On Alternating Between Hope & Resignation

 

Whatever happens, those who care about the outcome of our 2024 election are in for a November Surprise of one kind or another. 

Yesterday as I was working on my red placemats, with my mind freewheeling in the quiet flow that comes with project work, words from a song I'd sung with my high school choir (1970-1972) came back to me.  Since I don't believe I've sung or even thought about that song in the fifty plus years since I last sang it, I felt somewhat surprised and unsettled when "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me" came to mind.  

I couldn’t remember all the words, and when I looked up the lyrics, I learned the song had been written in 1955 by a woman, Jill Jackson Miller, who’d had a spiritual awakening following a suicide attempt after a failed marriage.  The wiki also said that Mahalia Jackson had performed it in Berlin in 1967.  

And that mention of Berlin caught my attention as MrM had been stationed at the Tempelhof Air Force base in the divided city of West Berlin, East Germany, after enlisting in '72 when his draft number came up high.  With not much to do off base, he spent most of his spare time bartending at the NCO club, collecting wooden antique German clocks, and eventually sending a total of 30 wall, mantle and grandfather clocks back home in the crates he built in the base woodshop.

Today the Berlin Wall is down, and Tempelhof is closed, but most of the clocks are still with us, solid and silent since we gave up on the winding, ticking, and chiming a while back.  And here I am pondering a future I could not have begun to imagine back when I was singing hopeful songs with the choir, wondering what’s yet to come?  What will this election bring?  Is it still possible for an individual’s contribution to matter and make a difference for good?  

All of which brings me back (Weave Style!) to a woman on the brink of suicide who didn’t know she’d be writing a song that would be sung around the world (including Berlin) and continue to be sung world wide years after her death in 1995 at age 82. Below is the recording of Mahalia singing that song in Berlin in 1967. It begins with her in rehearsal and 1:50 marks the start of the live performance of her expressing her heartfelt desire in song, for Peace on Earth.  

On the history of Tempelhof Airport/Base:   Tempelhof was opened in the 1920s as the airport for Berlin, which was then extended several times. At the end of the Second World War in 1945, the field was first occupied by Soviet troops, who handed it over to US troops shortly afterwards. During the Berlin Airlift in 1948/49, Tempelhof was the most important airfield for supplying the city's western sectors by air. In the following years, intensive civil air traffic developed here until it was moved to the Tegel airport in 1974. The airfield thus became a pure US military airfield again. With the reunification in 1990 and the withdrawal of the US units, Tempelhof Airport was again used for civilian purposes until it was closed on 30 October 2008. On 24 November 2008 the last aircraft left the airport, which had already been officially closed. The airfield building was now used for events and the area has been converted to a recreational park.

Is this a November surprise?

Off Breitbart, this drops at a propitious time. The Lefties are going all orgasmic at a Marist poll that shows Chlamydia leading in the Blue Wall (actually, it's the Vote Fraud Wall, but we'll hit that later), albeit within the MOE. Nothing to justify the numbers, of course, since the week's been all Trump, but the sheep need something to get them out on Tuesday.

Anywho, what we have is a House report detailing how Joe and the Ho coordinated with the UN to bring in illegals by the million. Using taxpayer dollars, of course. This oughta bump turnout on the Right.

That Marist poll may be at the bottom of Chlamydia's birdcage by Sunday.

On Strategies & Lies

 

Had to

Every once in a while, somebody really comes up with the perfect metaphor. This is one of those whiles.

It's a longish piece, well done, that illustrates where the Demos are going. But the tagline is what grabs me.

How can you outdo Robespierrian Harvest? Especially since it's already begun? Remember, La Terreur was mostly by denunciation. More to the point, the Gestapo wasn't that big. It relied on snitches, rather than troops of agents.

On Froth & Garbage Collection

 

Similar but different.

My old stats prof's favorite line has lots of relevance these days. The Demos are trying their old tricks, many of which were developed by Zippy (busing in "voters" from out of state, Black Panther thugs intimidating white people at the polls, precincts proclaiming 104% turnout, precints proclaiming 100% D vote (statistical impossibility)), but there is a change in the wind, one we haven't seen since Y2K.

The Rs, or at least the Trumplicans, are fighting back. 

Hard. And they're winning. A few Democrat thugs posing as election officials tried closing the polls early in Bucks County PA and the Trumplicans sued and won to extend early voting. A VA judge trying to reinstate non-citizens' vote was shot down by the Thomas Court and VA (or any other state) can purge fraudulent votes by non-citizens.

This stuff would have gone under the radar last time or just mentioned in passing. This time people are getting arrested. This is how the last election was stolen, with the compliance of the Uni-Party. This time we're seeing a new attitude.

So, in the words of Big Sis, if you see something, say something. Call the cops, your friends, Fake News, your local committeemen. Raise Hell. This one is worth it.

I'm reminded of MacArthur's "I have returned" speech, given on the Tacloban beach under Japanese fire. The final lines alwas put a lump in my throat. 

For your homes and hearths, strike! For future generations of your sons and daughters, strike! In the name of your sacred dead, strike! Let no heart be faint. Let every arm be steeled. The guidance of divine God points the way. Follow in His Name to the Holy Grail of righteous victory!

On Going & Voting

 

On Faux Rage & Poll Play

 

The God Emperor of the Cherry Blossom throne is the ........

On Serving & Signs of the Times

 

The Wages of Sin

Well, things don't look good for the bad guys. All their old superstars have run out of gas, but more to the point it looks like Justice is catching up with them.

Take Brandon, if you dare. Today, we saw him (the 9 feet tall one) jogging across the Rainbow House lawn to tell Fake News he's going to right an old wrong. Actually, it's just another pander to a particular ethnic group, American Indians. Even the Noble Red Man seems to be walking away to the point that the Demos feel obliged to make a big deal out of taking away all the Medals of Honor awarded for Wounded Knee.

To make the picture complete, another of Brandon's body doubles shows up mumbling and yelling about how terrible the white man is. That alone tells you it isn't the real one, but we're supposed to buy the idea this is the same guy who messed himself in Normandy, wandered in a daze in Italy, and stood catatonic on Juneteenth, smacks of some plot or other to invoke the 25th and declare Chlamydia PUS. Or something.

What evokes the themes of Greek tragedy is that the real Brandon, wherever he is, at the point of getting the validation he lusted for all his life, had to see it slowly slip away in madness.

This is not to sympathize. The mean, petty, corrupt, bigoted, and depraved excuse for a human certainly had it coming, but such a fitting end could hardly have been envisioned.

Then there's that good ol' boy, Willie Whitewater, serial rapist, adulterer, real estate flipper, hick town ward heeler writ large, and not so closet racist. The Smartest Boy in Hope AR (how big is it, anyway?) who could never figure out how to stay out of trouble and needed fixers like Carville and Dick Morris on speed dial.

The Demos resurrected him to try to save Chlamydia and found it just gave him a shot at channeling his inner Orval Faubus. Unfortunately, Willie is looking a lot like his political ideal in his present state. Sunken eyes, bloodshot cheeks, raspy voice, and split lip. Maybe AIDS, maybe just the picture of Dorian Gray. All the over the hill wannabe hippie chicks that wanted him 20 years ago have left him to Hillary's tender mercies and even the Davos crowd has no use for him.

Zippy OTOH still has that crease in his pants and maybe the love of all those perpetually guilt-ridden Liberals, but his gift for sticking his foot in his mouth has gotten lots worse and he's looking more like Uncle Ben (or is it Uncle Tom?) than the Lightworker of 20 years ago. In talking down to da brothas, he forgot that a lot of them have been taking a hard look around and realize halfa cracka is about the nicest thing they can call him. Having the people who put him on the map now turning their backs on him by the million can't be good for someone as vain as he is. 

He never really liked them, of course, and felt more comfortable around the Hamptons crowd even though aping the mannerisms of Bush 41 never quite compensated for not really being white. He's now reduced to hawking some idiotic nonsense about people who may vote for Trump because they got a kung flu check should realize it was Brandon's doing. The people flocking to Trump by the million aren't looking for a check, they all want to be able to make their own money. Something the First Gay PUS will never understand.

James Carville, still looking like Spock's evil twin, has come a long way from, "It's the economy, Stupid" which the adoring media forgot was just a warmed-over variant of the old saw, people vote their pocket books. He spent most of this year telling the new generation of flacks what a bunch of pansies they are and being ignored, if not laughed at. His latest bit of wisdom has been that the Left ought to take up arms if they lose.

As the Greeks put it, be careful of that for which you wish...

What's interesting is that the old political order, Uni-Party included, also seems to be fading with its old stars. If the Hildabeast can barely waddle into a TV studio to blather about how Free Speech gets in the way of control and gets the same treatment she did in '16, and even the last JFK from MA, good ol' Lurch, is treated like the also-ran he always was for supporting her, then the bad old days really are slip-slidin' away. Cocaine Mitch is now irrelevant, as is Pelosi Galore - and, brother, does she look like it. The Gods of the Copybook Headings told us evil shows its ugly face eventually.  

How long these people have on this planet is anybody's guess, but, whatever awaits them on the other side, the years they have left will be spent contemplating the mirror and the world that's passing them by because they sold their souls.

On Wrong & Right; Knowing & Not Knowing

 

On Sweet & Salty

 

JD VANCE: "But look, he was interacting with people. He was talking to the employees. He was giving people food, and he was just [doing] I think what he does best, which is just being among the people, talking to them about what they care about. He showed genuine interest in the employees and their lives and where they came from and what they were actually doing in their job, and that's something you can't stage, and you can't fake."

He continued, "That is just a genuine person that Donald Trump is, and it's why I think a lot of working people, even though, of course, he's a successful real estate billionaire, have this emotional connection to Donald Trump, you can't make up that kind of connection."

On Showing Up & Being Real

Trump honored a commitment he almost changed, to meet with Tyrus for an interview prior to showing up to speak at the Al Smith charity event, and I'm glad he made the effort and took the time to do both.  

In this exchange I heard two men talking honestly about what matters most to them, with Tyrus bringing out the generous and genial side of Trump that runs alongside his willingness to take on a fight and make a difference for good in the lives of others.