Chief Writing Wolf

December 23, 2014 · 9:25 PM

Responding Accordingly

A couple of weeks ago the Texas Democratic Party emailed questionnaires to registered voters, asking how we felt about their performance throughout this year’s political campaigns. I’m still disappointed (angry, in fact) that only about a third of eligible Texas voters made it to the polls last month. Many of these people are the same ones who’ll camp out in front of a Wal-Mart on Thanksgiving night, hoping to grab a new wide-screen TV or I-phone.

But I’m equally pissed off at the TDP for staging such lackluster attempts to win some of the state’s top positions for the first time in two decades. It’s bad enough the National Democratic Party has practically abandoned the state of Texas, leaving we moderates and independents to fend for ourselves, like pit bulls at a Michael Vick family reunion. The TDP didn’t focus on the core values for which Democrats are known, such as free speech, voting rights and worker protection. All of Texas’ Republican candidates centered their respective campaigns on two issues: expressing just how much they hate President Obama and protecting gun rights. I hate to think what would happen if a Republican garners the presidency in 2016, which is a possibility.

Below are the actual questions from the survey, along with the responses I submitted. Beneath each of those, however, I’ve added my extended replies.

What do you think we did well during the 2014 elections?

Not much.

You screwed up just about everything from the start. A Girl Scout troop has more organizational skills than the TDP.

What do you think we could have done differently?

Never start a campaign with negative attack ads. Start by emphasizing your candidate’s positive aspects; e.g. what they’ve done to improve their individual communities and what they plan to do to make things better. In this case, for example, the Democrats should have emphasized that most of the jobs created in Texas have been temporary or contract with no benefits; that the GOP isn’t concerned with income equality or protection for workers. You also needed to hit back at the Tea Party faction of the GOP, emphasizing how extremely right-wing and bigoted they are.

Wendy Davis should have emphasized that she was once a struggling single mother who managed to make it through law school with little help from the state, the federal government, a man or a pack of pea-brained evangelical Christians. Instead, her first TV and radio ads focused on what she felt Greg Abbott has done wrong during his tenure as State Attorney General. The TDP should have pointed out that people like Rick Perry and Ted Cruz are right-wing loudmouths who make Kim Jong-Un look like Mother Teresa. Call the “Tea Party” what they are: a pack of rabid neo-Nazi assholes who hate anyone who isn’t a White, heterosexual Christian. Go ahead and embrace the term “liberal” – it’s not a dirty word – and highlight the fact that liberals, progressives, etc. want to move America forward, whereas conservatives want to take it back to a time when only a handful of people had all the wealth and power.

What were your favorite moments or stories of 2014?

None.

I’ve seen Bugs Bunny cartoons with more inspirational moments.

In what ways were you able to hear from Democratic candidates?

I hate robo-calls. I’ve never met anyone who’s literally willing to sit there and listen to a candidate talk about how great and wonderful they are and therefore, you should vote for them. If they are, they’ve either overdosed on oxycontin or they’re having a hellacious Maalox moment.

What do you think we can do to get more Democrats to the polls?

Emphasize that voting is as much a responsibility as a right. Point out that many Americans have fought very hard to earn the right to vote and that conservative Republicans have tried to squash those rights in recent years with gerrymandering laws and voter intimidation.

Show old film footage of policemen attacking unarmed, mostly Negro citizens who were merely trying to register to vote and connect it to contemporary assaults on voting rights. The TDP should have stressed that many White conservative voters were upset that a half-blooded Negro won the presidency twice against full-blooded White men.

What do you think Democrats need to do to win in the future?

I’m not looking forward to 2016. I don’t feel there’s a single candidate at the national level who’s worth my vote.

What I said above: focus on free speech and voting rights. Don’t spend so much time worrying about who’s being tortured at Guantanamo Bay. Most of us don’t give a shit that some illiterate camel jockey can’t get a copy of the Quran, while we’re trying to find a job or pay off medical bills. And stop coddling illegal immigrants! They can’t vote anyway. And, in case you haven’t figured it out, there’s a reason they’re called “illegal immigrants.” It’s because they entered the United States illegally!

What issues are a priority for 2016 you’d like to add?

What moderates, liberals and independent thinkers have been emphasizing for the past several years: income inequality, free speech and voting rights. I’m especially tired of the Democratic Party asserting that the only way to appeal to Hispanics is to establish a comprehensive immigration policy. Immigration is NOT the only issue Hispanics are concerned about. Democrats also should have pushed President Obama to remove the individual mandate from the Affordable Care Act. Most Americans are concerned about jobs and the economy; more than they are about health care. The health care matter will take care of itself if people have solid jobs with good salaries.

You let the Texas Republican Party define you and your agenda. They kept tying all Democrats to the Washington, D.C., establishment elite. And how did you respond? With those fucking robo-calls asking folks to vote for you. Get real, people, and then get rough! Texas Democrats need to show we’re a different breed from the mainstream party. We don’t want to turn Texas into another California or Illinois where people and businesses are regulated and taxed into oblivion. Texas Democrats can show the national party the right way to do things.

I’m really dreading what will happen in the 2016 elections. Who will the Democrats select as their candidate? Hillary Clinton? Please! She’s past her prime. If she’s all the Democratic Party has, then there really is no hope for the future. And who will the Republicans choose? There’s an endless gallery of scoundrels in that bunch. The “Tea Party” clowns are pushing for Ted Cruz to run, even though, as a Canadian by birth, he isn’t truly eligible. But I’m downright frightened that we could end up with Jeb Bush in the White House. I’d rather catch Ebola while stranded in the desert with a bad case of jock itch.

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Tagged as Democratic National Party, political campaigns, Texas, Texas Democratic Party

December 7, 2014 · 10:47 PM

I Hope Ted Cruz Runs for President

Texas Senator Ted Cruz splashed onto the political scene two years ago when he easily won the seat vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison. Well-educated and highly intellectual, Cruz was a championship debater at Harvard University and, in 2003, became the youngest Solicitor General in the state of Texas; a role he served in until 2008. Unlike many first-year senators, Cruz quickly established himself as a rugged individualist by being blunt and outspoken. He held true to his base by bashing anyone and anything that didn’t fit his narrow agenda: taxes, regulation, the federal government, and, of course, President Obama. While the Republican National Party was already moving in a more staunchly conservative direction, Cruz seemed to break off his own small faction that slid even further to the right; making Hitler and Stalin look like tree-hugging liberals.

In September of 2013, Cruz incited a shutdown of the entire federal government over funding for the Affordable Care Act. He spoke on the Senate floor for 21 uninterrupted hours and was hailed as a hero by his “Tea Party” acolytes. Cruz and his Republican cohorts were unwilling to reach even a modest agreement with Democrats and Independents on funding the government; so on October 1, 2013, it essentially shut down. Approximately 850,000 workers were furloughed, and another 1.3 million were required to report for work with paycheck dates. The 16-day stalemate was the third-longest government shutdown in U.S. history and cost about $24 billion. As usual, whenever government officials skirmish, average citizens bore the brunt of the shutdown.

Now that Republicans are scheduled to take control of both houses of Congress next month, Cruz is demanding that funding for any of Obama’s programs – namely the ACA – be severed and any presidential appointments be thwarted. In other words, Cruz is pushing for nothing to get done so he can prove his point.

For all of these reasons, I sincerely hope Cruz runs for president in 2016. Not because I like and admire him. I want to see his arrogance get shoved down his throat.

Cruz is already positioning himself for a run. He’s engaged in the vital prerequisites: he’s visited the state of Iowa several times (Iowa is where the nation’s first voting primaries are held each election cycle); he’s solicited a bevy of affluent donors; and he’s expressed his unmitigated support for Israel. All he has to do is give a speech at Bob Jones University saying he doesn’t think Negro slavery was all that bad, and he’ll be good for the Republican Party’s nomination.

But I think once Cruz enters onto that stage, spouting off his vitriolic rhetoric and twisted views on American values, he’ll be shocked to learn not everyone loves him. His right-wing extremism will become apparent. Politics has a way of cutting people down to size. I sincerely feel Cruz will get diced up quicker than squid at a sushi restaurant.

A brief examination of Cruz’s voting record shows his true dimension. Among other things, he’s voted against funding for highways and transportation (three times); the “Bring Jobs Home Act”; the “Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act”; “Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act”; the “Minimum Wage Fairness Act”; the “Protecting Access to Medicare Act”; the 2014 “Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act”; the 2013 “Employment Non-Discrimination Act”; and the 2013 “Student Loan Affordability Act.”

There is one seemingly innocuous fact about Cruz that may play into the hands of his opponents: he wasn’t born in the U.S. He was born in Canada; something from which he doesn’t shy away. Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, was born in Cuba and lived under the brutal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. In 1957, Cruz managed to escape Cuba and arrive in Texas with only 100 U.S. dollars and the clothes on his back. He had supported Fidel Castro, but now claims he didn’t know at the time that Castro was a communist. There’s a politician, if I’ve ever heard one! In the 1960s, Cruz met and married Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson. Eleanor was born in Delaware to Irish- and Italian-American parents. Rafael and Eleanor Cruz moved to Alberta, Canada where they worked in the oil industry. In 1974, the Cruz family (now including little Ted) moved back to Texas. Rafael and Eleanor divorced several years later. Why they abruptly relocated to Canada in the first place and when exactly they were married and divorced remains unclear. But doubts about Sen. Cruz’s citizenship keep surfacing.

In order to qualify to be President, the U.S. Constitution states, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

The precise definition of “natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States” has confounded plenty of legal scholars and amateurs. To many of us, it simply means that you were born in one of the 50 United States, a U.S. territory, or a U.S. military base. But, if at least one of your parents was born in the U.S., then you are a U.S. citizen. My mother, for example, was born just outside of México City in 1932; yet she and her three siblings were U.S. citizens because their father was born in Michigan in 1902. Does that mean she’s qualified to run for U.S. president? I’m not certain. I don’t think she’d want the job anyway; she’d scare the crap out of too many people.

The issue of U.S. citizenship in relation to the presidency has come up before. In 1964, when Barry Goldwater garnered the Republican Party’s nomination for president, some speculated he wasn’t qualified, since he’d been born in Arizona, three years before it became a state. In 1968, when George Romney sought the Republican nomination, he didn’t avoid the fact he had been born in México in 1907. Both of his parents had been born in the U.S. and allegedly fled religious persecution by relocating to México where they and fellow Mormons set up a Mormon colony that still exists. (In reality, the Romneys wanted to maintain their polygamous lifestyle.)

The right-wing hysteria surrounding President Obama’s birthplace and birth certificate is well-documented. The self-righteous “birther” gang maintains that Obama was born in Kenya, like his father, and not in Hawaii, as the president’s birth certificate declares. Some people still don’t realize Hawaii is one of the United States. When I worked for the wire transfer division of a bank in the 1990s, we’d invariably get calls from branch offices asking if a transfer to Hawaii was domestic or international. Not much was made of the fact Senator John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, when it was still a U.S. territory.

Ted Cruz tackled his own citizenship last year when he released his official Canadian birth certificate and then renounced his Canadian citizenship. I’m sure Canada was heartbroken.

Citizenship matters aside, Cruz may feel self-assured about a presidential run. Anyone who dares to tackle such an office has to be extremely self-confident and just a little bit arrogant. Cruz will find, though, that he has to appeal to a much larger base of people than the gaggle of conservative hardliners that orgasm with his every word. For one thing, he’ll have to appeal to Hispanics. That’ll be especially tough. I guess you have to understand the Hispanic identity in the U.S. Cuban-Americans don’t like to be dubbed “Hispanic” or “Latino” because that places them in the same category as Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans, etc. For some ungodly reason, some Cuban-Americans – Rafael Cruz among them – think they’re superior to other Spanish-surnamed peoples in the Western Hemisphere. As comedian Paul Rodriguez once noted, “When Mexicans enter the U.S. illegally, they take them to jail. When Cubans enter the U.S. illegally, they take them to Disney World.”

Ted Cruz will have no choice but to court Hispanics – and everyone else, regardless of ethnicity – if he wants to live in the White House and be considered the “Leader of the Free World.” It won’t be easy for him; not at all. He won’t be able to justify his extremist views to a broader audience. Then he’ll find himself on that sushi board. And me, personally, I think sushi is disgusting.

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Tagged as extremism, Republican National Party, Tea Party, Ted Cruz, U.S. citizenship, U.S. politics, U.S. presidency

December 7, 2014 · 12:24 AM

In Remembrance – Pearl Harbor

“Everybody knows about Pearl Harbor. The thing that really fascinated me is that through this tragedy there was this amazing American heroism.”

– Michael Bay

Pearl Harbor.

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December 5, 2014 · 10:35 PM

Slammed

It’s been one month since the midterm elections, and a lot of people are still smarting from the results. But several folks saw this coming. As expected, the Republican Party has retained control of the House of Representatives and taken the Senate. But, few anticipated the GOP would garner such high numbers. Moreover, Republicans have attained most of the state governorships. Here in Texas, the GOP has won every major state-level office for the fifth consecutive election cycle. A Democrat hasn’t won a state-wide office since 1994, when Garry Mauro won reelection as State Treasurer. By the time the current crop of officeholders finish their respective terms, Democrats will have been shut out of state-level offices for two decades.

Texas Democrats had hoped this year would be theirs; that they would recapture at least one office, preferably the governorship, but at least maybe attorney general or state treasurer. But they didn’t. They lost – in the worst way. As usual, most voting-eligible Texans failed to turn up at the voting booths this year. In fact, Texas had the lowest rate of voter turnout than any state in the union – roughly 4.75 million people, or 28.5% of the vote-eligible population. In the Dallas – Fort Worth metropolitan area, some local officials blamed the damp, cold weather for the dismal response. Really? I recall an election in India several years ago where some people were being carried in on their deathbeds – literally! – to cast a ballot. Overall this year’s midterm produced the worst voter turnout since 1942. That particular year was understandable: the U.S. had just entered World War II, when many young men had already joined the fight overseas. Men were much more likely to vote than women back then, plus there were a slew of voter restriction laws – especially in the Southeast – to keep poor and non-White voters from casting ballots. But that was then; things have changed considerably in 70 years. I don’t just find the low voter response appalling. I find it disgusting. What happened?

After the 2007 – 2008 financial downturn – a period in which the U.S. came as close to a completed and total economic collapse – people felt their elected officials simply weren’t responding to their needs. President Obama and the Democrats inexplicably focused their energy on passing a healthcare bill and reforming the immigration system. The latter was labeled an attempt to appeal to Hispanics; once again, assuming Hispanics only care about immigration in the same way women only care about abortion and gays and lesbians only care about same-sex marriage. Sweeping assumptions like that are an insult and always dangerous. It’s bad enough, though, the Republican Party was determined from the moment Obama won the 2008 presidential elections to obstruct his agenda. Every conservative lout from Dick Cheney to Mitch McConnell stated publicly and emphatically they wanted to make Obama a “one-term president.” Fortunately, they failed. But they and the Democrats have failed miserably over just about everything, mainly the economy.

My gripe with Obama is his overt willingness to compromise. His first major capitulation to the Republicans came in December 2010, as the Bush-era tax cuts were due to expire. The GOP literally threatened to withhold votes on extending benefits for the long-term unemployed, if tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens and largest corporations weren’t kept in place. Obama bowed to them; declaring openly that he didn’t want “the hostages” to be harmed. In December 2010, the Democrats still held majorities in both houses of Congress, and the President could have very well issued an executive order extending the benefits in question. But he backed down. And that’s when I began to lose respect for him – in the same way I’d long lost respect for most elected officials.

In 1934, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt realized just how bad the Great Depression really was, he made the bold – and shocking – decision to raise taxes on the wealthiest citizens and largest corporations (the same ones who benefited from hefty Republican-spawned tax breaks the previous decade) to stimulate the economy. He convinced these people that such hikes would benefit them, too, in that more Americans would be able to enter the workforce and pay their own taxes, plus have money left over to buy goods produced by a variety of industries. It made sense. The policy worked to some extent, but the 1929 collapse had been so bad, the positive effects weren’t immediate. Thus, economists and the politicians who think they know so much have been debating the logic of this move ever since.

The Democrats failed on another front regarding the economy. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder never indicted anyone in connection with the recent financial calamity. Anyone with at least half a brain knows it didn’t happen by chance. It wasn’t the inevitable result of market ups and downs. Major banking entities such as Citigroup and Fannie Mae were key players in the debacle. Both helped to create the massive housing bubble at the turn of the century, replete with outrageous features such as zero-down purchases and mortgage-backed securities. As the crisis worsened towards the end of 2008, Citigroup managed to convince the federal government to give it a life-saving multi-billion-dollar loan. But it also began laying off people at its various offices across the globe. Fannie Mae, along with Freddie Mac, also received a multi-billion-dollar, taxpayer-funded bailout; this one in 2009. Yet that investment didn’t become profitable for taxpayers until this year. The average American worker hasn’t seen a lot of positive returns on their “investments” to save the “too-big-to-fail” banks. Those lounging in the economic ivory tower certainly have. For example, Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, received a $16.2 million compensation package for 2011, despite a serious drop in corporate profits. The following year Blankfein urged Americans to consider a later retirement age.

“You can look at history of these things,” he told CBS News, “and Social Security wasn’t devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career. … So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised. But in general, entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.”

How thoughtful. In February of 2009, two months after I earned my college degree, the engineering company where I worked held their annuals employee reviews. Due to budget crunches, my then-manager told me, they couldn’t afford significant salary increases. So, while my living expenses continued to rise, my salary essentially remained flat. I was laid off the following year.

People like Blankfein are part of the current problem of wealth inequality in America. That the Obama Administration neglected to prosecute the scoundrels responsible for all those business closings and job losses – again, this didn’t happen by accident – is reprehensible. If I rob a convenience store of a hundred bucks and get caught, I’d be sure to serve some serious prison time. Hedge-fund managers who manipulated the stock market seem immune to the most egregious of financial indiscretions.

Still, the economy has rebounded since Obama first took office. The unemployment rate, which reached a high of 9.9% in April 2010, now stands at 5.8%. GDP growth stood at negative 5.4% in the first quarter of 2009 and is now at 3.9%. The national deficit was $1.4 trillion in 2009 and now is $564 billion. That all brings up yet another complaint. Why didn’t the Democrats highlight those facts? In his 2012 reelection bid, Obama proclaimed, “Bin Laden is dead, and GM is alive.”

It was simple, yet effective. For many of us, though, the economy really hasn’t recovered. Wages remain stagnant, and jobs are tenuous. We’ve become a contract society.

Moreover, I don’t really blame many people for not voting. I understand the frustration with the hollow words and obstinacy of some candidates. Wendy Davis, for example, began her campaign for Texas governor by attacking her opponent, Greg Abbott, instead of highlighting her own accomplishments. I think it was about 6 months into the campaign before she ran a more positive ad; one telling her life story. Voters really get put off by such animosity from the start. Criticizing the opposition is a dubious tactic. It’s almost as if the individual is hiding something nefarious about their own past. That’s essentially how George W. Bush won his two presidential terms: he had no redeeming qualities, so his campaign team attacked the other guys. And some voters fell for it.

I don’t know what the immediate future holds for this country. With Republicans now in control of the U.S. Congress, I foresee further adolescent bickering between people who are otherwise educated business professionals. I don’t envision economic improvements or tax relief for us regular folks. It’s depressing. That Mars One venture is looking more and more attractive.

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Tagged as 2014 elections, Democratic National Party, employment, President Obama, Republican National Party, U.S. economic crisis, U.S. economy, U.S. politics, unemployment, voting, wealth gap

November 27, 2014 · 9:49 PM

What’s It Like?

My father sat on a riding lawnmower; an interesting thing considering we’d never had one. But, as he traveled across a vast field of bright green grass, he came upon some people standing beneath a large tree; an oak, he thought. Getting closer to them, he realized they were some relatives: his parents, his oldest sister, his older brother and another sister. They all had one thing in common – they were deceased. He could see his parents clearly, especially his father who died in 1969. He could make out the face of his older sister. His brother looked to be in the shadows, and the other sister was cloaked in a black veil. But he knew it was them.

“Do you want to come with us?” his mother asked him.

My father turned to the expanse of grass and nodded his head no. “I can’t,” he told her. “I have to finish mowing.”

Then, he woke up. It was late 2004, and he abruptly snapped out of a depressive funk. He’d lost his second-oldest sister and his older brother within a five-month period that year. Our family was still reeling from that. But, when he recounted the episode to me, he wondered aloud if his time was coming sooner than expected.

“No,” I told him. “They were testing you. They wanted to see if you were ready to give up. But you obviously have a lot of things left to do in this world.” He’d always liked gardening, I reminded him; a trait he’d gotten from his mother. The large field of grass was just a metaphor for life.

What’s it like, I wonder, to be dead? How do people navigate in the afterlife? I’ve always been fascinated with that; what happens to people when they die. Unlike some people, I don’t pretend to know what exactly will happen to me once I expire. But, unlike others, I don’t believe this is it; our life here on Earth is all we get. I’m not so arrogant as to express a firm knowledge of such things. I just have my own beliefs.

When my father’s oldest sister died in February of 1998, we had a simple ceremony in a chapel at the cemetery and then watched her be interred in a place near her father. That’s how she wanted it: just throw her body into a box, drop her into the ground and go on with our lives. Nothing fancy; no drawn-out church mass; no miles-long funeral procession; and no rosary. When I told a close friend about it, he expressed shock that we didn’t have a rosary; a pre-funeral Catholic affair akin to a Protestant wake.

“I hate to tell you this,” he said matter-of-factly, almost ominously, “but your aunt’s chances of getting into Heaven are slim.”

If we’d been sitting face-to-face, I would have smacked him. “Who the fuck do you think you are?!” I screamed into the phone. I unleashed a slew of other invectives, before slamming down the receiver.

This came from a guy who was raised devoutly Catholic, like me, but who – at some point in his early 20s – detoured into voodoo. He had renounced the latter and returned to his Christian roots. Yet, his self-righteous proclamation about my aunt’s spiritual survival was more than an insult; it was an abomination.

Several years ago, while attending a Catholic parochial school, an antiquitous nun (I knew of no other kind) abruptly informed me and some other students that animals have no soul. They just die, she said, and that was it. I was horrified. Did that mean I would never see my beloved dog, a German shepherd named Joshua? I cried deep inside. How could that be? Why would God be so cruel as to deny we animal lovers the company of our pets in the afterlife?

Fortunately, I’ve long since recovered from the perversions of Roman Catholicism and Christianity in general. It’s one reason why I divorced myself from that mess – a sin unto itself. Religion makes people say and do stupid shit.

Theology or not, I’ve never really been afraid of the unknown. I’m not a Goth-like critter who looks for ingenious new ways to kill himself – well, not anymore. My fascination with death started when I was young; perhaps, because I really did think of killing myself. The relentless bullying I experienced in school and the loneliness of being an only child made me contemplate suicide when I should have been thinking about sports or games.

Now, as an adult, I still think about death, but not so much dying. I consider it the afterlife, or more appropriately, the after-this-life. It’s another level the human soul attains; a world superior to this one. I’m not eager to get there! I’m just curious about it. I tell people I have so many books I hope I get to read them all before I die. But then, maybe my after-this-life activities will include reading. And playing with dogs!

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Tagged as afterlife, death, family, religion, spirituality

November 27, 2014 · 12:33 AM

Happy Thanksgiving 2014!

“Great Spirit and all unseen, this day we pray and ask You for guidance,

humbly we ask You to help us and fellow men to have recourse to peaceful

ways of life, because of uncontrolled deceitfulness by humankind. Help

us all to love, not hate one another.

We ask you to be seen in an image of Love and Peace. Let us be seen in

beauty, the colors of the rainbow. We respect our Mother, the planet,

with our loving care, for from Her breast we receive our nourishment.

Let us not listen to the voices of the two-hearted, the destroyers of mind,

the haters and self-made leaders, whose lusts for power and wealth will

lead us into confusion and darkness.

Seek visions always of world beauty, not violence nor battlefields.

It is our duty to pray always for harmony between man and earth, so that

the earth will bloom once more. Let us show our emblem of love and goodwill

for all life and land.

Pray for the House of Glass, for within it are minds clear and pure as ice

and mountain streams. Pray for the great leaders of nations in the House of

Mica who in their own quiet ways help the earth in balance.

We pray the Great Spirit that one day our Mother Earth will be purified

into a healthy peaceful one. Let us sing for strength of wisdom with all

nations for the good of all people. Our hope is not yet lost, purification

must be to restore the health of our Mother Earth for lasting peace and

happiness.”

Techqua Ikachi – Hopi Prayer for Peace

Veterans Day 2014

“Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.”

– Mark Twain

Veterans Day

Image: The Burnt Papers.

The Chief at 51

Wow! I’m 51 today. That’s more than half a century. So, what? I feel pretty good. I’m certainly glad to make it to this age. The alternative isn’t pleasant. I think of the few people I know who died well before 51 and I certainly can’t be thankful enough that I’ve lived this long. Each day I wake up gives me another chance to make my life better.

I do have a few simple wishes:

That my parents’ health improves long enough for me to get their life stories on video. They’re not celebrities, but they’ve led some interesting lives and have some great tales to share.
That my dog lives a few more years. He’s 12 now, which apparently puts him in the same age bracket as my parents. He’s only the second dog I’ve ever own, but he’s made realize what’s important in life.
To get my novel published within the next few months. I’ve worked on this thing longer than most DVD players have been around, so it’s way past time to get it into print. Being a professional, published writer is all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life anyway. I know it’s a tough business, but I can imagine no better profession for me.
To see my freelance writing career take off. Business or technical writing is the second greatest passion I have – somewhere after lifting weights and sleeping nude.
To find a box with $1 million in cash somewhere on the side of the road.

Okay, maybe getting my novel published now is a bit of a stretch. But who says we can’t dream extravagantly?

I don’t know why I’ve made it to this age, nor do I know why I’ve gone through all the crap I’ve experienced. I’ll find out one day. But it’s brought me here. And my life isn’t done yet. I don’t know how much longer I have, but I want to make up for all the lost years of being terrified of the future. Here’s to more time on Earth with the people I love and care for the most!

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Tagged as 51, birthdays, Chief Writing Wolf, November 5

November 1, 2014 · 9:20 PM

Please, Jesus

Cameron Parish, Louisiana – September 23, 2005

I need to pay more attention to my instincts. And to my father. Hurricane Rita was just offshore. Closer to Texas actually than Louisiana. But they kept saying it would move north before nightfall. My father said it would take the same path as Audrey back in 1957. I was surprised when he told me that. But, while his Alzheimer’s seemed to be getting worse, occasionally his memory would let him call out stuff from way back when. Regardless, we were right in the storm’s path. That always sounds so cliché and dramatic, but, in this case, it was more than true. And frightening.

This is just what I need right now, I kept telling myself – a hurricane named after me. Katrina had just hit a month earlier, and now, we have this bitch bringing in the second act. How many other storms were looming out there in the Gulf or the ocean? Just waiting to come in and finish us off. What did the state of Louisiana do to deserve this?

I’d managed to pack my father, Tara, James, both dogs, the computer, the safe and as many clothes and old family photos into my SUV. Thank God the dogs were small. But I still couldn’t believe James, all of 15, managed to wheel that damn safe out to the SUV and shove it into the back by himself. Well, his sister helped – more or less coordinated. “Just stay out of my way!” he kept telling her.

My husband, Eric, was halfway across the globe, stuck in Iraq. My oldest, Carla, was up at Illinois State. They’d each called the night before; frantically telling me to get the hell out of there.

I just told them I was monitoring the storm. The CPA in me was taking a meticulous view of things. I was calm – on the outside. But, inside, I was petrified.

“We’ll be okay,” my father mumbled.

Several years ago he’d said Black people don’t often die in hurricanes because we know what wind and rain do to our hair. People would laugh, and my mother would roll her eyes. But he was actually kind of serious about it. Dealing with his condition now was frustrating – and heartbreaking. It had been four years since mother passed and nearly eight months since I made my father move in with us, until the family could figure out what to do with him.

I looked out the patio door. The dogs stood behind me, trembling. The only good thing about Rita was that it could end this heat wave and bring lots of rain. The bad thing is that folks on this side of the state wouldn’t take it seriously – like folks in New Orleans didn’t take Katrina seriously. Everyone had put too much faith in the levees. And the state government.

“We need to go,” my father said. He donned his gray hat and grabbed an old family bible.

By then, it was getting darker, and the rain was coming in stronger.

I guess we were the last ones out of the neighborhood. But, once we made it to the highway, it looked like we were also the last ones out of the parish. Then, a few cars and trucks made their way past us.

“Mother, let me drive,” Tara said at least twice. She sat beside me.

“No,” I told her. “I’m okay. We’re not going to stop just to switch seats.”

I first headed north, eventually passing under I-10, which sat above us like a parking lot, and then west. There was nothing for us east of Cameron. That part of the state was still a wreck. If we made it to East Texas, I hoped we’d be okay. Please, Jesus, I kept saying to myself. Get us out of here safely.

“We will,” I heard my father mumble.

It was getting darker and wetter. Traffic had thinned considerably. I stayed to the right. The constant thump of the windshield wipers and the heavy beat of the rain were the only sounds. I always loved rain at night. Who doesn’t? Eric often made love to me when it rained – okay, focus on the road, focus on the road.

A thin ribbon of blue-gray hovered in front of us; the remnants of the sun. And the one thing that kept me steady. If we could just make it to that light…just make it to that light.

And, through the dimness, James suddenly jutted his hand over my right shoulder. “What’s that?”

I looked at the dashboard – the engine light had come on. I felt my stomach drop into my pelvis. I didn’t need a hurricane named after me and I damn sure don’t need this shit!

“Watch your language,” my father said.

“Oh, my God!” Tara said, leaning over, almost far enough to block my view.

“Everyone, calm down!” I hollered.

The dogs moaned.

“Are we running out of gas?” Tara asked.

“No, I have a full tank,” I said.

I gripped the steering wheel tighter; a way of saying I was starting to get scared. I wasn’t good with cars. No one in the family was, except for my father and Eric. That’s why they got along so good. James hung out with them, not so much because he liked cars, but mainly so he could get away from the womenfolk.

The engine light remained on – glaring bright orange against the onyx backdrop of the dash. It was staring right at me; like a demon taunting me to do something.

Tara kept leaning over to look at it.

“Tara, would you please stop,” I said.

“But, mother, I’m worried about that,” she said.

“I know. But we need to keep going.”

“Let’s stop at the first gas station we see.”

“Oh, Lord, no! No gas station is still open around here.”

It was just after 6:00 p.m.

Then, a deep rumble came up from beneath the seats, and the entire vehicle began to shudder. Tara gripped the dashboard and looked towards me. I kept my eyes straight ahead; hoping no one would notice if every organ in my body failed at once. My hands were getting moist still holding onto that steering wheel.

The SUV kept rumbling and shaking. And then, started slowing down – while my foot was on the accelerator.

“Mother, just pull over,” said James.

“No!” I told him. “We need to keep going.”

“It’s not going to go much further!” He never raised his voice at me.

The thing was slowing down more and more. Then a loud clanging sound felt like the bottom of it had fallen out and took my sanity with it. I managed to veer off to the right, the windshield wipers still thumping madly. I was surprised to see a few more vehicles come up from behind and then, pass us. I flicked on the emergency lights. Oh, God, this can’t be happening, I screamed to myself.

“We’ll be alright,” my father muttered.

We’d managed to travel less than sixty miles from home and we were just north of I-10; sitting on the side of a state highway. I don’t even remember which one. “Oh, Lord,” I said. “This is just great.”

“Just turn off the engine and let it rest,” James said matter-of-factly. I could see him stroking his chin, like my father did when he went deep into thought.

“No, don’t turn it off!” Tara screamed. Her voice startled everyone and made the dogs bark. “What if it doesn’t start back up?!”

“Tara, do not scream like that!” I hollered.

The sound of the windshield wipers and the rain couldn’t drown out our voices.

“Mother!” cried Tara.

“Tara, stop!” I said. “Please, stop! Yelling isn’t gonna help anything. We’ll figure this out.” I caressed her shoulder, as she looked ahead. Her lips were trembling.

Deep inside my soul, mine were, too.

“We’ll be alright,” my father said.

Oh, Lord, I said quietly, please send your son, Jesus, to help us. I glanced through the driver’s side window, as a few vehicles rolled by, seemingly oblivious to our presence. I kept asking the good Lord to help us; to send his child to get us out of this mess. I don’t know why I kept saying it like that: please send your son, Jesus, to help us. But I did.

It was completely dark now. The blue-gray ribbon had fallen into the horizon ahead of us. The highway lamps on either side of the road bobbed nonchalantly; the light fading.

Tara’s left hand found my right one. She maintained her gaze straight ahead; lips still trembling.

Oh, Lord, please send your son, Jesus, to help us, I screamed into my mind. Oh, please, Lord! Help me get my father and my children out of here. My head began to hurt from hollering inside so much. Please send your son, Jesus, to help us.

I don’t know how long we sat there, alone in the darkness and the ever-increasing rain. At least we were far from the coastline. But, we had nowhere to go.

Lord, please send your son, Jesus, to help us. I let out a sigh and dropped my head down.

Then, I looked out the driver’s side window for what I thought would be the last time, before a wall of water would come rushing up and swallow us whole. And, through the blankets of water pressing against the glass, I saw a pair of headlights in the distance. They were high beams. It was the first vehicle we’d seen in what seemed like hours.

“Well,” I said, “who could this be?”

“Jesus,” I heard my father mumble.

Tara looked up into the rear-view mirror and then, turned around. “Oh, my God! Maybe they’ll stop to help us!”

“I hope so,” I said. I was tempted to jump out and flag them down; my hair be damned.

“Okay, mother,” James said, “if it’s a state trooper, just keep your hands on the steering wheel.”

“Thank you, counselor,” I smirked.

The headlights came closer.

I reached for the door handle. It was now or never. I had to jump out and try to make them stop.

The lights were upon us.

I unbuckled my seat belt.

Then, without warning, the headlights veered off to the right. Whoever it was, had pulled up behind us.

I jumped out, almost falling face down.

“Mother!” Tara screamed. But her voice was drowned out by the rain.

James jumped out of the other side. His sister screamed his name, but again, the rain snuffed her out.

Then, the vehicle – an SUV as large as mine – lurched out from behind us and back onto the road.

“Oh, Lord, no!” I yelled into the wet darkness.

The driver stop right beside me and lowered the passenger side window.

I gripped the doorframe. But, I was already out of breath.

The driver was a solitary young man, his bright green eyes grasping my attention. “Are you alright, ma’am?” he asked.

“No!” I yelled back. I hated to yell at strangers. “I don’t know what happened. This thing just gave out on me! I have my children and father – and my dogs – with me. We’re trying to get the hell out of here!”

“Okay, hold on!” he said. “Let me pull up in front of you.” He inched his vehicle forward, the emergency lights already glowing, and hopped out.

In a matter of minutes, we had everyone crammed into his truck. The back of it was filled with boxes. There wasn’t much room for our own belongings, but the young man even grabbed my box of family photos. I crawled into the back of my SUV and opened the safe, which held our birth certificates, social security cards, a .45 gun and bag of cash. I stuffed all of that into James’ gym bag, which he’d emptied immediately, as if he knew what I was thinking. The other things in the safe would have to stay. Most everything else in my SUV would also have to stay. I turned off the emergency lights, grabbed the keys and hopped into the young man’s vehicle.

Each of us was soaked. “Kind of a bad night,” he said with a chuckle and bright smile, as he moved back onto the road.

“I’ll say,” I told him. “Oh, Lord! I knew we should have left sooner.”

“Yea, me, too,” he said. “I was in Lake Charles on business.”

“Oh, okay. We live out further south.”

“I thought of heading up north. But, I thought, no – better head back to Texas.”

“Oh, okay. Is that where you’re from?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you, sir,” Tara told him. “Thank you, thank you! We thought we’d be stuck there forever.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” he said. “I’m glad I could get you out of here.”

“That makes seven of us,” James said.

We all laughed.

“I just had that thing serviced,” I said, wiping my face with a damp hand. “It’s only five years old.”

“Oh, I know how that goes,” the man said.

“Well, we – oh, I’m sorry! Where are my manners? My name is Rita. This is my father, William; my daughter, Tara; my son, James; and our dogs, Rocky and Bruno.”

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” James said.

“Same here,” replied the young man. “My name is Heh-soos.”

“Say again?” I asked.

“Jesus,” my father muttered.

“Heh-soos,” the man repeated. “It’s Spanish for Jesus.”

“Oh, how nice.”

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Filed under Wolf Tales

Tagged as faith, family, fate, Hurricane Rita, Jesus

November 1, 2014 · 1:08 AM