I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: politics

  • the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter holiday card collection


    Following the shady corruption of power in the Nixon administration, the American people were ready for a newcomer outside the beltway of Washington, D. C. In walked Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from Plains, who was a Sunday School teacher in a Baptist church with a reputation for honesty and integrity. He was just the recipe needed in the 1976 election after the Watergate years.

    I had followed and admired Jimmy Carter even before his run for governor in 1970 so I was hopeful for what his administration could accomplish from the White House. Alas, being an outsider must be much more difficult  than I thought, and for Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter it was a mountain too high to climb. The many good measures he accomplished including the Camp David Accords were often lost in the rhetoric surrounding the hostages in Iran that were released on the day Ronald Reagan took office at the end of Carter’s one term.

    Jimmy Carter was only 56 years old when he left the Oval Office for his home in Plains, Georgia, but he and his wife Rosalyn have continued to be advocates for the poor and disenfranchised since he returned home. In 2002 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his open resistance to the War in Iraq in addition to his countless contributions toward creating and preserving democracy around the world. The Carter Center has been a model for presidential libraries, a thriving institution whose motto is “Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope.”

    During the last years President Carter not only wrote a number of books but also found a passion for painting. Pretty and I are always grateful for the Christmas cards we faithfully receive every year from Rosalyn and Jimmy Carter, and we are particularly happy whenever the cards are works of art by the former president.

    Enjoy with us.

    2018 message: Blessings, love, and peace to you this Christmas

    (Cardinals in Winter, original painting by President Jimmy Carter)

    2017 message: May the Joy and Peace of Christmas be with you now

    and throughout the new year

    (Mountain Laurel, original painting by President Jimmy Carter)

    (White Dove, original painting by President Jimmy Carter)

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    And finally, just for fun, this one designed by Amy Carter who “created this original painting of her with her father carrying a Christmas tree home from the woods.”

    Message: May your home be filled with the warmth of family and friends

    this holiday season and throughout the New Year

    I couldn’t have said it better myself.

    Stay tuned.

  • shadows of the evening


    “The sun was a gigantic circle of intense bright light as I walked on Old Plantersville Road tonight and the colors in the sky surrounding it took my breath away. They were all that – and then some. No camera this evening. Just me and the sunset. It’s as close as I ever come to a spiritual moment and not surprising that the words of a hymn I sang over and over during my Southern Baptist days played in my head while I walked:

    ‘Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh.

    Shadows of the evening steal across the sky.

    Jesus, give the weary calm and sweet repose,

    With thy tenderest blessing may mine eyelids close.’

    —–Sabine Baring-Gould, published 1865

    A few raindrops fell on me as I turned toward home from the railroad track  which is my usual turnaround spot. I didn’t even care. The colors changed quickly in the sky as the sun went down behind the trees across the pasture. I slowed my pace to catch as many of them as I could, and the rain stopped for me so I wouldn’t have to hurry.

    The day was over, and shadows of the evening stole across the sky right in front of me. Jesus, give the weary calm and sweet repose. My Random House Dictionary defines repose as, among other things, a dignified calmness…composure. Yes, give the weary a sweet repose. Let all who work hard and all who are tired of fighting the same battles or any whose pain leaves them exhausted – give them a sweet repose at the end of this day.

    And may our eyelids close.”

    ——–The Short Side of Time

    When I wrote these words in September, 2013, there was no way I could have known that in December, 2018 a special train would roll over those railroad tracks that were my turnaround point in my  Old Plantersville Road walks in Montgomery County, Texas. The special train was carrying the remains of President George H.W. Bush, the 41st. president of the United States, to his final resting place at the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.

    I’ve watched most of the coverage of his death, two funerals, countless images of the Bush family and friends during the past six days. I was reminded of how true patriotism finds a way to express itself in the lives of selfless leaders who may be ambitious but never blind to the responsibilities of public service. In a day of tweeting presidents, I needed that reminder.

    Now on this night the special train will come to a stop, and the body of our 41st. president will be laid to rest in a place 22 miles from where I was born in Navasota, Texas. His family and friends will say a final farewell for now. My prayer for them is that they will find a calm and sweet repose at the end of this day.

    Stay tuned.

     

  • this girl had it going on…was she calling to Get Out the Vote?


    was she making calls to Get Out the Vote?

    Actually, not really – this girl (me) was probably calling her office from a pay phone outside the tennis courts at the Family Circle Tennis Tournament in Hilton Head, South Carolina in the late 1980s. She was carrying seat cushions for bleacher seats, wearing enormous glasses and a wonderful hat that she lost somewhere along the way during the next quarter century.

    This girl would have voted in every election, though, and would want all  her friends across the country to do the same in the mid-term elections on Tuesday, November 6, 2018.

    Be woke! Go Vote!

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • be woke! go vote!


     “Suffrage is not simply about the right to vote but also about what that represents: the basic and fundamental human right of being able to participate in the choices for your future and that of your community, the involvement and voice that allows you to be a part of the very world that you are a part of… it is not simply about the right to vote for women, but also about what that represents: the basic and fundamental human right of all people, including those members of society who have been marginalized whether for reasons of race, gender, ethnicity or orientation, to be able to participate in the choices for their future and their community.”

    (reported by Sabrina Barr, MSN News)

    Say, whose quote is this? Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony or Lucy Stone in the 1800s during the beginnings of the Suffragette Movement in the USA? Or was it Alice Paul with her group of women activists called the Silent Sentinels who were imprisoned in America in the early 1900s, went on hunger strikes in prison and were force fed to be kept alive for three years before the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution giving women the right to vote was finally passed in 1920? The above quote could have been attributed to any of these American women who devoted their lives to securing the right of women to vote in our country.

    Instead, the quote belongs to another American woman, Meghan Markle, who is now the Duchess of Sussex and spoke these words yesterday to a crowd in New Zealand where she was near the end of a Royal Tour with Prince Harry. While celebrating that country’s 125th anniversary of women’s rights to vote, she praised New Zealanders for their political actions in 1893 and concluded her remarks with a quote from the country’s most famous suffragette, Kate Sheppard: “All that separates, whether of race, class, creed or sex, is inhuman and must be overcome.”

    I am so proud that an American-born woman of color is in New Zealand talking about the basic right of all women to participate in shaping our democracies with the power of the vote. Every vote matters. You are only powerless when you fail to exercise your power.

    Pretty is driving me this morning to my Lexington County voting place for early voting for the midterms which are scheduled for Tuesday, November 6, 2018. I am feeling very strong today. This election is very important in shaping the future of our communities, our states and our nation; and I, for one, want my voice to be heard.

    I’m going to think about Meghan Markle’s final remark from Kate Sheppard: “All that separates, whether of race, class, creed or sex is inhuman, and must be overcome.”

    Amen, sisters. Tell it.  We shall overcome. Be woke. Go Vote!

    Stay tuned.

     

  • HAPPY PRIDE! CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES!


    Pretty and I were unable to participate in tonight’s 2018 Pride Parade here in Columbia, South Carolina but we were there in spirit…

    PRIDE – 2015

    On the bottom row of this collage the handsome young man speaking with a microphone at the Pride Festival was my friend of many, many years Eddie Greenleaf. Sadly, two weeks ago today Pretty and I attended his funeral. We will miss Eddie’s smile and hugs but are very thankful for the memories we share of his commitment to his husband Michael and their ongoing contributions to the LGBTQ community in South Carolina over the past 30 years. Rest in peace, Eddie, and may those of us you left behind never rest until true equality for all becomes the new normal.

    Stay tuned.