The Newell Post

2016 posed a significant challenge to voters. I am not quite sure why. I know many did not like Hillary and, had the Republican challenger been a traditional Republican politician, say Jeb Bush or John McCain, I can see how those who did not like Hillary would have opted for the Republican candidate.

Once, however, Trump won the nomination I couldn’t imagine him winning. Coming from New York where Trump’s face was ubiquitous, I couldn’t even bring myself to watch The Apprentice much less vote for him for President.

Trump was always obnoxious and the worst stereotype of an arrogant New Yorker. I still can’t imagine how anyone living west of the Hudson and south of Staten Island could vote for such a blowhard.

Well, they did, and I hope they are happy now.

I am guessing enough of Trump’s 2016 supporters are sufficiently sick of his vile rhetoric to jump the Republican ship and restore dignity and order to Congress. We still have Trump to deal with, but he will be a frightened mouse of a President in the face of a hostile House.

But first, the Democrats have to win.

To make it easier for you I have devised a methodology to enable you to make the correct decision.

You’ve seen the horrific things perpetrated and condoned by the supporters of an unbridled second amendment. All you have to do to make it right is to vote for the candidate that the NRA does not support.

To further assist you in this just think of the babies in Newtown and the students in Parkland. You’ll do the right thing.

Remember the torch-wielding marchers in Charlottesville? Don’t vote for anyone who supports hatred.

Think of your mother and if you are blessed with a daughter and vote for the candidate that would make them proud of you.

Get your head out of the stock market, although it did take an inopportune tumble of late. You were not put on this earth to monitor your 401K. Trust me. I don’t want to lose money, and I like the fact that Obama restored our economy when he took office and I even appreciate the fact that Trump hasn’t destroyed it…yet. Nevertheless, the recovery has not been equally distributed.

Vote for the candidate more likely to help those who don’t have a stock portfolio or a 401K.

So, there you go. I used this methodology when I voted early in Florida. I hope to God it works.

As the 1960’s bled into the ’70’s music was the poetry that inspired listeners to feel, to hope, and very often to mourn.

Seemingly hours after four college students were gunned down by the National Guard on the Kent State University campus, Neil Young at the behest of David Crosby had written Ohio.

The song quickly became the anthem for young people seeking to bring an end to the Viet Nam war.

Four students dying during a protest on an American university campus within recent memory of the 1968 assassinations, reinforced the concept of America as a divided country.

There were other things that served to divide us but the war took center stage, and it appears that our nation has yet to restore the breach that was forged during those dark days.

I don’t remember hearing anything about the NRA back then. After all, lone assassins were responsible for three deaths. At Kent State, it was the National Guard who did the shooting. Today’s tragedies are quite a different story.

Despite the perceived mayhem of the sixties I never once worried about going to school.

I never worried about going to church.

I went to Times Square on New Year’s Eve and my only concern was that there might be a transit strike before I got home.

Today’s kids are not quite so lucky.

The reason kids today have much more to fear than I ever has nothing to do with Obama, Hillary, or Nancy Pelosi.

You can build the highest wall you want but it wouldn’t have protected the children in Parkland.

The wall would not have protected the worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue.

We can hide from the rest of the world but we cannot hide from the Second Amendment.

Shortly after Parkland, I was in an office volunteering and I was working with a woman of my generation (it’s a nice way of saying she was an old woman). I made a remark about the tragedy and she agreed that something had to be done…BUT I don’t want to take away the Second Amendment!

WHY THE FUCK NOT!

We’re not talking about the Eucharist or the Virgin Birth. We’re talking about the right to have a musket in your house on the prairie. Read the Federalist Papers. There is not one mention of an automatic rifle. I swear to God there is no mention of an AR-15 or an AK-47.

LOCK THEM UP!!!!

Too many innocent people are being killed. Too many live in fear. It’s time to have a rational gun policy and it’s time to LOCK THEM UP.

I know the NRA is scared of Nancy Pelosi. The Florida Republicans sure are as she is featured in every political ad buy for a Republican politician running scared. Just wait until next week when more women win their race and enter Congress in the new year.

We were a divided country in the sixties and seventies.

We may think we are a divided country once again. I don’t think we are. The news networks are divided. The White House wants us to be divided but Americans can see through all of that.

I can’t imagine any parent worried more about the second amendment than their child going to school.

Is anyone worried about a caravan?

The biggest threat to our democracy is the hacking of our computer systems. You can’t ever use Facebook anymore yet our government tells us to duck our head under our desk and that will protect us. We did that once before and thank God we never had to find out if it worked.

There are real dangers out there and they have absolutely nothing to do with mothers and babies.

More of us realize that all the hate that has been exposed in recent years is not American.

The thousands of Americans who have died defending the values espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution did not make the ultimate sacrifice so that a bunch of skinheads and survivalists and nationalist can stalk Americans.

They died fighting people like that.

Americans know this.

They know the truth when they see and hear it.

Maybe we just need a good song to remind us who we are.

C’mon CSNY, play us a song like you used to.

I thought American society turned the corner when Obama was elected.

It seems incredulous after two years of Trump that we ever elected a black man as President.

Back in 2009 when Obama took the oath of office, my three children decided to blow the day off and travel to Washington DC to witness history. It was that kind of event. And, it was one event that I didn’t even serve as the instigator. Going to Yankee games and Jet games and Ranger games, well, that is what I always pushed on them. As a former history teacher, however, I was never so proud of my children than when they told me they were going to the Inauguration.

Now, nine years later, there is no sense in going to Washington. Bad people work there. People who hate. People who talk about Jesus much as the pedophile priests do, with a sneer and the look of the devil.

We are going to elect a black governor in Florida. He inspires people much the same way that Obama did. Like Obama, Andrew Gillum’s journey will be fraught with danger and hatred. It’s already started.

A robo call has gone out to Floridians, some have said from the KKK, pantomiming a stereotype black voice. It’s goal, of course, to minimize and degrade the next governor of Florida.

I don’t know how we got here after 2009.

For how long have we heard from the right that our society was going to hell. Gay marriage, transgender rights, affirmative action, and immigrants, billions and billions of illegal immigrants.

Well, it seems that those topics are not causing our demise.

Unbelievably, our ruination comes as a result of those who always hid behind family values, God, and law and order.

Well, family values went out as soon as our president was taped paying off a porn star.

God? Don’t get me started. The Born Again Bigots are too busy throwing stones to realize God is no longer on their side.

Law and Order? How many aids and staff have to get indicted to blow the lid off of this?

The only law these people keep is the second amendment.

Forget about the other amendments, just let them keep their bazookas.

You know, I stopped writing for a long time because I didn’t want to get back on the soapbox. But I am still bombarded with the utter lunacy of the last two years. And now, they can’t even point to the economy as the stock market gave back all the gains made in 2018.

Well, go out and be sure to vote.

I used to think I knew what the Truth is. Even if I couldn’t define it well enough to convince a philosopher, like Justice Potter Stewart in describing pornography, I know Truth when I see it.

My dilemma?

There’s hardly any to be seen.

Thank God for the Yankees because I can at least focus on sports rather than the other national pastime of hatred.

To think that the Greatest Generation gave their lives and youth to support the American Value to hate his neighbor!

For a country that purports to aspire to religious ideals, we sure seem to cast a lot of stones even as we dodge quite a few ourselves.

Ironically, I used to complain about this type of behavior at sporting events. God forbid you wear the shirt of the opposing team. Don’t dare cheer for an opposing player. Fans have gotten killed and assaulted for daring to disrespect the home team.

Sure, those incidences have been extremely rare, and at a time when a grammar school kid or high school teenager faces a higher risk of harm than a Red Sox fan in Yankee Stadium, the latter seems almost quaint.

Our most recent example of political hatred is being played out in the Senate as Kavanaugh awaits confirmation. It’s funny to put it that way. Confirmation envisions a ten-year-old in a blue suit with a red bow on his arm. I am sure if you asked him he would rather face the slap of a bishop rather than facing the Democrats.

No matter what happens with his confirmation hatred will continue to inspire. Hatred will, in fact, replace Russian meddling as a topic of debate just as election day approaches.

Supporters of Kavanaugh and his opponents believe they have identified truth.

I wish they would share their technique with me.

Since moving to Florida, I have come to realize that summer is more a state of mind than it is a season.

For me, June 21st is the day I queue up my Summertime PlayList on my iPhone. I also shun the various IPAs (though not entirely) and hunt for Summer Ale.

Living on Long Island has conditioned me to prefer Blue Point Summer Ale over other varieties of the same concoction, but I am not really a summer ale snob and, in fact, there is not a summer ale that I have refused to imbibe.

As we are in the middle of the Labor Day weekend, my thoughts naturally turn to of autumn and the seasonal brews that follow. Yet the end of summer is more about the season than the beverage.

On Labor Days past it was a ritual for Eileen and me to stand and clap for the lifeguards at Ponquogue beach as the final whistle of summer sound.

It was a joyous moment to show our gratitude to the young women and men who protected all the beachgoers who populated our beautiful shores even as we lamented the passing of another summer.

Tomorrow would be a school day for our children and work for Eileen and me would resume. The weather would still be summer-like, and the calendar would still proclaim that summer was the season but you knew in your heart of hearts that summer was over.

Despite the prospect of continued 90 degree days for the foreseeable future down here in Bradenton, I cannot escape that same feeling that summer is once again eluding me. Another season of my life has ended.

Why is it that the passing of summer brings on this melancholy?

Who feels sad when autumn evolves into winter? The last day of autumn is a mere five days before Christmas. Surely no one is sad about that.

Then when winter ebbs and spring springs to life no need to wax poetic about winter’s passing. Baseball is right around the corner and who isn’t happy about that?

Then, summer comes, and we are all kids again remembering that last day of school and the eternal bliss of sleeping late and staying out after dark.

But, with the last of the Summer Ale comes the promise of Pumpkin Beer so, you see,  life, when the chill of autumn is upon us (and I use that term very loosely down in Florida), retains the joy of that first day of summer and the last day of school.

My Catholicism has always been a source of my identity. I went to a Catholic grammar school. I went to a Catholic High School. I went to a Catholic University and then I went to a Catholic Law School.

I taught in Catholic Schools for five years and I taught CCD or Sunday School for ten years. I even served as a lector for two years.

I believed in all of the Church teachings that pertained to Christ and his teachings. I didn’t believe in all that the Church said but I believed what Christ said and did.

I believed in the Eucharist and the Ressurection and eternal life after death.

The horrific pedophile scandals have convinced me that the bishops and Popes of recent years do not believe in those things.

How could they?

How could they let sick, perverted men under the guise of the cloth to molest innocent children with the same hands that they let these sons of bitches consecrate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ?

How could they?

I’ll tell you.

They didn’t believe in anything they said from that pulpit of theirs.

The crisis that the Catholic Church faces is nothing to do with the billions of dollars that they will lose.

The crisis has nothing to do with the ultimate destruction of the hierarchy of the Church.

These villainous leaders, who were supposed to be Christ on earth, will be ultimately responsible for the destruction of the faith of nearly a billion Catholics.

Catholics are repulsed by their failure to suffer the little children.

Catholics are repulsed by our bishops lack of faith.

How can you expect us to believe in a life eternal when these charlatans didn’t fear meeting Christ face to face?

Who forgave their sins except for other charlatans who were more concerned with protecting the good reputation of an organization and cared nothing for protecting a child.

I always felt these bastards cared more for a fetus than a child. In reality, they cared for nothing but preserving the source of their own financial support.

I am angry and, I am sure all Catholics are angry.

The anger is justified but, unfortunately, completely useless.

Anger will not remove the suffering that the victims continue to endure.

Anger will not make this memory go away.

The Church that I knew will no longer exist. That is a good thing.

We need a New Catholic Church.

The New Catholic Church will do what Christ instructed the man who asked what he needed to do to be saved.

The New Catholic Church must sell all its possessions and give to the poor.

We don’t need men in funny hats or big rings for us to kiss.

We don’t need big cathedrals, make them museums.

We don’t need any more saints. In fact, no one who presided over this terrible period of pedophilia should be canonized. Pope John Paul II should have his sainthood revoked.

The best that can be said about him is that he fell asleep at the switch. The worst? He knew all about the tragedy and did nothing about it.

There should also be a permanent change to the liturgy of the mass.

To the Prayers of The Faithful should be added:

“For all the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy, we pray to the Lord.”

Lastly, priests and nuns should be able to marry, and nuns should be treated as equal in all aspects of religious life. Men and women should both be encouraged to serve and to live a life that is dedicated to preserving the dignity of the individual as well as the faith in our church teachings.

This second Reformation is needed so that people of faith continue to have a reason to believe.

For some reason, I haven’t listened to my Summer Playlist nearly as often as in past summers. I suppose not having a five-hour train ride has served as a reduction in listening opportunities.

Whatever the reason, the weather has not been a factor. If anything, I should be listening to it more often than when I was up in New York. After all, it’s always summer down in Florida. Well, that’s not entirely true.

We just don’t have the same seasons as the rest of the country.

We have, FREAKING HOT, HOT, Balmy In The 80’s, and A Hint Of Fifty.

Unlike their northern counterparts, Florida seasons are not equally apportioned throughout the year. Freaking Hot, for example, extends from May through September.

Ok, enough of the weather lament. Back to my Summer playlist.

I do, in fact, have The Girl From Ipanema (I was surprised to learn it wasn’t IMPANEMA), as well as other summer songs from my childhood.

Summertime, by the Jamies.

See You In September, by the Happenings.

I also have quite a few from the late ’60’s and early ’70’s.

Suffice it to say that each entry carries its own memory baggage. Surprisingly, only Summer In The City brings to mind sweltering  New York City weather. The others merely evoke the great feeling of being off from school or working in the mailroom.

Carefree days when you were able to forget assassinations and war and poverty. I was a kid, and I was off from school and thinking seriously ended on the last day of school.

While I have not been listening to my playlist as often as I used to ( truth be told I have it on as I type) I did read a few books from summers past.

Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and Future Shock. Actually, I am reading that now. I wanted to see just how prescient Alvin Toffler was about how our lives would change.

I find it easier to write about this kind of things than current events. The music makes me happy, and the books bring back sitting on an un-airconditioned IRT 6 train on my way to work. I can almost feel the sweat dripping into my eyes as I read.

So, as we enter the last few weeks of summer, I hope your summertime memories, old and those currently under construction, keep you cool.

Stay cool gabagool.

One of the things I can do on The Newell Post is identifying my reading audience. I can’t identify specific individuals but I can, for example, determine the various operating systems used to view my Blog. In addition, I can see the countries in which my postings are read. Ukraine is a regular. I don’t know why.

The excerpt above was taken from an entry to the Newell Post that I wrote over four years ago.

At the time, I was intrigued that anyone in Ukraine would have found my blog interesting. Who knew?

Well, after the cyber invasion of our nation at the hands of the Russians, I guess my readers in Ukraine weren’t interested in me at all, but perhaps they were interested in my Facebook page?

I haven’t been on Facebook for some time and I am not really sure if any of my “friends” are even reading this. It’s such a shame that a form of communication that was able to keep friends and family, often living far distances apart, is now tainted by fear and uncertainty due to the Russians.

I do wish the President would build that wall. Not on our border with Mexico but a firewall to ensure  our cybersecurity.

Fifty years ago today I attended a play on Broadway. The play was I Do I Do. It was a requirement for my senior English class. I would be graduating from high school in two weeks.

I don’t remember much of the play as, like most Americans, I was still in shock having heard the news of the previous day. After just winning the California Democratic primary and sealing up the nomination as President, Bobby Kennedy was shot down just minutes after this remarkable achievement.

My mother told me he had died and then I went downtown with a classmate to see the play.

On the heels of the Martin Luther King assassination just two months earlier RFK’s assassination was a death knell to the America of 1968.

Cities would burn, the war in Viet Nam divided our nation more than ever, and Richard Nixon was assured to be the successful candidate in November.

It isn’t hard to remember those turbulent times and the only benefit of doing so is to reassure ourselves that America in 2018 isn’t as bad as you might think.

Like his brother’s assassination, Bobby’s loss keeps you wondering what might have been.

Would the Viet Nam war have ended sooner and the Great Divide that it created and still permeates our society today have been avoided?

Would the hope of racial and economic equality have been realized?

Would we have faith in our leaders today?

I know there are those who are sick of political dynasties. Jeb Bush found that out in 2016 and so did Hillary. Indeed the mystique around the Kennedys still remains to a degree but even Camelot has lost some of its aura over the years. Despite the human flaws possessed by the Kennedys and RFK in particular, they always put Country above self.

1968 was a dreadful year.