God Bless America!

God Bless America

Yes, there is a god who has blessed America:

The god of war, the god of slaughter,

The god of dead children,

The god of bullet-leaden bodies,

The god of those who have died in schools, and nightclubs, and campuses, and workplaces, and factories, and post offices, and homes, and sidewalks, and streets, and subways, and train stations.

The god of the gun,

The god of the bullet:

That god has blessed America:

Blessed America with a gun and ammunition industry with a revenue stream of $13.5 Billion a year,

Which (to put it in perspective) would give each man, woman, and child living in America a check for $43.54.

Yes, a god has certainly blessed America,

and filled up our halls with our own dead.

This god loves dead children.

This god loves dead mothers.

This god loves dead fathers.

This god loves dead co-workers and teachers and doctors and teenagers and police and homeless and all the dead. 

This god simply loves dead people.

And this god drinks of the blood of this covenant

Daily.

MR

2016-0621

Overheard at Table 4: How We Now Discuss

The Subject:  Donald Trump Revokes the press credentials of Washington Post

Voter:  I disagree with this.  He should not have done that.

Trump Supporter:  CAIR did the same thing. 

Voter: CAIR is not running for President of the United States, an office that is sworn to uphold the

Constitution, including the 1^st Amendment.

Trump Supporter: The media lies.

Voter: First, that’s not the point.  Second, it demonstrates that he only wants media when he controls the narrative.

Trump Supporter: He’s a private citizen.  He can do what he wants at his events.

Voter: If he wants to be President, he needs to start by upholding the Constitution.  Including the free press.

Trump Supporter: So do you hate Carson and Sessions too?

Voter: If Trump wants to be President, he needs to start by upholding the Constitution.  Including the free press.

Trump Supporter:  The media lies.

Overheard at Table 2: Cats Write Poetry About Cats

and the guy was saying, "So I was walking out of the room the other day, early morning, getting ready for work, and we have two cats, and both of my cats were just plunked down, right there in the hallway, on their sides, cool of the morning, lazy as get-out-of-town.  And then they both raise their heads and look at me as if to say, 'What?!  What the heck are YOU lookin' at?'

"and then this thought comes into my head, what if cats wrote poetry?  and what would they write about if they wrote a poem about themselves and then it hit me exactly what they would write if cats wrote poetry about cats.  Are you ready?   Here goes . . .

"We are cats . . .

. . . and that is that!"

Overheard at Table 3: Prince, The Artist Formerly Known as "How do you pronounce that weird symbol?"

Niall Carter "Why is everybody so obsessed with Prince's sex life?   It's like everyone wants him to be gay?  What's up with that?  Why can't they just be interested in the music?  Does it make a damn bit of difference if he preferred girls or guys or guys who used to be girls or girls who used to be guys?

John Steppenwolf  "I dunno."

Niall Carter "To me, if you wanna know, thanks fer askin' - it was all summed up when he went through that stupid period of the symbol.  He changed his name to the symbol but didn't tell anybody how to pronounce it.  I always thought that was being a little dickish, but whatever, his name he can keep the pronunciation a secret if he wants - but anyway, I think the symbol pretty much summed it all up: Prince wanted to be asexual, or polysexual, or amorphous, or ambidextrous or whatever the hell that word is when you're both man and woman."

John Steppenwolf "Androgynous?"

Niall Carter "Yeah!  That'll work.  Androgynous!"

Overheard at the Counter: Socialist Revolution

The barista looks at my Bernie Sanders shirt and says coquettishly, "Are you a ... socialist?"

I smile conspirationally and reply, "I'm a demoCRATic Socialsist!"
Then, I take my $2 coffee, and walk out into the warm Sunday afternoon, feeling quite revolutionary.

Overheard at Table 3: Husband and Wife Are Thinking

Husband, silent over his cup of coffee, is thinking, "She is so lucky to have me.  She doesn't know how many times I've wanted to grab a suitcase, throw all my clothes into it, and just leave her - but didn't."

Wife, silent over her cup of coffee, is thinking, "He is so lucky to have me.  He doesn't know how many times I've wanted to throw a bunch of his clothes into a suitcase and kick him out the door - but didn't."

Overread at Table 2: from Notes from Underground Revisited

Niall Carter had long since given up trying to read this book.  He left it in the "take a book leave a book" bookcase beside the door of the Z&T Acoustic Café.   Someone has pulled it off the shelf and now sits at Table 2, reading this passage while sipping a latte and eating a freshly baked raspberry scone:

When it gets right down to it, I mean at the base core, and this is gonna sound harsh, and you ain't gonna like it, but brother, man it's the truth - if you really need an answer as to why God allowed Aurora to happen, or why He allowed Columbine to happen, or why He allowed all the misery and murders and child molestation to happen, is because He allows it to happen the same way He allows people to fall in love, how He allows you to hold up your newborn baby and realize you love that child more than your own life, the way He allows you to paint a beautiful sunset, or sing a beautiful song, or realize that every day is something you gotta hold on to, the way He allows you to remember the sweet smells of some Thanksgiving dinner your Grandma made when you were a kid.

He allows all these things to happen, the good and the bad, to let you know that this is a whole great big world you live in, and that it's complicated, and that it's beautiful as well as ugly, and that you are a part of it, and you can impact it in a bad way, or you can bust your ass to make it better.

Other people are making their choices all the time.   What are your choices going to be?