"Home" ~ Surely sorrows will find their end and ...

Perhaps a bit odd that I've planned this yet I'll share that I'd like to share Mary Fahl, actually her "Going Home", if and when I have a funeral or wake or ... Another to possibly share is Vann Morrison's "Into the Mystic" but Mary gets the nod if only one can be heard. I first heard her/the song in Gods and Generals and her video ties in with that somewhat flawed film. A portion of the lyrics follow:

Love waits for me 'round the bend
Leads me endlessly on
Surely sorrows shall find their end
and all our troubles will be gone
And I'll know what I've lost
and all that I've won
when the road finally takes me home

Perhaps I'm saddened by how I'm seemingly viewed back "home" as a recent post apparently ruffled some feathers. I accept that I'll likely march to a different drummer than many do and yet I rather value that trait. I'll likely just have to wrestle with my "black sheep" standing as best as I'm able and work through what I can. Looking toward today's Randolph Leader I wondered how it might have been for family reading the paper. Here's what I (and it's my blog - that people can visit or avoid - so I get to expouse what I'd like) thought ...

I was so pleased to finally see James Harris respond to Bob Fincher's mischaracterizations of the Democratic Party. Although James appropriately identified himself as a County Executive Committee for the Democratic Party, Bob didn't in his February 13, 2008 Letter to the Editor. Plus Bob Fincher just flat out got much wrong. I'd so wanted to fire off a missive in reply but didn't. Partly I didn't respond to avoid the certain displeasure of family back home and also because I hoped somebody else would step up to the plate. (I'd also recently dropped a LTE on the movement conservatives efforts to roll back public education that I posted on here. Maybe I was still smarting from being edited?) And Mr. Harris did a pretty good job of explaining the answers our team offers. This was outstanding:

... As far as taking a village to raise a child, Southerners have long looked out for children in the community, informing parents when they are concerned about a child in their Sunday school class acting out of character, verbally correcting a child bullying other children, being part of a network that is there when the parents are at work. Churches, schools and parents are not always there. ...

I of course think Bob Fincher knows better than what he wrote. Proud partisan that he is I suppose he'll get in licks where he can. And surely the "family values" card has been a reliable one for the GOP. As to my position on homosexuality (and how the right wing games voters on the Defense of Marriage BS) try this post. Sheesh, that post got me in trouble too.

On a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices try here yet also note that I scolded Alabama's very own Democratic Party Chairman for accepting framing like Bob's. (I do indeed hope that Joe Turnham has been working hard to learn how to be effective. If he can't ... well then he needs to be canned! Clear enough?) Bob seemingly thinks women chose "to deal with inconvenient pregnancies" in a way that I bet most any woman, or man for that matter, facing that decision seldom approaches the choice. His lack of empathy and understanding is revealing and offensive.

Bob's comments on "increased government restrictions ... on gun ownership" don't work either. Bob knows that is a false attack. Do some Democrats want to close certain loopholes on background checks? Guilty as charged for a good number. Might better systems and procedures keep guns out of the hands of mentally disturbed souls such as the young man that terrorized Virginia Tech and ... ? Those of my party likely think so. Bob knows the "Democrats want to take your guns" works given the NRA and other operators from the right. So he uses it. It will not fly and soon I'll try to get a post up that does a better job than I did here.

Bob wrote, "If you think the government is responsible for your well-being from cradle to grave, you should be a Democrat." Who thinks that Bob? My team doesn't. I'll turn to Mr. Harris first where he writes:

... As far as caring for people from the cradle to the grave, is that not what the Bible tells us to do? While it is preferable, the community and churches take care of as many people as possible but the need outstrips the resources. And still people are going hungry and are homeless. ...

Well put sir. I need to get a post together to cover this yet for now I'll turn to a post on what Ralph Nader said of the Clintons. I'll be happy to compare welfare for the poor with corporate and investment bank welfare any day.

In the Leader we also have Frances Fetner. She gave one of her concise corrections to State Senator Kim Benefield for missing a vote on S.B. 426. That legislation is from Scott Beason and I've already scolded him. Miss Frances wrote in part, "This bill was about immigration. Do you not care about this issue?" Maybe she cares enough to get it right? Also, reckon she knows that Scott Beason and the Alabama GOP are ready to use this flawed legislation more for throttling their opposition than for policy.

Mike Sutton turned his talents toward Barack Obama. He writes, "There is something about Obama, unseen by the human eye ..." My last post on this Texan is a good recap of his past ranting. Sutton also had harsh words for John McCain, "a man who has spent his entire career lusting for the approval of, and collaborating with, America's great enemy -- the liberal, socialist media." Aren't the overwhelming majority of media outlets reaching the overwhelming majority of American citizens more like multi-level multinationals Mike? And they're socialists? Who knew? Before I leave Mr. Sutton I must admit that while I'd heard there was a draft J.C. Watts for St. John's Veep effort going on I still had to snicker.

Finally, William Pool of Fairburn, Georgia gives us a rather odd and offensive combination of global warming denial and racism. Mr. Pool wrote, "The final answer is God regulates the earth's thermostat." Reckon the refreezing rate has something to do with how much of the ice in the Arctic had melted over this summer? Or it could be volcanoes? Actually, I'd not noticed their eruption rates. Here's what confuses and even more so offends me ... "As for the kudzu, hire some Mexicans to pull it up. Sixteen foot long roots mean nothing to them." How odd. How obnoxious.

So there's "home". I'm certainly proud. Does love wait for me? What will I have lost and/or won by the time I return, if I ever do? And for the record, I can't imagine doing so. Do I hear a collective "Whew!" from on high? I suppose sorrows and troubles ending will at least be certain. I often think of "land" and "place" when I think of home. With some notable exceptions like Baby Plaid and ... I increasingly do not think of blood. Some family might lament that I'll be "home" if and only if I pass to a place of the higher power. I do like pasta. John Gunn