I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Reflections

  • you’re a liar and the truth ain’t in you


    Whew. Moving requires much more focus and energy than I remembered. It’s like trying to fill this all-consuming time capsule with the horrible transition stories just waiting to be buried in the back yard and dug up in two years when we hopefully will be finished with this insanity.

    And speaking of insanity. I’ve watched the news on my new over-sized TV less frequently in the last few weeks due to capturing the time capsule horrors in real life, but today I got up early while Pretty slept and I decided to resume my daily morning news update. I have to admit I was intrigued by the intrigue of the James Comey firing earlier this week.

    My go-to coverage from Morning Joe on MSNBC didn’t disappoint. Mika watched in her usual silence as Morning Joe ranted and raved with various political expert guests regarding their feelings about the unorthodox untimely long distance removal of the FBI Director James Comey three days ago. The consensus was, as has apparently been the pattern for this administration in its early days according to the experts, someone(s) was lying about something. Calling for a special prosecutor in the matter of Russian interference in the 2016 United States election process to include the timing of the Comey firing was a no-brainer, said the talking heads.

    Today I decided to heed the advice of former President Obama who suggested we might all get along better if we branched out in what we watched for news. I said farewell to Morning Joe with their segment on the Russian diplomats’ visit to the Oval Office yesterday because I was stunned that their pictures came from Russian journalists since no American news reporters had been invited. A presidential visit to Russia in July to meet with Putin had evidently been one of the topics of discussion in this meeting. I shook my head, thought Seriously? Now?, and changed to CNN.

    Ah, CNN…more Comey discussion. Excellent. Fresh perspectives. Not so much. Why was Comey fired?  The CNN reporter was full of answers. Subsequent revelations indicated Director Comey had recently asked for more resources to pursue the Russian investigation and the possible Trump campaign connection which might have signaled the complex case was about to receive increased attention by the FBI.

    The more likely answer, however, according to the CNN reporter was that James Comey’s testimony in a Senate hearing recently hit DT’s “sweet spot” which was any question related to the integrity of the 2016 election. Comey at one point during the hearing had stated he had become “mildly nauseous at the thought that he might have changed the outcome of the election to Trump.” Okay. Game over. You’re fired.

    Time to change the channel again. This time I switched to Fox News where a segment on the Comey firing was squeezed in between an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King’s niece regarding the demonstration at the historically black college Bethune Cookman graduation against guest speaker Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (a protest Dr. King’s niece opposed) and an interview with Hollywood actor Dwayne Johnson who is considering running for President in 2020.

    In the Fox Comey segment, their reporter was at a Tastee Diner in Bethesda, Maryland. He was questioning 4 male coaches who were having breakfast together before they went to work. One of the coaches responded to the reporter’s question about his feelings on the Comey firing by saying everyone needs to trust the President’s judgment in all matters. He went on to say that the mainstream media “makes me sick to my stomach.” Wow. Quite a statement to chew over with the guys having a cup of coffee at the Tastee Diner on a weekday morning.

    Cut back to the anchors for Fox News who thought the Diner interview had been hilarious and by the way, don’t you just love the way males have so much fun together, you know, the male bonding thing.  How did we go from James Comey to male bonding is fun…I’m not sure. But I’d heard way too much about James Comey for one day.

    At this point I turned the TV to the Tennis Channel to watch live action at the Madrid Open which turned out to be less of a distraction than I’d hoped. My mind took off in a different direction with each serve, forehand, backhand, volley or overhead smash. Get out of my head.

    Mainstream media. Whack. Freedom of the press. Whack. Free speech. Whack. Freedom of the press again. Whack. Tweet: Mainstream media = fake news. Whack. MSM = elite news. Whack. Whack. Whack.

    I needed a reality check so I turned off the TV and looked up the First Amendment to the United States Constitution – the one that guarantees fundamental rights for us in this country.

    “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

    That’s right. Now I remember. I have the right to petition for a “redress of grievances” and I believe grievances in the form of lies are running rampant in this administration. Today I have taken action by signing two petitions asking for an independent review of not only the actions of this week but prior 2016  election campaign tampering with our democratic process.

    This reminds me of a time during a dark thunderstorm of deception, cover-ups and corruption in the Nixon administration which threatened the cornerstones of our democracy. Truth was ultimately uncovered and our democracy survived the betrayals and humiliation revealed in the highest levels of our federal government. The President left in disgrace.

    I was sitting in a hospital room with my daddy in 1974 while we watched President Nixon leave the White House. My daddy turned to me and said, “You know, some people are just liars, and the truth ain’t in them.”

    I hear the rumblings of thunder in the distance and see the dark clouds gathering once again over our country, but I know without a doubt that the truth will always keep us free.

  • …and this is my wife Pretty…


    Today is April 24th., and it is the 1st. year anniversary of our legal marriage. This anniversary seems like a Michael Reames icing on a cake or a Dick Hubbard pineapple fried pie which he has now managed to make exactly like my memories of the ones my grandmother made when I was a child being rewarded for what she believed to be good behavior.

    Somewhere in that youthful childhood I must have done something good because Pretty has been the main course for me for the past sixteen years  – a main course that’s been full of fun, love and extra spice. Laughter has been the secret ingredient that’s sprinkled liberally over every dish we serve in our home, and it’s my personal recipe for whatever ails all of us.

    True confessions are good for the soul, though, so I have to admit that once in a rare while I have to remind Pretty I was just trying to be funny to which she has occasionally said during the past sixteen years, “there’s no demand for being funny.” I’m sure she’s just kidding.

    The past year of legal married life has been almost indistinguishable to me from the first fifteen years with a couple of exceptions. “Married – filing jointly” for our 2016 income tax returns, for example, was a noticeable difference that was relatively easy and uneventful for us but produced additional work for our tax preparer. I had several emotions going on during the preparation process, but I know for sure pride was one of them. We were no longer “single” taxpayers filing two separate returns. Our family was legal, legit; and we had the tax returns to prove it.

    There is a word that Pretty and I have struggled with during the past year, however. Both of us struggle, and we know it because we’ve talked about it. The word is “wife.”

    For some reason that word does not roll easily off my tongue, and I don’t know for sure what the problem is. This is my wife Pretty. How hard can that be? This is my wife Slo. Again, not easy. We’ve said this is my “partner” for so long that it’s become a habitual word for us. “Wife” is not our norm.

    But this past week Pretty and I were at our new house reviewing the situation when we discovered two pieces of mail in our mailbox that belonged to our neighbor who happened to be outside in his back yard. Like a good neighbor, Pretty walked over to give him the mail.

    “I’m Bob,” he said when she handed the mail to him. “And that’s my wife Cynthia inside the house.”

    “I’m Teresa,” Pretty said. “And that’s my wife Sheila over there in the car.”

    Score one for Pretty, and welcome to the neighborhood. The legally married lesbians are moving in – which isn’t nearly as good for property values as having the gays move in – but it’ll have to do for now.

    Happy Anniversary, Pretty. You’re simply the best.

     

     

     

     

  • When I Was One and Twenty (with apologies to A.E. Housman)


    When I was One and Twenty

    (With apologies to A.E. Housman)

    When I was one and twenty,

    My world was make-believe.

    A play directed by others

    I felt compelled to please.

     

    But now I’m one and seventy,

    The play is on the shelf.

    No lines to learn, no marks to hit,

    The director is myself.

  • Ministers of Happiness


    Today is Easter Sunday, and I tried very hard to come up with an Easter recollection to complement my deep reservoir of Thanksgiving memories which flow from me like rivers to oceans or even my Christmas memories which aren’t quite up to Thanksgiving levels but still trickle in through little streams of consciousness. The best I had was clothes…and music.

    I can visualize frilly pink Easter dresses, white lacy Easter bonnets, snug-fitting white Easter gloves, shiny white Easter shoes and a matching white Bible to carry to church. I had won the white Bible the summer before during Vacation Bible School as a reward for memorizing the most scripture verses in my class. My name was engraved in gold letters which stood out nicely against the white leather Bible.

    The dress was home-made by my paternal grandmother Ma who tortured me with fittings several times before the actual final inspection was made and the dress approved to her satisfaction. She and my mother coordinated the remainder of the ensemble with a great deal of whispering behind my back because they wanted to avoid the exasperated facial expressions I made whenever they brought up the subject of the Easter “outfit.” Horrors – please don’t talk about that.

    The Easter outfit was like a Halloween costume to me. I might as well have been dressed in a white cowboy hat wearing a black Lone Ranger mask sitting astride my stick-horse yelling Hi, ho, Silver, Away periodically during the congregational singing at our Southern Baptist church. Instead, I was sitting demurely between my grandmother and granddaddy singing Up from the Grave He Arose. As a matter of fact, I definitely would have preferred The Lone Ranger look over the Easter outfit.

    But I had to wear the clothes to hear the music, and I loved the music even then. The old rugged cross was exchanged for a crown, because he lived I could live forever, just as I was without one plea I came because his blood was shed for me, I lifted up my heart to sing hosanna, hosanna to the king because of the amazing grace that found me when I was blind and could not see. The hymns had 18th. century harmony which I knew nothing about at the time I learned to sing them, but that lack of composition understanding didn’t interfere with my love of the experience.

    Even the sermon on Easter Sunday morning was hopeful – once you got over the nasty business of the crucifixion – the minister was so happy about the resurrection. Really, he seemed to me to be more joyful at Easter than he was at Christmas when the tidings of great joy were proclaimed by the angels.

    My first Easter Sunday was the day I was born on April 21, 1946, which makes this one my 71st.  Unbelievable.  Where does time really go. I miss my family and the singing at the little church today. I don’t miss the Easter outfit.

    Although it isn’t my birthday, I am going to make an Easter wish. My wish for all of us today in the midst of a world that is fraught with monumental uncertainties is that we become ministers of happiness founded on our own good health, good relationships, erasing inequalities where we can, creating trust in our communities and standing against injustice whenever we witness it. One by one, as the saying goes.

    Resurrect hope today.

     

     

  • My Bad? You’re Fired!


    I have a soft spot in my psyche for the underdog – the one who is unlikely to win an argument, sporting event, contest, campaign, cause – anything that requires taking a side. I perennially support the one with the least likely possibility of winning. I may not even be conscious of the choice I’ve made until the closing bell rings with the underdog surprisingly winning or losing as expected. It’s in my DNA.

    It’s also in my DNA to never kick a person when she’s down. Why is that necessary? Whoever it is has already been walloped enough by someone else or circumstances beyond their control or tackled already by a defensive back, so why “pile on”? That’s like a mantra with me. Avoid piling on someone who has already admitted defeat.

    Today, however, my DNA has run right up against my political reality TV show, and the collision isn’t pretty.

    I’m talking about the Press Secretary’s remarks yesterday at his daily press conference concerning the recent events in Syria. For some strange reason, Sean Spicer tried to compare the tyranny of President Assad to that of Adolph Hitler in WWII and remarked that even Hitler had never used gas to kill his own citizens.

    One of the astounded reporters said, “He killed the Jews.”

    And so we have the piling on of Sean Spicer who immediately apologized for his remarks following the press conference yesterday and was interviewed this morning on MSNBC and reiterated his mea culpa for the gaffe.

    I really don’t believe Sean is the total issue here, but I would start by firing him if I could. He is the daily voice of the administration and, as such, has the ear of media in this country and around the world. This is one blunder I call a bridge too far because it displays either a blatant ignorance of history or a distorted perception of history or a complete lack of respect for the magnitude of the deaths and destruction under the Nazi regime.

    This is not to say that the atrocities of the Assad government in Syria have not been horrific. Comparing horrors of inhumanity, however, runs the risk of ignoring that the numbers enumerated represent the loss of real lives. Whether those numbers are hundreds or thousands or millions that are snuffed out by evil leaders who use gas or other equally savage means, the most important number is one. One child. One family. One multiplied to the nth. power.

    In a world where our nation sends battleships to seas near North Korea and missiles to Syria while the White House Easter Egg Hunt is in disarray because the West Wing can’t organize it since they can’t organize themselves, it would be helpful to have a Press Secretary who spoke in complete knowledgeable sentences to deflect attention from his boss who communicates regularly through enigmatic tweets.

    My bad is not quite good enough this time, Sean. We need a better spokesperson. My DNA feels remorse for piling on you, but, to quote one of your boss’s favorite sayings, you’re fired.