I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

For any who want more, complete list of all posts by month since 2011
  • international day of the girl (or two girls!)

    international day of the girl (or two girls!)


    Pretty and I are fortunate to celebrate international day of the girl every week when we care for our granddaughter Ella who turned 2 years old on October 1st., but we were thrilled to find out earlier this year Pretty Too and Number One Son are expecting another little girl in January! Ella announced the news to everyone last week…

    May be an image of baby, sitting and indoor

    Pretty Too shared this picture of our quite grown up two year old who is more than poetry in motion – she is a force of nature – and language. Movement, words. Every new experience requires exploration and discovery. Frankly, my dears, her energy exhausts this grandmother who was 73 years old when she was born and two years older today, but Ella insists I keep up with each game we play in her imagination informed by the adventures of Deema and Sally on YouTube videos.

    The world Ella and her little sister Molly will inherit from Pretty and me will afford them opportunities to learn in an environment richer in technology with access to a wealth of answers to questions we didn’t know how to ask, but how will historians frame those answers. Who will narrate the journey of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the Equal Rights Amendment failure in the 1970s and beyond, the Gay Nineties, Black Lives Matter, Love is Love, Time’s Up, a woman’s right to choose…will these historians represent the truth and consequences of denying climate change, the power of divisiveness and income inequality, the reality of hunger for the poor children not just in America but also around the world, the election of Joe Biden in 2020, the insurrection in the Capitol building on January 06, 2021. We must safeguard these truths and pass them on to our granddaughters.

    The message will be clear from us. Love who you are, love others as you do yourself. Learn to identify the difference between what is right and what is wrong. When you see something that is wrong, work to change it.

    When Ella began to love the music Pretty played for her on her cell phone, one of the first videos she saw was March, March from The Chicks. This is my message for the village that is entrusted with the care of all little girls everywhere.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and stay tuned.

  • view from the cheap seats

    view from the cheap seats


    Some dogs love to howl at the moon, some dogs stare at the moon but prefer to bark at the mailman, a few dogs never notice the moon at all. They think if they ignore it, the moon will gradually go away – kind of like rain. Dogs who could sing would make up songs like Moon, Moon, go away – come again some other day.

    The United States Senate reminds me of a dog pound. You ain’t nothing but a hound dog Mitch McConnell loves to lead the rest of his pack in howling at the moon on a regular basis, but he’s also learned to sing. This week Sing Along with Mitch brought the hit song Debt Limits, Debt Limits Go Away – come again some other day. Like in early December.

    But then the rest of his minority pack started barking at Mitch for losing an imaginary game of Wake, Wake Don’t Blink at Me with Chuck Schumer who can’t sing at all – can’t even carry a tune as we used to say about my Aunt Sister. Nope. Chuck and his majority pack must be saving their howling for the mailman or the boogeyman or some other man because they’ve 100% lost their voices when it comes to howling at the moon. They can’t even whimper on their own. Whatever song Mitch leads, they sing along from one rousing chorus of Proud Donald to another stanza of Catch the Falling Star of Joe Biden.

    As for voting rights, infrastructure, income inequality, raising the minimum wage, institutional racism, police reform, gun control, burning bushes, floods, pandemics, vaccines against said pandemics, insurrectionists who evidently would be happier without democracy – most of us are like the dogs who choose to ignore the moon. If we ignore the moon, maybe one day it will just go away on its own.

    But what if there’s really a Blue Moon from Kentucky that ain’t ever going away, then what?

    And that’s the view from the cheap seats.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and stay tuned.