Woof Woof Bow Wow

A man sat with his poodle on the lawn at the front of his house in Washington, D. C,  He had taught the poodle to bark English and he'd learned to bark dog talk.  "Four Legs," the man said, "I don't know how you feel about it, but I'm still mad as hell about all these guns in society . . . guns killed my son."
"Oh, they've got guns now, Two Legs, that pull their own trigger?"
"Asking questions like that doesn't help our cause.  We just need an opportunity to bark against guns."  "How do you plan to do that, Two Legs?"
"I've been thinking about this, Four Legs, all the time these babies, teenagers, and adults have been getting killed month after month after month --"
"I've been wondering when you two-legged animals were gonna do something -- at least say something about that instead of always calling other people racists and depending on the people you call racists to solve your problems."

"I kept wondering when our so-called leaders who're always provoking our people to riot were gonna denounce the killings, especially in Chicago . . . I want revenge for the death of my son . . ."
"But, Two Legs, you're just one person and that's like an old stray dog that only barks when an occasional car drives by."
"Right, Four Legs . . . now, since you're smart and can bark in English you're respected by everybody.  So,this being election year for a President and one of these presidential candidates wants to be known for having taken away guns, this is the ideal time to get rid of these guns . . . this candidate will be grateful  to work with us on this . . ."
"So how're you gonna work it, Two Legs?"
"I want you to get all of your friends together and we're going to Congress and start barking -- and we're going to bark day and night until we get rid of guns . . . we're never gonna have another opportunity like this.  It's gonna be just like in the sixties again, disrupting Congress -- we might even start barking 'We shall overcome' -- my God, it gives me chills and I know some preachers and so-called leaders who'll pay us to let them bark with us."
"Do you think this comfortable sacrifice might insult the movement of the sixties?"
"Listen, Four Legs, every time we woof woof and bow wow we legitimize what we are and what we represent, so we have no alternative, woofing and bow wowing is our nature . . . woof woof bow wow . . ."

What If

"It's just a thought," I said to him.
"Come on with the come on, bring it," he urged.
"This guy was talking to me about the play-offs that just ended a few days ago --"
"Don't keep me wondering, just bring it."
"Cleveland was two games behind and this guy was complaining that people were always bragging about this top gun on the Cleveland team being so hot and that b.s., but the dude wasn't living up to his rep and G S was taking it to'em and on the way to winning another Championship . . ."
"I still don't know what -- what're you getting at?"
"Well, it got to 3 and 1 and he was boasting, 'It is done, cut out the lights the party's over' and then it got to 3 and 2, Cleveland on a run, and he started frowning and saying things like, 'I thought surely they would choke, down 3 - 1, and now it's 3 - 2, I better put a little change on Cleveland' . . ."

"I still don't understand your point, what're you trying to say?"
"The next thing we knew, it was 3 - 3 and he's got more money on Cleveland than on G S, the team he claimed to be supporting at the beginning.  So, it's just like some of these politicians who started out spouting Red, White, and Blue and supporting the 'American way' and Americans and now they're expressing their scorn for politicians and any Americans who say that we're threatened by Muslim terrorists.  They say that these Americans who say we're at war with the terrorists are persecuting the Muslim religion and that our country guarantees -- was founded on freedom of religion.  They would have us believe that they know more about Islam than the Muslim terrorists who were raised in Islam and kill in the name of Islam . . ."
"I still don't see what you're trying to say."

"What if they're just like that guy who started out favoring the  G S team, but when he saw that the Cleveland team started taking it to the G S team he started favoring Cleveland.  What if these politicians and people who won't even say the name 'Muslim terrorists' and want to allow thousands of Muslims, including terrorists who want to kill Americans, to flood into our country, believe in their minds and hearts that the Muslim terrorist ideology is spreading everywhere?  What if they want to be able to say to the terrorists: 'You are here now and more of you are coming, so look out for us, spare us because we spoke up for you.  When they tried to pin a killing or massacre on you we demanded that they call it work-place violence or we argued that guns kill, not humans, or we found some other excuse to take the heat off of you, so spare us.' "

What We're Really Hearing

"If we're not dealing with some kind of emotional conspiratorial entanglement dating back to your formative years in one of their schools, why won't you say the name?"
"You better be careful you're crossing a line that threatens the unique legacy I've earned to be remembered as the greatest ruler that this country has ever had."
"So what else is not new?  But back to the point.  As you have said, that name is not important, is insignificant, meaningless in the defense of anyone and our country, and in overcoming the enemy, so why won't you say it?"

"Because you're also including the good ones too who're not cutting off people's heads, burning people alive, enslaving women . . ."
"Oh, the good ones who murder their daughters in 'honor killings', don't allow their daughters to go to school . . ."
"Now you're obfuscating the issue --"

"No, you are; every time we mention these atrocities they're committing you hurl at us that Christians enslaved blacks over a hundred years ago, as if their countrymen hadn't been selling them to anyone who wanted to buy them for brute labor, including the thousands of people chanting in their streets for the death of Americans.  You ignore the emphasis that people place on their culture or heritage, coming together when they feel that they and their heritage are threatened; as if we were wrong to have looked suspiciously at all Japanese after they had evilly, treacherously, attacked us or that it was wrong for us to be aware of the Germans among us when the Nazis were trying to take over the world or that we were wrong for fighting in Korea and Vietnam when the communists were trying to take over the world.  Just the other day you brought this reference up to the Christians again and it always comes across as a blatant attempt by you and your cohorts to justify the evil of these terrorists who identify as Muslims . . . ."

Hello! You Open-Border Lovers!

You idiots, you ignoramuses!  Do you also call this slaughter "work place violence."  Can you now bear to utter the words 'Muslim terrorists"?  Can you and your ignorant supporters go on running your ignorant mouths about how you're against building walls to keep unwanted people out, about how you must allow all people to come in because that is who we are?  Do you feel any blood on your hands when some Muslim terrorist massacres 50 Americans?  Will you go on putting in public offices these mealy-mouthed fools who will allow anyone to come across our borders, legal or illegal, as long as they can vote for people who want open borders?

How many more do they have plans to slaughter?  Don't they openly tell the world that they're gonna kill Americans and you and your worthless supporters want voters to put people like you in public offices?  What in the hell difference does it make whether a shooter is a card-carrying member of a Muslim terrorist group or not?  If he or she carries out the violence of a terrorist a terrorist is in agreement with the violence and the victims are just as dead!

All the violence of rioting and looting and calling for police to be killed, even screaming on TV -- to the applause and cheers of hoodlums and thugs -- to "burn the country down", and slimy, agitating preachers and vote-hustling politicians and lawyers trying to justify the violence feeds into the violence of Muslim terrorists.

A Political Eulogy?

"Did you watch it?"
"I didn't think I could handle it."
"It had already started when I turned the TV on and at first I thought something had happened to my TV, that a program from a foreign country had been hooked up by mistake . . . the way some of the people were dressed . . ."
"Dressed how?"
". . . dressed as if centuries ago, by some freak accident some of them were sprung into an orbit circling the Earth and by a mistake they fell out of that orbit and landed into the United States in this 21st century and were trying to make themselves fit in with their dress code of 13 or 14 centuries ago."
"I expected it to be an awkward gathering, different religious and political perspectives."

"To show you that some of them weren't there just to show their respect they used part of their lopsided eulogy to try to discredit the leading presidential candidate or to promote Islam.  But nothing was said about defending our borders or Muslim terrorists openly threatening Americans and our country.  I kept thinking  of that question you asked in your book . . . 'can one survive among hypocrites without being a hypocrite?'  But what turned me completely off was this woman who walked in, stopped, looked about hesitantly as if she didn't know what to do or where to go.  It was her hat.  It had a huge brim that sported a couple of flops that reminded me of the kind that a European woman would have worn in a country that European men had taken over and many of the natives wore very little to cover themselves and they called white women Missi.  Anyway, these native women thought if they could have a hat like Missi they'd be just like Missi, and a native woman told a Missi that she'd work for her for nothing if she'd give her a hat like Missi wore.  Missi agreed and after a month of work Missi gave her the hat and the woman wore it day and night up and down the walking paths throughout the village, even slept in it . . . but that style of hat is so completely identified with white women it makes you feel a little crooked to see a black-skinned woman in one . . ."
"I'm glad I didn't see such a monstrosity."

"Just A Moment. Life"

Before anyone starts trembling thinking of walking or driving down a street and there's a 99-year-old guy driving out there, we must clarify:  .There was this old guy who when sipping a few he'd call me up -- not by cell phone, he wouldn't know the difference between a cell phone and a tablespoon.  But he had this old shell of a car and we'd be in it, knocking back a few and he'd hit the accelerator, figuratively, and start telling me stuff about some of his involvement in trying to eradicate some social problem.  There was one story he never tired of repeating; didn't have anything to do with a social problem.  He'd read Death Of A Salesman so many times that he believed that he was Arthur Miller.  And his favorite moment -- he'd say, "life is but a moment" -- was when he was  married to Marilyn Monroe.  And that's when I would really start listening because if he could believe that he was married to Marilyn Monroe I'd trade places with that 99-year-old man in a flash.  And speaking of flash, reminds me of the time he told me that when he was 16 he wanted a gold tooth.  Black people once thought that having front teeth capped with gold was really heaven.  But the dentist, who was white, told him, "Son, your teeth serve a useful purpose, so don't ruin them with that gold mess.  Besides, when you open your mouth to kiss a girl she'll get that gold flash and scram outta your arms, thinking you're something from outta space."  He said that's when he realized white people have a culture that keeps them pretty smart, that black people have only a cheap imitation of white peoples' culture; some black people identify as Indians.  He said he despised any black who didn't identify with our ancestors who came over on those slave boats.

But getting back to the car.  He had a bad heart, bad lungs, bad kidneys, high blood pressure, a bad liver and only God knew what else so much smoking and drinking had done to him.  But he'd been in the Marine Corps in World War II and believed that nobody could be tougher than a marine.  So we'd sit in that old shell of a car that had nothing under the  hood, he sold all the parts, and he'd imagine we were kicking dust down some dirt road and he'd be telling me about life being a moment and only God knew what in the hell we were doing on this magnetic rock revolving and evolving somewhere in space, and he'd always end by saying, "See you next time, God willing and the creek don't rise."  Then he kicked off sitting there telling me that and I later wrote I Don't See Race Or Color.  My tribute to him.

"I Don't See Race Or Color"

Don't interrupt 'cause this election has me driving down the street and I -- a 99-year-old man -- minding my business and I look to my left and right and people on the sidewalks are pointing and starring and laughing at me and I realize that I'm talking to myself in outbursts and I'm thinking about that scene of the night our heroic soldiers took out that evil Ben Laden and there was this scene on TV of five or six men and a woman watching the action going down.  And the men looked at the action as if thinking, "It's life or death for our gallant men, but when they kill him and when he's buried I wish we could dig him up, waterboard him and electrocute him."  The woman, however, had her hand over her mouth as women do when they're witnessing something awful, horrifying; and the expression on one man's face was difficult to read because he looked different from the other men and he was noted for not wanting to call Muslim terrorists "Muslim terrorists."

That's when my thoughts shouted me back to this man running for President.  All these wonderful, righteous, never-made-a-mistake-hypocritical damn people jumping all over him on TV, radio, in the streets, in newspapers and in different languages -- and I don't know what world these damned hypocrites are living in, but they're not only damned hypocrites they're stupid as hell if they don't know that every country we go to in this world we see people of different colors and we base our opinion on these different people according to what we know of their history and activities they're involved in today in this 21st century.

And ain't no Judge or nobody else gonna tell me -- and not be lying -- when somebody stands before him or her that he or she doesn't see color or race . . . if he or she does I'll tell both of 'em they're either a damned liar, hypocrite or stupid or blind 'cause I, myself, as old as I am still love variety . . . and I'd like to put all these damned hypocrites  and liars jumping all over this man trying to score political points by so solemnly moaning tear-eyed, "Oh, Lord, I'm so wonderful and righteous, and he shouldn't have said that; that is so racist to recognize that someone is identifying with a heritage different from mine" -- all you lying, hypocritical scum need to be water-boarded because you dislike this man because he's showing the world what damned hypocrites, liars, two-faced scum you are!!!"

Sublimely UnSublimable

"I said it, but it wasn't me and if you knew me -- and God is my witness --"
"So, sir, you didn't steal a bottle of soda pop?"
"My mama and daddy, they mamas and daddies, and they friends can tell you I ain't like that . . ."
"And you didn't hit the clerk, a pregnant woman, on the head with it when she tried to take it back -- how old are you?"
"I'm 32 and I ain't never been in trouble before . . . not the real me . . . you ever watch them TV shows of how our people be acting up in prisons?"
"Have you ever been in prison?"
"They say I snatched a woman's purse, took her car keys and ran over her, but, like I said, all my relatives and friends told reporters and the Judge that it wasn't the real me."
"Who was it?"

I don't know, but they'll tell anybody that I jes wanna go to college, git educated to be a leader for our people, like some of our preachers is . . ."
"Actually, going to college these days might do you more damage than good . . . there's much teaching on how to be anti-authoritative.  In fact, some professors are trying to get a law passed that all elementary schools should establish a course that teaches children 'How To Hate Authority Sublimely',"
" 'Subtly-blindly?'  I don't know what that mean, but I sho' don't believe in teaching children to hate, although I don't believe in being taken to jail or prison for nothing, either."
"You ever been shot by a policeman?"
"Why you ask me that?"
"Because a lot of these dudes are always claiming that they're getting arrested or shot 'for nothing', even if we can plainly see them resisting arrest."

"Well, like my relatives and friends will swear on a stack of Bibles that the real me wouldn't lie to keep from going to jail or prison . . . one time this policeman shot me . . ."
"For what?"
"They say I stole a mop."
"A mop?  Why would you steal a mop?  You can buy one for a dollar."
"Ain't that sump'um . . . anyway, they say this policeman and clerk rode down on me walking on the sidewalk with this mop  and I told them that I found it, but he was gonna take me to jail for nothing and at my trial the clerk testified that I resisted arrest and the policeman shot me.  But later my relatives sued the police people for a million dollars and the jury gave us three million . . . ."

"Roots": Grunts To Space Ships

"I just  came by, sis, to tell you that I'll be in hiding until the heat dies down over the series."
"What series?"
"Roots."
"Oh, you're gonna watch it?"
"Hell no."
"Why do you say it that way?  It's educational, history, information dramatized to make it more interesting."
"People find their 'Roots' in their history coming out of 'grunts', before there were the languages we have today . . . how did some people get from their 'Roots' in 'grunts' to building space ships and walking on the moon while other people continued stagnating in the ignorance of their 'grunt' history?  All races of people had slavery coming out of their 'grunt' history, but most -- not all, witness the latest generation of blacks killing each other in Chicago and other cities -- moved on from tribal fighting and eating each other to investigating their surroundings on this planet; expanding their history into questioning, building, and overcoming ignorant beliefs.  They came upon culturally weak people stagnating in tribal warfare and enslaving and saw them as useful for brute labor.

"Even when these culturally strong Europeans came into this Western Hemisphere where millions of Indians outnumbered them but were occupied in tribal squabbles, fighting with primitive weapons, kidnapping and enslaving, the Europeans conquered them.  Today, the descendants of conquered and enslaved people glorify the identity of people who don't identify with them.  These descendants of slaves, having no culture far back in their 'Roots' to reach and build on, continue to anchor their survival to a technique that includes classes, conferences, movies, novels, and a series such as 'Roots', hoping that they will load whites up with a ton of guilt ripe for exploitation . . ."
"Maybe, my brother, if you're constantly reminded that your ancestors were slaves that image will stay with you and others . . ."
"No matter how bravely you fight on battlefields throughout the world, take it to the hoops or weave, dip, and snake-hip up and down the gridiron -- even become President?  It also might make you hate somebody . . . if you aren't careful.  Maybe that's why people in Latin American countries never talk about or show their involvement in slavery . . . if they did maybe they wouldn't be so quick to come here calling others racists . . . ."