IT'S OK BY ME

I see I've lost a few followers. A couple when I hadn't posted for a few months. And a couple after my post about the little darling that went to her teacher in tears because a classmate told her he didn't go to church or believe in God. If you don't agree that's fine with me.

However I'll stick by my original entry. It's never to soon to point out to children, politely, that they are going to run into people who do not agree with them and/or do not share their beliefs. If she's going to turn on the water works every time this happens she's going to be crying a lot.

Frankly I can't imagine a child that age really caring about this unless the parents put her up to it. And now that I think about it I can imagine one scenario. It has to do with the so called Chick Tracts. There is at least one story line where a little boy learns that his neighbor/friend has been killed in an accident. The boy is told that his friend is in hell because his parents didn't get him baptized. That scenario bringing on tears I can understand. And frankly ranks as child abuse in my book. 

The tracts are basically anti damn near everything up to and including any translation of the Bible that isn't some form of the King James translation. Basically anti gay, anti evolution, anti Muslim, anti almost everybody. Back in the day the Campus Crusade for Chisters would slip into the dorm in the middle of day when most of us were out and leave them in the bathroom and in front of our doors. I don't think they converted anyone. LOL 

FURTHER AWAY THAN EVER

I WANT TO LIVE

words and music by John Denver

There are children raised in sorrow

On a scorched and barren plain.

There are children raised beneath a golden sun.

There are children of the water,

Children of the sand.

And they cry out through the universe

There voices raised as one.

I want to live, I want to grow.

I want to see, I want to know.

I want to share what I can give.

I want to be, I want to live.

Have you gazed out on the ocean,

Seen the breaching of a whale?

Have you watched the dolphins frolic in the foam?

Have you heard the song the humpback hears

Five hundred miles away,

Telling tales of ancient history, of passages and home?

I want to live, I want to grow.

I want to see, I want to know.

I want to share what I can give.

I want to be, I want to live.

For the worker and the warrior,

The lover and the liar.

For the native and the wanderer in kind.

For the make, and the user,

And the mother and her son.

I am looking for my family

And all of you are mine.

We are standing all together

Face to face and arm in arm.

We are standing on the threshold of a dream.

No more hunger, no more killing.

No more wasting life away.

It is simply an idea and I know its time has come.

I want to live, I want to grow.

I want to see, I want to know.

I want to share what I can give.

I want to be, I want to live.....I want to live.

Copyright 1971 Cherry Lane Music Co.

It's almost forty years since John Denver wrote this song. Forty years and the dream not only hasn't been fulfilled, it gets further away every year.

There was another so called debate with the Republican candidates last night. They fell all over themselves justifying the use of torture. More than one of them has threatened to “carpet bomb” the Middle East. Some of them seem to believe that nukes are just bigger and better TNT. The forced birthers insist all children have the right to be born. It seems to be the only right they have.

And we have hundreds of thousands of refugee children, or children in war zones whose hopes don'e go as far as seeing dolphins or whales. They are reduced to just trying to get enough food, shelter or simply surviving for another day only to be branded as "terrorists." God/dess save us. 

Forget about decent food, clean water, jobs that pay enough to raise a family, an education or some kind access to basic health care. You and your family are on your own and frankly we don't give a flying fuck what happens to you. Roll the Republicans into one candidate and you still would be stuck with a psychopath or a sociopath, certainly nothing resembling a human being.  

WHOSE GARDEN WAS THIS

I've posted this before and I see no reason to change a word. Except that it's getting worse all the time. There's a methane leak in California that's at one hundred plus days and counting. It could have been prevented if the well had a shut off valve. But the state didn't require one, so.....

WHOSE GARDEN WAS THIS

Whose garden was this, it must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one.

Whose river was this, you say it ran freely.
Blue was its color.
And I've seen blue in some pictures.
And I'd love to have been there.

Tell me again I need to know.
The forest had trees, the meadows were green.
The oceans were blue and birds really flew.
Can you swear that it's true.

Whose grey sky was this?

Or was it a blue one?
You say there were breezes.
I've heard records of breezes.
And I'd love to have felt one.

Tell me again I need to know.
The forest had trees, the meadows were green.
The oceans were blue and birds really flew.
Can you swear that it's true.

Whose garden was this, it must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one.

Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.

Words and music by Tom Paxton. Covered by John Denver about 1970

I don’t really know what to make of these lyrics. But listening John Denver sing this song is enough to break your heart.

Is this a nightmare of now or the far future? God/dess knows we have enough nightmares in our own time. The dates suggest the song is pre EPA era. And here we have a concerted effort to gut the EPA. Supposedly this will create jobs. I’ve even run across comments that take the stand that given a choice between jobs and the environment, the environment comes dead last. And you can’t get through to them. If we destroy the environment the jobs aren’t going to matter very much.

So, what is the world in this song? Is it the remains a jungle in Viet Nam after Agent Orange was dropped on it? The remains of an equatorial rainforest? The spreading of the Sahara? The wrecked neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn?

Or is this a nightmare out of the finale of Soylant Green or the novel Stand on Zanzibar? A future when flowers, trees, blue skies, free flowing rivers, unspoiled oceans, and even birds are remembered in pictures and folk tale? Something your doddering great grandparents tell stories about? “I’ve seen pictures of flowers. And I’d loved to have smelled one.”

Goddess, may it never come to that.