I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

For any who want more, complete list of all posts by month since 2011
  • Dolly Made Me Do It

    Dolly Made Me Do It


    This week I was forced to say goodbye to Dolly Parton, who has been one of the inspirational women in my life. Dolly has simply been there – singing to the world the values she learned in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee – for as long as I have music memories.

    We were both born in 1946, Dolly in January and me in April; we began to be known as the beginners of the cohort called the Baby Boomers who have been rightly saddled with the blame for many of our planet’s woes, trials, and tribulations of epic biblical proportions. Although she grew up “dirt poor,” in her words, she never let challenges or ridicule or insecurities from her background define her. She became an international treasure for her indomitable spirit and determination to bring people along with her.

    I have been touched this week by her spirit of perseverance through adversity one more time, and I feel guilty for my relatively good health coupled with my glaring lack of resolve to keep on keeping on this year. Over the years several of her songs have been the cornerstone of many of my personal favorite blogs in this space including one I wrote in December, 2012, about a Hard Candy Christmas following the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Dolly made me reconsider my retirement this week and, sadly, my consternation over our country’s love affair with guns and violence continues to be a theme that resonates in headlines every day.

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    Gosh, the hard candy Christmas has gone viral.   I thought we could keep it local with just a few hits along the holiday trail stories but nope, Newtown, Connecticut changed the name of that tune.   We Americans have a tragedy of unspeakable grief that will quickly reverberate in cyberspace around the world to a populace who will ask themselves, What is wrong with those people in America?

    I think it’s a fair question and one that we must ask ourselves.   What is wrong with us?   How do we enable and encourage this rage and senseless violence against our own?   Why do we have a Columbine in our not-too-distant history and how will these same historians record the massacres in Aurora, Colorado, and at Virginia Tech?  What can possibly be written about the Sandy Hook Elementary School horror of losing twelve little girls and eight little boys and six adults who were their educators in a few minutes on a regular Friday morning at their public school.  Much will be written through the coming years, but what we do in response to these shocking events will define our culture and our country.

    To the politicians in Washington I say, You need to become statesmen and stateswomen.  You need to set aside your vitriolic verbal attacks on each other.  You are the adults in our family, and we have placed our trust in you by electing you to represent us and when what we see on our Ipads and Iphones and other high-tech gadgets as well as on our regular old television programs is bitterness and bickering and bashing each other verbally, you’re setting a bad example for your children.  You make them believe that rage is not only acceptable but necessary.   Take a deep breath.  Step back for a moment.  Look at yourselves and see what images you project for your people.   Could you please just play nice.

    To the parents who have brought children into our world and have great expectations for their futures and who now are bipolar between anger and anguish, I say I’m so sorry.    No one deserves this.   No one is being punished for removing God from Sandy Hook Elementary School.  God isn’t in this equation or else we would have to blame Him for allowing the assailant to have weapons, wouldn’t we?  Not so fast, my friend, or as my daddy and Ann Richards used to say, That old dog won’t hunt.  But what can we do?  Should we as parents insist on police protection for our children in all public schools regardless of age?   Would police protectors be able to thwart the enraged and armed assailants?  These are the questions we ask ourselves.

    Which brings me to the central dilemma of the complex  challenge of early identification and intervention for our Angry Ones and that is, of course, beyond Thunder Dome to me.  Our children are now raised in a culture of violence.  They play games with it, they sing songs about it, their heroes are violent athletes, their movie stars make action movies with so much “action” their hearing is impaired when they leave a theater, their country sends soldiers to places they have to learn to pronounce and spell like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria…Viet Nam…Korea..and these soldiers kill other people in the name of peacekeeping. 

      Our children are surrounded by violence.   They may go to sleep with the sound of gunfire in their neighborhood and on their street corners.  They may wake the next morning to find a friend, cousin, uncle, grandmother, father, sister, or brother has died during a battle over what?   Drugs?   Gangs?  Money?   Territory?  Aha.  There we have it.  There is no escaping the violence so why on earth would we be surprised that these children who are accustomed to violence, who have access to weapons, would shoot us when we make them mad or when we are, well, just being ourselves and they don’t like us that way?

    This is the season of hope, joy and celebration for some; the Prince of Peace and Santa Claus are the bearers of Good News and Great Gifts for many of us. But it is also a season of sadness for those who have lost family during 2012 and who will be reminded that their holiday season is different this year. The season won’t be the same – ever.  Some people will struggle to find the money to give their children what they want under the tree.   Friction and tension will make family gatherings more problematic than peaceful.  In our sense of hurry and anxiety over putting food on the table we might miss the opportunity to say: I love you today, I love you every day and you will always be special to me.

    I remember a hard candy Christmas with the disappointment of not getting what I wanted from Santa Claus but rather getting a sack of penny candy of bright different colors that tasted alternately sweet and sour but couldn’t be chewed at first because it was so hard.  Gradually though, if you waited long enough, you could bite the smaller piece in two and swallow them both.  Success.  Astonishingly delicious.

    I expected a hard candy Christmas personally this year for a number of reasons, but I wasn’t prepared for a national one.  Regardless, here it is and my hope is that America will never be the same – ever.  That our national consciousness is raised to include in our vocabulary the words kindness and reconciliation and forgiveness and a genuine passion for a better world.   We’ve waited long enough.  We have tasted both the sweet and the sour and, as Dolly Parton sings through the lyrics of Carol Hall, we won’t let our sorrows bring us down.

    I’ll be fine and dandy
    Lord, it’s like a hard candy Christmas
    I’m barely gettin’ through tomorrow
    But still I won’t let
    Sorrow bring me way down

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

    Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library was started in 1995 through her Dollywood Foundation and books numbering in the millions are delivered annually throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom (Wikipedia). I applied to the program for our younger granddaughter Molly who was three years old at the time and would love to share the covers of the 9 books she’s received thus far. Here’s a sample!

    Thank you, Dolly, for the example you set in living a life that was real. Your courage and sacrifices taught us how to be better. I believe in angels – I have believed in you. Rest in peace.

  • Ten years and counting – what lessons have we learned from the Dallas, Texas, police ambush

    Ten years and counting – what lessons have we learned from the Dallas, Texas, police ambush


    Dallas marks 10 years since the July 7, 2016, ambush that killed five law enforcement officers during a downtown protest, one of the deadliest attacks on police in modern U.S. history. The shooting left four Dallas police officers and one DART officer dead, injured several others and forever changed policing in the city. The following piece I published ten years ago seems, sadly, appropriate for Everytown, USA, today.

    Big “D”, little “a”, double “L”  – a – s. Dallas, Dallas, Dallas, another notch in your gun belt this week; more snipers take a shot at our ability to wage peaceful parades and protests  while the face of violence lights up within your city limits. Shades of 1963 when you were the harbinger of our national nightmares to come.

    I am outraged at the environment of fear and desperation that leads men to believe that shooting each other with guns or blowing each other up with bombs is the only solution to our problems within our borders and across the pond. Prejudices over skin color and religious practices cross oceans, span continents and land at our doorsteps. And since we have the right to bear arms, we also have the right to shoot them – at each other.

    Policemen who are sworn to protect us become caught up in a kind of madness that makes them so suspicious and fearful of  people of color that even routine traffic violations can turn into scenes of degradation and death.  Lives are changed forever – death is permanent – there is no taking back the gunfire that kills an innocent man or woman: no do-overs. And it’s not just that one life taken. The ripple effect in the lives of families and friends is also endless.

    Take Back the Night? Hardly bold enough. Give Back the Light, I say. Give back the light of acceptance of citizens regardless of race or who they love or where they worship, but without apathy toward those who struggle with less. Acceptance without apathy – do we have leaders capable of recognizing the reality of the feelings of Powerlessness that drive men to fire gunshots against the Powerful…I wonder. And can the Powerful be changed to look beyond the obvious to the pain below the surface…I wonder.

    Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God, Jesus said in his sermon on the mount. I am looking for the peacemakers, I am waiting for the peacemakers, I am hoping that they find their way to Dallas, Texas, tonight.

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    Ten years later, I continue to wait for the peacemakers. I am one small voice in the wilderness of cyberspace, but I refuse to wave a white flag of surrender while I wait with hope for international peace.

     

     

     

     

     

  • the eyes of texas – and the rest of the world – are upon you

    the eyes of texas – and the rest of the world – are upon you


    A thirty-eight year old man accused of murdering five neighbors in Cleveland, Texas was captured in a smaller Texas town called Cut and Shoot that was less than 20 miles from where the crime happened after a massive four day manhunt by a collection of law enforcement organizations.The man lived next door to the victims which included two women aged 21 and 31 respectively, a 25 year old woman and her 9 year old son, and an 18 year old young man. According to the 9 year old’s father, the neighbor walked into their home armed with an AR-15 rifle and began shooting after an altercation between them over a crying baby in his home and the neighbor’s shooting practice in the next door yard.

    According to data published by Caroline Covington on July 28, 2022 in the Texas Tribune, Texans purchased more than 1.6 million guns in 2021 which was about 1 gun for every 14 adults in the state. Concurrently in 2021 the Texas legislature passed new laws allowing the open carry of handguns without a license to carry those guns under certain conditions per information provided by the Texas State Law Library. The Wild, Wild West of Hollywood westerns in the 1940s and 50s had returned to those thrilling days of yesteryear but the guns of the 21st. century were more powerful, more accessible, able to kill innocent people much quicker than the ones used in the 1952 Gary Cooper film High Noon.

    When Pretty and I had a second home on Worsham Street in Montgomery, Texas from 2010 – 2014 we drove through Cut and Shoot whenever we made one of our countless thousand mile trips between South Carolina and Texas. During that time we used the Cut and Shoot post office as a sign we were almost to Conroe which meant we were less than an hour from Worsham Street. Even our dogs sensed the two day drive south and west was nearing the end when we slowed for the small town speed limit and stopped for several red lights there.

    Now the name Cut and Shoot is infamous as the town where the Cleveland mass shooter was captured. The little town that got its name from a fight between two (who’s suprised?) religious groups, the home of ostensibly the only person with any claim to fame (professional heavyweight boxer Roy Harris) would achieve notoriety as the place where a middle-aged man with an AR-15 who killed five of his younger neighbors in Cleveland was found hiding in a closet in a house there.

    I really don’t care if the people killed and/or the killer were shades of black, brown, white, or mix-ish; what I do care about is that somebody somewhere had an AR-15 rifle and a temper. Everyone has a temper to some degree – even our fifteen month old granddaughter Molly gets mad when she hears the word No, and she feels free to act out by throwing whatever is in her hand to the ground as hard as she can.

    But not everyone has an AR-15 rifle, and in my opinion not everyone should.

    Ban the damn things. Ban them all.

  • just another war? don’t get used to it, please

    just another war? don’t get used to it, please


    Olena Zelenska is the wife of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and during an exclusive interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America this week revealed what she wanted most from the United States:

    “Don’t get used to this war.”

    Point taken. A quick review of US involvement in the Cold War with the Soviet Union following World War II shows conflicts of various degrees in names familiar to me over the past 70 years – Korea, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and certainly Afghanistan where our recent withdrawal of support after 20 years was far more than unsatisfactory – names I recognize but can’t remember details of some. Old age? Possibly. Got used to? Most likely.

    The war in Ukraine turned 100 days old yesterday as Russia’s missile strikes continued to rain down on Eastern Ukraine while President Zelenskyy acknowledged the loss of 20% of his country to Russian occupation. The ongoing stream of people leaving their homeland as refugees to escape obliteration numbers in the millions with families divided, fathers saying goodbye to their wives and children to stay and fight to protect their democracy. Please don’t get used to this, they say to us from across the Atlantic Ocean. We still need your help.

    Meanwhile back in this country, the daily images of men, women and children being killed by mass gun violence rock our sensibilities when we hear them cry out from their coffins “don’t get used to this.” And yet, we have. Whenever we continue to cast our votes for our representatives at every level who vote against more effective gun control measures, we are saying oh well, that’s just how it goes, right? We’re used to it. All politicians are the same. They’re all corrupt. What does my vote matter anyway?

    Stop that excuse, think about the people you love, ask the right questions of candidates on the ballot, then vote as if your life and the life of your loved ones depends on it.

    Slava Ukraini! Remember Uvalde.

  • no one is born hating

    no one is born hating


    “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.  People must learn to hate, and if they learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” Nelson Mandela (1918 – 2013)

    Nelson Mandela was a super hero to me, a man whose extraordinary personal sacrifice changed the politics of his own South Africa which inspired dreams for peace and democracy around the world. Facing the death penalty for sabotage at his trial in April, 1964  Mandela spoke these words:

    “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

    He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released in 1990 by President F. W. de Klerk who then negotiated with Mandela’s party to end apartheid in South Africa. Twenty-seven years of his life with no personal freedom, and Nelson Mandela became a symbol of freedom for his nation and the rest of the world.  In 1993 Mandela and de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to end the oppression of apartheid in their country. Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994.

    This past weekend the news of another racially motivated massacre of ten Black people in the United States took place in Buffalo, New York, at a grocery store in a zip code the alleged 18 year old shooter stated in his manifesto he believed had the highest percentage of black people close enough to where he lived. According to Dustin Jones of NPR today the teenager said “the influx of immigrants, more specifically people of color, will lead to the extinction of the white race…decrease in white birth rates equates to a genocide.” This young man was not born hating, but somewhere along the way he was vulnerable to evil influences similar to those that enabled a 21-year-old white man to murder nine Black people while they held a prayer meeting in the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina in June, 2015.

    Meanwhile almost 5,000 miles from Buffalo, New York across the Atlantic Ocean, a 21-year-old Russian soldier was put on trial last week in Kyiv for allegedly killing a 62-year-old unarmed Ukrainian civilian riding his bicycle on a road in the Sumy region when the soldiers suspected the man of telephoning their location to Ukrainian defenders. Russians and Ukrainians may share the same color skin but radically different ideas about their governments – the ideals of democracy the Ukrainians believe in are very much like Mandela above who was prepared to die for his hope in a “democratic society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.”

    I am at a loss to understand the ongoing mass shootings in my country, an experiment in democracy that has failed to deliver on its promise of harmony and equal opportunities for all. Not only has the nation failed in providing fundamental rights to all but also is currently in the process of a sitting Supreme Court actually reversing some of the precious fundamental rights that were guaranteed for the past 50 years. What’s that I hear? Oh, never mind. It’s only the cries of 166 million females in the US as we await the decision of 6 men and 3 women called the Supremes who will determine whether the government controls our bodies or we do.

    If Mandela can be our north star, then we have the capability of teaching love to our children as surely as we teach them to hate the persons of different colors, different political beliefs any “other” from ourselves and our families. Portions of the human race are surely broken when we teach teenagers and twenty-somethings as children to hate enough to kill with weapons we refuse to prohibit.

    But that’s a topic for another day.

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    Stay safe, stay sane, and please stay tuned.