Woke up this Saturday (April 19th) morning and got dressed to head to Casa Grande for a trump protest rally. It seemed like something worthwhile doing on Holy Saturday. The rally was to be held at the corner of Florence and Colorado streets. It was slated to start at 9:30 AM and continue until 11:AM or whenever. I arrived early at 8:15 AM and was the first one there. Fortunately, there was a Dunkin Donuts near the same corner. I went in and ordered an extra-large pistachio iced coffee and my favorite Old-Fashioned Donut. Coffee and donut came to $7 dollars and about 800 calories. This would have made Dr. Petra my PA very unhappy. She said that I needed to cut down on my sugar carbs since my LDL levels were very elevated.
Ate my donut while watching the street outside. I could finally see that people were coming to the corner. Many had signs and some had chairs. People were taking up positions on both sides of the street. I grabbed my coffee and went out to join the other protesters. I regret that I did not have a sign, but I had worn my USAF hat and a protest shirt that you can see from the picture below. I soon met several people that I knew from Karen’s church. This finding pleasantly surprised me. I jokingly said that we had a church contingency there from First Presbyterian.
Over the course of the next two hours, the protestors grew almost in pace with the street traffic. Florence is the main drag in Casa Grande and there are four lanes of traffic going down the street. Many people waved at us. Many honked. We wanted to believe that their honking was a form of approval. Some threw the finger. Others gunned their cars and roared by us. These later two efforts were clearly not signs of approval. I walked up and down the street talking to other protestors and taking pictures of the signs that many people were carrying. I have included pictures of these signs below. They tell the story better than words ever could.
We are going to continue massive protests in this country. It was heartwarming to see so many other people out there willing to give up a part of their day to signal their distaste for the immoral and unethical individual that now claims to be POTUS. Some people have asked if we are going to make a difference. My response is that I do not know. I think the odds are against us. However, when you buy a lottery ticket, the odds are also against you. You do not know whether or not you are going to win. Only one thing is certain; if you do not buy a ticket you have absolutely NO chance to win. I am buying a ticket every chance I get to unseat or at least prevent trump from getting away with destroying the country that I was born in and that I fought for. America is not exceptional to me. Neither is it the greatest country in the world. America has always offered me a chance and a promise to try to be better. I have not always taken her up on this. As Martin Luther King so famously said,
“In a sense we have come to our Nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.”
Those of us who are marching or walking or writing are not coming to make “America Great Again.” We are coming to help restore the promise of a check to immigrants, minorities, women, disabled, LGBTQ+, Veterans, poor people, lonely people, hungry people, middle class people and even rich people. We are coming to restore the ideas of the Founders of this country. To restore their dreams and hopes that they laid out 250 years ago. To restore an America that all of us believed it could and should be. To make an America that is always getting better and better. The dreams of a democracy which prides itself upon uplifting people and not destroying people. We have had too many battles in this world where no one wins. We need to foster a belief in WIN-WIN where both sides come out ahead and there are no losers. We need an America that walks hand in hand with other people across the globe to make “The World Great” and not just America great.
On some primal level, we all live by an unseen law of rhythm. The rhythm of the universe controls an eternal dance between the atoms and molecules that make up our existence. This natural rhythm imparts an inexorable symmetry to all of life. A regulated succession of strong and weak elements of opposite and contrasting conditions that becomes the master of all that we do. Buddhists call it the Yin and Yang of being.
In countless ways, we observe that there is fundamentally no difference between writing or between a piece of choreography and the changing climate. Creativity is carved out of the passion that is in everything we do. The body and mind embrace in a never-ending minuet. The music ebbs and flows. Our love is gentle, restrained, then wild and feral. Mornings, afternoons, evenings, and nights fuse with the seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter. The harsh gales of November resonate in the refrains of Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts ushers in the scorching days of July. Poetry rings out in the rap music of the streets while the mellow voices of choir singers comfort the soul. All things are one say the mystics. If my writing is one with all things, will the tempo of my words cool, heat, soothe or disrupt the fashions of life?
We are all dust in the wind but our rhythms echo through the halls of time. The most unforgettable and amazing repetitions will continue as long as humans walk the earth. Coded in the numerous ways we have of capturing the rhythm of our lives. Some code in music, some in text and some in clay. Some codes are dynamic, some peaceful, some violent and some sad. We write our lyrics, pen our verses, create our stanzas, and design our choreography. All efforts guided by the unseen law of rhythm. Now we are hard, now we are brittle. Now we roar and now we snore.
The rhythm of life runs through our heart beats. It runs through literature. It runs through music. Great music has rhythms that exhibit great variation. Fast, slow, moderate than fast again. Interesting speakers have a sense of rhythm in their talks. Have you ever heard a lecture or a sermon without rhythm? It will put you to sleep in less than five minutes. Writing and speaking, just like music, must contain elements of rhythm. A heart without rhythm ceases to beat. Writing without rhythm is boring. Life without rhythm is death.
Regardless of whether the media intentionally want to keep the race close or not, there is no denying that the candidate who is the most obnoxious, the most outrageous and the most sensational will garner the most press. Trump has been well aware of this and has continually manipulated the media into providing him billions of dollars in free advertising. The fickle public seems to swing from one candidate to the other depending on who they see in the news. Trump has undoubtedly benefitted from his ability to keep the press absorbed with his every utterance regardless of how inane they are. He can tweet at 2AM in the morning and be assured that Fox News will carry his tweet on the 7 AM morning news.
Aging Capriciously 