Sorry . . .

. . . I'm reading about politics, government, representation and LIFE. . .

(from "A Fighting Chance" by Elizabeth Warren)
". . . as the crowd thinned out a bit, a woman in her mid fifties walked over.  Her face was flushed and her hair was a tangle of tight curls.  She looked hot and tired, maybe a little angry.  She stopped a few steps away from me and said, "I walked two miles to get here."

Okay.  She had my attention.

She dropped her voice a notch.  "I walked because I don't have a car that runs.  I don't have a car that runs because I don't have a job."

As we stood facing each other, she laid out her life in just a few sentences.

I have two master's degrees.  I'm smart.  I taught myself computer programming.  I've been out of work for a year and a half.  I've applied, I've volunteered, I've gone everywhere, but nothing.

She paused for a long time, then plunged back in.  She explained that she had held one job or another since she was seventeen.  She had put herself through school.  She had always, always, always worked hard.

Then she stopped, took a step forward, and lowered her voice to a whisper, as if she didn't want to hear what she was about to say.

Now I don't know if I'm ever going to get a real job again.

I held out both hands and she took them.  We stood there, not moving, just holding hands.  I muttered something bland like "I'm so sorry," but she didn't give any sign of hearing me.  She was well past the polite social conventions.  She was hot, and she was exhausted-mind, body, and soul.

She focused again, looked me straight in the eye and said:  I'm here because I'm running out of hope.  I've read about you for a long time, and I'm here to see you in person, to tell you that I need you, and I want you to fight for me.  I don't care how hard it gets, I want to know that you are going to fight.

I looked back at her and said, "Yes, I'll fight."

Hope
[©2012 Raymond M. Jozwiak from Ambience & Wine by Ray Jozwiak]




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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
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Words . . .

Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements. Signs are arranged in order to form semantic constructions and express relations. For many philosophers, both ancient and modern, man is regarded as the "representational animal" or homo symbolicum, the creature whose distinct character is the creation and the manipulation of signs – things that "stand for" or "take the place of" something else.

"God” is a human word but does point to something that is real; a presence, something into which we are able to live, not just an idol constructed in our own image. The word “God” points to something that human language can never encompass. We should strive to bear witness to our beliefs by the way we live. Part of loving another person is to give them the freedom to process truth and reality in their own personal way and time. The journey into the mystery of God is a life’s work. The only thing that is ultimately destructive is when we begin to believe that we have arrived and that now we possess the ultimate and final truth.
(thanks to http://johnshelbyspong.com and http://www.wikipedia.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_%28arts%29)

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Freedom From? . . .

(from Ain't Nothing Like Freedom by Cynthia McKinney)

". . . The old 11th District that first sent me to Congress was Georgia's second poorest district.  People paid rent, but didn't have running water in their homes.  Why was it, then, that when Blacks finally did get representation, the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that purports to be a "civil rights organization," filed an amicus curiae brief on the side of the five White plaintiffs, and against the 649,995 Blacks and Whites who were working together in that district, in a lawsuit designed to dismantle that district and allow insensitive representatives to continue to fail to serve Georgia's poor, rural, and much-neglected Black Belt?  Surely, the Anti-Defamation League would support poor Blacks who had never had authentic Congressional representation, right?  Wrong.

And as I think about it, it might have also had something to do with me not signing the pledge for Israel. . . "

What do you think?
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My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
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Also, be sure to visit:
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