Where are the Founding Fathers When You Need Them, or God for That Matter?

 I would say if there were any time in my lifetime America needed a sense of Godliness, it would be now.  Systematically our nation, although imbued with the spirit and presence of a Supreme Being, began quietly to suppress the essence of God.  Broadly defined God could be considered acknowledging and caring for our fellow beings. Hellfire and brimstone preachers would have us believe something different, possibly feeling in servitude to God like slavery.  Because God is not physically present on earth, would it not be best to exercise our Godlike tendencies toward our fellow human beings?  Empathy, or one's acknowledgement and understanding of others' hardship, is fundamental to a fulfilled life.  It is difficult to live in a vacuum.  With all of this said, without the presence and spirit of Godliness our lives, we would succumb to what we have now.  The list is long.  Maslow's Hierarchy of needs shows this.  We have to look no further than the first tier of human need to find our problems, and they are grave.  The upper levels of the Maslow pyramid largely still are present in American life, but surprisingly the most basic requirements, those on the bottom are what have become compromised.  How is this possible?  They are breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion.  Each and every one of this requirements systematically has been undermined in American life.  It is difficult to argue.  How have we come to this?  While Capitalism as our chosen socioeconomic system comes to mind.  When it is not working is when we suffer.  In retrospect I'm not sure wireless communications and social media were the best choices for the American economy.  Both of these concepts, electromagnetic energy through the air and living through a wireless network via a device, have proven consequently we have neglected the Earth.  We have lost the fundamental connection and relationship with Mother Nature.  In America this is a staid topic, because native Americans who relied upon this symbiotic relationship with the Earth largely were eradicated as North America pushed west toward the Pacific Ocean.  The prioritization of Americans over native Americans, like the enslavement of Africans, will forever be the cloaked albatross of our nation.  We cast native Americans as heathens, and Africans as as substandard species of human life.  Both were mistaken and grievous in consequences.  While we continue to grapple with resulting Civil Rights and reparations, largely we ignore native Americans.  We have tucked them away on reservations and given them the rights to gamble for monetary profit.  There can be no greater disparity of philosophy than this.  A race of people who respected and were able to live off of the land were robbed of their sustenance, herded as cattle, and stricken with vice.  Is this unfortunately not the same scenario as the American public?  While we feign civility in our meager lives addicted to the internet, are we really free?  I think not.  The freedom for which human beings yearn is more spiritual, but it is reliant upon Mother Nature for its roots.  As a nation we have become irresponsible and have a cold shoulder toward Mother Earth.  The consequences of the breech of this relationship have become dire.  It is easier to deny it or simply cover it up by changing history or the perception of truth.  When I am effected by these shortcomings, which now is often, I am angered.  Anger can be an operative emotion.  When I think about the who is responsible, only there is one answer, and the list is long.  During Covid when airline flights in mass were grounded, the hole in the ozone over the South Pole shrunk dramatically.  Carbon emissions are nothing new, but we are quick to dismiss commercial airlines, because we have become reliant upon their novel service.  Most people like to fly.  Because of deregulation in most industries, it is these entities largely that have become responsible for the rapid demise of American life as we once knew it.  They are not required to consider, much less have empathy for American consumers.  They do not nurture us and care for us in a Godlike fashion.  Instead they pollute the environment in which we live and sell us poisoned products.  Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is not rocket science.  Much of life is like a balancing act on a set of scales.  In Fayetteville these scales have tipped to the wrong side for various reasons.  Once such reason could be the economy or Capitalism.  We have a housing shortage, but only because there was concerted effort to remove much low income housing because of its unsightliness.  If we had allowed the trailer parks to remain in Fayetteville, perhaps there would be fewer homeless people on the streets.  Freedom Town Center once was a trailer park.  The effort to provide more housing on a larger scale has resulted in a lopsided decimation of trees.  Trees provide oxygen, shade, and other comforts.  As the scale can swing at certain times of the year, they can produce unhealthy pollen and required maintenance.   I know this first hand, because our family home is host to two large live oak trees in the front yard.  They are far from maintenance free and are guilty of producing byproducts that can problematic for human health, including my own.  It is a necessary relationship.  My anger over selfish business prospects easily is stoked, as I drive through my own neighborhood.  A swath of trees that was a line of demarcation created by the local watershed recently was felled.  It remained there over the years for a reason.  The grade of the property was steep, and the trees provided a natural barrier against traffic noise.  They also provide needed oxygen to breathe.  It would seem the human race needs less and less oxygen to survive, because rapidly we are eliminating the sources and augmenting the offenders, or the polluting industries that burn our oxygen and replace it with deadly carbon emissions.  As I rode my motorcycle around Fayetteville, the effect was noticeable.  Places that had trees were cool and smelled sweet, and urban sprawl including downtown were hot and depleted of oxygen.  They smell like diesel or jet fumes.  Every time a commercial aircraft climbs or descends over our historic neighborhoods, clearly I understand global priorities.  They did not used to do this, creating wake turbulence on the ground for inhabitants and unhealthy almost unbreathable air.  The decimation of two large swaths of trees in Vanstory Hills has lessened the quality of life for its residents.  We are not the only neighborhood.  If one were to ask the inhabitants of Murray Hills in particular about the development of 1 Jura Drive, a large forest of formerly inaccessible trees, the rumble of diesel excavators daily for over two years would not be their choice.  As with the development on North Edgewater Drive, which has been in the works for years, these gaping wounds of red dirt and stark absence of trees is not a pleasant though.  There was no effort whatsoever to retain any of the trees.  They simply were slaughtered to make it easier for the developers to make money.  Thus far we have a half built Disney haunted mansion of a house looming over the entrance to Vanstory Hills.  How long will it take to sell these properties knowing that this house is the example?  Its cost is well over a million dollars.  If it is not difficult enough to find clean air in Fayetteville, our new President has reversed the small gains we have made on the recognition and removal of PFAS from the Cape Fear River Basin.  Further down the list...  The availability of healthy food for the average American is scant.  Contrarily American farms that produce freshly grown crops for local consumption have been bought out by the Farm Bill.  In many cases they are paid NOT to grow fresh food.  "Soylent Green is people!"  On the shelves of our grocery stores is a potpourri of ultra-processed, additive laden, addictive substances that don't qualify as food at all.  Fast food is no different.  The availability of healthy fresh food has become the most dire challenge to people in Fayetteville.  As for sleep and the possibility of restful peaceful slumber, that went out the window when John Snow merged the Chessie System with Seaboard Coastline to form CSX-T.  Invasive freight trains rumble through our communities nonstop producing heat, air pressure, vibration, and now electromagnetic emissions.  Lack of oversight of these offending corporations is the root of this evil.  It may not look like much on paper, but when you have no clean water, no clean air, and no healthy food, human existence will cease.  Is this the goal?  American cleansing. 

June's Sewing Machines

 I have been here before, when things you did previously and were important to you become painful.  How is this possible?  It is related to loss, and now those things, which at one time seemed important in your life, no longer resonate.  There is a clinical term.  Anhedonia.  "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most."  Two things are hanging me up.  One is spring, because the entire last decade of my life as a care giver I embraced spring as planting season.  My mother's influence on me was substantial, and I transformed our yard into one continuous garden.  No longer can I look at the photographs.  They are so beautiful they hurt.  When beauty disappears is it all the more painful?  How about ugliness?  How about art?  It is a glaring reminder that you no longer are engaged in those same things.  Are they important to you now?  It is important for me to understand this.  My cousin Phyllis Ann Greene White passed away on April 4th.  While I was ill with what probably was Covid, my sister and brother-in-law drove to Shelby to attend her celebration of life.  With them they took my mother's surger and sewing machine to give to the daughter of one of my first cousins.  They sew in this family among other notable things.  It was the appropriate gesture passing these important machines on to a younger generation.  They sat in our sewing room like anchors mooring the house down.  While I cleaned this room after my mother's passing on Nov. 11, these machines continued to sit uncontested.  They belonged there, and it was the purpose of this room.  My parents had custom cabinets and shelving made for this room which included a folding down sewing table and a counter for the machines.  Now that they are gone I am adrift.  There are plenty of sewing accoutrements still in the room, but the two machines now are gone.  I miss them.  Over time as children we relish the belongings of our parents.  Not?  I can say with certainty that was not the case for many things in our home.  When my father had to move to assisted living the brown couch in our den made its exit quickly.  I took his Ampeg flip top bass amp straight to the dump, because it no longer worked.  I had hauled that heavy box to many a gig of his, and I was done with it.  Not everything lasts forever.  We also had an empty Hammond speaker enclosure which sat in our foyer as a piece of furniture.  It went to the dump as well, because I lacked the sentimentality needed to appreciate it.  Our master bedroom closet is full of my mother's hand made, often wool clothing.  Those machines were tools, and fervently I believe investing in tools which allow you to create things is wisest.  That was the case of my Yamaha DX-7llD synthesizer purchased in 1987.  As a professional musician I used that tool to create and produce a great amount of original music.  When another one appeared on eBay recently in very good condition, I opted to buy it.  Will I ever use it again?  Who's to say if I'll ever play another gig?  I did decide without a rig your chances are less.  I underestimated the impact of passing my mother's sewing machines on to a younger generation.  I feel the same way about our white Toyota Sienna van.  When parents die things must change, and I didn't need three cars.  But I liked that van, and I enjoyed driving it.  It took a lot of work to keep it running, and I put in those hours.  I don't need it back, but the time I spent driving it are etched in my brain.  The hours my mother spent sewing also are etched in my soul.  Spring is here, and my mother is not.  I have to figure out if this yard will get the same treatment.  There is one point of contention.  Working in the yard when Covid hit began to make me sick.  Having your hands in black cow manure, rotting leaves, and fungus is not the healthiest practice.  Always I felt this was good for your body to build up its immune system.  Covid changed that.  I developed some annoying allergies, and my fingers often were broken open from these.  I also caught foot fungus from the shower in cruise ships, and never fully did it go away.  I tilled the yard, breathed dirt, and relentlessly built a beautiful green space in which my mother reveled.  I did also.  The reality that gardening or working in your yard could now make you sick was disturbing.  The severity of your illness will have a life long effect on you.  This particular Spring though I am about to traverse the Covid barrier.  I purchased an N99 respirator which filters out 99% of airborne particles.  Now I wear this when I blow leaves as well as protective goggles.  The mask works.  My mother observed as I used to curse at the low flying aircraft.  Anytime I would venture outside of the house, a plane would meet me.  They were menacing, annoying, and unwanted.  It became routine that I would get sick just from being outside.  Over the last year I had to curtail my gardening experiences, thus I have not prepared the soil for a garden this year.  It is not too late.  With the occurrence of hurricanes different insects have made their way to North Carolina.  One of them is fire ants, teeny little ants often you never will see that live in the ground.  I was stung numerous times by these elusive creatures waiting to pounce.  Covid brought its own kind of plague and pestilence to our lives.  I never would imagine how much the absence of my mother's sewing machines would effect me until I figured it out.  My things are all around me, but most of them now bring me pain, the pain of loss.  I have been here before, and it meant changing yourself.  I only can change so much.  I thought I had a new vision for myself musically, and that was singing.  Quickly I found out our neighborhood would rather not hear you sing anything.  We are a mute community.  It is stark when you realize the sheer amount of melodies you have in your head, but you can't use them.  The average person is threatened by the Great American Songbook, and if my neighbors present the correct example I was instructed to listen to J. Cole as the pinnacle of local musical success.  Always I have been able to feel and play the blues, but 20 something white Americans don't connect with the African American slavery experience.  The greatest suffering was Jesus, the Son of God, hanging on the cross dying.  He sacrificed Himself for our sins.  If we think we are important in the scheme of life, think again.  Lack of empathy is the single most overt characteristic of fascism. 

Dick Cheney's Contempt for Mother Nature

I have ignored President Trump's malfeasance.  His previous Presidency, while better behaved, proved he is not for the common American.  When he was fighting for a second term the blows began to fall.  The people were subject to a shit storm of slander, lies, misinformation, and collusion.  When he was reelected this vitriol subsided, public verbal assaults of his competition.  The onslaught ensuing is a carefully planned GOP mandate.  Trump was under pressure to reimburse his illicit Russian benefactors, and the GOP's agenda was premeditated.  The executive orders began the day he was inaugurated.  Many undermine or completely ignore the United States Constitution; many are illegal and borderline criminal.  None of this is new, and his manipulation of the stock market and insider trading are common methods amassing wealth.  How long will this go on, and when will he be held accountable?  Presidents are immune from criminal prosecution.  This is why a second Presidential term was crucial.  Did he win honestly?  Considering the hearsay supported by his campaign of misinformation, and his blaming the Democrats for what he was guilty, it is doubtful.  The country needed a rest.  The Democrats were noble, and like Al Gore conceded the loss.  There was little scrutiny of the vote, which is unusual considering the sheer amount of doubt placed on the system.  When things are in his favor, vitriol is quelled.  "Yes, I will become the dictator of America, but you will be happy."  Happiness is the freedom which America has guaranteed.  That freedom has begun disappearing, and it is subtle.  I feel zero freedom.  I can walk around and do what I want, but my life is far from free.  I am being surveilled, and it is not subtle.  Everyone is being surveilled by the NSA, and this agency is an American Schutzstaffel.  It listens to our  conversations, tracks our web activity, and maintains its innocence.  There is no freedom if we are being monitored by Big Brother.  We live in the little black box.  I didn't understand this until graduate school.  Everything that happens is known.  There have been exceptions to this postulate, but the UNC athletic scandal usurped Dean Smith's "Carolina Way."  Winning or monetary wealth is more important than honesty, integrity, and empathy for your fellow man.  We are corrupt, and we feign virtue when it is financially rewarding.  America no longer is Christian or recognizes God.  The proof of this was the advent of Covid 19.  The second Bush Presidency pushed the envelope.  America is not humane, because humanity does not decimate a nation under false pretenses as a vendetta for revenge.  Was this erroneous decision to blame and attack Iraq the beginning of the end of America?  Are we reaping the repercussions of Bin Laden's covert and vicarious revenge through the Saudis?  Interestingly they no longer are in the news.  Because Donald Trump is the Commander and Chief, it is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between his administration's ruthless and immoral behavior and the methodology of our armed forces.  How can his unconstitutional leadership not influence our global and domestic military philosophy?  We have the Covid pathogen; because Dick Cheney championed Anthony Fauci and made him head of America's strategic biological defense, Covid is alive and well and living in the tanks of those constantly flying C-130 Hercules aircraft.  It is no coincidence when they are present people get sick. (including me)  Because viruses need a host, what better choice is there than Mother Nature?