I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: attorney general merrick garland

  • human frailty, mendacity, and George Santos – plus pink boxing gloves

    human frailty, mendacity, and George Santos – plus pink boxing gloves


    “We all want life to be simple and our relationships to be enchanted, and then along comes human frailty. Before we know it, all will be lost,” said postmistress Dorcas Lane to Minnie her maid in one of my favorite BBC productions Lark Rise to Candleford when Minnie asked Dorcas what the phrase Happily Ever After means in affairs of the heart. I submit her answer applies equally today to political affairs including, but not limited to, the most recent admission of human frailty by GOP Rep.-elect George Santos from New York.

    I cannot tell a lie, said Santos, as he admitted to lying about a few things in his campaign for serving in Congress for New York’s third congressional district. Hm. Were they little white lies like he really prefers the fresh taste of McDonald’s coffee to the more lauded Starbucks? Or he’s secretly not going to vote for Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker of the House next week when the new Congress is sworn in even though Kevin McCarthy has been mum on the questions regarding Santos. Well, no. Not exactly little white lies from Santos on the campaign trail. Go big, or go home was more his style.

    He lied about having college degrees from Baruch College and New York University – he had neither. He also admitted he lied about working directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs – he had an indirect relationship with them through his company but made misleading statements in his bio. And of course, there’s the whole “Jew-ish” comments by Santos that must leave the Jewish community in his district shaking their heads in awful wonder. To give the devil his due, however, Santos did say he was sorry for his “embellishments.”

    “I’m human, I’m flawed, I’m not perfect,” he said in his explanation for his mendacity, but he also said he wasn’t going to step down.

    Of course, why should he? Santos had the perfect political role model in another New York politician who lied his way into the White House in 2016 but now has been exiled to Florida as seemingly the only consequence of two impeachments in addition to findings of the January 6th. House Committee that laid the blame for an attempted coup of the US Government squarely on his slumping shoulders, yellow-ish complexion and orange hair. Where have you gone, Merrick Garland – our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo woo woo…you who?

    I’ve tried to check out of politics during the holiday season by binging The Great British Baking Show and Wednesday on Netflix instead of my usual nerdy news programs, but last night I made the mistake of checking in with them just in time to see the Santos Song of Shame as performed by the singer himself on national news. On top of that disgraceful dissonance, the guy is gay. Which made a sad song sadder for me personally.

    Truth telling is a lost art easily manipulated by the words we say and the words we don’t. As the year 2022 makes a loud exit, I commit to continue to honestly call it like I see it in 2023 with a more powerful punch than ever because of my renewed belief in Santa.

    Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus – Pretty’s sister Darlene and her partner Dawne gave me a brand new pair of boxing gloves for Christmas! I was overjoyed!

    Darlene asked me if I thought my mother would have permitted boxing gloves in our home when I originally asked Santa for them as a child if they were pink, and Pretty spoke up for me. I doubt it, she said, but she did always love for Sheila to wear pink.

    Happy New Year from Pretty and me – may all your wishes become possibilities, may peace cover the earth, may all those who wander find safe shelter with food to eat and water to drink, may all those who mourn heavy losses be comforted, may the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Hallelujah. Amen.

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

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.

  • I dreamed that the Great Judgment Morning had dawned, but was it just a dream?

    I dreamed that the Great Judgment Morning had dawned, but was it just a dream?


    My daddy led the music in the tiny Richards Baptist Church where I was saved from my sins at the ripe old age of nine. The preacher who baptized me that summer had a brief explanation of faith and God’s forgiveness in a private chat before we stepped down several steps into what appeared to me to be a very large body of water behind the pulpit that held the large chair Daddy sat in between the congregational hymns during the worship service. I hated water, had already failed my first swimming lessons in the Navasota, Texas city pool twenty miles from Richards – a failure to be repeated more than once in the next dozen years.

    I forgot the submersion in the baptistry (not totally) and remembered little of the rural conservative Southern Baptist minister’s words before he dunked me in the great pool. One concept stayed with me, though. God forgave me of my wrongdoings that day and forevermore. Brother Jones told me no matter what I did from then on that was even slightly evil, I had a free pass. All I had to say was God, forgive me. Full disclosure: I’ve had to ask for forgiveness in the post-baptism days way more than I did in the pre-baptism ones.

    While my daddy did enjoy leading the small congregation of sixty members every Sunday he truly loved singing solos as the special music for the worship service. My mama played the piano for the church and, of course, for daddy’s spotlight moments. He had no vocal training, but he did have the loudest male voice in the church. His singing gave me free floating anxiety related to possible embarrassment that I tried my best to hide. Mama accompanied him with great intensity, lots of flourishes that covered any problems he had with the high notes.

    Recently I’ve been singing Daddy’s repertoire in my mind; unfortunately I’ve remembered the words to a song Daddy liked to belt out – a song that was a crowd pleaser but my least favorite of his selections. The words to Great Judgment Morning were written by Bert Shadduck in 1894 and published in 75 hymnals according to hymnary.org.

    I dream’d that the great judgment morning
    Had dawn’d, and the trumpet had blown;
    I dream’d that the nations had gathered
    To judgment before the white throne.
    From the throne came a bright shining angel
    And stood on the land and the sea,
    And swore with his hand rais’d to heaven,
    That time was no longer to be.

    Chorus:
    And O, what a weeping and wailing,
    As the lost were told of their fate;
    They cried for the rocks and the mountains,
    They pray’d, but their pray’r was too late.

    On August 08, 1974 Richard Nixon resigned the office of President of the United States. My daddy and I watched the dramatic exit together from his Hermann Hospital room in Houston – he had been diagnosed with colon cancer that day, treatment options sounded grim, prognosis 18 – 24 months. It was a rough day for the country and for our family. I was 28 years old; he was 49.

    Neither he nor I had ever seen anything like Watergate, but the Nixon resignation came at a good time for us: we had something to talk about other than my father’s health. I can’t begin to imagine having a conversation with Daddy during these last days of the ongoing trauma the nation has suffered by the deranged actions of an ex-President who would tamper with the security of a democracy my dad fought to preserve in WWII. What could he think?

    Would he belt out the second verse of the Great Judgment Morning…hm.

    The rich man was there, but his money
    Had melted and vanished away;
    A pauper he stood in the judgment,
    His debts were too heavy to pay.
    The great man was there, but his greatness
    When death came was left far behind;

    The angel that opened the records,
    Not a trace of his greatness could find.

    Did I really dream the great judgment morning has finally dawned for a president who, in my opinion, leaves a legacy of evil deeds far exceeding the wrongdoings of Richard Nixon; or did I actually watch David Muir describe this unraveling last week on the evening news.

    If there is a great judgment morning, I is accountable. He is accountable. We is all accountable. Don’t just take my word for it. Ask Attorney General Merrick Garland who blows the trumpet now and says no one is above the law.

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

    Please stay tuned.