STOP THE WAR ON KWANZAA

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose." - [Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) 36th U.S. President]
(Click on any image to ENLARGE IT)

HOLIDAY SOLSTICE
ARTIST: MARI HAL

AREN'T THE CHRISTIANIST ZEALOTS  WHO ARE SQUEALING AND BLEATING ABOUT A "WAR ON CHRISTMAS" - THE SAME NARROW, BIGOTED PINHEADS WHO CONTINUE TO DISPARAGE KWANZAA?!
They say it's "made-up". DUH!

LISSEN UP, IDIOT-FUNDIES: All holidays are made up! Independance Day? Somebody had to make it up and see if it might catch on with the crowds. The same is true of Thanksgiving.

The oldies but tried and true ol' standby goodies of festive decor and adornment down through the ages are Oestre, Solstice and Saturnalia (New Year). If the Celts among our ancestors could have, they probably would have written accounts of how they came to make-up those celebratory occasions and turn 'em into annual shindigs that are still widely observed in in so many adaptations in so many countries across the planet.

If  exclusivist, majoritarianist bigots continue with their WAR ON KWANZAA, you can expect expressions of OUTRAGE all across the spectrum from Oprah to Kanye West. Kwanzaa is the only seasonal celebration I have observed that is totally positive, coherent, inclusive and imbued with cultural touchstones that are relevant to the right here, right now for the folks who involve themselves in it. It just happens to be an African-American seasonal innovation, and it is becoming a tradition that owes nothing, thank you very much, to White Christian cultural imposition during 200+ years of slavery and beyond.

Kwanzaa is not and "Christmas" should not be exclusivist; "Happy Holidays" is inclusive - and wholly appropriate. E Pluribus Unum.

Peace. Da Rev

TOLERANCE FOR EXTREME BIGOTS?!

Slate William Saletan's Science & Technology column reports - 

Shrinks are debating whether to classify extreme bigotry as a mental illness.

Arguments in favor: 1) It makes some people unable to function socially or hold down a job—the criteria we already use for depression and other mental illnesses. 2) Anti-psychotic drugs have relieved extreme bigotry among prison inmates.

Arguments against: 1) It will become a legal defense in hate crimes. 2) It will excuse everyone, because we're all somewhat biased. 3) It will make medicine another weapon of political correctness.

Hell, if y' can't get the bi-polars and the schizofrenics t' comply with their treatment plans and take their meds, d'ya really think y' can convince the racist that he's better off when he takes his pills regularly?

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT?

We're talkin' MORE than soccer moms & dads here, OK?

Slate The Other Asian Miracle

The intimidating secrets of raising high-achievers.  By Ann Hulbert

...(Imitating Asian-American parents) requires buying into a grade-obsessed atmosphere that entails an intense focus on academics—math and science in particular—at the expense of well-rounded cultivation of the "whole" child. It disturbed some non-Asian parents that after-school tutoring took undue precedence over extracurriculars, especially sports...

 

Slate  HOUSE OF CASH

Yup. This is the house in Dyess, Arkansas where The Man In Black grew up. The pictorial essay shows the house as it is today, the house of the goober who's lived there the past 30 years. Johnny Cash and his family chopped cotton in the fields surrounding this house. That was then. Now the primary local crop is soybeans. Unsatisfying, yet instructive on another level.

Here's a snap of a boyhood friend of Johnny Cash - standin' kneedeep in downtown Dyess.

JAILHOUSE OF CASH
Mug Shots
Johnny Cash weathered the storms - and we all were better for it...

TOOKIE WILLIAMS DIED FOR HIS OWN DAMN SINS...

I oppose capital punishment because the death penalty is an extreme exertion of state power. It runs counter to the concept of a free society. Our constitution has been constructed to protect the individual from the tyranny of gummint - and from the tyranny of the majority.

Having said that, I shed no tears for Tookie. He was just another predatory, unprincipled thug. I think we need to continue to argue for the evolution of society to the point where we will reject the ignorant barbarian's solutions, whether backed up by bullshit in sacred texts or not ("Eye for an eye...") Tookie was the wrong poster boy to appropriate for rousing compassion and rational consideration of the issue.

THAT PSYCHOBILLY CADILLAC
In 1976 Wayne Kemp wrote "One Piece at a Time," which was sung by Johnny Cash and coined the phrase "psychobilly." Cash's only reference to the CB (Citizen's Band) Radio craze that seemed to engulf the nation and infect the pop culture in the mid-70s - as far as I am aware - sounded dead-on authentic, as the Man In Black intoned, "Oh yeah, Red Ryder, this is the Cotton Mouth in the psychobilly Cadillac, come on..." The song about a Kentucky transplant workin' on a Detroit assembly line, who always wanted a Caddy that was "long & black" details his plan and execution: "I'd devised myself a plan that should be the envy of most any man, I'd sneak it out of there in the lunch box in my hand...(What wouldn't fit in the lunch bucket) "was snuck out in my buddy's mobile home."

"Up to now my plan went all right,'til we tried to put it all together one night, and that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong. The transmission was a '53 and the motor turned out to be a '73, then when we tried to put in the bolts, all the holes were gone." The car turned out to be more mix than match. Bruce Fitzpatrict built the Psychobilly Cadillac to meet the outlandish description in the song and presented the car to Cash.  
Unfortunately, Da Rev DOESN'T have the legendary Caddy in the Last Chance Garage - and a good, clear photo turned out to be elusive.

By the way, Cash had a one-week stint as a punch press operator in a General Motors plant back in 1950 before growing homesick for Dyess, Arkansas. Personnel files at Pontiac  Motor Division, Pontiac, MI., have him listed as John R. Cash.
BOGIE & BABY...

Good fortune. COMMENT!! Please spread the meme. Don't smoke in bed...