PRESIDENT OBAMA SHOULD NOT

RUN FOR A SECOND TERM

I just listened to the Republican response to President Obama’s weekly address just now at 8:07. It was more of the standard catrch-phrases and clichés that we’ve been hearing from the Republicans. The Republicans want a “jobs bill” somehow without spending any money. They blame the President for the elevated unemployment numbers. This morning I was up at 5:30 already and so tuned in the Bill Press show for the final half hour of that. What became clear from that show and as Bill pointed out- is that the Democratic party stands for absolutely nothing. The President is willing to sacrifice anything and everything to “win something” and still he continues to fail miserably. Bill Press reminds us all that as of now the Republican House has made concessions on nothing. A caller said that someone told them upon his election that he was a total marshmellow and cave every time rather than ever stand on principle. It’s time for the President to announce that he will not be running for reelection next year in 2012. Clearly the president is up against an economic task he is not up to. I’m not sure anybody should do it, but he should at least let someone else try. The word “Obama” is a buzz-word now among Republicans now as a symbol of everything despised and “Washington”. By announcing he will not run again next year the President is taking that particular weapon from their hands. The President would save himself further humiliation when the Republicans refuse to fund his health care provision in 2014. Not running would accomplish other things. The republicans could no use the weapons of calling him a Moslem or question things like his fraudulent birth certificate, or question his college grades. As they say in the military, “You should either lead, follow, or get out of the way”. The President should get out of the way and let someone else take over who has a fighting chance against the Republicans. There is no disgrace in failure to run for another term. Lyndon Johnson recognized that he could not win in 1968. Harry Truman recognized he could not win in 1952 with an unending “police action” war and economic policies gone south. Calvin Coolage saved himself the distinction as being “the man who started the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover had to live with that the rest of his life. Jimmy Carter didn’t have the support of rank and file democrats in 1980 and he lost, and his name continues to be used with shame among Republicans. Clearly not running is the best political move the President can make at this point. Some people do fine in a certain environment but suck at other things. President Obama was fine as a legislator and had he stayed in that capacity he would have fared well. You know the guy who started the music group Boston was apparently an electronics genious, but could he write songs? He became a Johnny one-note. Of course Kurt Cobain picked up on the four chord progression of Boston and evolved it into new stratospheric heights and founded a whole new genus of music. The President has “gone off the plantation” as it were. He’s like an athlete caught gambling or using steroids and has to be fired from a winning team. He’s like an actress like Marilyn Monroe who kind of did a melt-down in 1962 and the S A G had to let him go. He’s like a rogue military general whom the President has no choice but to fire. He's like a stage actor who takes pills and they know first themselves that they have "not given it their all" in the performance. Then other actors pick up on it and know. And then critics in the audience and finally the public at large knows that they "don't have it" any more. Or as Maurie Head said in a song referring to Jesus, “Tables, chairs and oaken chests would have suited Jesus best. He’d have caused nobody harm- - no one alarm”. Perhaps Jesus was a really proficient carpenter, but he sucked at the job of Deliverer. I once knew a Christian who bragged that he “made bombs for a living”, and yet talking theology with this guy over the phone- - his logic is so spaced out I would not trust him with a book of matches, let alone a nuclear war-head. But some people are able to “compartmentalize”. Some things they are good at and other areas they aren’t. Pete Richards is an Excellent swimmer, a Good drummer, and at least an Average house painter. But he sucks royally at personal counseling. I ought to know. The President is still young and he can move on to other things in life where he will have more success. This job just isn’t for him. He was never good at it. He was never able to lead or to inspire confidence, and the “brave” thing to do now is to step aside.

Apparently a new nation has been born today, South Sudan. This will cause Sudan to now no longer be the biggest African nation, in land area. They say negotiations for nation-hood for this area were hammered out six years ago under Collin Powell. I sure never heard about it. They have a new flag and everything. Now people of the Negro persuasion have a refuge from the oppressive Arab majority up north. It's too bad this breakthrough didn't happen a few years earlier. I guess I'm wondering why they haven't said more about it on the news besides an occasional fleeting reference that it's already happened. Anyhow we all wish this nation a long and prosperous life.

FIVE TO ONE (No One Here Gets Out Alive)

Five stories by Mark Campbell and One by Guy Owens

SHEEP (early fall 1982) Once there was a man named Robert J De Falco who went to a road side carnival. He volenteered in a magician's stunt to make a person disappear. The trick seemed to be going well, but the magician couldn't bring him back. De Falco was as good as dead because nobody could see him. He went to another chamber and the man there said 'You're dead, you know, and your fate lies through one of those three doors". In this place were the usual fun house items of funny mirrors, flashing lights, and moving bumpy ramps. De Falco went to the middle door and opened it. In it he saw a deep dirt pit where a lot of people were apparently treading water in some bubbling mud or sludge or something and crying for help. Off in the distance were lovely girls in a park like picnic setting with pitchers of iced cold lemonaide. De Falco slammed that door and opened the door on the right. In it were scarey monsters and demons wielding all manner of torture devices running through a rocky cavern as people screamed in fear. De Felco went to the door on the left. He saw a peaceful field of tall switch grass and heard birds chirping. He went through. It was a wide valley of tall grass between two distant mountain ranges. As he made his way through the field he happened on the still waters of a pond and piered at his reflection and saw that he was now a dog. Apparently a part fox and part grayhound, with eyes that glowed green in dim light. At some point he noticed the weather hear was cool. Now a breeze was coming up. De Falco noticed that the sun wasn't all that high in the sky, either, and it was the middle of summer. After this he heard the sound of sheep. As he was getting hungry by now he pegged this as an oppertunity to get a good meal. But there were all these sheep dogs about guarding the sheep as if forming a barrier. They were now barking at him intently. He spotted ranchers and noted that they spoke in a heavy accent like Austrilian or something. He finally decided just to go around. Finally he happened on a farm house. Inside was a lad about twenty who spent his days listening to heavy metal rock on his record player. He learned he had an older brother named Howard and a younger brother named Pete. Pete had demanded his share of the inheritence before he left. Howard had gone out with nothing only asking the middle brother to take care of his prize pig, whom he intended to come back for and enter him at the county fair. De Falco it seems was the pet dog of the middle brother, who was glad to see him. But De Falco was also to talk to the pig, though everyone else thought it was just a pig. The pig called himself Jim. De Falco and the pig were friends. The dad was a gray haired mean son of a bitch who seemed to have a lot of enemies. One day the younger brother, Pete returned and the Father was glad to see him as he handed him more money. The father decided to kill the pig and present him as a welcome home gift to brother Pete. The father went into the barn and returned with a big knife he held in his sweaty hands, intending to slit the throat of the pig, kosher style and all. When De Falco (his name as a dog was Tobias) when Tobias saw what was about to happen he lunged at his father going for the throat, almost killing him. Pete then took a gun and shot Tobias dead. But then spared the life of the Pig figuring that there had been enough violence around the farm for one day.

FACE THE MIGHTY WATERFALL (turn of year '82 - 1983)

Jesus took his disciples on a little mountain hike. They began climbing along a trail, and then Jesus stopped the assembly and passed out magic mushrooms and said "Take these, each of you. Behold if you had the faith of a mushroom seed you could say to that mountain "be thou removed" and it would be gone". The desciples took the mushrooms and ate. One of them could be overheard to remark "- - - but where are the seeds?" They came in sight of a mighty waterfall and Jesus led them along a secret trail cut into the rock, and they found themselves behind the torrent of water. All of the desciples were amazed- - and then they began one and all to trip out staring into the waters- - - and they supposed that this waterfall held all of the cosmic secrets of the Universe. One of them said "I know what's happening now. We are inside some mighty elevator and we are ascending up through the heavens, and behold these waters are none other than the waters of Noah that existed in heaven before the flood". Then after a while Jesus raised his hand and the waterfall completely stopped, aside from a little dripping from the rocks. The desciples were sad that Jesus had "brought them down" like this and destroyed their "trip". And they looked at him and marveled. Then Jesus raised his hand again and the waterfall commenced just as before. And he said to them "What have you learned from this experianced". But none of them were able to express much of anything that was going on in their minds right then.

THE GREEN VAN (Spring 1982)

The local Calvary Pastor held services at "The church of the sanctified flake". It was a new, modern building he had comissioned, that had a varied coutour roof that looked just like a giant corn flake. Now at eleven AM every Wednesday a Green Van could come by on its regular weekly stop and pick up a group of seven or eight riders to go off, people imagined on some day excoursion. It had been doing so regularly for the past year and a half. And then I asked some of the people still standing around outside, "Where is the van going". And the others told me that every week a different bunch of people get picked up and are never heard from again. I said, "But doesn't anybody ever ask questions about this?" and they said "No". Now in those days there was a scarcity of warm weather. And sun bathers would search in vain for a place that was half way warm- - and since places in the church roof dipped low - teenagers from the local inhabitants, unchurched, would climb on top of the roof and try to get a tan in what often ammounted to drizzling rain that would sometimes occur. And they would smoke the weed. And sometimes someone noticed that pieces of the roof actually tasted like corn flakes. And others in the church asked why people were allowed on the roof to smoke marijuana. And the Pastor said "It's really more trouble than it's worth to try and get them off. Besides one day somebody may witness to those people and eventually lead them to Christ".

THE MOUNTAIN TO THE EAST (spring 1982)

Behold one time the Pilgram lived at the Palm Street house as a house resident when Zachery and his parents still lived there. But he moved a little westward to an apartment near Walnut just the other side of the overpass that goes over the Santa Ana Freeway. He felt he wanted to be on his own for a while. Then someone invited him to go in a missionary trip to Honolulu, and since he had nothing in particular planned, he went along with them. Now the sea became stormy and waves pounded the ship, and it became hard to hold the ship's wheel as water poured into the boat. The Pilgrim's head hit something and blacked out. The next thing he remembers he was being nursed back to health by a pretty woman named Michelle with sensuous breasts and long, slowing light brown hair. She would entertain him either on an accoustic guitar, or on the flute, which she was most proficient at playing. After a few days the Pilgrem felt he was ready to leave. He went back to his old apartment on Walnut. But now only to be told that over six years had passed and that it was now 1982. The Pilgram then decided he needed to see Zachery and he would be the deliverer to all his problems. But that overpass had now become a mighty mountain. The Pligrim asked others saying "There was no mountain there before' and then said to him "Behold nearly seven years have passed and this mountain represents the ammount of sin you have accrewed during this period. So the Pilgrim began to climb the mountain, rock by rock. And the overcast cleared and the sun beat down on him. And he prayed to the Lord for relief, and God sent a cool breeze to ease the man in his discomfort. At last the Pilgram reached the top of the mountain. It was like the plaza of the Disneyland Hotel with the Dancing Waters. And behold there was Zachery, now a young lad, and he was tuning his guitar. After this he took requests from the passers by. The Pilgram expressed his delight in seeing Zachery. And Zachery said "Blessed are the believers, but more blessed are those who have actually encountered and seen with their own eyes. Such are ye".

We are running a little long on this blog now and it's coffee break. We'll see you on the next blog probably and at that point we will continue with the last two stories. One of them is guarenteed to run a little long.