I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: politics

  • Embracing Imperfections: A Vice Presidential Hopeful’s Tale

    Embracing Imperfections: A Vice Presidential Hopeful’s Tale


    I’m sure VP Harris hasn’t made her final selection for her Veep because I am still waiting for the call. Here I am, send me.

    Cell phone charged? Check.

    Bag packed for possible overnight stay? Check.

    Attitude positive? Check.

    Enthusiasm for the job? Check.

    Qualifications to serve? Aha. That could be a slight problemo. Foreign affairs my worst category because I am weak in geography – as in, for example, what country is next to Peru? Sigh. But if she’s looking for expertise in domestic issues, I’m a whiz. For example, I think every American who hasn’t shot somebody should get a monthly Good Citizens’ Dividend check for $1,000 for good behavior.

    Oh, well. No candidate is perfect so maybe Vice President Harris can overlook a tiny flaw to embrace my good points.

    I wasn’t invited to DC yet, and time is running out so…

    Here I sit, watching the Olympics, waiting for the call.

    Stay tuned for updates, or you can check X tomorrow.

  • I worry about the long moral arc of the universe bending in the wrong direction

    I worry about the long moral arc of the universe bending in the wrong direction


    “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    I am prone to worrying – that’s right. They call me the worrier, and apparently the older I am, the more I think I have to worry about. The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get as the saying goes; and the slower I go, the worrieder I am. The world to me has gone mad which makes me doubt whether the direction that long moral arc of the universe Dr. King talked about is actually bending toward justice. No justice, no peace is a chant sometimes used by marchers in various peaceful protest movements – I have internalized this slogan to define my world view, and that makes me worry about everything.

    I need hope, I need to feel better. I need someone to stand for truth, for accountability, for a future for my granddaughters to live authentic lives free from fear. I need a woman who will cut through the crap of my cynicism and crisis of confidence in the institutions I’ve cherished for seventy-eight years. Have I been living in a fantasy country?

    I need Letitia James, the first African American and first woman to be elected Attorney General for the State of New York in 2018; a woman who was born in New York City – was one of eight children; a product of the public school system, BA from City of New York University’s Lehman College, JD from HBCU Howard University in Washington, D.C., Master of Public Administration from Columbia University.

    Return with me now to the thrilling days of yesteryear – in reality earlier this year in February – return with me to the feeling I had when I first heard James say those remarkable words “Justice has been served.” Mr. Trump and his financial cohorts were hit with an incredible civil judgment in the amount of $463.9 million dollars for a massive fraud case. When Mr. Trump called No Fair, AG James threatened to sell his real estate if he couldn’t come up with the assets. No one is above the law, not even the former president of the United States, right?

    Oh, gosh. Turns out that’s not quite right anymore, according to the twice-baked, bought- and-sold Supremes in their 6-3 majority ruling last week on presidential immunity. Shame on you, John Roberts, Amy Barrett – you both knew better and yet still supported a decision that struck at the heart of that moral arc of the universe tilting away from equality under the law rather than bending toward justice. Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh and Thomas continue on their road to constitutional perdition so no surprises there.

    I also need the three women Supremes I call my Dream Girls, the women who dissented from the majority in the presidential immunity ruling: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagen and Ketanji Brown Jackson. I need for them to get two votes each instead of one since they are apparently the only justices interested in justice. Just a thought.

    Okay. I see today is Old Blue Monday as my paternal grandmother used to say in her weekly letter to me in my college years and beyond. I wish I could chat with her now – she was a woman of substance if not a woman of means, a woman with a wicked sense of humor, a great storyteller. She was also a worrier which used to annoy me in my youth because I was often the target of her worries. Little did she know as a survivor of the Great Depression and two World Wars that she hadn’t seen anything yet.

    Please stay tuned.

  • Texas Beer Joints – and the Undecided

    Texas Beer Joints – and the Undecided


    Personal milestones are typically meaningless to others; but as I approach number 1,000 of these I’ll Call It Like I See It posts over the past fourteen years I decided to visit the archives with the objective of identifying some of my favorites. This one was originally published in Septemer, 2016. Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Uh, oh. The Undecided are probably still Undecided.

    When I was a little tomboy growing up in southeast Texas, I had dreams of one day – sometime somewhere – being able to go to a beer joint. My family was Southern Baptist and the very mention of an adult alcoholic beverage would send my mother into horrible face contortions and very loud condemnations of beer and beer drinkers. Beer joints were the epitome of evil. Naturally her hyperbole aroused my curiosity.

    My mother’s aunts, my grandmother’s German sisters, worshipped at the Church of the Blessed Beer Joint, however, and I loved to listen to their tales when they came from Bright Lights, Big City Houston to visit us in No Lights, Tiny Town Richards. They were a personal trip for me…and a glimpse of possibilities for me down the road.

    The road did bring me to my share of beer joints in my adult life, although I confess I never shared the same enthusiasm for them as my Aunt Dessie and Aunt Selma did. Most of the ones I went to when I got old enough were drab, dingy, smoke-filled rooms with a jukebox, a few old tables and a bar with stools too tall for me to belly up to easily. I loved the jukebox more than the taste of the Lone Star beer.

    As the fickle finger of fate would have it, Teresa and I moved back to Texas in 2010 and bought a home on Worsham Street in Montgomery, Texas – only 18 miles from Richards. We drove many times to visit my family in the Fairview Cemetery outside of Richards and on one of those drives up Highway 105  I discovered the Texas beer joint of my childhood dreams in the little town of Dobbin. Some dreams really do come true!

    023

    We stopped for the burgers and bbq

    021

    020

    Best burgers EVER

    007

    We waited in the bar which the owner Bobby Holder built himself – took him three years to finish – perfection

    014

    A little something for everyone

    012

    Thirst quencher

    017

    Old family pictures on ancient organ

    016

    Bobby as a little boy

    022

    All in all, Holder’s had delicious food, and had I been younger, I would have come back for the night life…or maybe not. My Texas beer joint dreams had come true without the first sip of a Lone Star.

    And finally, here’s a wall hanging at Holder’s that I thought of yesterday after the presidential debate on Monday night. I talked to my friend Carmen about the debate, and she said many of her friends weren’t going to vote this year…or were undecided…

    011

    And there you have it.

     

  • I’ve seen your swing, I know your swing

    I’ve seen your swing, I know your swing


    TRUMP: Well, I took two tests, cognitive tests. I aced them, both of them, as you know. We made it public. He took none. I’d like to see him take one, just one, a real easy one. Like go through the first five questions, he couldn’t do it. But I took two cognitive tests. I took physical exams every year. And, you know, we knock on wood, wherever we may have wood, that I’m in very good health. I just won two club championships, not even senior, two (sic) regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it. He doesn’t do it. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match…

    …BIDEN: Well, anyway, that’s – anyway, just take a look at what he says he is and take a look at what he is.

    Look, I’d be happy to have a driving contest with him. I got my handicap, which, when I was vice president, down to a 6.

    And by the way, I told you before I’m happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?

    TRUMP: That’s the biggest lie that he’s a 6 handicap, of all.

    BIDEN: I was 8 handicap.

    TRUMP: Yeah.

    BIDEN: Eight, but I have – you know how many…

    TRUMP: I’ve seen your swing, I know your swing.

    *****************

    Me:

    Number One – My favorite parts of the great American presidential debate last night were the two commercial breaks when I exhaled.

    Number Two – I am 78 years old, the same age as Trump, and I know I could never win one, much less two club championships playing golf in a tournament not designated “senior” events unless I owned the club and/or sponsored the championship.

    Number Three – uh, I’m not playing if you won’t stipulate…uh, that I have a 6 or maybe 8 handicap, that you have to walk carrying your own clubs while I ride in a golf cart; that I have unlimited Mulligans, and I get to hit from the forward tees. I’ve seen your swing, I know your swing.

    ****************

    One barely septuagenarian candidate has a loud voice full of bravado, but the truth ain’t in him. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. The other barely octagenarian candidate has a powerful record but lacks the ability to communicate effectively anymore. What’s a voter to do? Tick, tick, tick. The clock is ticking toward November.

    Shame on both campaigns for this glaring public display of why many Americans preferred to watch Netflix or refused to watch anything at all like Pretty who went to bed as soon as the Las Vegas Aces won their game with the Chicago Sky at nine o’clock our time. Charly gave me a look and followed Pretty to bed. Carl and I were the last ones standing for the torture that was the political debate, but then Carl is totally deaf and partially blind. I have no excuse.

  • Landslide Victory by, how much did you say?

    Landslide Victory by, how much did you say?


    40 votes. Excuse me?

    Forty votes. Are you kidding me?

    When I finally closed my eyes last night at a quarter past 11 o’clock, my favorite candidate Francie Kleckley was behind by 16 votes in what was a nailbiter in her primary election returns. I can add it was the same 16 votes all the news outlets had been reporting for the past couple of hours. Good grief, Pretty said to me, what can be so hard about tallying votes in those remaining four precincts?

    More importantly, I answered, which four precincts are still outstanding?

    (I have cleaned up this exchange for “family” readers.)

    Five hours later I awoke for my nightly bathroom call and retrieved my cell phone to see this update from local CBS television news WLTX-19 online. I was so groggy at 3 a.m. I thought Francie had lost by 40 votes. After rubbing sleep from my eyes to look again, I realized she’d WON!

    I got so excited I whispered to Pretty she won, she won! Pretty slept on even when I raised my voice and repeated the good news. Pretty can sleep through tropical storms, dogs barking, small earthquake tremors. It’s a special gift.

    When Pretty was unresponsive, I texted Francie at 3:09 to congratulate her. Thankfully, she was also unresponsive.

    This morning’s results from the State newspaper online also offered insights into the Republican incumbent Billy Garrett’s primary.

    Watch out, Buffalo Billy – there’s a newcomer coming after you in November.

    Still think your voice doesn’t matter? Think again. Vote.

    Onward.