My Frank Capra book led me to “The Man from Montana,” which brought me to Burton Wheeler, who I got excited about because he stood up for labor against Anaconda and criticized the Sedition Act and decried Teapot Dome. But then I saw he voted for the 1924 Immigration Act and yeah, well then he became an America-Firster and I saw why Woody Guthrie put him in that Lindbergh song. By the way, did you know our pledge-of-allegiance used to be accompanied by a salute (the Bellamy salute) that looked an awful lot like the one the fascists started using? I see why we changed it. Life sure is a mixed bag! Meanwhile, I’m still looking for Jefferson Smith. I still want the guy who said: “Get up there with that lady that’s on top of this Capitol dome – the lady that stands for liberty – and you’ll see the whole parade of what man’s carved out for himself after centuries of fighting for something better than just jungle law.”
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Love drives out fear
Lo, she overflows
In midnight waking hour
Pilgrim of hope
Midair
Clinging to a ladder
hung from a copter,
trying to tie my shoe
Reason for Jesus to think twice
This time no confection of my own making
I used to long for the revolution, which meant breaking out of the rut, the spiritual doldrums, the sickening sense of lethargy and failure. It was a pleasant notion really, detached from the body bags of actual revolutions – a self-improvement project. Sadly, though, a real revolution now marches our way. As the ground shakes, I wonder: What is required? What must we do?
What to make of it
Cloth for a blood-soaked world
Where do you
wring it out?




