Live, Love and Think Positively!

I know I've posted a lot of heavy and negative stuff lately, like my socio-politico-religious rants, so I wanted to post something more positive and life affirming. You're welcome!

Humanism v. Monotheism in the Context of Individual Rights

Defining Terms and Values

hu·man·ism noun

an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.

The Humanist values what it can see, think and feel. They value the cognitive capacity of human beings to rationally consider all sides of an issue without the aid of religion or what I call “magical thinking.”

mon·o·the·ism noun

the doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

The monotheist, and for most Americans this translates Christian, values only what is taught in Holy Scriptures as “the law” or “the word of God.” It sees the world in terms of black-and-white, us-and-them, right-and-wrong, saved-unsaved, heaven-or-hell, righteous-sinner… There is no gray area where life is actually lived. It is filled with “magical thinking.” The fact that you have to conjure up some image of what this deity looks like—in most opinions, male—acts like or thinks like is where imagination comes in, thus “magical thinking.”

Let’s apply these terms and values to the debate on abortion and individual rights.

Liberal-minded Christian with Humanistic Leanings

As a liberal-minded Christian, with Humanist leanings, I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro choice” stance is human dignity, liberty and Constitutionally-protected rights. It is not about the life and death struggle, the tug of war between mom and baby. It’s about the inalienable rights of the woman who has already survived the gestation period and several years on planet Earth. How do the rights of an embryonic life form, with nothing more recognizable than a heartbeat, trump the rights of a living, breathing human being? Have you seen what the fetus looks like when there’s a detectable heartbeat? It resembles a blood-red jelly bean.

Conservative-minded Christian View

As a conservative-leaning monotheist, which I once was, I can say with near certainty that the core of the “pro life” stance is the belief that life is God-ordained and begins at the moment of conception. It’s not even a question about women’s rights or even the health and well-being of the mother. It’s merely the fact that a life has been conceived in a woman’s womb, that sacred space where they believe God miraculously breathes life into the cells of this fertilized egg, a zygote.

I’ve batted for both teams, so to speak. I don’t speak from a limited understanding of the issue, of what’s at stake. I see both sides of the coin. But it does, indeed, boil down to a matter of individual rights, and whether you default immediately to the fetus/baby’s side or to the woman/mother’s, you have to choose who’s rights are more at stake here.

The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken, nearly 50 years ago. But it wasn’t so many years before that, women were fighting for equal rights, and black women for equal rights was only a decade older than Roe v. Wade! 

So let us look at equal rights, shall we?

EQUALITY

The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….” which, at face value, seems to be like a wholly monotheistic ideal. But is it really?

At the time this declaration was penned in 1776, chattel slavery was a widely-accepted practice in the American colonies. Brought to the colonies by the Dutch in the early 1600’s, one could argue that the very republic was built on the backs of non-white slaves. That fact alone stands in complete contradiction to the opening assertion of the Declaration. Were not the slaves endowed by their Creator?

Slavery was an institution supported by the Church and justified by Scripture. In fact, nowhere in Scripture is this concept of equality for all found, certainly not equality for slaves or women. Off the top of my head, the Book of Hebrews is the only place I can recall where equality is preached at all! And there, it is equating the Christian to the Jew as “God’s chosen,” “his children,” “joint heirs” in the promise of Abraham. I would argue that even that Scripture is only saying the Christian male and Jewish male adherents are equal in God’s eyes.

Even the Creation Story itself doesn’t promote the myth of equality. God created Adam from the dust of the Earth. Eve was created out of Adam. From Genesis forward, I don’t see a single shred of evidence where women share an equal footing with men. That patriarchal system, established in “the beginning,” was by God’s design. It influenced the very men who wrote the sacred texts, the bishops who canonized The Bible and the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Even the founding fathers of our nation didn’t all share the same views on monotheism v. humanism. This concept of equality that they immortalized in the Declaration was a myth. It wasn’t supported by Scripture, even though it has very religious overtones, and it wasn’t even practiced in the colonies by the men who wrote it. They believed women inferior, slaves inferior (lower than livestock) and any non-white inferior to them. So what was this equality they spoke of? An ideal? An unrealized goal?

I would say, yes.

Women, slaves and non-whites had to struggle for equality and most didn’t achieve it until the last half of the 20^th Century. It wasn’t achieved in 1776 with the Declaration, nor in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation, nor even in 1920 with the success of the suffrage movement and adoption of the 19^th Amendment. The dream of equality, heretofore just a myth, is just now being realized in the 21^st Century, and not just for women but for “all Men,” gay, straight or otherwise.

Is this a God-given right or a human right? I’d argue the latter.

Left to well-meaning monotheists, this right would never have been endowed upon anyone but the white men who codified the rules, enforced them, preached them and interpreted them. We’ve only seen cracks form in the patriarchal system of control handed down to us from Abraham, and later Moses from Mt. Sinai.

Humanists would argue that we haven’t gone far enough. Their view is that monotheism and patriarchy have done enough damage, run their course. Let the idea of inherent human dignity be the sole driving force behind equal treatment under the law—no God required.

That’s at the heart of the abortion debate—human rights.

I don’t feel that the woman’s right to chose what to do with her pregnancy is anybody else’s business. Like “all Men,” she has bodily autonomy and unless that fetus is grown in a test tube, it certainly depends on the “host,” as some have labeled pregnant women. They are not merely hosts. They are living, breathing life-support systems. They can determine for themselves if a pregnancy is wanted or unwanted. They can make this medical decision for their own bodies and fetuses, just as any human being has a right to bodily autonomy.

Granting women this right, which took from 1776 – 1973 (grasp that span of time for a moment), is a logical step towards this ideal which our forefathers set out in the Declaration. That is nearly 200 years to realize this dream of equality for a woman to be given equal treatment under the law. Are we now to repeal what took 197 years to establish?

Patriarchy, bred of monotheistic ideals, would certainly answer that question with a resounding YES! The establishment would have us believe that the Supreme Court made a mistake. The most outspoken of those on the far right would make a case for a theocracy—a system of shariah-like law practiced in other monotheistic states.

The humanist in me must reject such magical thinking. God did not descend with his scepter in hand and “bippity, boppity, boop!” life was created miraculously in a woman’s womb. It took a man and a woman, and not necessarily in an act of loving, consent. Still, biologically-speaking, two humans of opposite sex had to join forces to conceive. Life, for a humanist, is not a God-ordained miracle. It is biology. Period.

In that sense, the human beings involved in “pro-creation” are ultimately involved in bringing this life to fruition or choosing to end the gestation period. Even in that case, the male co-conspirator doesn’t have more say over the gestating than the women who bears the sole responsibility. Her body equals her choice.

Their religious-sounding, monotheistic rhetoric aside, the 56 men who declared this myth of equality, even while holding women and slaves in submission, couldn’t foresee a time when abortion would strike at the heart of this myth. But now that the myth, the ideal, has been realized it can’t be stuffed back into it’s 1776 packaging. We won’t return to an 18^th, or even a 20^th, Century mentality, no matter how hard the right pushes us in that direction.

Thousands of Cups of Tea

It was January 2009 and I had been reading the NY Times Best-Seller, Three Cups of Tea, after seeing it's author interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning, a show I watched religiously on Sunday mornings. I was living in Indiana and his story so inspired me, that I began raising funds to send to the Central Asia Institute. Here's what I wrote (February 4, 2009) on a friend's Facebook timeline:

I just finished reading "Three Cups of Tea" about Greg Mortensen and the Central Asia Institute. They are combating terrorism in upper Pakistan and at the Afghan border by educating impoverished children that would otherwise attend madrassas (basically becoming jihadists that hate America). 

We can support a teacher's annual salary over there for just $260, so I've plegded my $10 and I'm looking for 25 friends to match that. Are you in?

I was all-in, you could say. Inspired by this man's work, I wanted to do what little I could to help his organization educate, primarily girls, in remote parts of the Himalayas. I was even enlisting my friends' help.

According to Wikipedia, his first book "stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 220 weeks [and] has been published in 47 languages." It was followed by a sequel, Stones Into Schools, which I also read. I'm surprised to find that I didn't blog about any of this in 2009 or thereafter, because it turned into a scandal.

In April 2011, CBS News which had introduced me to Greg and his book, did a damning expose on it's "60 Minutes" program. It interviewed Jon Krakauer who'd written a conspiracy theory claiming all of Greg's first book was a lie, that he didn't stumble into a remote village and share three cups of tea with tribal elders after failing to reach the summit of K2. The program that aired in 2011 called into question everything I believed about Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute, who I'd given my money. It even led to a criminal investigation in Montana which did NOT result in charges, but did show some impropriety. That investigation led Mortenson to repay $1M to CAI. He had been a bad manager of the non-profits money, but he wasn't a thief or a liar.

My curiosity over this story led me to recently Google Mortenson and Three Cups of Tea. What I found really surprised me. Not only was Krakauer a crack and just trying to get rich on Mortenson's coattails, but CBS News hadn't even done their due diligence to verify his claims. Not once did Steve Kroft or his crack team of journalists travel to these schools located in remote mountain villages and talk to the natives!

https://vimeo.com/86945374 (video link)

My Internet search this morning led me to a new documentary, 3,000 Cups of Tea, by Jennifer Jordan and Jeff Rhoads. It attempts to tell the real story of what happened and show evidence of the success of the schools that Greg Mortenson founded. The documentary team actually does the journalistic work that CBS News failed to do by going into the schools and into the villages to talk to the beneficiaries of Greg's dynamic work. They talk to men in the village where Greg shared his "three cups of tea" and documented on film their eyewitness accounts of seeing him stumble across the bridge fresh off his K2 climb. The film also calls into question the journalistic integrity of the American media and how irresponsible they have become in telling people's stories or getting to the truth.

Greg's reputation was nearly shattered in April 2011 by Steve Kroft and his colleagues at CBS News. I found it greatly ironic that the same news source who introduced me to him and his work was the same who attempted to shatter his reputation two years later. Were they THAT afraid of having egg on their face? Well, guess what!

You can learn more about the 2016 documentary film here. I can't wait to watch the whole thing! I'm surprised that CBS News hasn't done a second follow-up to apologize to Mortenson and the CAI, but where are the ratings in that?

White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism

If I could start any non-profit I wanted tomorrow, I think it would be an educational program to treat middle-aged (and older) white males in denial. Their disease? Denial of white privilege. It's an epidemic that seems to only affect that demographic.

Disclaimer: I'm a 50-year-old white male who has benefited from white privilege my entire life.

My co-patriots would like to claim that I'm a guilt-ridden, self-loather who thinks reparations are in order and we should all self-flagellate. Sure, make me a victim in this scenario. But isn't that what "they" do? If you listened to all the alt-right propaganda, it's people like me, in the media, on the streets, waging a war against whiteness! Their way of life, their race and even their gender are under attack!

Poor little white dudes.

The predominance of white privilege has shown it's ugly face throughout history, but I don't need to prove it's existence. To me, it seems as obvious as the nose on my face. To others who've benefited from it THEIR WHOLE LIVES, it's become a "dirty word." We don't like to face our own prejudices and shortcomings. I get it. But denying it's existence would be like spiders denying that they benefit from webspinning, or lions denying their royal jungle lineage. To further this metaphor, white men have existed at the top of the cultural food chain for so long, we even mold our deities in their image. Have you seen most portrayals of Jesus Christ?? I grew up believing that Jesus was a fair-skinned, blue eyed Westerner with a British accent.

Anthropologists best guess


Fighting the denial of the blatantly obvious would be the mission of my non-profit. I would force my target demographic--men who look like me and a lot less like the Jesus pictured above--to look into the mirror and get real with themselves.

In thinking on this idea yesterday, I had a moment of real gratitude. I said thank you to the Universe for my health, my intellect and my good looks. Yes, I'm a frumpy, aging, white man with graying brown hair, wrinkles around my green eyes and a gray goatee. But I could walk into any establishment, even after a long period of unemployment, and talk my way into a job. No one would bat an eye as I sauntered into the building because I fit the model of "normal" in our white-bred, Chrisley Knows Best society.

All I'm asking of my Wonder Bread, milk toast brethren is to walk a mile in someone else's shoes; consider for one minute what their world might look like if they looked like confused, Arab Jesus (see photo above). What would their middle class American suburban experience have been like if they'd been born with brown skin, a disability or even as the opposite sex of their OWN race? Because even white women have been marginalized throughout world history. EVERYONE EXCEPT WHITE MEN HAVE!

But to accept that truth would be to accept all the baggage that comes along with it--from patriarchy to slavery to abominations of every sort (think Hitler and Nazism). We've got a barbaric past. But why own any of that when you control the narrative? See my post last year in the wake of "kneegate" in the NFL.

Men, since the dawn of time, have controlled the narrative. We wrote all of the ancient, sacred texts, the basis for our morals and laws. Then, we made all the rules, we enforced the rules and we protect that patriarchy with a fierceness not even matched by the Spartans (or the Nazis). And because we were simply born into the ruling class--dominant gender, dominant race--we believe we get to continue making all the rules, writing the white-washed narrative and keeping everyone else in the margins. That has been our man-given right since the dawn of time, right?

And all I want is for my brothers all of white mothers to own up to it. Well, that's the first step, anyway. I really want them to go further and consider what this world has been like for people outside their Truman Show bubble. Understanding breeds compassion and empathy.

Denial of white privilege breeds the opposite. In today's American political climate, it's given us the resurgence of white nationalism. It's that militant side of white America who is ready to take up arms to stave the non-white onslaught. You know, all those rapist Mexicans that want to steal our jobs! Too much? Sorry, not sorry. Those are the outlandish claims being made (mostly on Fox News) by the alt-right.

"They" are so worried that someone else is going to usurp white control of everything and take with it all the power, the pen and the privilege. They will rewrite the rules and the narrative--this mythic, monolithic "them" (non-whites). Diversity of skin tones, gender identity and ideas scares the ever-loving shit out of the white aristocracy, especially those on the alt-right. They literally feel that they are in the fight of their lives. The world has turned against them--their government, the media, the people they've oppressed and marginalized for eons.

Maybe they SHOULD be scared! Maybe it'll make them re-evaluate their stranglehold on society and all of it's "norms." But, sadly, it hasn't. It's made most of them dig foxholes in their mostly white, cookie cutter, McMansion suburbs. It's forced them to drag us back, as a nation, into the white ages of Cleaver-land. I'm talking 1950's black-and-white sitcoms, where Father Knows Best and you can Leave It To Beaver.

Life was so much easier for whitey back then, wasn't it? We didn't have "the blacks" rioting and burning down their own neighborhoods and scaring us half to death. We didn't have "the gays" pushing some gender-twisting, liberal agenda down our throats. We didn't have "the gentler sex" demanding equal pay or speaking out (think #metoo). We didn't have "the godless atheists" challenging our WASPy ideals and core beliefs. It's SO scary being a white person these days!

The threat to white privilege has caused this huge backlash and talk of border walls, national (meaning white) security and bringing God back into the classroom. And it's not just non-whites under attack anymore. We have to dominate and control our women, once again, by rolling back advances like abortion rights (Roe v. Wade), voting rights (women are incarcerated, as well) and affirmative action (it benefited women, too). We have to continue to marginalize the voice of gay, white men, even, save their voice be heard and their "chosen lifestyle" be normalized (think recent PBS show, Arthur, debate). Everything non-Christian, non-white, non-male is in the crosshairs because White Privilege Breeds White Nationalism!

It's akin to someone's most deeply entrenched personal issue becoming exposed. The defenses go up immediately. Fight or flight in full effect. Same goes for WASPy, white America. They are deeply afraid of exposing their sacred right (think Manifest Destiny) and having it trampled. Because you understand that to give ANYONE else rights (think #blacklivesmatter) is to somehow diminish THEIRS! Anything that threatens their centuries of control is to be pushed back, demonized and utterly defeated.

I don't feel guilty about it. I didn't make these rules and I certainly don't defend them. My white ancestors were not slave owners. They were immigrants from all parts of Europe, some who were literally despised when they got here (think Irish potato famine refugees). I've totally enjoyed and benefited from my white man card and all the privileges it served up to me. But I wasn't raised to despise anyone who didn't belong to the club (membership certainly has it's privileges). I was raised in a multi-racial, middle class, Midwestern city neighborhood. I walked to school and/or played with neighborhood kids that were African-American, Asian-American, European-American...notice these all have qualifiers. We are all immigrants from somewhere else...NON-natives. So PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU MY WHITE BROTHERS, get over yourselves!!!

Let's end white nationalism today and embrace all cultures, all Americans and even those trying to become Americans. Let us willingly lose our privileged status, the us and them labels and be more courageous. Get out of your foxholes, lay down your defenses and embrace diversity. It is about to be 2020 for God's sake! Let's let go of 1950's stereotypes (ding, ding, ding...it wasn't THAT GREAT back in the old days!) and fully embrace the moment we live in. It's not scary. It's exciting. Change is good. Lay down the crack pipe. Let love rule!

Value and Worth

We ascribe value to so many things, important and unimportant. We apply labels--good or bad, sacred or evil, worthy or unworthy. Think about the activities you feel are worthy of your investment; the causes that are worthy of your sacrifice. These are the things that hold supreme value in our life. We call the ideals and attributes we treasure, "our values."

The problem in our thinking is the skewed perspective and faulty definition we hold of wealth. For instance, we consider Fortune 500 executives as wealthy simply because of their financial value. But think about that. What value does a dollar bill really have? Only that which we ascribe to it. There was a time when that value was based upon the gold standard, and our currency held value in direct correlation to the gold our government held in reserve. But the U.S. Dollar's value in correlation to world currency fluctuates all the time. So what is a dollar really worth? The paper it's printed upon? The ink and artwork? The time and manpower it took to print?

Currency is merely the paperwork that allows us to trade commodities. It is consumable. Some people hold more power than others, but does that mean they are wealthy? It does if you ascribe value to currency. Those Fortune 500 execs are certainly powerful and wealthy, if their value is only found in the amount of currency they possess. But what do we know about any of those people and their core values? Do they have great familial relationships? Do they possess humility, vulnerability and emotional courage? In essence, are they "good" human beings and do they possess a high sense of self-worth?

In my opinion, the people who possess a high sense of self-worth are those who feel loved and accepted. They have a sense of belonging. They are connected to others and to causes that are worthy of their time and investment. I would consider relationships highly important. Financial currency would be, on my classification scale, very UNimportant. Why?

Because as the old saying goes, "You can't take it with you." And even if you amass great financial fortune, pass that fortune onto your children and grandchildren, it will at some future generation lose value, depreciate and/or deteriorate until it lacks any value at all. Conversely, the values that you impart to your offspring will carry them through life. And if those values are cherished and honored, then they will be passed down for many generations without losing value.

Let me ask you this--how many funerals have you attended where the eulogy was all about the financial wealth of a person? How many obituaries or virtual memorials give a spreadsheet of someone's assets and liabilities? How many tombstones are inscribed with words like, "He amassed great financial fortune." Highly unlikely, right? In all my years of genealogical research, I've seen thousands of tombstones and they'll have inscriptions, such as "Beloved husband and father," or "United in life and in death" (for couples). And at the end of nearly every obit or online memorial, you'll read, "In lieu of flowers or memorials, please donate" to this worthy charity or cause. Because the value, the worth, is not in the unimportant things, like how much cash they left behind, it's in the important things like relationships and giving back to the world.

How we define wealth, defines us.

Are you ascribing value to things of great import? Are you investing in yourself and in others? You are worthy of love, belonging and acceptance. We all are worthy.

CHOOSE LOVE! Start with you!

Precedent Setters, the Church v the Court

As I blogged last week about Roe v. Wade, the precedent-setting Supreme Court case from 1973, I believed my case for upholding this nearly 50-year-old ruling was airtight. Well, arguing the points on Facebook did little good to convince anyone. The anti-abortionists on the right cling to their argument equating the medical procedure--for whatever reason--as murder. This is the reason states who are now trying to outlaw abortions are not even allowing exceptions for cases of rape, incest and mother's health. Regardless of what stats, logic or legal precedent you throw at them, it always comes back to "life begins at conception."

The basis for Western morality are the Judeo-Christian Scriptures (Torah/Bible) which were written by Middle Eastern Jews and canonized by European Bishops (the Bible anyway) centuries ago. Wikipedia says, "Which books constituted the Christian biblical canons  of both the Old and New Testament was generally established  by the 5th century, despite some scholarly disagreements, for the ancient undivided Church." To be clear, that was 16 centuries ago or SIXTEEN HUNDRED YEARS! There has been a lot of evolution, science, social change and reinterpretation of the text in that vast expanse of time. Laws that govern current Western culture, still largely based on the moral code of these ancient texts, is revisited and reinterpreted all the time. But let's be, again, very clear that we are talking about a law book canonized 1,600 years ago.

Anti-abortionists want everyone else to buy their theory that this ancient law book trumps all other laws and sets precedent for all time over our current system of governance. That is simply insane!

The precedent for current-day America was set by American judges in the last half of the 20th Century. It was nearly 50 years ago, in my lifetime, that the debate was settled and precedent set--for current day, not 5th Century Europe and certainly not 400 BC Judea! The social norms and mores of those times are mostly irrelevant to the world we inhabit, halfway around the globe, 16 - 26 centuries removed.

That law book, which is a religious artifact, does not set precedent. Our democratic republic is quite simply NOT a theocracy. The separations put in place to protect government from becoming such, are spelled out just as clearly in our Constitution as the right to privacy. The 14th Amendment that protects that right, and served as the basis for Roe v. Wade, was instituted in 1868. So the anti-abortionists, want to erode the protections our forefathers laid out over 150 years ago and wipe away the precedent set by a nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court ruling. Why? So we can return to the barbarism of animal sacrifice and demanding virginal blood be apparent on the marital bedsheets?

They don't merely want to roll back the 1973 protections. They want to return America to the pseudo-safety of the 1950's, of shaming women into having babies that were the products of non-consentual sex, of women remaining silent and knowing their place, of back alley abortions and non-sterilized coat hangers, of putting woman at risk and removing their liberties as equal citizens! It is asinine and insane!

We can't let them lord the control of 5th Century Bishops over our country, our mothers, sisters and daughters any longer! The Supreme Court has spoken, our American forefathers have spoken and the precedent has been set for nearly 50 years. Your ancient religious text doesn't trump that. It's precedence was outdated by the time the Bible was canonized. It's relevance for modern Western culture lacks any real viability--as most of it's taboos on sexuality and women's rights have been long shattered. There will be no dragging back of my America to the dark ages! Not for my generation, not for my daughters', or their daughters' either. Period, end of story.

TRUTH BOMB!

My latest abortion rights rant

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion

This is the hot topic these days with Bible belt states pushing back against what has already been established as constitutional in this country--a woman's right to choose what she does with her body and the fetus developing inside of it. The debate for the pro-right, pro-religious agenda, "pro-life" side ALWAYS comes back to "life begins at conception." But now we have ultra-right leaning states pushing even further in attempting to call masturbation murder, as if God ordained every sperm out of every male body on the planet to be the next human baby. That's absurd!

But the "life begins at conception" argument is NO LESS absurd. Not every egg that receives the fertilizing sperm and becomes an embryonic cell is meant to become a contributing member of society--some of them don't even develop into multi-cell organisms, others don't make it past the first month or first trimester, some will develop abnormally with major deformities and become babies who have to be cared for all of their lives or become wards of the state, while still others will become rapists, arsonists, terrorists or serial killers. My point is that NOT EVERY LIFE CONCEIVED is destined for a productive and healthy existence on planet Earth! And what's even more important, we are reaching critical mass on this planet--just ask the polar ice caps!!

And even if you believe that God ordains EVERY SINGLE life from conception, then you believe that he condones rape, incest and sex slavery! Each of these evils produces children.

What's more, if your belief is that every woman who conceives should be forced to carry the baby full-term, and it survives the 10-month ordeal, will you also support this child by paying to improve public education, housing options, transportation options, providing free public health care and higher education??? No, I didn't think so. That'd be socialism.

But get this--we DON'T live in a theocracy or an autocracy, where one diety or person in power gets to "play god" and decide which women can abort their pregnancies and which can't. Most would agree that rape, incest and other abuse victims should be given that right. So if some are allowed and some aren't, that's where my problem lies. It's as stupid as the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. It's okay to be gay in the armed forces, just hide who you are (and go kill people!). Who are WE (collective population), or THEY (god or government leader) to say who is OK and who ISN'T???

Our government, even approaching 2020, is still by-and-large run by powerful, wealthy, white men (who are insanely rich on the corporate tit) and so I'd ask (for my daughters' sake), WHO ARE THEY to tell them what to do with their bodies or their fetuses. Are any of these "sugar daddies" gonna help my girls through the pains and emotional rollercoaster of pregnancy, or the anguishing pain of childbirth, or the 18+ years they will need assistance in raising my grandchildren?

All human beings have rights and one of those rights, recognized by the courts, is bodily autonomy. The University of California Santa Barbara defines this right as such:

Bodily autonomy is defined as the right to self governance over one’s own body without external influence or coercion. It is generally considered to be a fundamental human right.

Since the planet does not NEED any more babies and even those conceived in the womb are not guaranteed to survive or to be contributing members of society, then there's no need to assert a divine will or manifest destiny to every living embyo. Therefore, we should default, first, to this basic human right, that ALL humans, even women, have autonomy over their own person. Secondly, we have the 14th Amendment and the 1973 Supreme Court decision. As arbiters of the Constitution, they get to tell us, as society, what is allowed and what's not. And last I checked, abortions are allowed.

Before you try and box me into some stereotype, I AM PRO-RIGHTS! I believe in human rights, women's rights, gay rights, voting rights, right to die, right to work, etc., etc...EVEN gun rights, though they should be way more restricted than say voting rights or driving privileges. I believe people have the right to do what they want to with their bodies, to love and marry who they want to, to copulate consentually and either have the babies as a result OR NOT, to smoke pot (it's a plant not a drug) if they want to, to own and shoot guns if they want to...it's not our place to infringe on people's rights for ANY REASON, especially not religious-based reasons!

Quit fighting what's been a social norm (and a legal right) for nearly HALF A CENTURY! No one wants to return to coat hangers or to fight battles over individual rights that have already been won, whether they be civil, women's, LGBTQ+ or otherwise! We WILL NOT return to the 1950's in this country, so please take your seat and enjoy the ride.

Drum Life

I started playing drums around 1978 before I was 10 years old.

It must've been around that time my Uncle Greg, who was more a big brother to me than a younger half-brother to my mom, put together this ramshackle drumkit in his mancave of a basement. Well, it was his parent's basement and Grandma Wright--Lord love her!--put up with our noise making! The foundation of the kit was a 4-piece, Ringo-style kit with pearlized shells, but my uncle had added other drums, like a snareless snare drum that was gerry-rigged with cable and tape as a "rack" tom and then there were the mismatched cymbals.

Let me backup and set the stage for you, so to speak...and there was actually a stage. In the northwest corner of my grandma's basement, under the guest bedroom and bath, sat what today we'd call a mancave. In there, my uncle had his workbench, a converted model train table cluttered with projects in various stages of completion. He was a tinkerer by hobby. Across the room, he'd built a one-foot high drum riser out of plywood and two-by-fours that he covered with artificial turf, the bright green scratchy kind. Atop that riser, sat his ramshackle drumkit that would've looked appropriate as part of Fat Albert's Junkyard Gang.

Now the masonry walls were painted a deep blue, a shade darker than royal, but lighter than navy. Upon that backdrop, my uncle had hand painted the Journey "Evolution" album cover and something from the Prince collection, who at that time was still the artist KNOWN simply as Prince. Now the painting may have come sometime later, probably the 80's, but this is how I remember Greg's mancave. Against the wall sat his behemoth homemade speaker cabinets with two woofers--12- or 15-inch, I'm not sure which. Suffice to say, those suckers were loud. They were powered by this pieced together Hi-Fi system that was my uncle's crown jewel!

His album collection contained the hottest rock on vinyl from that era--Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Toto and the like--so that's what he liked to play along to. The first songs I remember him playing for me were "Hot Blooded" and "Hold the Line," at such extreme volumes so as to hear the music over his heavy-handed playing. I wanted to emulate him, emulating Foreigner's Dennis Elliott and Toto's Jeff Porcaro. When I took the 5A sticks in my hand and felt the pedals beneath my feet, there was a jolt of energy and something took hold of me. Those sticks would become my magic wands, of sorts.

I played for countless hours--to my grandparent's chagrin--along with those records, trying to get every nuance of Jeff Porcaro's 4/4 blues pattern with the triplet feel and matching the power of Elliott's hard-driving pulse. I would eventually work up the nerve to try capturing Neil Peart's essence on 2112 "Overture/Temples of Syrinx." That album, brought over by my uncle's buddy Gary Davis, transfixed me for hours and launched my lifelong love affair with Peart and his band, Rush!

Long after Uncle Greg's flirtation with the drums ended, I began making magic on his ramshackle drumkit in the basement. He'd be out with girls during his high school days (Class of 82) or playing basketball with his buds in the backyard and I'd be hammering away Loverboy's "Turn Me Loose" or Journey's "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" inside. In fact, that Journey tune was probably the second song I learned after "Hot Blooded." Those two and "Hold the Line" (Toto) were the first three songs I ever played on a set of drums. Prior to that, I'd only played pillows on my bed or mom's couch with two Lincoln logs.

I'd eventually graduate to much more diverse music, starting with Styx, Rush, Led Zeppelin and Triumph, but everything I played I learned by ear. I'd already trained myself to listen to the beat of any song first, to learn the drum pattern and to play in time along with records or the radio. I think that's the best way to learn to play the drums. Playing in-time with vinyl records was better than trying to match the speed of the metronome because music has a pulse and a groove. There is no way to simulate that any other way, unless you have recorded rhythm tracks with which to keep time.

When we moved away from Indiana after my high school graduation in '86, my uncle offered for me to take his drumkit with me. It had been scaled down to the original Ringo-style foundation and a couple of cymbals, but it was the perfect size to fit our Tallahassee apartment bedroom, the one I shared with my brother. My parents would never buy me a set of drums. Apart from the expense, they didn't have the patience or hardness of hearing like my grandparents in Princeton (IN). However, they graciously acquiesced because they knew how much my passion for drumming had grown.

It was in that small apartment bedroom at Cameron at Woodcrest in Tallahassee (now Live Oak at 850), that I worked up the nerve to play publicly. So that when asked to play in front of the youth group at church, I did and I was hooked on the live playing experience. I cut my teeth playing for youth group, adult choir and orchestra and eventually the "first string" worship team at Christian Heritage Church. That's where I cut my teeth on the drums and learned various forms of music, including gospel, R&B and big band swing--everything learned by listening, "by ear." Thus launched a lifetime of drumming passion, a pursuit that continues to this day, mostly as a side gig.



It wasn't until the Spring of 2012 that I decided to join a local cover band in Fort Myers Beach that I actually played paying gigs outside of church music. I loved it so much that I've been a gigging drummer in local cover bands ever since!

14th Year on Blogger

In the age of YouTube and social media, blogging seems to be a thing of the past, but I began this blog on this very week of April 2005. Hard to believe that was 14 years ago. My youngest daughter was about to turn 2. In a couple of months, she'll turn 15!

So happy birthday to my blog!

Nolesrock is an online persona I created during the days of message boards and chat rooms. I was very active in talking college sports on ESPN-hosted forums in the mid-to-late 90's and that's where I came up with the moniker. It stuck and so my online usernames have usually been some variation of Nolesrock. Don't believe me? Look at my Facebook URL from when I first joined in 2009.

www.facebook.com/nolesrock

Here we are 14 years after I started blogging--mostly about spirituality, music and life. Then I landed a job in 2011 as a part-time journalist and freelance writer. The blog was loaded with newspaper articles I had written in my short time on the Island. Then it went nearly dormant. My posts these days are few and far between, but when something strikes me, I blog about it here.

Most of my thoughts and ideas go down on paper in spiral notebooks I call "My Journal" which I've kept faithfully since 2012. That's when life turned upside down--my own doing--after my wife and I separated. The fall of that year found me living alone on Fort Myers Beach and my wife and kids living 7 hours away in Tallahassee.

There are good times and bad times filling these blog archives. There are rants, raves and tidbits of wisdom sprinkled in here and there. There's a lot of spiritual wrangling and questions. There are a few attempts at answers. But life happened in these 14 years, some of which I captured in writing here.

I fancy myself a freelance writer still, but most of it is just ramblings and musings I write by hand in my journals. I have a few novels I've started, including one that is finished, if only in rough draft. I haven't written professionally in a couple of years. That is soon to change.

But I will keep this blog as long as Google sees fit to keep Blogger around. It's been a good run. Stay tuned.

My Musical Dark Ages

We all experience dark periods in our life. Mine have come at different times, caused by different circumstances and challenges. But my musical dark period was self-inflicted and started around the time I was nineteen.

BACKGROUND

Now, my involvement with church music started early enough when my parents started listening to Keith Green and The Imperials, dragging us all to the Jesus '77 festival in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. On the heels of that experience, we were attending a Baptist church where my parents were volunteer youth group leaders and I got to hang with high schoolers when I was but a junior higher. I liked the music they liked, to fit in. But we're still not talking about my Musical Dark Ages. These kids were into Boston, Queen and REO Speedwagon. I hung with a troubled youth who was closer to my age and he introduced me to Ozzy's "Blizzard of Oz" album.

Juxtapose that with the disco-infused gospel music of The Imperials in the late 70's, featuring Russ Taff. Our church also hosted this gospel rock outfit out of Ohio who called themselves The Friends of Jesus. Their albums tended to border on Bee Gees-style rhythms, too, but I was just finding my way musically then. A friend of my parents handed me a cassette by Christian rockers, Rez Band (they'd shortened their previous name, Ressurection Band, to be more hip, less Christian-y, I guess). Rez Band was edgier than the stuff my parents listened to and was my first foray into CCM, or Contemporary Christian Music, a musical subculture that really exploded in the 80's.

I didn't go to church much during high school. I didn't listen much to that crap from the 70's, either. I befriended guys in my neighborhood and in high school who loved Rush and the other groups I was growing to love in the 80's. My connection to others was usually through the music we listened to, like my coworker, Dan, at Little Caesar's, my first job that didn't involve cutting grass, babysitting or delivering papers...and also involved coworkers. Dan was next door neighbor to a quiet kid from my school who loved early Sammy Hagar and Motley Crue. In fact, the three of us went to see Hagar in Terre Haute circa 1985. Dokken opened up for him. It was an incredible show!

Back to where this story started, in Tallahassee, age 19, still living at home and taking my first college courses at a TCC satellite campus near our apartment. Enter Preston R. Scott into the scene! Yes, THAT Preston Scott--former WTXL Sports Anchor, Tallahassee Ford spokesman and talk radio fixture. Before all of those ventures made him a local celeb, he moved here in 1987 to become the youth pastor at the church I attended. It was a heavily music-centric church where I got involved in youth ministry and music.

Now, I was attending church not so much to fit in with my peers, but to win the approval of my parents with whom I'd been at odds through most of high school. I was a misfit. I could have been in the cast of Freaks and Geeks. Now, facing adulthood, I wanted to connect with my parents and with something bigger than myself, so I poured myself into church activities, like youth and music. This was late 80's during the time rock music was on trial for lyrical content, backwards masking and corrupting our youth. With encouragement from Preston, I jumped wholeheartedly on that band wagon and burnt all of my secular music in a grand display at a youth function one night.

Enter my Musical Dark Ages.

MUSICAL DARK AGES

My musical dark ages began in earnest in 1987 and lasted about eight years. I fully emersed in the CCM subculture during that time, abandoning all of my favorite music which was "secular." (as if music itself can be inherently good or evil, secular or Christian).

All of this came to mind suddenly this morning while I was reading a Rolling Stone article on the new King's X book. King's X, one of the best power trios to ever cut their own path (akin to Rush), was once stigmatized as a CCM band, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I've been a lifelong fan of the band, but had no idea that Ty Tabor and Doug Pinnick had worked behind the scenes on some CCM albums I had, like Morgan Cryar's "Fuel for the Fire" (Pictured, left). This vocal hack was sold to people like me, hungry for secular music alternatives, as Jesus' answer to Bryan Adams. I mean, just look at the cover. The guy couldn't hold Bryan's mic cable, but the production was slick, the music catchy enough and it was markedly more cool than The Imperials and Keith Green.

I became a regular at The Christian Bookstore on Thomasville Road and bought up every CCM album on CD* I could stomach, ranging from Amy Grant to Stryper. But even before Preston had convinced me to devote myself wholly to this "more wholesome" rock music, the previous youth pastor, who fronted a house band called Don Carr and Sold Out (they sold me on going to church at Christian Heritage in '86), brought in a real rock star to perform at our church.

*Remember, the 80's was the dawn of the compact disc (CD) and I didn't buy my first CD player until we moved to Tallahassee in the mid-80's. I think Whiteheart's "Don't Wait for the Movie" might have been my first CD purchase.

Rick Cua, former bassist for The Outlaws, had just released his rock anthem "Wear Your Colors" and he brought his band of big hair, big amps and an even bigger double-kick drumkit and transformed our sanctuary on North Monroe near Lake Jackson into a concert hall. I ran a spotlight for that concert and became a big fan. In fact, Cua's touring drummer, who's name escapes me, was the first who taught me to twirl my drumsticks! Anyway, Cua and Carr had singlehandedly convinced me how cool being a Christian rockstar could be. This was right before Stryper became darlings of MTV.

By the time I destroyed all my old music, I was following bands from the CCM subculture like Whiteheart, the Allies (whose frontman, Bob Carlisle, would later score a mainstream hit with "Butterfly Kisses," I know, gag me!) and Petra. All of these groups was trying so hard to mimic their secular counterparts. I'll never forget hearing the opening lines of Allies "Long Way from Paradise." The Butterfly Kisses guy could belt some blues-laden rock-n-roll--"WE GOT LOUD GUITARS AND A ROCKIN' BAND!" and the Allies launch into a Led Zepplin-esque romp! I was hooked. But that was the kitschy way they won over hungry CCM fans like me.

Now, I'm not dogging all of these musicians/bands. In fact, some of the music, very little of it, has stood the test of time and I still enjoy it today. Some of the bands had VERY talented artists! Take the drummer from Whiteheart--Chris McHugh--for example. He has been Keith Urban's musical director and drummer for years! That guy still rocks! His bandmate in Whiteheart, Gordon Kennedy, penned the smash hit "Change the World," for Clapton. So it wasn't all kitschy Christian crap...but much of it was. And I was listening to it exclusively, largely missing out on the Grunge music period of the early-mid 90's.

I know.

Enter King's X, bringing us full circle. A friend of mine handed me a cassette copy of their first album, "Out of the Silent Planet." He was a church friend, one of my first from the Don Carr and Sold Out days. He'd gotten the cassette but didn't care for it much. Like most of the music industry, he didn't know what to make of them, telling me they were a new Christian rock band. I was blown away by what I heard. Looking back, I think they were the drop-D precursor to all that followed in the 90's, like Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Nirvana. In fact, they opened for Pearl Jam in the mid-90's, and no they were not a Christian band.

I wore this cassette tape out on many road trips to Atlanta in my black Pontiac Fiero. The dischordant guitars backdropped against beautiful, Beatles-esque harmonies was like nothing I'd ever heard. These guys were groundbreakers and I was hooked from the first song on the album!

Thankfully, I'd get a chance to see King's X live at the Cow Haus in the early 2000's and hung with them after the show. I absolutely LOVE Doug Pinnick, their frontman and bassist! All three of them are cool, laid back and mega talented!

Anyway, this probably began my metamorphasis and slow drift out of my Musical Dark Ages. I eventually gave most of my CCM collection to my brother and sisters. I began collecting 70's music first, the stuff like Wings and Stevie Wonder that always transported me back to my innocence and childhood. Eventually, I made my way back to hard rock and metal, and even gave myself a crash course in grunge music. I never returned to the artistic deprivation of my musical darkness. That period still haunts me to this day.

Reading that King's X article this morning was a revelation of sorts. Once I learned that Pinnick and Tabor collaborated on the Morgan Cryar album, I looked up the opening track, "Pray in the USA." Hearing that song on YouTube sent me right back to 1986! I remembered owning that album on CD, how it made me feel at the time and how deep in the musical darkness I was.

Thanks for indulging me on this musical foray into my dark period.

Anti-Christian Believer

I haven't expressed many religious views in some time and that was partly the basis for this blog which began in 2005 or thereabouts. And as I was showering this morning, I thought about the deconstruction of my faith that has been occurring in spurts and starts ever since that time. So let's talk about that, shall we?

MONOTHEISTIC MYTH

Some of the world's great religions--Christianity, Islam and Judaism--purport this mythic creative being who is so above our human consciousness so as to be nearly incomprehensible. But is "he" really?

On counterpoint, the humanist idea purports this idea of the fully realized self--the perfect human, if you will. But is that idea really so different? Allow me to explain from my own personal upbringing.

The God of my childhood was certainly created in human image and explained to me as a loving, yet militantly disciplinary parent. I mean, uber-militant, like say your prayers or risk hellfire. Scary, right? Juxtaposed to his sense of fairness and justice, was the loving father figure who, once in his good graces, couldn't lavish enough love on you. As I grew to understand this concept of a perfect being of the most perfect love, I realized God possessed both masculine and feminine characteristics. I mean, even the Bible describes him/her as a mother hen gathering us like chicks under her wings.

But in all those descriptions, meant to put God in terms we could understand, he/she is merely the perfect parent or fully realized human--God in our image.

Is that so different than the humanist view of a supreme being? To me, this idea purported by monotheism that he is something more is a vain attempt to explain how and why we are here.

INTELLIGENT DESIGNERS

The argument of the intelligent design community is a full spectrum away from the randomness of the chaos theory. But let us be honest. Isn't it just as plausible that aliens of a far more advanced reality designed our universe as it is that a God creature did it in a mere six days? And what's so intelligent about a black hole anyway? Did those designers say, "Yeah, this is great and all, but you know what this galaxy needs? A huge vacuumous drain!"

I'm only halfway joking, here. If I am supposed to believe there is this incomprehensible being "out there" somewhere looking over this intelligent design he created with a word, why can I not consider him/her and alien being. Maybe she's an alien mother hen that exists in another realm---a highly creative chicken with a sadistic sense of humor.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN

My deconstruction of my faith has caused me to become very anti-Christian. Especially in today's polarized social climate, I have very little tolerance for the bigotry, sexism and homophobia of ultra-right-wing Christian expression.

My own Christian experience ran the gamut from Catholic to fundamental Baptist to the zaniness of Pentacostalism. I minored in religion at Florida State University to try and make sense of it all. What I came away with left me convinced that they are all basically full of shit. And the crazy part is that the Protestants don't seem to understand that the book they so highly value was given to them by Catholic Bishops from the 4th - 6th centuries, who couldn't have been any further removed from the Christ figure if they were meeting on Neptune, instead of Europe. And these bishops had an agenda. Why do you think some books were in and some were out? Because they picked what fit with their worldview, theology and bias. And the world--Catholics and Protestants, alike--have been lapping it up like it's water from the fountain of youth ever since. We don't even question it, not even when it clearly contradicts itself, at least I was raised not to question it.

My father, to his credit, did question the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church. That's why we left and became Baptists in the late 1970's. He had what he describes as a conversion experience in a charismatic Bible Study that led him to a spiritual retreat called Cursillo. Just before we moved to Florida, however, my mom got very interested in the Charismatic movement in the Church, an outgrowth of the hippie church movement of the late 60's. She and my dad read a book called "Walking and Leaping" by Christian author Merlin Carothers. Once in Florida, they sought out a church that was "filled with the Spirit" and that's how we became CathoBaptiCostals, term I like to think I coined in the mid-1980's.

I always said that this upbringing gave me a well-rounded view of Christianity, but it really didn't. It was all pretty much based in fundamentalist ideology. It just took very different approaches to the foundational salvation message. It wasn't until college and even into adulthood, when I first encountered liberal Christians on Internet message boards, that my fundamentalism was even challenged. I'd never considered Christianity from a liberal or humanist worldview. I didn't know those kinds of Christians existed, or at least I never validated their brand of Christianity. I looked down upon such blasphemers as fake Christians.

When I go to church now, which is infrequently, I surround myself with these liberal types, who believe in justice, equality, inclusion and such. But I go to that church with a very anti-Christian mindset. I just don't trust Christians very much anymore. I totally get why a large portion of the world hates and distrusts them.

I still want to believe in goodness, in love, in fairness and justice, I just don't believe that it all starts with this other-worldly being who we cannot really comprehend. It'd be just as reasonable to assert that it started with highly evolved beings from another galaxy or whatever.

The theology and the book it is loosely based upon don't interest me as much as the result. How does your belief define you and make you treat others? Are you a decent human being? Are you a responsible, charitable and compassionate inhabitant of this planet? Do you make others better by your being here? The results, the actions, are what speak the most to me.

Well, I've run out of steam, so we can discuss this more later...

FATHERHOOD

I'm no good at this anymore...not the blogging. In fact, since I've been confiding so much in my journal, I hardly find time to write much else. This may not even be a complete thought I have to share, but I figured I'd start it just like any entry in my journal.

MY FATHER

I've been dreaming about my dad a lot the last couple of weeks. Very vivid dreams in which he is usually upset, perturbed or frustrated about something and taking it out on everyone else. I don't know why I've been dreaming about him so much. He's still alive and well. But dream I have.

I shared one of the dreams with my youngest daughter because, in it, he was getting upset with her because his feelings were hurt by her unresponsiveness. It's not like my youngest daughter at all to be unresponsive, unless she's totally distracted or asleep. In this dream it was the latter and he could not wake her up to go with him on an errand or to breakfast or something. The details of my dreams, often forgotten are not important, but the very real feelings they evoke are. I got very protective of her in this one, standing up to my father, dressing him down and even going a step further into the territory of insult.

Now, I know I was taking my life into my own hands at that point because he could react in one of two ways--sulk away defeated or charge at me like a bull. I feared the worse, but he simply sulked away, feeling bad about how he'd acted. My youngest wouldn't hurt a flea, let alone intentionally hurt her Papaw. I held my groggy, upset girl close, closer than ever, and just stayed in that embrace for several long minutes, ignoring my mother who was trying to gloss things over.

Okay, that was way more than I intended to share about that dream, but that's been the nature of my dreams about dad of late. Maybe I should call him and smooth things over.

We've never been super close, but we've had our moments. Take Summer 2016, for example. My father, freshly widowed and living alone in the house he and Mom had just purchased the year she died. She had cancer. I took that summer away from my kids and work and invested it in our relationship. It was a good summer and a great investment of time. Sadly, the closeness we shared that summer wore off within a year.

Dad went back into his shell. I got resentful. I didn't feel like I could share openly anymore without his judgment or religousy advice. It saddened me. Then he shot me a text in response to a rant I had sent him and it angered me. I didn't text him for awhile after that.

I'm thinking that distance, his retreat and my reaction to it are what's bothering me. Maybe reconciliation is in order.

HEMINGWAY

I recently took a keen interest in the lauded author Ernest Hemingway. It would seem that no amount of his creativity poured out onto the printed page could free him of his demons. He took his own life by shotgun in 1961, seven years before my birth. I was never an avid reader, growing up, and knew very little about the author. I knew of his Key West home, his affinity for liquor and that he'd won many accolades, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. I began to think I wanted to be him. I've dreamt about the Keys since my first visit in the early 2000's. Making my first trek to Key West some six years ago, I've been determined that I will one day live there. As an aspiring writer, I think I really wanted Hemingway to become my hero. But I knew so little about him. So I started reading.

First, was a novel in which he was the main character, written some 12 years ago by Michael Atkinson, titled "Hemingway Deadlights." It gave some keen insights into him as a person and international celebrity. Then, I did a little research into his suicide, which has since 1961 been dissected every way until Sunday. Fully psychoanalyzed posthumously by the experts, I feel like I understand him a little better.

Hemingway's father committed suicide with a pistol to his head the same way my maternal great-grandfather took his own life. Their self-inflicted deaths occurred within 15 or 16 years of each other, my Great Grandfather Roy Larson and the elder Hemingway. Just made that connection as I was writing this blog post. Anyway, that suicide obviously shook the author and influenced much of his work, including the book I'm currently reading, "The Garden of Eden," published posthumously in 1986.

I began to wonder why the influence of our fathers had become a recent theme in my life and my thinking. I shared a little of this with my daughter this morning after church.

FATHERHOOD

The theme was even present at this morning's worship service. I mean, the overarching theme of God, our Father, is always present, but Pastor Betsy was sharing some of her personal experiences with her father from childhood. He's still with us, as well, and was at the service today. Her story was one of love, service to the community and how his work had inspired her.

There I was sitting with my own daughter, considering the effects of fathers on their children. I feel very fortunate to have a great relationship with my youngest, Makenna. She took communion with me, a weekly ritual at our particular Methodist congregation, and we sat down. She immediately wrapped both arms around me in the most loving embrace. I simply closed my eyes and just absorbed it into my being. It felt so good through and through. I began to tear up under the weight of such unconditional love. Seeing the mist upon my eyes, she looks up and says, "It's okay to cry." I smiled, pointed at my eyes and said, "They're happy tears." She responded, "I know." And we sat there a moment longer.

Like I said from the outset, I hadn't completed this thought. These were just three seemingly random recent events that I tied together this morning under the heading "fatherhood." Still processing what it all means. All I know is, I love my daughter and I will always be here for her.

Remembering Jeff Porcaro

Just found this Drum Talk video honoring drumming idol Jeff Porcaro, of Toto fame, and it reminded me of the first time I saw someone demonstrate the Rosanna shuffle groove.

And while I play this shuffle groove with much more feel and fluidity than this "vlogger," I appreciate his scholarship and he shared some things I had forgotten, like Jeff's start as Sonny & Cher's drummer.

Toto IV came out when I was in Junior High and Rosanna was the big radio hit from that album before Africa rose to #1 some months later. I loved the groove and Jeff's drum playing, the jazz piano break followed by scorching guitar solo. It was just a great song and rightly received "Record of the Year" honors at the Grammy's. But I couldn't play it. In fact, I didn't really get the Bernard Purdie shuffle feel until many years later.

Specifically, I remember being at worship band rehearsal one night at Christian Heritage Church in the early 2000's. Christie Cole, our leader, was out that week and one of her backup singers was leading. The singer's husband was a drummer and at rehearsal that night he sat down and rocked out the Rosanna shuffle. My jaw dropped. It was right then that I realized the power of ghost notes and how on that groove, in particular, they provide the undercurrent and fluid, forward motion of the "Purdie Shuffle." Later, I would learn that it was Purdie who influenced Jeff's use of shuffle in his early work, like on Steely Dan and Boz Scaggs' records. But I watched in awe that night as this drummer, unknown to me, sat down and nailed it like it was the easiest thing to play. I took notes.

Later on, as I relaxed into the shuffle and learned to play those ghost notes in time and with groove, I was able to play the Rosanna song with feel and without rushing it. Since then, I've played along with it many times, though the tom fills still give me fits! It's just one of the reasons I count Jeff among my heroes.

My first encounters of his groove and deep pocket playing were, unbeknownst to me, while listening to his songs on the radio, like Lido Shuffle and Lowdown, both childhood favorites by the incomparable Boz Scaggs. At the time, I didn't know he was the grooving force behind Michael McDonald's I Keep Forgettin', another classic and a childhood fave. My first cognizant realization of his prowess was while playing along with Toto's first album, released in 1978.

I was a 10-year-old in my grandmother's basement, listening to my uncle's record collection in his early version of a "man cave." This room, walls painted a rich blue with my uncle's custom album cover art, had a drum platform and a rag tag set of drums, where I first cut my teeth on the kit. His vinyl collection included the first three albums I ever played along with--Foreigner's Double Vision (1978), Journey's Evolution (1979) and Toto's self-titled first album (1978).

I played along with these albums over and over until I could hit all the parts in lock-step with the players, even if I wasn't playing them exactly right. To this day, Hold the Line from that first Toto album is one of my favorites. I didn't even realize I was playing a pretty basic blues groove on the chorus, but it seemed to come very naturally to me. In fact, I seemed to have a knack for picking up on syncopated kick and hi-hat patterns without too much trouble. It was playing with groove and feel that would take many more years of practice.

But that was my introduction to Jeff's playing. I would follow him for many years and would to my surprise find out that he played on many great songs I'd grown up on. As an adult, I fell in love with the body of Steely Dan's work. Found out he was a session drummer for them...and scads of other artists spanning the 70's and 80's. In fact, he even played on an album by Christian recording artist, Bryan Duncan, on a song I'd loved since childhood. On this track, as on every track he's ever played, he does it tastefully, with groove and feel, providing the band with a deep pocket. Jeff was never very showy; never tried to steal the spotlight.

Jeff was taken from us in the prime of his life in 1992. His drumming, along with Neil Peart and Steve Smith, were my earliest influences. Had I known all the great tracks he had recorded in the 1970's, I would have called him my first, but I really discovered him in 1978-79 and followed his short-lived career over the next fourteen years. I purchased the only instructional video he ever did and have watched nearly every YouTube I could find, from his performances in '76 with Boz Scaggs on Japanese TV to his later concerts with Toto, where he never even took a drum solo. His selflessness and modesty was on display in this rare interview that I just recently discovered (from the late 80's?):

I listed Jeff among my Top 5 Modern Drummers back in 2009 and even included the clip from his instructional video where he breaks down and explains the roots of his Rosanna shuffle. After that, I immediately had to go work on Led Zeppelin's Fool in the Rain.

Well, that's my tribute to one of my all-time favorites and a huge influence on my playing style--the one and only Jeff Porcaro. Rest in peace, brother.

4G Grandfather Duston Mills, Pioneer

In August 2015, I wrote my "200+ Years in Indiana," post documenting the family of Duston & Louisa Mills, which included three sets of twins! My hopes back in 2015 were to finish a book of family history on the Mills who emigrated from Maine to Indiana in the second decade of the 19th century.

It was Duston's father, James, who brought the family to Indiana circa 1811, picking a spot east of Princeton, overlooking the Patoka River. Duston was five and one-half years old when the family landed at Evansville on the Ohio River, New Year's Day. They made their way north to Gibson County, a halfway point between their landing spot and the old fort at Vincennes, by then a territorial capital (the Old Northwest Territory). The U.S. Land Office opened some time later in Vincennes is where James Mills would go to enter his land. When Duston was entering manhood, he inherited some of that land plus what he'd receive as a dowry from his father-in-law, named below.

Even though my 4G Grandfather was a Maine native, he grew up, married and began family life in Gibson County, so I consider Duston my earliest Hoosier ancestor. As the crow flies, the farm where my maternal grandmother grew up is only a little more than a mile from that spot. When I made that discovery some 20 years ago, I was delighted. It meant that my family had farmed that same sacred soil for nearly 200 years.

Indiana celebrated it's bicentennial in 2016 and I really wanted to publish "My Mills Family: 200 Years in Indiana" that year, but it wasn't in the cards. I still had too much digging to do to document all of the many branches of that family that remained in the Hoosier state. Following that path from Duston to my own nieces and nephews, took me from 1804 to present, spanning eight generations. As you can imagine, that's quite an undertaking and the book has grown to nearly 400 pages!

Go back with me, if you will, to those early pioneer times in southern Indiana. It was the only portion of the state that was fairly safe from Indian attacks. A flood of pioneers came to the Hoosier State in those first three decades of the 1800's. Farms on the rolling hills east of Princeton, above Indian Creek, were cleared one acre at a time, usually by one man and an ox or mule. These are the times that Duston was raised to manhood, learning the agricultural, lumber milling and carpentry trades. He became a well-known Gibson County farmer, cabinet maker and a builder of flatboats.

He assisted in the organization of the county's first agricultural society, signing incorporation papers 19 Sep 1856, per Gil R. Stormont's History of Gibson County, Indiana...p.113. He and brother-in-law, Richard Hussey, are credited by some historians as founding the Patoka River town of Kirk's Mill, named for another pioneering family. That place was later granted a post office and named Bovine before being renamed Wheeling (it's present-day name). Back in pioneer times, the river at Kirk's Mill was 4G Grandfather Duston's launching point for pork and agricultural products by flatboat all the way down to New Orleans via the Patoka, Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. I forget how many pounds of pork, lard, corn and wheat made those long, arduous journeys south, but suffice to say it made him a wealthy man, by era standards.

Duston, often spelled Durston/Durstan, was a Whig in politics, but as Stormont writes, "on the organization of the Republican Party he cast his fortunes with that party." I believe he was also a Cumberland Presbyterian by religious affiliation. He married Louisa "Eliza" Stapleton 16 Dec 1827 in Gibson County. She was the daughter of a Tennessean, Joshua Stapleton, who served as a private in the Indian War of 1811 and Gibson County Historian Elia W. Peattie notes that he was "a hero in the Battle of Tippecanoe." After the war, he'd also settled in the same area of central Gibson County, so Louisa was a neighbor of the Mills family.

Together, they raised eleven children and buried another in infancy and also raised a couple of their grandchildren on the farm. Duston died there in 1875. I even have an image of the funeral announcement, but it fails to mention where he was laid to rest. His place of burial remains a mystery to me to this day. His widow lived another six years, but her burial place in 1882 is also a mystery. It's possible they were buried together across the road from their farm at Lawrence Cemetery. There are several members of the Mills, Greek and Hussey families buried there. It sits just north of where Louisa grew up.

Documenting the history of their children, grandchildren and four generations of descendants, focusing primarily on those branches who remained in Indiana, is the aim of my book. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Epic Fail Jimmy Dean!

I've always been a fan of the Jimmy Dean Pancake Sausage breakfast rollups on a sick. You know, the ones that look like a Pancake Corn Dog? Not only are they a really convenient, quick breakfast, but they taste really good. So when the company came out with the bite-sized version, I was quick to try them. I bought a 92-pack at Sam's Club at the beginning of the month.

As you can see on the packaging below, they are pictured to look just like mini-versions of the original. Bite-sized pieces of Jimmy Dean link sausage encased in light, fluffy pancake and cooked to golden perfection. What you can also tell in the photo below is that what comes out of the box looks nothing like the image on the front of it.

The smallish nuggets are NOTHING like what was advertised or expected. They don't even come close to the larger, original version. No, these sausage ball-sized nuggets, don't resemble, taste or come close to the originals.-  #FAIL #Jimmy Dean - In fact, I was so disappointed, I posted the above photo to their Facebook page. They didn't like that, so they attempted to move me away from social media, presumably to handle this privately by e-mail. Again, #FAIL #JimmyDean 

On the day I posted this, October 2nd, I got an immediate message from their Facebook Manager, "We're so sorry to this but we appreciate you reaching out. We'd like to have consumer affairs get in touch so we can get to the bottom of the issue. Is there an email or phone number our teams can reach you at?" I promptly gave them my e-mail address and waited...and waited. *Cue Crickets*

Here's what I expected to receive from them, "We're very sorry for your experience and that our product didn't meet your expectations..." Instead, I got NOTHING! ZERO!

So, after no word from them in three weeks, and 70 or so frozen turds just sitting in my freezer--my girls won't even touch them--I reached out at 8:25 this morning, threatening to go back to social media shaming. As of 10:25 a.m., they have again failed to respond to my customer complaint. So I'm posting this to ward off any potential customers. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!

I know that I never will again, and because of their epic fail at customer relations, I'm planning to boycott any and all Jimmy Dean products. Feel free to join me and let them know on their Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/JimmyDean/

That's where I'm about to post a link to this blog post.

#epicfail #jimmydean

White Angst - Black Protest

When black athletes sit, kneel or stand in protest, they are quickly shouted down by the angry white masses. This is nothing new in this country. Every time people of color take to the streets or protest inequality in anyway, it seems to ruffle the feathers of white privilege and the age-old Establishment (a primarily Anglo-Saxon fraternal order). It's like a sudden eruption of white-hot angst from just below the surface that bubbles over in the form of hate, outrage and bigotry. In recent weeks, it was the protest of a handful of black athletes that caused the volcano to let loose it's vitriolic magma.

Interesting, isn't it? When a black man, no matter his socio-economic status, rises up to shout down inequality and injustice, a dozen whites stand to shout him down, as if to say, "Know your place, negro!" First, they taunt him and label him a spoiled, crybaby who is ungrateful for the hand up that sports provided him and, thereby, democracy. Then, they want him fired from his job for using the platform that we've given him to speak (how dare he use his celebrity status to speak up for what's right and give a voice to those who have no platform!). They somehow twist and reshape the narrative to fit their own racist ideology and self-serving agenda. In this case, they've attempted (and failed, mind you) to make this a debate about patriotism, nationalism and our flag. "How dare they disrespect our flag!"

Well, let's humor that rewritten narrative for a minute and turn the tables on the angry white folks. I often ask my white, nationalist brothers, "Is your sense of patriotism THAT fragile, that someone kneeling during the anthem can shatter it to pieces?"

Despite the fact that hundreds of war veterans have come out in droves to support the freedoms they so valiantly fought for, you still have angry whites making this about veterans and disrespect. Pretty sure the liberties that so many laid down their lives in defense of extend to our brothers of color, or is that, again, a white privilege??? It certainly was a white man's privilege in 1789 when the Bill of Rights was written. But haven't we progressed from the 18th century?

I think what spurs so many whites in counter-protest is not their patriotism, but their white privilege and white angst. For a closer look at white angst, I refer to this blog post or this article about "the primal scream of white America," which echoes what I wrote last March. It's an attack on their sense of superiority, plain and simple, and they don't like it.

So twist and turn the narrative all you like, the fact that black people are supposed to keep their opinions to themselves and off the playing field and television is the opinion of a majority in white America (at least the vocal majority). It harkens back to the days of slave ships, chains and muzzles. And while that may seem sensational to my white brethren, I remind them, "How many of your ancestors were brought over in iron chains and muzzles?" The failure here is of white people to empathize and to understand. Not one of the counter-protesters has taken a millisecond to walk in another man's shoes.

They don't WANT to understand, they just want their privileged status to remain unchecked. They want their NFL to remain mindless entertainment with no political or real social value other than fodder for Monday morning water-cooler banter.

The black conscience bears the scars of centuries-old oppression and outright torture. Don't tell them when and where they can speak or what they are protesting. You've never even tried to listen or to hear their cries or to walk a halfstep in their well-worn shoes.

Stop the hate. And stop hiding behind your white privilege! For once, I implore you to listen...to try to understand. The flag that waves over this country hasn't always represented freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone who stands beneath it.

#takeaknee