Eastern Kentucky.  My father, Ballard Hicks, and my maternal grandfather, Woots Hicks, both worked many years in the mines of Floyd County Kentucky and worked with many Italian, Hungarian, Polish, German, Romanian, and Czech immigrants who had often been specifically recruited and brought to the US to work in the mines because the coal companies of the time wanted hard workers who had no connections in the immediate community which meant they had no significant support system other than the coal company and, possibly, other immigrants from their own country.  In the stories I heard miners tell about these immigrants,  I do not remember any particularly disparaging remarks about them from anyone.  I heard numerous stories about how hard they worked, how they often got paid less than American citizens for the same work, and how well they were respected by their American coworkers.  The great majority of these immigrant miners stayed in America for the rest of their lives and most achieved citizenship while working an incredibly difficult job for companies who often used the old statement that "a mule is worth more than a miner.  When a mule dies, you have to buy another mule but you can always hire another miner if one dies." Companies which applied that type of thinking always applied it equally to all their miners whether American citizens or immigrants.  

Many of the descendants of these immigrant miners achieved great things in America based on the values which their parents taught them.  Daniel Mongiardo, descendant of Italian stone masons who were brought to Hazard, KY, by coal companies, became both a doctor and the Lieutenant Governor of the state.  One of my professors in the 1970's was Peter J. Laska, the descendant of Ukranian immigrant coal miners in Northern West Virginia, achieved a Ph.D. degree and was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry. His book of poetry "D. C. Images And Other Poems" was a finalist for the award in 1976. Peter Laska is one of my closest friends, professional mentors, and role models.  In Logan, West Virginia, I became friends with Monty Stagnoli, the descendant of Italian coal miners who had been brought to Harlan, KY, by coal companies and became a grocery store manager for a major chain. I have also come to know the highly respected West Virginia novelist Marie Manilla whose novels and short stories are read and studied all across America. Her novel "The Patron Saint Of Ugly" won the Weatherford Award as the best Appalachian novel of 2014. All of these people achieved more than most of their classmates who were descended from people who had been considered Americans for far more generations.  

But we should discuss the actual immigrants who have been my friends, mentors, professors, coworkers, and, in some cases, heroes and role models.  In the early 1980's, when I was working as a door to door salesman in Logan, WV, I was incredibly lucky to meet a family of immigrants from Afghanistan.  I sold a vacuum cleaner to Mrs. Amena Loynab, the wife of Dr. Noor Loynab, who was practicing medicine in Logan, WV.  I was often brought into their home in Whitman, WV, for supplies or repairs related to that vacuum cleaner.  The home was always spotless and I was always made to feel extremely welcome there.  When I expressed an interest in the Koran, Amena Loynab loaned me her personal Koran wrapped in a bright yellow scarf to protect it.  Every time I ever went to that home, I was invited in, placed at the table and offered food which almost always included the best baklava I have ever eaten.  I always remember that Amena Loynab's aged father, who spoke only Arabic, would be in the house and would always pass through when he realized I was there.  He would always say nothing to me but would give a short stern speech in Arabic to his daughter which I always assumed was a reprimand about allowing a man inside the house when her husband was not present.  But, regardless of whatever he said, I was always brought into the home and treated as a respected guest. Dr. Loynab was then and still is a highly respected physician in Logan who always treated anyone who came through his office door regardless of their poverty or any other negative factors.  I will always cherish the memories I have of this immigrant family.  

In 1992, I was living and working in Lexington, KY, and, for about two years, I worked on a horse farm which was a profession I had practiced in the 1970's and 1980's for nearly twenty years. I had returned to horse farm work in 1992 temporarily as I was searching for my second job placement in the human services professions.  During that time, I worked with two Mexican immigrant brothers who were some of the best horsemen I have ever known.  They also had a third brother who, as an immigrant, became one of the best, most highly respected and sought after, farriers in Central Kentucky, an area where a second rate blacksmith cannot last a week.  These brothers were friendly, open, honest, compassionate people and I will always remember an occasion when one of them gave me a dozen fresh ears of corn from their personal food supply simply because he wanted to do something nice for my wife and I.  I will always remember these brothers fondly.  

In the early 1990's, my wife Candice began to develop serious neurological symptoms which eventually caused her to spend the last eighteen years in a wheelchair.  We eventually learned from Dr. Joseph Berger, M. D. , the current Associate Chief of the Multiple Sclerosis Division of the University of Pennsylvania and retired Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Kentucky, that he was unable to diagnose the cause of her problems.  Dr. Berger referred us to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where we traveled regularly for nearly five years only to eventually learn that Candice's problems were due to a rare and untreatable genetic anomaly.  But from the first day we arrived at NIH, we were blessed to know and Candice was blessed to be treated by Dr. Elif Arioglu Oral, M. D., a young, brilliant female Muslim physician from Turkey who at the time was on a fellowship at NIH.  Today, she is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Medicine.  She was one of the best, most intelligent, most compassionate, and most honest humans I have ever known. 

When I was working on my Master of Education Degree in Counseling and Human Development at Lindsey Wilson College, from 2002 to 2005, I was blessed to know and learn from Dr. Daya Singh Sandhu, Ph.D.   Dr. Sandhu came to America with degrees from a college in his native India in English and went on to switch from English to Counseling, and, in the process, became one of the most experienced, best respected professors and authors on the topic of mental health counseling in all of America. He went on to earn three further degrees including his doctoral degree after coming to the USA.  He has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited at least thirteen books on counseling related subjects most of which were published by the American Counseling Association Press.  He also has published fifty professionally refereed articles in counseling journals and has published at least eighty chapters in professional books edited by others. Dr. Sandhu is an Indian Sikh, a religion which is often misunderstood and villified by Americans who know nothing about it.  But Dr. Sandhu is one of the most compassionate, professional professors I ever had to the good fortune to know.  When I met Dr. Sandhu, he was teaching a course in substance abuse counseling in the masters degree program during his summer vacation from his full time job as Director of the Counseling and Human Development Department at the University of Louisville, a job from which he subsequently retired to join the full time faculty at Lindsey Wilson College.  There were about fifteen of us graduate students in that course.  On the last day of class in that substance abuse counseling course, he took the entire class to lunch at Pizza Hut out of his own pocket.  He was available, professional, compassionate, and served as a mentor to many of us in that graduate cohort.  I will always cherish the time I able to spend under his instruction and mentoring and I firmly believe I was a better counseling professional for the remainder of my years of practice because I knew Dr. Sandhu.  

This list of immigrants I have known and benefited from includes a housewife and mother, two medical doctors,two common laborers in the Thoroughbred horse business, a farrier in the Thoroughbred business where unskilled blacksmiths were quickly shown to the farm gate, a couple of college professors, and all of them were excellent people.  They included Catholics, Muslims, and a Sikh.  I would trust any of that group of immigrants in any situation more than I ever could anyone willing to work for TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  I would invite them into my home gladly and I never would do the same for anyone who ever worked for the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  Any and all of those immigrants is more valuable to this country than any person, citizen or not, who is stupid enough to believe the lies coming from the Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate which lives in the White House today.  Any of those immigrants is much more highly developed morally than anyone who would participate in the separation of children from their parents and agree to incarcerate those children in tent cities in the desert.  It is long past time for this country to come to its senses and stop this rapid political, moral, and social degeneration at the hands of a Russian Agent who committed TREASON in order to steal an election. 

No Republican Should Ever Be Unopposed

As I have watched the ongoing damage to America and American Democracy which has been perpetrated by the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump and the  Right Wing Radical Repugnicans over the last year, I have become more and more convinced of an opinion which I have held for nearly all my life.  That opinion is that if American Democracy, individual constitutional rights, and the common welfare are to be protected for the long run we must guarantee that the Republican Party be prevented from ever exercising the degree of power over our governments, federal, state, county, city, and local at all levels, which they have exercised over the last several years.  At every level of government over the last ten to twenty years, we have seen broad ranging attacks on all levels and divisions of government which have been productive for individual citizens, especially citizens who are not among the upper classes financially.  

In my own county of Morgan County Kentucky, we suffered from the crimes of a Republican County Judge Executive who is currently serving a seven year sentence in the federal prison system for thefts of government funds following the West Liberty Tornado of 2012.  At the state level in Kentucky, we are currently involved in a sexual abuse scandal involving several Republican Legislators including one, Dan Johnson, an alleged minister, who committed suicide rather than face the consequences of his actions.  Another, the Republican Speaker of the State House, Jeff Hoover, was forced to resign from his leadership post after his harassment of a female employee became public.  At least three other Republican state legislators have also been implicated in this scandal.  The Kentucky Republican Governor Matt Bevin has demanded that all these legislators resign although it seems likely that his motivation for that demand is based much more on his desire to be able to appoint their replacements from his own loyal cadre of Right Wing Radical Repugnicans who would acquiesce to his desires.  Kentucky is also suffering from Bevin's attempts to destroy Obama Care coverage in the state even though more than 800,000 Kentuckians now have health care for the first time in their lives due to the program.  Bevin has also cost the University of Louisville tremendously by his unconstitutional efforts to remake their board in his own image.  Thankfully, Kentucky has been blessed with a Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear who has consistently litigated in defense of the citizens of Kentucky having won many of those cases.  

And of course at the national level, we are embroiled in the worst constitutional crisis in the history of the country due to the Russian manipulation of the American electoral process which has resulted in the installation of a Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate in the White House under the reputed direction of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Donald Trump.   The election results in the South Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin areas were all statistical anomalies which could only be explained by some form of tampering.  The evidence at this time all points toward Russian hacking under the orders of Vladimir Putin in support of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  Additionally, we have seen a plethora of actions on the part of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump which are intended to damage and destabilize our allies all around the world.  His retweeting of Right Wing Radical propaganda in England has greatly increased tensions in Britain and significantly increased the likelihood of other terrorist acts against the duly constituted government there.  He has also seriously damaged the budget of the United Nations by arranging to force a $285million budget cut.  If this cut remains in place, it will greatly damage peace keeping missions, health care programs, food assistance programs, education programs, and hundreds of other UN efforts to improve the world especially in developing countries.  It is my considered professional opinion that this effort is deliberate and part of a plan being directed by Vladimir Putin under the management of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump.  The stated intent to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem has already destabilized the entire Middle East and is also a part of that plan.  All our Arabic allies and Israel also have been destabilized by riots and the likelihood of another Middle Eastern war have been greatly increased due purely to this announcement.  God only knows what else is likely to arise from the minds of these people if they are allowed to remain in charge of American policy.  

Domestically, the attacks from the Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate under the management of the TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump are just as malicious and deliberate as the international acts of terrorism discussed above.  More than three months after the Puerto Rican disaster, those American citizens are suffering without help from the White House purely because they are Hispanic and voted against TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump. In Texas, for no logical reason, hurricane victims are suffering without adequate assistance even though Texans voted in favor of TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump. 

In Kansas, elected Right Wing Radical Repugnicans took bizarre legislative actions which destroyed the state economy.  Sadly, those very actions are one of the models which federally elected Republicans want to inflict on the entire country.  Sadly, they have accomplished much of that aim with their much ballyhooed and highly dangerous "tax cut bill" of 2017.  That legislation will reward the rich and corporations at the expense of the working class, children, students, elderly, ill, infirm, and immigrants.  Republican legislators have also expressed the desire to attack Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, environmental protections, and the National Parks System in the coming year.  The Republican Party, in all its many disguises and manifestations, must not be allowed to get away with these efforts to destroy the rights of the many in order to reward the uncaring few.  

In order to prevent further such disasters,  no Republican running for public office should ever be allowed to run without Democratic opposition.  Conscientious, dedicated, committed, and qualified members of the Resistance and the  Democratic Party must step up, take action, register and run for every elected office at stake in the entire country.  No Republican candidate should ever be allowed to run unopposed, unconfronted, or undefeated.  The entire body of constitutional rights, individual freedoms, and American Democracy itself are at stake over the next few years.  The Democratic Party must recruit, train, and financially support these candidates.  The Democratic Party must design a national program of computer security to guarantee the protection of both party and governmental computer systems from Russian and Republican attacks.  The TRAITOR and International Terrorist Trump has proven that there is no crime which these people and the Russians who support them will not commit in order to destroy America and American Democracy.  It is solely up to the American people to stop these white collar terrorists and their criminal efforts.  

     

Always Confront Political Ignorance

Yesterday, November 28, 2017, I had an appliance repairman in my home working on my washing machine.  He has been in my house on several occasions over the last few years since it seems that the relatively expensive, high tech, front loading washer we bought a few years ago seems to eat software and other parts regularly.  Until yesterday, he had never broached any political subjects and that might be due to the fact that he and his brother recently took over the business from his former partner and the founder of the business upon his retirement.  But as he was working on the washer, we talked about many random subjects just as we always had before.  But during the the course of the conversation, he made the statement that "the problem with this country is that all the big corporations think there is nothing in the world except the left wing people".  Just as I always do in such cases with anyone, anytime, anywhere, I confronted his error in logic.  I responded "no, the problem with the country is that we have a Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate illegally occupying the White House".  

Freeway Carpets, El Paso, Texas, Photo By Roger D. Hicks

That response obviously was not the answer the man had been expecting but I have to give him credit.  He took it well as I proceeded to go on to inform him that in my opinion TRAITOR Trump is just that and nothing more, a TRAITOR, and that nearly everyone close to him is also a TRAITOR.  I went on to tell him about the long and ever growing list of evidence and documented incidents of illicit contacts between TRAITOR Trump, his Right Wing Radical minions, and various Russian operatives.  We also talked about the recent timeline of events in the Robert Mueller investigation and how the road is being paved to indict, convict, impeach, and imprison not only TRAITOR Trump but the great majority of his flunkies.  I reminded him that Russia and Putin seem to have begun to groom TRAITOR Trump for his current status as a Russian operative sometime in the 1980's with the onset being linked to the original deal to allow a TRAITOR Trump Tower in Moscow.  I have to admit that I failed to inform the repairman of the number of Russian covert operatives who mysteriously died immediately after the 2016 US Presidential Election in what seems to be an attempt to prevent any of the operatives who had contact with TRAITOR Trump from living to potentially defect and testify against the scheme, Vladimir Putin, and TRAITOR Trump.  

Freeway Carpets, El Paso, Texas, Photo By Roger D. Hicks

I also neglected to advise him of a recent article from Bill Moyers on his website in which he interviewed attorney Steve Harper, one of the top court room performers in the world of big time criminal law, about the rapidly moving events related to the Mueller investigation and the potential outcomes of that investigation.  I also informed the repairman of several legitimate sources of news which could help to relieve him of some of naivete and provide him with actual news instead of the fake news he had been receiving from a variety of Right Wing Radical Repugnican sources.  Additionally, I told him about several of the well informed people I know who would also be willing to assist him in relieving him of his factual void.  I told him about four people I had met on my recent southwestern vacation.  Those people included a carpet store owner in El Paso, Texas, who uses his outdoor marketing sign on a daily basis to post messages about the crimes of TRAITOR Trump and the Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate which he directs.  In that group is also a retired associate superintendent of schools in Austin, Texas, and her retired teacher/chef husband who work daily to assist in the effort to have Traitor Trump held responsible for all his crimes, past, present, and future.  Additionally, the group includes a retired engineer with a plethora of international business experience who lives in a gated community in Arizona and runs a business testing golf equipment for manufacturers and once got out of the car of an acquaintance more than thirty miles from his own vehicle because the acquaintance insisted on repeatedly defending TRAITOR Trump.  The last of the people on this list of which I advised the repairman is a retired plumbing contractor in the Baton Rouge area who started telling me of his knowledge of the crimes of TRAITOR Trump literally as soon as I entered his home.  I also informed the repairman of two men I know who between them spent nearly fifty years in the US Army, both with long time high level security clearances, who work daily to inform the world of the crimes of TRAITOR Trump.  The man did state that he would check out some of the honest media sources of which I informed him including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic.  He might do as he said and check the sources.  He might not.  But, based on the information I gave him, he can never again say that he has not been told the truth about the danger in which American Democracy exists today.  

And that is exactly what every American citizen should be doing every time anyone, any time, anywhere attempts to disseminate support for TRAITOR Trump, his lies, his Russian Owned Criminal Syndicate members, or any other aspect of their efforts to destroy American Democracy.  Always stand up, speak up, and speak out when the supporters of TRAITOR Trump attempt to spread the disinformation, fake news, and outright lies about the criminal conspiracy currently under investigation by Robert Mueller and his staff.  

 

"Feather River" by Paul Foreman--Book Review

Foreman, Paul: Feather River (Austin, Texas Thorp Springs Press 2003)

I almost never pass up a book of poetry even if I have no knowledge of the author so long as the price is right which explains why I read and am now writing about "Feather River" by Paul Foreman (1943-2012).  I acquired a copy of the book during my recent long vacation which included Austin, Texas, which was apparently the stomping ground of the author.  A little research has shown me that Paul Foreman was much more important to Texas and the world as an editor and publisher than as a poet.  He was the founder and owner of Thorp Springs Press and did a great deal of work to promote and publish Texas writers including J. Frank Doby of whom I had previously been aware.  I cannot really say, based on reading this one book, that I have been impressed by the writing of Paul Foreman.  He was formally trained as a scientist and a historian.  His poetry reflects that.  Paul Foreman had a penchant for penning poems for his many friends and several of the pieces in this book are inscribed to several of those friends.  He also had a penchant for writing essays about writing, history, and interesting people he had known.  Those essays are sometimes more palatable than his poetry.  For me the high points of the book were an essay about the writer Frank Waters  and a poem about a man Don Foreman who, at least in the poem, appears to have been one of those larger than life figures who tend to impress everyone they meet in a positive manner.

If you are a student of Texas writers and/or Texas poetry, then, by all means, read this book and learn all you can about Paul Foreman.  If you are seeking high quality poetry which will stay in your heart and mind over time, look elsewhere.  I will stop short of saying that reading this book was a waste of time but I will not give it a ringing endorsement. 

Vacation Explanation

During the month of October 2017, I did less work on this blog than I had in several months, perhaps even for the past year.  My readers deserve an explanation.  From October 2, 2017, to October 28, 2017, my wife Candice and I have been on an extended vacation in the desert southwest.  We took a nearly month long road trip and when we are out of our home for an extended period of time we never disclose that on this blog or social media until we return due to the propensity for burglars to troll social media sites as well as blogs to seek potential victims.  We probably don't have enough personal property to attract a high dollar burglar but no burglar knows what they will find until they pick your lock, raise your window, or kick in your door.

We both love road trips and this was our longest, and probably best, ever.  We traveled 6401 miles and stayed on the road for 26 days.  We did most of the trip on Airbnb and saw parts of Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Louisiana, and Mississippi.  We stayed with three different Airbnb providers, one in Arizona, one in Texas, and one in Louisiana.  All three were great places to say and wonderful people to work with.  I will write more about that and other aspects of the vacation on several upcoming blog posts.  I still managed to complete reading a couple of books and will review those in the near future as well.  I will still try to mix in at least every other blog post with one about some aspect of life in Appalachia.  This was a great trip and deserves to be discussed.  Look forward to it!