A Wonderful Thing in my Life Time

Three young Egyptians have produced a wonderful music video, “The Sound of Freedom” (Sout al Horeya).

Here’s is a partial translation from Al-Jazeera:

• I went down and I said I am not going back, and I wrote on every street wall that I am not going back.
• All barriers have been broken down, our weapon was our dream, and the future is crystal clear to us, we have been waiting for a long time, we are still searching for our place, we keep searching for a place we belong, in every corner in our country.
• The sound of freedom is calling, in every street corner in our country, the sound of freedom is calling.
• We will re-write history, if you are one of us, join us and don’t stop us from fulfilling our dream.

Moustafa Fahmy, Mohamed Khalifa, Mohamed Shaker

On A Personal Note -- Christmas 2010

It has been an astounding year. The two biggest events were certainly February 7th when my Mother celebrated her 100th birthday and then, a few days after proudly telling the Vitas hospice workers that she was “one hundred and a half,” she passed on June 28th.

Funny, it took her one hundred years before she would divulge her age. Usually when someone asked her age, she would ask: “Can you keep a secret?” Her visitor would always agree. Then she would say with a smile, “So can I!”

Both my folks lived long lives. Each was alert and active until just days before their passing. When I came back home in what seems like a lifetime ago, I was “just going to be here for a while;” until "FB" (my Dad) recovered from an automobile accident. I never guessed that in my coming home I would see them both “home.”

I think life is that way, you never know what is around the corner.

I am grateful for both of them as I am for you and all our friends who made my mother’s last years a blessing. Allow me to share two stories – forgive me if you have heard them.

I was overwhelmed with the idea of a 100th birthday party. Everyone had a different idea. Then one day at our church office, the priest said: “Well, if she can’t come to church, then we will just take the church to her!” Everything fell into place with that simple statement.

And so on Sunday, February 7th, nearly 100 people with as many balloons showed up on the front lawn for a surprise birthday. When I opened up the front door, she peered outside and said, “Why are all those people here?” For months afterward she would moved over to the couch; open the photo album she was to weak to hold and we talked about the pictures: “That’s the mayor.” “These are our neighbors.” “That’s our mail carrier.” “That’s the lady who helped me.” “That’s Mary Jean, . . .Johnnie …Donnie…”

And on June 28th when she was passing in the home she loved, surrounded by friends and family, someone started to sing the words, “Swing low sweet chariot comin’ for to carry you home…” At one point the hospice worker looked at me and said, “Please note the time of passing at 5:23 p.m.”

During the past year, no matter how hard the care-giving got, she would always say, “I know what you are doing!” She did. She cared for her mother much as I did for her. Her last words to me were, “I have to stay alive, I have to take care of you.” Mine to her were, “It’s okay, I promise I will take care of myself.”

Almost immediately, I was on a plane that took me to Belize, farther away from home than any of my direct ancestors have been since our family came to America in the 1600s. It’s a wonderful country; and, as I sat on the edge of a pier over the warm Caribbean, I realized that I would not have been able to be there if I were still care-giving. I know Mother was glad I was able to be there.

Shortly after that, I was in Oklahoma with long-time friends; over my birthday and Thanksgiving I was in Palm Springs, the Mojave National Preserve and Las Vegas; and then this last week to Riverside, California at the wonderful Mission Inn for a church event. It has been a long time since I have been able to travel. I am grateful that I can.

I am not sure what these Christmas letters are supposed to say, but if I am to be honest, I would say that while there is sadness in her passing, these last three years have been the best of our lives.

As trustee of the estate I am closing it down. I have time to figure out where my journey will take me now…but if that journey is as exciting, meaningful and loving as the one I have been on, I have nothing to fear.

Blessings...

“Wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” Ruth 1 16-17

Old Hymns and Hope - revised

"The Dust Bin of History" was the name of a column I wrote. Its sole purpose was to bring attention to 21st century people who just "didn't get it.” Usually, they were very odd and second-rate characters found on the third paragraph of a news story who were caught up in ideas popular a hundred years ago, or even worse, pretending they understood how concepts expressed a hundred or even a thousand years ago should be interpreted today.

But located on the front or back of a newspaper, each of them had one common characteristic: their voice and/or actions represented ideas, faiths or political points of view that people in the successive generations from now, will just shake their head and wonder, “Why?”

History is filled with “dust bins” – ideas and people whose names and ideas are forgotten like flecks of dust. Does anyone remember the names of folks who nailed Jesus to a cross, who believed in slavery or who relegated women to the kitchen? Names like Caligula, Jefferson and Hitler come to mind but they were the leaders of lost causes.

I wonder how many of the "common" folks from those times went along with their leaders’ thinking. Did they say, “Well, I’d rather keep my old fashion belief." or "He represents how I feel." or “My tried and true feelings always worked in the past.”

I can never know how people felt then; all I can ask now is; why do change or the future frighten them so.

When I was in college I had a conversation with the Chair of the English department which ended with her saying: “Oh, Frank, logically prejudice cannot survive … not in America.” So in the 70s I thought that if this country could move beyond the “gay" issue, beyond narrow-minded folks and divisive rhetoric, then perhaps, just perhaps, we could move into a brighter future.

Decades later I now realize that some women died before they had the vote; that slaves died enslaved and that many gay persons will never see a world of equal rights...

There is an old Christian hymn whose first line reads: "The strife is o'er, the battle done, the victory of life is won." I can hear the tone as I write those words. It is a restoration song whose words point to that better future.

I live in the hope that the strife surrounding gay persons will be o’er and that the victory of life will be won.

‘This was my finest moment in politics.’ BHO

One of the lead news stories tonight read, "House Republican leaders held a news conference Saturday to say that they are going to do whatever they can to make sure the Democratic health care plan does not pass." There is one thing, and only one thing that I am clear about. Not one single one of those "House Republicans" has any idea of that it is like to find yourself without health insurance or to have 15 different insurance providers send you emails indicated that because of your age and preexisting conditions "you do not qualify." Why is it that they get health insurance and so many of the rest of us do not?

But tonight ALSO our President said that those who voted for US, who CARED ... it will be for them their "finest moment in politics." This is the kind of moment that restores my hope in humanity.

There is movement ... yes ...

I GOT SO MAD ..

The fanatic La Rouche people showed up at my local market with this poster. I got so mad I walked into the market found the manager who just happen to be standing around 20 people and very loudly insisted that "I objected to that awful poster and that if you don't remove it I would never, never come back here." I must admit to surprising even myself; I don't think I have ever done anything like that before.

The manager immediately moved away allowing me to follow him and told me that he had called the police who at that moment came driving up. I didn't stay around to find out what happened. As I left I said to the two people at the table, "Take your poster and crawl back into the hole you came from."

My family was deeply effect by WWII. Friends of mine had family who died in concentration camps ... I can't go on. But to compare President Obama's plans for health overhaul to something from the Nazi era is ludicrous and just plan insane!

I have loved this song ... for a long time!

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door.

The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day.
Why leave me standing here?
Let me know the way.


Many times I've been alone
And many times I've cried,
Anyway you've always known
The many ways I've tried.

And still they lead me back
To the long, winding road
You left me standing here
A long, long time ago
Don't leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door.

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long, long time ago (ohhh)
Don't keep me waiting here
Lead me to your door. (yeah yeah yeah yeah)

A Letter to Equality California

Mr. Kors,

I may have been fighting this "battle" longer than you have been alive ... well, I really don't know your age, but...

Personally, I am one of folks who "knew the 'first' generation” of gay activists but am a member of the "second generation that got wipe out by AIDS" group. Those years ago, I moved "back home" to escape a confusing world, to avoid the "cancer" and to escape the pain of the early AIDS death of the man who these days would have been "my husband."

And so it has turned out that this gay man has lived out most of his life in a "str'8" world ... even if it was in a suburban of Los Angeles. There are many of us here. And I discovered that "out here" and just being "me" worked ... even without a lover or kids.

I worked in the religious world, went to church, tended my garden, took care of my parents, smiled at my neighbors, joined the local Rotary, set up neighborhood associations, did my share of volunteering and in a small ways tried to create a better world. It has been a world outside of political wonks and ghettos. Life is about walking around the neighborhood with friends and, at some point or other, coming out in small ways.

It is the idea of those "small ways" that make me think that you and "Equality California" have done the right thing in delaying the vote on marriage equality. And to be frank, I am not sure there are not enough of "me" around and just being good neighbors now.

One more thing ... many of the ground folks in last year’s campaign to defeat Prop 8 were clueless. I can get on a phone and talk to anyone ... that's what I have been doing for 30 years. But the guys you hired to run the campaign on the local level? They were clueless. I imagine they were all working they way up the political ladder and had no idea of why my next door neighbor cried when I told her about Jimmy; Jimmy, who these days "would have been my husband'" ... and for whom I will always say, "Better once than ever, for never too late ..."

So spend some time and get some folks around you who know what winning this "fight" is all about ... Please?

GOP can go South

Published last week:

I love the South; the memories I have of long ago family “car” trips through it, and more recently one particular former Pasadena resident who has now moved back to her home in Alabama. But it was in the South many years ago that I discovered that people hated “Negros”; that there were black and white drinking fountains and when I heard my father firmly say to his two boys, “We don’t think like that; we don’t live like that!”

Years later I remember hearing the commentators say that the Democratic Party would “lose the South” if they move forward on issues of justice and equal rights. “Demand and implement equal rights in voting and in education and the South will go Republican,” they said. Somewhere in my teens I thought, “Well let them go; let bigotry go, let hatred go. It’s okay.” That was not the America I learned about in school or the one my parents believed in.

Today Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio said the Republican Party was being “taken over by the Southerners,” with their “extremist ideas.” Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana shot back, calling Voinovich "a moderate, really wishy-washy.”

I think it is time to let the Republican Party become “Southern.” Let them dwell there with the uglier parts of our historical and political life. Free up the rest of us to remember everything that has makes our country great. Leave the bigotry and hatred there and hope that someday it will wither away and die in the swamps of South Florida.

Frank Clark

A Budget? or Punishment!

Letters to the editor: All are punished
Posted: 07/21/2009 05:18:20 PM PDT

Tuesday's headlines read, "California governor, lawmakers reach budget deal."

I wonder how many of these "lawmakers" will attend the funerals of people who die for lack of care; how many will visit the elderly who are forced into nursing homes; how many of their children will have to attend over sized classrooms; how many of their children go without college - the list is endless as are the numbers of people who "care" but who will lose their "caring" jobs.

At the end of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," the Prince shouts at the players as he views the sorrow that surround them: "All are punish'd!"

All are "punish'd": Democrats for forgetting "the least of these." And Republicans who do not care.

What Yarddog Thinks

Within my Christian context the word "evil" can mean many things ... and then there is the business of the "one unforgivable sin." These two concepts do not find their way in to my every day faith. But what do you do with folks who for whom these two concepts mean something?

They claim to represent my faith; they claim to know the Truth and they want our larger American family to be subjected to their point of view. Trouble is I don't think like them and I do not believe my Creator and His Son don't think like them.

So what am I to do with this bunch:>
American Association of Christian Counselors
American Family Association
Americans for Prosperity
Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND)
Campaign for Working Families
Catholic Online
Concerned Women for America
Conservative Action Project
Eagle Forum
Exodus International
Faith and Action
Family Research Council
High Impact Leadership
Liberty Alliance Action
Liberty Counsel
Liberty University
Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN)
Marc Nuttle
Morning Star Ministries
National Clergy Council
National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
Renewing American Leadership
Strang Communications
Teen Mania
The Call to Action
Traditional Values Coalition
Vision America

Yarddog

Any clue?

PROTEST TONIGHT

By clicking on the link in the title above you will discover where the protests in your area are tonight and in the upcoming days ... more later.

Julian Bond ... this is a must see.

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE

First, this is more of diary entry than a blog but then I think allot of posts on the blog-a-sphere are just that ...

I don't often refer people to another person's blog ... particularly for something I should have written myself but an Episcopal priest here writes a blog called, "An Inch in Time," and her latest post say so much ... heard it HERE.

That writer is much better at updating her blog than I am these days ... but then the past election took a lot out of me...

... end diary entry ...

Dr. Joseph Lowery delivers Inauguration Benediction for Barack Obama

What is really wonderful about this beside the outstanding words and what they mean is that Pastor Lowery got a standing ovation for his benediction. Say Amen.

A PRAYER ...

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

WHICH IS WORSE: USING THE WORD, "CRAP" OR THE WORD, "NEGRO" ...

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Republican National Committee on Saturday admonished one of his potential successors for giving his fellow Republicans a CD featuring a song called "Barack the Magic Negro."

Apparently someone named Chip Saltsman, who is seeking the Republican National Committee(RNC) chairmanship, sent potential committee members a 41-track CD by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin a Christmas message that included a song to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon." It is about President-elect Barack Obama and was entitled "Obama the 'Magic Negro'".

I can not be the only person who thinks this kind of rhetoric is beyond the pale. And I can only hope that more eloquent "word smiths" than I will condemn Misters Saltsman, Shanklin and others who claim such disgusting, trash talk is simply a "sense of humor."

The question I have is why does this type of thing come from fundamentalist Christians, conservative Republicans, and/or folks who claim to "love America"? I just don't get it. I just don't get it!

HOLIDAY PROTEST ...

This picture was taken at another holiday protest against the passage of Prop 8. It was supposed to be a quiet, no signs event. We had enough people to cover the four corners of two historic main streets in town. What is surprising me are the number of str8 people who show up at these events ... And young people too; perhaps that is the best part ...

NOTE: tiny little battery candle in my hand ... no more wax on the hands! the times are changing.

FREE AT LAST ... ALMOST

Few things have shaped my political life like Los Angeles Times political cartoonist, Paul Conrad. For thirty years he shaped the Op/Ed page of the Times thanks in large part to the last and only progressive member of the Chandler family of editors.

Conrad's time at the Times spanned several in a line of the greatest evils in American politics. Until now the worst was a man named Nixon.

Trying to use words to explain his art is never easy but because one of his drawing has always been so important to me, I will try.

On the very last day that former President Richard M. Nixon left office, Conrad drew a picture of two black hands, from the wrist up, hands reaching upward. Around each wrist was a hand cuff. But as those heaven sent hands reach upward, they broke the links of those cuffs between them.

Under that drawing was printed the words, "Free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last!"

When even an even greater "evil" leaves office this January 20th 2009, I will once again remember Conrad's art and pray those words, as I did then: "Free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last!"

Free at last! Thank God almighty!

PASADENA PROP 8 DEMONSTRATIION

"If Prop 8 is allowed to stand, it goes much beyond the issue of marriage equality and puts all of our rights at risk," said San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera, who is leading the legal fight.