I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: politics

  • the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter holiday card collection

    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)

    d

    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.

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

    Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter have been the best of Americans who served their country on a very large stage during their time in the White House and perhaps offered us their best guidance in the years following. I originally published this piece in 2018 but thought this year we Americans needed a reminder of our own ideals. The Carters are flawed individuals somewhere in their DNA, aren’t they, because none of us are saints; however, regardless of politics, give me the character, courage, conviction, compassion and commitment of this couple from Plains in the White House any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Waging peace, fighting disease, building hope.

    Slava Ukraini. For all children everywhere.

  • the truth tellers

    the truth tellers


    At a press conference following her loss in the finals at Wimbledon in 2019, Serena Williams was questioned about why she lost. Although she tried to say her opponent played a brilliant match, the members of the press wouldn’t let it go. They asked her if she thought her lack of match play during the year had hurt her, whether her role as a mother took too much time away from her tennis, and finally someone said they wondered if she spent too much time supporting equal rights or other political issues. Serena’s quick response to that question was “The day I stop supporting equality is the day I die.”

    I can identify with her answer because I believe my actions to support equality and social justice are two of the dominant forces of my life, but alas, I lack the tennis skills that give Serena Williams a universally recognized platform. Writing has been my platform for supporting equal rights during the past seventeen years; it has been the curtain call for the third act of my life – my love affair with words: collecting, rearranging, caressing them to make sense of an ever-changing world. Flannery O’Connor said I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I write. I get that because I can start with a feeling, but sometimes my thoughts trail along behind my words that come from a mysterious place yet to be revealed.

    This poster given to me by my friend Linda many years ago hangs in my office today with words from author Anne Lamott to writers about why they write. “It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside of them, and they just want to help them get out.” The true words I release, however, are not necessarily everyone’s truth. I have learned over the years that truth is not an absolute for every person but rather a fluid concept capable of manipulating minds at odds with what I believe truth to be. For example, remember Kelly Anne Conway’s remarkable explanation of “alternative facts.” Those two words took America on a roller coast ride of a reality show called Believe It or Not DC Style for the past eight years, and unbelievably created a deep wedge that pit family members, friends, co-workers, even institutions against each other with no sign of relief in next year’s political environment.

    Truth telling may be a lost art, truth tellers may bend with the winds, but fundamental values of equality and social justice must not be either lost or warped. As Serena said, the day I stop supporting equality is the day I die.

    And I ain’t ready to go yet. Onward.

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

    For the children.

  • Roe, Roe, Roe Your Vote

    Roe, Roe, Roe Your Vote


    Thanks for showing up!

    We won’t forget who took our rights

    Repubs are out of luck

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

    (shirt by 4winnersSports)

    New lyrics to row, row, row your boat are totally mine, but I hope you’ll sing along with me all the way to the ballot box in 2024. Onward.

  • Mr. Speaker

    Mr. Speaker


    Samuel T. Rayburn (D-TX), the longest serving Speaker of the House of Representatives at 17 years, 53 days (cumulative) said “Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one.”

    Since the first American Congress convened on March 4, 1789 the House of Representatives has elected a Speaker 128 times, 118 at the beginning of each of the two-year congressional sessions and ten other times when a vacancy arose due to death, resignation or more recently a motion to vacate the position when Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was “vacated” on October 3, 2023 – the first House Speaker to be removed in the nation’s history. The “vacation” lasted for 22 days of spectacle worthy of Shark Tank episodes as the Republicans searched for a candidate to satisfy their splintered majority caucus, to enable them to reach a consensus that promoted America’s national security as war intensified in the Middle East and Ukraine, domestic terrorism threats by conspiracists on both the left and right multiplied at alarming rates. On October 25th. Mike Johnson (R-LA) received a total of 220 Republican votes to become Speaker of the House, a position critical to national security, a man who is now second in line to the presidency following the vice-president, a man who does not believe Joe Biden was duly elected President.

    Mr. Sam, as Speaker Rayburn was known, refused to allow television cameras in the House: “When a man has to run for re-election every two years, the temptation to make headlines is strong enough without giving him a chance to become an actor on television. The normal processes toward good law are not even dramatic, let alone sensational enough to be aired across the land.” I wonder what Mr. Sam would have thought about the images being broadcast not only in the United States but also around the world as the public display of a dysfunctional government dominated the daily news from October 3rd. to the 25th. with three Speaker nominations voted down.

    Mike Johnson was relatively unknown on the national stage until he became Speaker of the House where his position as a staunch social conservative with a long history of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and support for stricter abortion laws became more transparent.

    “Johnson on Monday unveiled legislation from House Republicans that would provide $14 billion in U.S. military assistance for Israel as it fights its war against Hamas. But the bill is a non-starter for both the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Joe Biden’s administration because it doesn’t include provisions for other U.S. allies, such as Ukraine.” USA Today, November 2, 2023 

    Maya Angelou said “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

    I’m concerned Mike Johnson is not the carpenter Speaker Rayburn had in mind to rebuild the barn.

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

    For the children of Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, immigrants along the Texas border – all the children everywhere. Guard, save and protect.