I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Personal

  • Chick Rebels in Words and Music: Molly Ivins and Linda Ronstadt


    I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults. – Molly Ivins (1944 – 2007)
    Molly Ivins was a writer best known for her columns in more than 400 newspapers across the country which poked fun at her favorite targets: the corrupt Texas legislature, George Dubya Bush and Bill Clinton, her adopted state of Texas, bubbas in that state, herself, and the breast cancer that eventually killed her. A best selling author, humorist and speaker, she became one of the most famous female storytellers  ever to claim the state of Texas as her own – to run with that image as the tall Texan in her cowboy boots,  her pickup truck and  her dog named Shit as she mixed it up with the most powerful people in the state capital of Austin.  At her height of 6 feet she was easily spotted at the bars and cocktail parties where she drank with enthusiasm and was frequently overserved. Alcoholism was an addiction she considered necessary for her humor, but the laughs came with a steep price.
    I grew up in Arizona. I love it. I’m a part of the desert. I feel like, really I’m from the Sonoran Desert, which extends to both sides of the border. I’m really from that part of Mexico, also. And I hate that there’s a fence, you know running through it. Linda Ronstadt (1946 – )
    Linda Ronstadt was two years younger than Molly Ivins and came from a state farther west;  she told her stories with musical notes rather than simply relying on written words. A voice with a truly pure sound that defied labels, her eclectic genres included rock and roll, hard rock, soft rock, folk, art rock,  country, gospel, rhythm and blues, opera, standard American classics, Mexican mariachi, pop, five golden rings and a partridge in a pear tree. She became a female musical powerhouse in America during the 1960s and 70s when the profession was male and drug dominated – not necessarily in that order. Linda avoided heavy drugs but succumbed to an addiction for diet pills that plagued her at various times during her ten years on the road. In 2011 she retired due to the onset of Parkinson’s disease, a disease that also affected her maternal grandmother, a disease that has taken away her voice.
    This past weekend Pretty and I went to see two documentaries…Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice and Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins. I’m glad we saw them close together almost like an old double feature because I had an opportunity to reflect on the lives of two women who used their individual voices of celebrity and talent to challenge the politics and culture of the newspaper and entertainment industries at a time when women across the globe sought to make their own voices heard wherever they worked and lived. Post World War II women never again would fit nicely into their ticky tacky boxes that all looked just the same. The times they were, indeed, a changing for women – Molly Ivins and Linda Ronstadt were two of them.
    Stay tuned.

     

  • I TAWT I TAW A PUTTY TAT, but Mick says I didn’t


    Give credit where credit is due. Mick Mulvaney was actually born in Alexandria, Virginia – not South Carolina, according to his Wikipedia profile, and grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. He didn’t attend any schools or colleges in South Carolina but at some point in his life he moved to a Charlotte suburb called Indian Land which is, indeed, just across the state line in South Carolina.

    His political career began with four years in the SC state legislature so my state gets total recognition for the man who would be Acting Chief of Liars in the West Wing of the current chaotic administration that belongs to Agent Orange turning to Red.

    Here’s the thing, Mick. I watched your entire infamous press conference last Thursday, the 17th., in living color on a regular tv from my favorite ancient recliner in the den. I wasn’t streaming on any devices. I didn’t take a break to go to the kitchen to get a Butterfinger.  I didn’t walk around outside with my dogs. No one interrupted your comments by calling or texting me. Nope. I saw the whole thing.

    (ru.memegenerator.net)

    Several hours after I watched you spell out Agent Orange’s foreign policy as a pay for play high stakes game with our national security twisting in the wind, you called Mulligan which is a word used by golfers to get another shot when they knock the ball so far out of the fairway they’ll never find it in the woods. Mulligan, mulligan, you cried. I never said any of that about Quid Pro Quo or any of those other things like Get Over It or We do it (foreign policy) All the Time This Way. Never. Never. Never. It’s just those mean old liberal media peeps getting the words turned around to suit their evil intentions to undermine Agent Orange who is, as we all know, out to make not only America great again but restore Civilization as well.

    Hm. I wonder if you still have that minority interest in Salsarita’s restaurant chain? Maybe that experience will qualify you for an executive position in the successful hospitality business you claim is the ultimate goal of Agent Orange “in the end.”

    Because the end is headed your way as surely as a freight train coming at you. There’s no light at the end of your tunnel.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • who won the debate last night? don’t ask Pretty and me


    Pretty and I actually watched the Dems debate last night together all the way to the end of the three hours plus a few minutes over (which was significant because Pretty typically gets her debate news from Twitter so I struggled along by myself on the first three and since I struggled by myself, I set a personal limit of two hours… then I stuck a fork in either them or me).

    As we listened and watched last night, we talked about the candidates to begin to make our own short list out of  the dozen on the stage to a manageable group of four or five.  That number was arbitrary on our part, although some of the political pundits ostensibly favored the smaller number for the November (gasp! another one so soon?) debate.

    Throughout the evening I gave in to my selfish leanings toward the candidates who promised me the largest increase in my monthly income.  For those of us who live on fixed incomes, that’s a major concern. Andrew Yang was the clear winner on that score with his continued MATH (Make America Think Harder) promise of $1,000 per month to every citizen, but I have to admit even I have begun to question the concept of the VAT – value added tax – since it’s passed along to the poorest consumers who may need the extra $1,000 just to keep up with the large increases in the costs of food, gas,  shelter, automobiles, computers, etc. which is short for Everything The Consumer needs.

    Pretty, who has never been a member of the Yang Gang, vetoed him again last night.

    Senator Kamala Harris who was my first choice for the nominee before any of the debates, cuts Yang’s promise of $1,000 per month to $500 per month – her solution advocates a $6,000 earned income credit for everyone who needs it. Oh well, maybe not everyone who needs it, but I feel sure I would qualify under any plan she proposes. Pretty and I both like Senator Harris, but last night we decided to make her Attorney General to rule over and redo a US Justice Department that has confused the interests of the American people and the Constitution of the United States with the interests of Individual Number One whose position becomes more precarious as the days go by.

    As the evening wore on, I agreed to let Julian Castro go back to Texas with Beto O’Rourke. I had hoped for a better showing from my Texas guys, but sadly, I finally agreed with Pretty that neither one of them was really presidential material right now. Goodbye, Texas. Perhaps a new Cabinet position for Southern BorderDisasters with Beto and Julian serving as co-chairs with a mandate to please, God, close those detention camps and help the people in them to breathe free air again. Give them a home where they safely belong.

    Tom Steyer, I have supported your campaign to remove Individual One since 2016, but Pretty says no so off you go. Regretfully I say thanks for your service but no thanks for being the president. Possibly Secretary of the Interior or Treasury Secretary since you are a bona fide billionaire.

    Speaking of thanks for your service, let me add my gratitude to the two veterans who are still in the running – two veterans with a very different attitude toward foreign affairs: Representative Tulsi Gabbard and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. This is how Pretty and I know we are out of step with the mainstream. Many in the media and at home in their living rooms evidently thought Mayor Pete had a very strong debate performance. My cousin Melissa, for example, who I can count on for honesty told me today that she is now in the Buttigieg camp after his winning ways over the field last night. She remains moveable, however.

    Pretty and I both love Mayor Pete but we see him as a President in the Future, not in 2020. We’re keeping him on our short list, however. I reluctantly say goodbye to Rep Gabbard because whenever she asked if she would make a great Commander in Chief of the armed forces, I answered yes. Pretty vetoed her in general and wouldn’t even go along with me when I wanted to make her Chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs. Adios, Tulsi.

    Hm. That leaves us with Senators Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and ex VP Joe Biden. This is a tough group to say good bye to on so many levels. I have appreciated Amy Klobuchar since her questioning of the Supreme Court nominees – I think she’s wicked smart plus when I saw her making her announcement outdoors during a snowstorm, I have to say I was impressed. Pretty doesn’t share my enthusiasm, but I think Amy might be a dark horse. She’s won every race she’s run before, she said. Leave her on the stage, Pretty.

    The frontrunners according to the polls (that are  questionable on their reliability) – Sanders, Biden, Warren – are all in their seventies which makes them as old as I am and I, like former President Jimmy Carter, know for sure I don’t need to be President at my age so I doubt any of this group should be either but what the heck, Pretty and I decided to join the Warren bandwagon for now; however, we are, like my cousin Melissa, moveable. We added Senator Booker to our ticket for VP for various reason that include we’ve liked him for a long time. He’s younger, more energetic and understands the wounds that divide our nation. Bring it on,  VP Cory.

    Finally, did anyone other than me hear Elizabeth Warren say she supports a $200 per month raise for Social Security recipients? What’s not to like about that?

    Stay tuned.

    Totally unrelated picture – but what a look from 

    Grandbaby Ella who is two weeks old  this week 

    I’d love to know what she saw?

     

     

     

  • GIRL POWER: UNSCRIPTED AND UNSTOPPABLE -AND SOMETIMES NEEDING A BATH


    Tomorrow is the International Day of the Girl Child with its 2019 theme Girl Power: Unscripted and Unstoppable.

    The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says “We need to uphold the equal rights, voices, and influence of girls in our families, communities, and nations. Girls can be powerful agents of change, and nothing should keep them from participating fully in all areas of life.” Amen, brother.

    Given the current state of political affairs in our nation with families divided, swept up into detention centers at our southern borders – living in horrendous conditions under a regime of daily terror – while across the big waters our nation abandons the friends who have been our major supporters in the war against ISIS, an abandonment that allows vicious attacks on these friends with a presumptive goal of ethnic cleansing…I say the openly corrupt men involved in these atrocities  need to go. Our country needs new leadership and directions, and I believe it’s time for girl power.

    Luckily for Pretty and me, we have a granddaughter who gives us hope for the future. And thankfully, we see women and men today who are working tirelessly to make sure our granddaughter’s voice will be heard as they engage in speaking truth to power.

    Ella in her elephant hoodie

    (baby girl born 10-01-2019)

    All baby girls have to start somewhere. Today Ella had a bath given to her by a group of four women who once were girls: two grandmothers, her mother, one of her cousins – and a female hound who wanted to get in the fun.

    Happiness is having her hair combed by her mother after the bad old bath!

    Tomorrow make time to celebrate the girls and women who have the potential to be powerful agents of change. To quote Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the times have come to us.

    Onward.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

  • will the circle be unbroken?


    Will the circle be unbroken by and by, by and by.

    There’s a better home a waiting in the sky,  in the sky.

    I stood between my grandmother and granddaddy during the hymn singing and, although they each held a hymnal with the words and music, we all knew the songs by heart. I had to know them from memory since I was so young I couldn’t read yet, but my grandparents could have definitely read the words. They had sung the songs so many times during their lives, though, they didn’t need them. My granddaddy sang the melody, and my grandmother sang harmony or what I later learned was the alto part I tried to imitate for the rest of my life.

    …we sang the songs of childhood, hymns of faith that made us strong…

    My daddy was the song leader in the Richards Baptist Church in the 1950s. The Richards Baptist Church was a small congregation of 50 – 60 members that met on Sunday mornings for Sunday School and worship services, Sunday nights for Training Union and another worship service, and on Wednesday nights for prayer meetings plus a business meeting one Wednesday night a month.  My mother played either the black upright piano to the left of the small raised platform where the preacher and my daddy sat and stood up when they had something to say or she played the little pretend church organ to the right of the raised platform. I could barely see Mama even when I stood to sing from my seat with my grandmother and grandfather on one of the hard wooden pews toward the middle of the tiny sanctuary; I could always see and hear my daddy.

    My maternal grandmother had a particular place she sat every Sunday morning during the worship service – a place down closer to the front of the church, but she always sat alone. My mother’s two brothers sat in different places every Sunday, but my Uncle Marion sat on the back row since he was late coming in from standing outside smoking that final cigarette. My Uncle Toby also sat by himself closer to the front but on the opposite side of the church from his mother.

    One by one their seats were emptied, one by one they went away.

    Now the family is parted, will it be complete one day?

    My family members in  that little Baptist Church are, indeed, gone. But the circle of life and family is definitely not broken for me.  Hallelujah! There’s good news for the whole family when the circle is complete.

    Drew with his daughter Ella as his mother NanaPretty smiles at them both

    NanaSlow holds Ella as NanaPretty keeps smiling

    When Ada R. Habershon penned the lyrics in 1907 to the song Will the Circle be Unbroken, she had no way of knowing what an iconic gospel and country music song this would become. From remote churches like mine in the piney woods of East Texas to the center stage of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee this song spoke to individuals and the masses. Her original lyrics changed through the years as different performers rewrote them, but the question remained the same.

    Will the circle be unbroken by and by? Regardless of time or place, the answer is yes.

    Stay tuned.