My innate morality compels an apology for the recent absence of pithy commentary within this blogspace.
I did think Darth Cheney’s Anglo-Saxon transgression on the Senate floor and my rather fanciful Site R riff deserved a long stay atop the blog but, frankly, as the Rethugs like to say, I’ve found the healing rays of summer sunshine more appealing than the radiation laced commentary leaking from internet and cable.
If political commentary tanned my toes or caused my flowers to bloom, recent personal behavior would have moderated.
I have been hoping, as I putter nearly naked amongst vegetables and flowers while slurping a Popsicle, for a Chauncey Gardner moment as the same cast of ubiquitous infotainers spin for a less subtle movie in the theatre of our minds.
I fear our general Shakespearean genre hovers still unformed even here midway through the 2nd act.

Langston Hughes

I was deeply pleased to hear Senator Kerry quote a favorite stanza from Langston Hughes’ Let America Be America Again published here last September under the picture of a beautiful early 20th century Rookwood faience tile.
It is a tribute to dear Langston that his words still sear the powerful and a mark of Senator Kerry’s strong personal character and literate political acumen to reintroduce this American master and the core American values his artistry describes with such clarity to a new generation.
I would recommend reading the collected works of Langston Hughes to anyone interested in sensing the emotional buzz of 20th century American life.

Between Chauncey and Langston I’ve come to my box seat comfortably knowing my smallest contributions, along with many others, have affected the larger movie’s unconscious or fated course.
Under the increasingly shrill diversionary babble of an almost alien media class, larger portions of America awaken to an inevitable and possibly final battle between the remnants of old domestic powers and the vanguard of something new.
We can almost feel it.
The toob-projected bigs, also, seem to sense the approach of a rollicking 3rd act.
As Langston said toward the close of Freedoms’ Plow

If the house is not yet finished,
Don't be discouraged, builder!
If the fight is not yet won,
Don't be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.
BETTER DIE FREE,
THAN TO LIVE SLAVES…

To the enemy who would divide
And conquer us from within,
We say, NO!
FREEDOM!
BROTHERHOOD!
DEMOCRACY!
To all the enemies of these great words:
We say, NO!

Photos: Reuters, RedHotJazz.com, Sean
- posted by Sean @ 1:44 PM