I hesitate to even type in that four-letter-word that begins with “sp”. Suffice to say…
This platform’s bloggers are already all too aware of the “comments” huckstering athletic shoes and Rx drugs to cure ED and nasty infections / STDs. Yet, I’ve got to ask…
1. Are not these products already readily available?
2. Is there really that great a need for this stuff?
If so, that’d certainly paint a bleak portrait of humanity. I mean… there’s got to be more to life than…
1. Jogging to the Pharmacy to buy “get frisky” meds
2. Catching the carnal flu
3. Jogging back to the Pharmacy for the cure
Our Sunday musical adventure is still going strong at Week #46. At this juncture, we’ll be giving a listen to the track, Sunday Morning, as performed by American Idol creator Simon Fuller’s Now United… a nationality-diverse pop music ensemble showcasing 15 vocalists. Since late 2017, these latter day troubadours have been wandering into our lives / homelands (especially Brazil, India and Philippines). Their mission: To raise their spirited voices in song to promote both musical and societal harmony.
That very outlook is ensconced even within their name. Acronymically speaking, NU is to Now United what UN is to the United Nations.
That’s the precise frame of mind that’s much needed (and oft lacking) within our troubled world… where musical and societal harmony (to say the least) are not always in accord.
While we must never give up on our dreams and hopes for the betterment of society, there’ll be times when we must pack up our baggage and take our minds out for a spin… i.e., crank up the feel-good music and venture forth on a figurative (maybe even literal) road trip.
There’s nothing wrong with occasional escapism on a Friday / Saturday / Sunday… provided we make that a round trip back to Monday Morning Reality… when / where we’ll get back to work… working towards a better world… a better tomorrow.
I hope you’ll return seven tomorrows from now for our next Sunday Song. Till then, have an enjoyable, productive, harmonious week!
If you haven’t the time to watch the video, check out the Fast Facts:
• Cash strapped Pennsylvanian parents can’t afford to pay for the lunches served to their children attending classes within the Wyoming Valley West School District.
• Cash strapped school system officials… inclusive of Federal Programs Director Joseph Muth… all alarmed about the resultant, growing $22,000 deficit… mail out threatening letters… issue an ultimatum to parents (my characterization):
• A rushing to the rescue philanthropist… La Colombe Coffee CEO Todd Carmichael… offers to foot the entire $22,000 bill.
• School muckety-mucks flat-out refuse to accept his largesse.
WHY?
Obviously, this is NOT all about the money. So what might be afoot?
Might Wyoming Valley West’s officious officials not want anyone denying them their Trump-Given-Right to sadistically tear impoverished families asunder? Haunting images of Trumpian detention center caged, crying immigrant children do come to mind.
While the demographics are (at best) hazy, it’s safe to say that folks are in the minority if they identify with any of these letters: LGBTQIA.
It’s also safe to say that how the straight world relates to them runs the full gamut of:
1. Acceptance
2. Ambivalence
3. Animosity
While I harbor Acceptance within my head and heart, I’d now like to ask my straight readers:
Which of those three “A” words would you choose to assess your own feelings?
• For those who’ve chosen #1, CONGRATULATIONS! End of blog!
• For those who’ve chosen #2 or #3, I encourage you to read on.
I’d like all of you to participate in my experiment that’ll take scant minutes to run. While it’s OK to regard this as a thought experiment, only, I believe that your actual participation will afford you palpable results… touchable results that will help get you in touch with your feelings… maybe even evolve and elevate your sentiments upward to that optimal, desirable level of Acceptance.
Read all of these instructions before starting:
1. Remove a sheet of paper from your printer.
2. Grab a pen or pencil.
3. In script, write out this sentence inclusive of the “?”: “This is my identity?”
4. Sign your full legal name.
5. Now, here’s the tough part. If you’re left handed use your right hand
…and vice versa. REMEMBER: NEATNESS DOES NOT COUNT!
Is everybody ready? OK. Complete your writing assignment while we playback the Jeopardy Think Song…
So… let’s now take a look-see at how everything turned out. Does your handwriting look messy? Maybe even illegible?
Well folks, that’s precisely my point.
While I am no PhD toting, white lab coated geneticist, it is my strong belief that… just as our DNA has regulated which hand we favor… it has also determined [1] who we favor / fall in love with and [2] whether or not the gender identity we harbor within our minds matches our below-the-belt anatomy.
• Consider the awkwardness you felt when you were forced to use the wrong hand.
• Would that awkwardness be any different were we to force any LGBTQIA person to adopt / adapt to a straight lifestyle?
• YES… the awkwardness would be far worse because, for them, that’d not be some minutes-long Interwebs experiment where they could easily switch back to their favored hand afterwards… that’d be real life… a lifetime of being who they are not!
I would encourage all, who actually ran our penmanship experiment, to save your work. Pin it up on your bulletin board or stick it to your refrigerator with a magnet.
Then… every time you find it difficult to accept the LGBTQIA community… look at your handwriting. Look at your own words, “This is my Identity?” and your own signature.
• That Illegibility stems from going against your DNA…. being someone who you are not.
• No lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer / questioning, intersex and asexual / allied person must ever be forced to go against a DNA ingrained sexual identity… to be someone who they are not!
Thank God I’m a straight man who is trapped in a male body.
I say that NOT to lord it over the LGBTQIA community.
I say that NOT to boast.
I say that NOT out of pride.
I say that to avoid the wrath of the Religiously Intolerant People of my homeland / of our world.
Religiously Intolerant People has just become my newly coined phrase (seeing how it forms the apt acronym RIP). Apt, because RIP tend to rip to shreds the lives of anyone who does not conform to their provincial notions about femininity, masculinity and sexual behavior.
Yet, even though I am able to conform, I still have to worry about RIP jumping to the wrong conclusions re my lifestyle. I mean, how would the judgmental judge this old man in his mid-sixties, who has never been married / who has never fathered any children? Could they even find it conceivable that a heterosexual, who had never gotten over the heartbreak of unrequited teenage love, had simply given up in his search for Ms. Right?
I know my valid excuse sounds pathetic, but I am living proof that being a lifelong loser in love can happen.
And I do have living proof that the RIP’s ‘tude, as I’ve described it, really does exist.
Many summers ago, my Mom’s friend, M, paid us a midmorning visit. They’d first met in the hospital back in 1951 (when both were recovering from childbirth). While the three of us all sat down at the dining room table to sip on freshly brewed coffee and munch on yummy doughnuts, M, now the doting grandma, got to talking, glowingly, about her grandchildren. It was when she had asked Mom how it felt to have no grandchildren that our chat took a sudden turn for the worse. You see, I made the fatal error of making what I had deemed to be a harmless, ecologically valid remark, “Not to worry, considering our world’s overpopulation problem, who’d even miss the kids I never fathered.” WOW! You should’ve seen the instantaneous fury in her glowering eyes as she turned to face me… to sternly lecture me… to tear into me… “THAT’S NOT HOW GOD HAD INTENDED IT TO BE!” Her implication was that I’ll someday burn up in Hell because I was thumbing my nose at God’s “Be fruitful and multiply” edict… as chronicled in Genesis 1:28.
My point is that even a straight man is not immune from RIP’s harsh judgment and shaming tactics. And if I can experience that resultant sinking feeling that goes all the way down to my DNA, just imagine how much worse the RIP’s outrage intensifies when they rip into a person who does identify with any of the letters of that LGBTQIA acronym! Just imagine how much worse the RIP’s targeted victims feel!
In essence, the RIP’s Unholy War involves their viciously ridiculing, ostracizing, harassing and demeaning anyone who doesn’t buy into the concept of prolific procreation within the framework of traditional marriage. To be clear, it’s NOT my intent to disparage such convention. If it works for you, fine. However, we must also be willing to accept anyone who does not march in lockstep.
Let’s now focus a bit more on my moments ago usage of the word demeaning.
To demean even one human being… especially anyone of a differing gender identity / sexual orientation… demeans us all.
One would think that the Religiously Intolerant People… of all people… would [1] readily agree that our Creator has made us ALL in His own image and [2] realize that to vent their hatred toward anyone who identifies as LGBTQIA is to also spit such hatred right back at the face of God.
Full disclosure, I still am a diehard NASA geek. My fascination gets backdated to their Projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. So… yes… once again… this blog will rehash Apollo 11’s Golden Anniversary. But, try not to yawn and/or nod off… by blog’s end there’ll be an unanticipated, sonically / visually enhanced twist. That said, let’s blast this BlogCast off the launchpad…
This past Saturday evening, my primary mission became recreating 07/20/1969… inclusive of synchronizing my main timepiece to that half century old NASA timeline. And that countdown clock readout was telling me T-Minus 59:00 (OK… it was actually a red LED, forward moving digital alarm clock… so sue me!). Anyway, that meant I could fit in the playback of a mood enhancing compilation CD (featuring… what else… 1969’s pop songs). Yep, there was plenty of time before Neil Armstrong’s 10:56 p.m. EDT EVA, where he’d be taking his first “small step” onto the lunar surface.
By disc’s end it had suddenly dawned on me that I had heard two futuristically themed tracks, which had actually rocketed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart during lunar missions… the 5th Dimension’s Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In syncing to the May flight of Apollo 10 AND Zagar & Evans’ In the Year 2525 matching up to the Apollo 11 odyssey.
However… it’s the two contrasting, lyrical story-lines that are even more compelling… namely… Aquarius’ conjecture re humankind’s better days ahead versus 2525’s prophecy of a stark dystopian society… inclusive of humanity’s end.
That got me wondering… was a group hug for humanity in order? After all, an astounding half-century had somehow managed to elapse sans some itchy trigger fingered, foolhardy prez insanely spiking nuclear WMDs planet-wide… to be followed by that dunce’s “victory dance” in the irradiated end zone. Apparently… we had successfully averted morphing the 5th Dimension’s Aquarian dawn into a premature Zager & Evans, In the Year 10K dusk.
Of course… the day is still young! Lest we forget, the current nuclear saber rattler / little boy does want to play with his nuclear toys. He’s also so drunk on fake patriotism that, in all likelihood, he can hardly wait to see the “rockets’ red glare” and nuclear “bombs bursting in air”.
Well before Mister Ballistic gets a chance to dust off the cover of the nuclear launch code book, we had better launch this BlogCast’s two song set.
All you need do is “push the button” on each of these vids. I’d recommend first experiencing Aquarius’ elation before taking the plunge into the deep end of 2525’s despair.
Hmm… now that we’ve tracked through both songs, maybe we should track down 7+ billion lead-lined Hazmat suits? Might the manufacturer cut us a sweet deal if we buy in bulk? Hey, it can’t hurt to ask, right?
CommonSenseTom 