Month: June 2018

I was a mover for several years and I did my share of moving our military around. During my years of moving a lot of military people you may ask who was it that I enjoyed moving  the most . That’s an easy question to answer first I moved a retiring General to his new home on Lake Ten Killer, Lake Ten Killer is in Oklahoma, I didn’t make this up. The other one was the time I moved in the base commander, the Colonel picked up a chair and carried it into his house all by himself! This kind of thing just didn’t happen when moving military people after all I knew my place in the whole scheme of things. None of them ever said it,  but I knew all of them, in their mind, Was calling me the c word. That’s just the way it was, they were in ” the service” and I was just a c word. I’m sure those of you that are familiar with the military know that the c word is about the worse thing you could be. The c word is of coarse–civilian. One time I was moving in this Army officer and on some of his boxes the word Captain was replaced by the word Major. It turns out that the civilian packers wrote Captain, because when packing military in was required to write their rank on each of their boxes, and it turns out he was just promoted to Major so when he discovered that the civilian packers were writing Captain on his boxes he made them x out all the boxes they wrote Captain on and replaced it with Major. This kind of military attitude was nothing new to me. In high school the kids that were in ROTC may it clear that the rest of kids were just civilians, they couldn’t help it after all they were taught this at their homes. But you know it wasn’t always like this where the military is always glorified. Todays song was made on Jan. 8, 1914 over 104 years ago. The song is featured on PBS American Experience: The Great War, here is a preview on the program.

It’s hard in this day and time to believe that there was a time in America where there wasn’t the worshipping of the military that we have today. There was a time when parents didn’t gladly sacrifice their sons because the military goes blindly into war.

The line in the song: Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder to shoot some other’s mother darling boy! reminds me of a quote from our former president, Jimmy Carter who once said: War may sometimes be a necessary evil . but no matter how necessary  it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. We will never hear a statement like that from our current president. Yes President Trump loves the military and all it’s glory it’s such a shame that he had to take those five deferments during the Vietnam War. He took four deferments because his college education was more important than serving his county, and at the age of 22 after college he was already to serve his country and wouldn’t you know it he had to take another deferment because he had massive bone spurns in his heels, it’s amazing he could even walk! But good news for President Trump those massive bone spurns just disappeared right after he received his deferment. Although Donald Trump never got to experience war he still loves war, in fact he has wrapped himself with the American flag and loves the military so much that he has decided what America needs most is a military parade. Yes a military parade just like they have in Russia, China, and of coarse North Korea. Well he already holds Hitler style rallies where he is praised or maybe worshipped is a better way of describing them. The military parade that is planned to be on Veterans Day November 11,2018. What happened 100 years ago?  Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when the Armistice with Germany went into effect. The United States previously observed Armistice Day. The U.S. holiday was renamed Veterans Day in 1954. What could be more inappropriate to have a parade glorifying war on the 100th anniversary of the end of our first World war.  Of coarse the purpose of the parade is not to glorify war it’s to glorify President Donald J. Trump. The cost of this parade is estimated to be around 50 million dollars but you know that’s isn’t anywhere near the real cost and I’m not just referring to the cost of money what is even more important is what is this going to cost the reputation of our country. Are going to be country like the theme of the first World War that’s Making the World Safe for Democracy or we’re going to become a nation ruled by the military? Just look at all the generals President has appointed to key jobs in our government, it seems that only generals and people that work for Fox News will get appointed by President Trump. I hope that when this parade happens on November 11, there will also be another parade in Washington DC The other parade will celebrate the Democrats taking back the House AND Senate which would once again make America Safe For Democracy!—-Join me again tomorrow when I will have a great song about taxes. Don’t know any great songs about taxes, well you will hear one tomorrow.

Their are many people who will tell that the United States of America is a nation of laws. NO North Korea is a nation of laws. The United States of America is a nation of freedoms! Millions of people don’t come to America to live under strict laws, they come for the freedom of America.. They do NOT come to America to be enslaved them and their children.

Back when I went to school I was taught that America was “a nation of immigrants” that America was the “melting pot” of the world where all different people of different believes and of coarse people of different skin color.

 

One of the greatest symbols of America’s freedom is the Statue of Liberty. At the base of the statue is the famous quote:        “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”  That’s why the Statue of Liberty is holding a torch, it’s to light the way to freedom.  The problem America has is we have a president who was elected with a minority of the vote, who believes freedom should only be available to those whose skin is white. America has a huge problem and I believe most people in America don’t know what this problem is. After World War 2 the soldiers came home and it is unclear what exactly they did but after a few months there were suddenly a lot of babies being born.  These babies would come to be know as the “baby boomers”. The baby boomers have a huge problem and I don’t think they prevent it, the baby boomers are old now and their dying like crazy! Their was a report that said that in the white population of America deaths outnumber births. It’s not a shock we knew this was going to happen for years because their are people in our country that know a little something about math. That’s right I don’t care how much the Trump worshippers love the great white race the math’s against them. The other day President Trump said “If we are not tough on the border then the United States will be flooded with millions of people crossing the southern border. Well OK then, here’s the deal if Trump does what he said he’ll do and brings millions of jobs back from China then we will have millions of jobs with no one to fill them. Hey do the Math! The question that now must be answered is what color will the people be to fill these jobs. Well thankfully, we know what our president wants. President a few months ago President Trump that “we don’t want people coming from shithole countries why can’ we have people coming from Norway?  President Trump wanted to know. And by the way the word “shithole” is now an Official Presidential Word and the Trump worshippers couldn’t be prouder of the president’s command of the English language. How are we going to do the will of our president and get  these white people from Norway to come to America?  Well I have a great idea we can pay their way over and then we can get them a job, maybe a job like mowing white Americans yards! But thanks to ICE, due to a raid yesterday on a meat-packing plant in Ohio there are now 165 jobs available for people from Norway. Wouldn’t that be great because don’t you know how much better a steak would taste if you knew that cow was killed and it’s guts were ripped out by white people from Norway! Then there’s all the jobs like going to a chicken house in the middle of the night and put chickens in cages to be taken to the chicken plant where once there, are hundreds of jobs for white people from Norway. Just like chickens the exact same jobs can be found with turkeys. Just imagine this Thanksgiving you could sit down with your family all around and you could thank God for all those great white people from Norway who made it possible for everyone to eat turkey. And then there are all the produce and fruit that is picked hand. That would be great for our new white Americans but don’t think for one second these white people from Norway are going to be equal with us white Americans. Years ago we took in a lot of people just because they were starving to death. You may not know it but they were from the {place Official Presidential Word here} nation of Ireland. Now these people were white and spoke English, although they spoke it really funny, they were rejected from the white Americans that were already here. One reason why they hated  the people from this {place Official Presidential Word here} nation of Ireland was the fact that most of them were Catholic. Today we have the same thing going on, most of the people coming from Mexico and from the other {place Official Presidential Word here} countries are Catholic. The Trump worshippers say that we don’t need anymore brown people and for sure don’t need anymore Catholics in our non {place Official Presidential Word here} country.—–I’ve got a lot more to say so bookmark my blog and join me here again tomorrow for another  song and my comments.

This is one of mine favorite Elton John songs of all time. This video was made in 1970 of a 23 year old Elton John on a Switzerland TV special. I know he was 23 because Elton and me share the same birthday of March 25 and I was 8 in 1970 and Elton is 15 years older than me. Back then here in America a popular expression was Holy Cow, meanwhile in England it was Holy Moses, I guess the british weren’t as impressed by cows as we were. The song is not a prayer to Moses it’s just the expression they used. The song was written by Bernie Taupin but when Elton read the words to the song he thought it needed a big finish so Elton wrote the last verse, he wrote:          Holy Moses let us live in peace
Let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease
There’s a man over there what’s his color I don’t care
He’s my brother let us live in peace                                                                                       Elton wrote these words over 48 years ago it seems no one is striving to find a way to make all hatred cease and the color of that man over there is all anyone cares about!

My sister-in-law, Carmen, is from Honduras. Back in June of 2009 My brother and Carmen went to Honduras to visit her family and of coarse I’m sure all Americans remember what happened in Honduras on June 28, 2009. There was a coup d’état, that’s a fancy word for a military overthrown  of the government. Some of Carmen’s family worked for the government. I could imagine that it was a very scary time for all of them. After a few days, my brother and Carmen were able to take a bus to Costa Rica to fly back to the US. I found this video that explains what happened during the coup quit well.

A short while after the coup, two of Carmen’s cousins were standing in their friends driveway, when a man they didn’t know came up to them and pulled out a pistol and put it against their friend’s forehead and pulled the trigger her cousins ran. Her cousins decided to leave the country so they went to airport and flew to Miami and then to Houston, this was back in 2009 and there wasn’t a direct flight to Houston back then. So  Carmen’s cousins stayed with her and my brother a couple of months in Houston. My brother flew Daddy down to Houston for a visit while they were there and Daddy said that they were “two fine young men”. They were both in their twenties. After a couple of months they went to New Orleans to visit one of Carmen’s sister and then they flew back to Honduras. Now when that man shot Carmen’s cousins friend there wasn’t anyone there to take a picture of it. So I thought I would show the most famous picture of someone being shot in the head. This is a picture of a South Vietnamese General  (the good guys) shooting a VC prisoner (the bad guys) in the head. The picture appeared in Life magazine and is credited with changing many people’s mind about the Vietnam War. Maybe it can still change people’s mind today. You can watch the video of this but I will not put it on my blog.

Last week the news reported on a woman from Honduras was seeking asylum because in Honduras the banks are controlled by the drug cartels and if someone cannot pay back a loan then a family member is killed, this is one reason why Honduras is the “murder capitol of the world”. She said that they let it know that she was the family member that would be shot. Her request for entering the United States was denied. Do you know what will, not might happen, what will happen to that woman if she goes back to Honduras? Just look at the picture above. Maybe that is what happened to Carmen’s cousin’s friend, he might had been the family member that the cartel picked to kill. When the caravan of these people from Central America were in Mexico headed for our southern border President Trump had one of those rallies to glorify  himself at the rally he proclaimed that none of these people that are walking towards the border will get in our country. And as they say “and the crowd went wild”.  Does Trump cares what happens to this woman I wrote about? The answer to is easy No Trump could care less what happens to a poor brown woman from Honduras. What about the Trump worshippers who fill up out church’s each Sunday, do they care what happens to this poor brown woman from Honduras? From their posts I’ve seen on Face Book the answer world be a big NO. Does Jesus care what happens to this poor brown woman from Honduras? If you ask the Trump worshippers, from their actions they would tell you no, Jesus only cares about white people.

My brother and me went to Little Rock to War Memorial Stadium to see Elton  John and Billy Joel preform together. We went to hear Elton and we didn’t know that much about Billy Joel. Now I knew he always ended his concerts with Piano Man and everyone was suppose to sing the chorus, but what me and my brother didn’t know was when Billy sung My Life when he comes to the words this is my life, leave me alone, the whole crowd, except from me and my brother, yelled out LEAVE ME ALONE! That gives me a great idea! Elton can sing Border Song for his 3 year farewell tour and when Elton gets to the part where he sings, there’s a man over there, what’s his color, then the whole crowd can yell out WE DON’T CARE! I think that would be great. Of coarse the Trump worshippers wouldn’t yell that but for some reason I don’t believe there would be a lot of them in the crowd anyway.

Back in the seventies Up With People would always come to several High Schools and would have a concert downtown. My sister sighed us up to be a host family for next year when they came back. The next year a member of Up With People stayed in our house for the few days that they were in town. She was really excited that Up With People was going perform at the Super Bowl halftime that year, but it was a different cast than the one she was in. Up With People always then and still does have 3 or 4 different casts that go all over the world. When we went to the concert the girl that stayed with sang a solo, but in true Up With People fashion she never mentioned to us that she was going to sing a solo that night. She sung Granddad’s Wooden Chain so today you get not one but two Up With People songs.

In the Up With People song What Color is God’s Skin their answer is that God’s skin is all colors and everyone’s the same in the Good Lord’s sight. Of coarse you could say that’s what Up With People would say after all their just a bunch of good-doer liberals!  Really what is the color of God’s skin. How do you know?  Well I have an idea on that.

Before we answer the question What Color is God’s skin let’s talk about God’s son Jesus and what color his skin was. Now there are a couple of things we know about Jesus for instance we know that he is from what the Bible calls, The House of David so we know he was a Jew. Isaiah said in Isaiah 53:2 2He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. New International Version. Yes we for sure know these two about how Jesus looked but have you ever seen a painting or a picture or a movie where Jesus was not a 6’2 good looking white man? Besides does anyone really knows what a Jew suppose to look like? Well yes there is there once was a group who we call the Nazis. The Nazis taught the German kids in school reading, writing, arithmetic, and how to spot a Jew. They had many textbooks on facial characteristics of Jews these book would have a picture of a true German and on the opposite page have a picture of a Jew. The Nazis taught their kids, OK remember this is the Nazis talking not me, that Jews have big noses and no chins whatsoever.        

The movie that totally makes my point is the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ. People say that this movie gets it right and is the most realistic movie ever made about Jesus. Well I haven’t seen this movie, but for the purpose of today’s story we’ll say their right. What I want us to take a look who plays Jesus that’s Jim Caviezel. Now I really like Jim Caviezel and from what I can tell he’s a good Christian man. I saw an interview that he did and he said that he was meant to play Jesus after all his initials were JC. Well OK but remember Charles Manson used to say he was Jesus because his name was Manson you know The Son of Man. Person of Interest was one of our favorite shows and we watched it every week. In Person of Interest Jim Caviezel played John Reese the man in the suit who used to be in the Special Forces and you didn’t want to mess with him. And by the way if you ever want to remake any Clint Eastwood movie Jim Caviezel is your man. If you watched the show you would know that Mr. Reese worked with Harold Finch now Mr. Finch looks were quite different from that of Mr. Reese. Now suppose you could take a picture of both of these men to Isaiah and ask him which of these two looked more like Jesus. My guess would be that he would pick Michael Emerson who played Mr. Finch over the good looking Jim .

What Michael Emerson has a big nose and no chin whatsoever! One thing we know for sure is that Jesus had a chin! Jesus face had to be symmetrical after all he was the son of God and God wouldn’t have a son whose face wasn’t symmetrical. What does a symmetrical face suppose to look like? What you do is when you look at someone from the side, their profile, draw an imaginary line from the tip of their nose to their chin. I would suggest that you not take a ruler and do this for real, remember that might be a good suggestion. If it’s a straight 90 degrees then their face is symmetrical. Now if it makes an angle then their face is not symmetrical. If they have a big nose and no chin and it makes a huge angle then those people are what the technical word is ugly. Hey I don’t make these rules, that’s just what people say. Then here’s another point I would like to make. If Jesus looked like a white European man wouldn’t anyone in the Bible notice that? You may say that in the Bible they didn’t know what a white European man looked liked.  Yes in the Bible they had 6 foot 2 white men that looked exactly like Jim Caviezel except they all wore an uniform of a Roman soldier. Oh did we forget about the Romans? If Jesus looked like most of us think then there would be a lot of differences in the Bible. For instance when Jesus met the woman at the well for a drink, she would say to him How is it that you, a Roman asks me a Smartian for a drink? and Jesus said Oh I’m not a Roman I’m a Jew and the woman said You don’t look like any Jew I’ve ever seen you look like a Roman to me and Jesus said I’m a Jew believe me! I know you might said that we shouldn’t get all worked up on what Jesus looked like after all isn’t Jesus just like Santa Claus and we can have him look anyway we want? If you say that Jesus was a 6-2 good looking white man and there’s nothing wrong that. Well there is something wrong with that because you are calling the Prophet Isaiah a lair. Then you just as they say opened a big can of worms because if Isaiah prophecy about how Jesus looked is wrong  then what other prophecies Isaiah made are not true? Isaiah made a lot of prophecies about the Second Coming of Christ, if you can’t believe all of Isaiah’s prophecies then how can you believe any of them? You may ask why are we talking about what Jesus looked like while the today’s song asks the question What Color is God’s Skin? Oh I almost forgot what about Adam and Eve? If you see any paintings of Adam and Eve you may notice they are the whitest people you ever saw. And remember they were naked all the time and never even got a tan! You may say this easy to explain the Bible says they were created “in the image of God” . Wait that explains it Jesus was a 6’2 white man because he looked just like his Father! Now all the Trump worshippers can said ” Jeff you finally gotten something right! I’m glad you got it right and aren’t like those liberal Up With People who thinks God is something other than white!

 

Maybe sometimes before you say something you might should calm down and wait and think about it before you say something or write something. I’m not going to do that. I’ve just watched the CBS news and they reported that both Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee Sanders are trying to justify taking children from their parents by using the Bible as a claim to their righteousness. After the news was over I opened my copy of the Baptist Hymnal and came to page168 Free from the law, O happy Condition and I thought that would be good to make my point. If you have been going to a Baptist church for decades like I have you’ll know that this hymn is not sung very often, but I was able to go to you  tube and I found a great version of this hymn.
In April Attorney General Jeff Sessions started a so-called zero tolerance program on the border with Mexico. Jeff Sessions proudly claimed last week that women that bring their children with them, as a deterrent their children will be taken from them.
Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee basically said that the Bible says that we are not free from the law but rather they believe the first line from this hymn which states: Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall. It appears to me that Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee do not believe or do not know that Jesus freed us from the law. Where did Jesus free us from the law? In the 8th chapter of John starting in verse one the Bible says 1. Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. 2. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. 3. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4. They said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned; but what sayest thou? 6. This they said, testing him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. —–The Pharisees believed the law wasn’t everything it was the only thing. If you wanted to go to Heaven then you must follow the law to the letter. The Pharisees loved the law so much they made up hundreds of new laws to follow. Ask any Trump supporter about immigration and they will tell you that we have laws, everybody must obey our laws, our immigration laws aren’t everything their the only thing. But if you ask a Trump supporter what does our immigration laws say, they couldn’t tell a single word of the law. Maybe they will tell you that our immigration laws say that only white people are allowed to come into our country. Well if we keep Trump and the Republicans in office that’s what our immigration laws will say! The Pharisees said that having this woman stoned, which if your not aware of stoning the woman would have to die, is this really in the Bible? Well yes it is, in the 20th chapter of Leviticus verse 10 says; And the man who committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he who committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.—Wait did you notice something here the law says that both the man and woman shall be put to death, now if the Pharisees found this woman “in the act” I’m pretty sure that there was a man there. By just bringing the woman the Pharisees were not following the law. Likewise, Sessions taking children from their parents is not following any immigration law. You may say Jeff you sure are smart for looking all this up. What really happened is I’m repenting a sermon I heard a very long time ago. The preacher, and I really don’t remember the preacher, said that the problem the Pharisees had was that they looked at the wrong verse. If they had only read 3 more verses down; Leviticus 20 verse 13. If a man also lie with another man as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.—–That’s right if they only went 3 verses down they would have came to the verse that says to kill homosexuals. Just imagine if they did that suppose they brought a couple of gay men before Jesus well for sure Jesus would had stooped down and picked up a rock and threw it hitting one gay man’s head and bouncing off his head striking the other gay man in his head killing two gay men with one stone. Wouldn’t that been great! How many pastors do you think would say that Jesus would do exactly that? We don’t know how many believe that,  however we do know that a vast number of pastors believe the Bible has given them the right to throw rocks at homosexuals. Back to the book of John; 7. So when they continued asking him, he lifted himself up, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.  8. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9. And they who heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one be one. beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.—-What is said in verse 9 is what I and many hope will happen that is, being convicted by their own conscience. I can’t change anyone’s mind they have to be convicted by their own conscience. Yesterday in her press briefing Sarah Huckabee was asked ” As a mother do you have any empathy for these children?”  And Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to answer that question. Now I don’t this it’s just a guess but I would guess that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is hoping someday that Jesus will say to her Well done thou good and faithful servant but from what I’ve seen yesterday Jesus may say to her Depart from me ye worker of iniquities. I pray and I hope you will join me that we pray for Sarah Huckabee Sanders to be a good and faithful servant to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and resign her position in protest. I know that is very unlikely but maybe Sarah will be convicted by her own conscience and do what is right. Right now she is making it very clear that she could care less what happens to these people. Moving on to verse 10. When Jesus had lifted himself up, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man, condemned thee? 11. She said, No man , Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more. —–Why did Jesus ask the woman has any man condemned her?  Because in John 3 verse 17 the verse after John 3:16  Our Lord and Savior says 17. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.—–Jesus doesn’t condemn, but man on the other hand believes they not only has the right to condemn, it’s their duty to condemn. The people, and by the way they are all people Not animals have nothing that is nothing but each other and Jeff Sessions has no problem taking away the one thing they do have and that’s their family. By the way doesn’t the Republican Party  prides itself as the party for family and family values well I guess that only applies to white families. To justify himself Jeff Sessions quoted Romans 13:1 this verse was used for years to defend slavery. Many people believe that what makes this even worse is that Jeff Sessions is using the Bible to say this is alright. One of these people is Steven Colbert who took time out of the Late Show to express his opinion.
The New York City audience cheered Romans 13:10. how many Christians could quote Romans 13:10? I have a lot more I could say here but my blog is Jeff’s Song of the Day. So that means tomorrow I continue on the same subject racism and today is all about racism do you think we would be taking their children away from them is they were coming from Norway? My next song is Up With People’s What Color is God’s Skin? So please bookmark my page and remember your shares and comments are always welcome.

 

Yesterday Jimmy Dime came to visit me and Daddy. I’ve known Jimmy since the 70s when Daddy taught Jimmy and his wife in his young married Sunday School class at Haven Heights Baptist Church. I didn’t realize it but Jimmy is a Vietnam Vet. He talked about flying in a Huey helicopter over the base and all around the base there were bombs and heavy gunfire everywhere. Then Jimmy said something really quite amazing he said “I suppose our helicopter was being shot at but you know when you’re nineteen years old you don’t really think something going to happen to you”.  When he said he was just nineteen I was going to ask him if he heard the song nineteen but the conversation went on and I didn’t ask him if he knew the song.

As the song says in World War II the average age of the combat soldier was twenty-six in Vietnam it was nineteen. When my Granddaddy was  a German POW he was a thirty year old man imagine being a nineteen year old kid and being a POW in Vietnam!  Granddaddy came home a war hero, of coarse Donald Trump would say that he wasn’t a war hero because after Granddaddy was hit by a German grenade and had a back full of shrapnel, Granddaddy was riding on the outside of a tank when the Germans captured him. Getting captured meant that in Donald Trumps view Granddaddy was not a war hero, but to be fair to Donald Trump I’m sure that being hit by a grenade is not nearly as painful as having a bone spur on your heel. Now what I’m asking you to do next is not to glorify anyone rather it’s a chance to recognize people we may know but we might not be aware of their service in Vietnam. Please in the comments tell everyone how old you were when you served in Vietnam, this is not bragging on yourself it’s letting people who don’t know your history to be aware of your service. And no matter what Donald Trumps says you are ALL WAR HEROS!