Author: Randy Haspel

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

WYPL is Turning Up the Music

CREDIT: Memphis Public Library

Y’all know me. Heaven forbid that I would use this valuable space to self-promote, mainly because I haven’t had much to promote lately. But I couldn’t help but notice in last week’s cover story in the Flyer that there’s somewhat of a kerfuffle going on concerning community radio station WEVL.

This is a subject that I know a little bit about, because I was a volunteer programmer at WEVL for 12 years. I left the station under somewhat less-than-pleasant circumstances, but it was my fault. I was playing protest and anti-war music from the ’60s, and I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the arrogant and misguided decision to go to war in Vietnam and the similarly idiotic invasion of Iraq. I was told by the board and management to cease my on-air political commentaries, and I tried.

Memphis Public Library

Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library

But then came Hurricane Katrina, and I went a little nutty. I prepared some “fight the power” music and some measured personal outrage for my first post-Katrina show and did the modern-day equivalent of locking all the doors and playing “Louie, Louie” for two hours. I thought if I had a platform, no matter the size, and failed to use it to express indignation over the complete neglect of hurricane victims, then I’d be a coward. I thought the station would have my back, but unfortunately, a couple of members ceased their contributions in protest. My show was cancelled, and I felt obligated to resign.

I continue to support the station, mainly because I have many friends there who do dedicated work that’s worth supporting. Other than that, I have no idea what’s going on at WEVL since I haven’t set foot in the studio for 13 years. According to the Flyer story, the board of directors and station management haven’t changed much in that time either, so I have an inkling about what the “Friends of WEVL” are trying to accomplish. But that’s no longer my concern. I’ve returned to volunteer radio now, and I’d like to tell you about it.

One of Memphis’ best kept secrets is the Memphis Public Library’s radio station, FM 89.3 WYPL (Your Public Library). Daytime programming consists of volunteers reading for the visually impaired — not just the daily news, but best-sellers, popular magazines, and everything else. But when the sun goes down, it’s party time, utilizing the library’s extensive Memphis music collection and much more.

Monday features guitarist and former Gentry’s drummer Alan Heidelburg with “Memphis Music Memories,” followed by Ron Hall and “The Roaring Sixties.” Author of four books about Memphis music, including Playing for a Piece of the Door: A History of Garage and Frat Bands, 1960-1975, and the exhaustively researched, Memphis: The Rock & Roll Years, which documents all the concerts that took place in Memphis from 1955 to 1985, Hall plays music from every local band that ever cut a record in the ’60s, including the Guilloteens, Tommy Burk & the Counts, and many others.

Tuesdays belong to the legendary Leon Griffin, veteran disc jockey, entrepreneur, former weatherman on Good Morning Memphis, and producer/director at WHBQ TV for memorable programs such as Talent Party, Studio Wrestling, and The Happy Hal Show. Leon plays music from the ’70s and ’80s on his “Memphis Radio-Active” show.

Wednesdays spotlight the “Memphis Gospel Collection” with archivist and engineer Vance Durbin.

Are you ready for that self-promotion now? You’d better be, because Thursday is soul night. My show, “The Memphis Soul Revue,” features music not just from the world-famous local studios, but from artists who traveled with the great rhythm & blues package shows that played the Auditorium and the Coliseum. Rufus Thomas said, “‘The Memphis Soul Revue’ is the most exciting new show on the air today.” If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’. But then so is everyone else.

Friday features the Sun Studio Collection with various hosts, and Saturday, singer/guitarist and blues aficionado Paulette Regan hosts “Memphis Women’s Music,” followed by “Playing Around” with Bob Elbrecht, and former WLVS DJ Tim Mullins playing current music from local artists.

On Sunday, the “Reigning Queen of Beale Street,” Barbara Blue, plays the blues on “Shout, Sister Shout.” Former FM-100 and Rock-103 DJ, Mitch McCrackin, helms the “Memphis Music Inner View,” where local musicians are interviewed. And musician extraordinaire Jim Spake hosts Memphis legends to discuss and listen to their music.

So, just in case you were looking for an alternative to the alternative, how’s that lineup fer ya? I’ve been there for a year now and having more fun than a dunk-tank clown. All the equipment is top notch, and Antonious Smith is the innovative engineer. Station manager Tommy Warren is ambitious about improvements, and the station is streaming on “the internets.” It’s all financed by the public library, so I guess self-promotion’s not bad if it’s for a good cause.

Funding for the library’s FM station and WYPL TV Channel 18 comes from its popular twice-yearly book sales, and support from the Friends of the Library, a nonprofit, charitable organization that has existed since 1962. Last year, the group raised $400,000 from sales of books, CDs, and DVDs through the library’s bookstore, Second Editions. The store offers gently used books from donors and the library. The Friends give books to Juvenile Court, the Shelby County Jail, Wounded Warriors, and other worthy groups. They fund all adult programs at 18 public library locations. Some volunteers have been there for 40 years.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably driven past the Central Library on Poplar a thousand times, always intending to stop. It’s not just an architectural marvel; there’s more going on in there than you can imagine. Plus, they have a wonderful music collection, which brings me back to my self-promotion. Turn off the exhausting news and tune me in on FM 89.3, Thursdays at 7 p.m. instead. I mean, where else are you going to hear Bo Diddley and the 5 Royales?

Randy Haspel writes the Recycled Hippies blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Tremendously Wet

CREDIT: Suzda | Dreamstime.com

This is the big one.

I know that’s what they always say, but this really is the big one. The upcoming elections will determine if we can preserve this nation’s noble experiment in democracy or sink further into the man-made chaos spewing from the White House.

This is the final chance to put a check on the blatant corruption of Donald Trump because no one in his party dares stand up to him. No Republican confronts his ignorance, his cruelty, his self-absorption, his greed, his serial lying, and his disregard for the rule of law. It’s imperative that these elections must flush the remnants of the Tea Party, aka the Freedom Caucus, from the body politic.

Suzda | Dreamstime.com

Trump and his weaponized propaganda machine, Fox News, have poisoned the electorate as surely as the governor of Michigan poisoned the residents of Flint. We’ve had bad presidents before. James Buchanan sided with slave owners and was an ardent supporter of the Dred Scott decision. (Google it.) Andrew Johnson showed up intoxicated to Lincoln’s second inaugural and three months later found his drunk ass in the White House. Then there was George W. Bush, the first American president to invade another sovereign country with the kinds of disastrous repercussions that we’re still enduring. But this country has never seen a dangerous lunatic in the Oval Office before. Donald Trump may never have taken a drink, but he’s most assuredly drunk on power. Let’s put Baby in a corner and see what happens. 

As his approval rating drops like the Hindenburg, the gaseous menace’s conduct over the past two weeks has been particularly disturbing. First came his noxious tweet about the revised death toll from Hurricane Maria:

“3,000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico … When I left the Island AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths … Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3,000 … This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars [sic] to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!!”

A study at George Washington University, financed by the government of Puerto Rico, placed the number of deaths related to the storm at 2,975, so at least Trump was correct in stating there weren’t 3,000. Independent studies by The New York Times, Penn State, and Harvard all estimated deaths in the thousands. After being called “fake news,” George Washington University responded: “We stand by the science underlying our study. This study … was carried out with complete independence and freedom from any kind of interference.”

Yet Trump continues to place blame on San Juan’s mayor and the country’s fragile infrastructure. Trump claimed it was difficult to get supplies trucked in to hurricane victims because, “This is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.” Has he not been informed that we have jumbo cargo jets for that specific purpose? Three thousand dead is the equivalent of Puerto Rico’s own 9/11, yet Trump actually said, “I think that Puerto Rico was an incredible unsung success.” At long last, sir, have you left no sense no decency?
Residents in the path of Hurricane Florence were warned by the chief executive that the storm would be “tremendously big and tremendously wet.” No shit. The president has congratulated himself in advance for responding to this disaster even while area rainfall has set new records and flooding continues. 

Speaking of rain, by the time you read this, you could have received a text from the new “Presidential Alert System.” FEMA, in partnership with the FCC, has devised the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, which sends direct messages to anyone owning a cell phone. The FEMA homepage divides the alerts into three categories: Extreme weather or “other threatening emergencies”; AMBER alerts; and “Presidential alerts during a national emergency.” FEMA states, “You can opt-out of receiving WEA messages for imminent threats or AMBER alerts, but not for Presidential messages.”

On September 20th, at 1:18 p.m. (central), be prepared for your phone to sound a tone and start to vibrate twice. Your personal text will be headed “Presidential Alert.” At any other time in history this might be a good idea, but does anyone doubt that the Infantile Tweeter might use the “Presidential Alert,” for his own demented intentions? FEMA officials insist that the system can’t be used for political purposes nor track your location.

Does it make you feel safer knowing that Donald Trump now has immediate access to every cell phone in the country? We already have warning systems in NOAA weather, the news, and that annoying Emergency Alert System that blasts out every week from television. The FEMA weather alerts include “Tsunami warnings, tornadoes and flash floods, hurricanes, typhoons, dust storms, and extreme wind warnings.”

I’ve never been much of a conspiracy theorist, but I’ll bet my iPhone that as the walls close in, you’ll be receiving text messages from Donnie the Liar. And the walls are closing in on a president that historians might well call “The Great Aberration.” That’s why the upcoming election is The Big One. Certainly the biggest one of my life. Mad King Don’s daily assaults on the free press and anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him must end. And the same goes for his cowardly enablers in the bankrupt GOP. The “Witch Hunt” has now snared Paul Manafort, whose plea deal puts Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Roger Stone, and the president himself in serious legal peril. This “fake Russher,” thing has now produced eight convictions plus indictments for 26 individuals and three corporations. After Manafort does his Tony Bennett impression, an avalanche of indictments will be forthcoming. One morning, and it won’t be long, we’ll all awaken to hear Robert Mueller speak for the first time. Pandora’s Box is fixing to open, and when it does, all the fraud, the money laundering through Trump properties, the Russian Mafia connections, influence peddling, graft, tax evasion, and whatever Putin has on Trump will come pouring out, and when that happens, it will be “tremendously big and tremendously wet.”

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Pelosi Has Got to Go

Dear Congressman Cohen,

The Democrats are practically salivating over their chances to retake the House and possibly the Senate in November, especially since the treasonous antics of this aberration of a president in Finland with his handler, Vlad the Impaler. However, there are still some major obstacles. I believe that among the reasons that so many people sat out the last election rather than vote for Hillary was their reluctance to return Bill Clinton to the White House. Similarly, I sense that the same voters who mistrusted the Clintons, do not want to see the speaker’s gavel returned to Nancy Pelosi.

You know me, Congressman. I have no special insights or inside sources to assist me in formulating an opinion. I’m like a Will Rogers for the electronic age. All I know is what I see, hear, and read from multi-platforms and trusted sources, so when I say the Democrats have problems, that’s just my perception of things, backed up with a generous knowledge of history and politics. I believe that this will be a generational election, much like 1960, when the torch was passed to JFK.
Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean said, “Nancy [Pelosi] is probably the greatest speaker since Tip O’Neill,” but, in the next breath, he said it was, “time for [his] generation to get the hell out of the way.” Pelosi has been in the party’s top spot for 15 years. That’s five years longer than Tip O’Neill. She has been a familiar face since she was elected to Congress in 1987, representing most of San Francisco. That was the same year Michael Jackson released “Bad” and the No. 1 movie was Dirty Dancing. As effective a leader as I believe Pelosi has been, I fear she has stayed too long at the ball.

We both know that a great deal of politics is perception. For instance, the Republicans are perceived as the Neo-Know Nothing Party, thoroughly corrupted and devoid of any social conscience, while the Democrats are perceived as either whimpering simps or simpering wimps who have allowed the word “liberal” to become a filthy epithet and have no true compass for the future of the nation. We also know that the Democrats could fuck up a mayonnaise sandwich and are entirely capable of doing it again.

People are clamoring for fresh voices and new leadership, but I only hear crickets from the Dems. The ages of the House Democratic leadership are respectively: Pelosi,78; Party Whip Steny Hoyer, 79; and Assistant Minority Leader Jim Clyburn, 78. I’m not sure if these are politicians or the cast of Cocoon.

During a brief discussion, you told me that Nancy Pelosi accomplished more in a day than others did in a month and that she had the energy of others “half her age.” Therein lies the problem. Representatives half her age should already be rising into positions of influence in the party. At least 20 current Democratic candidates have said they will not vote for Pelosi as speaker, causing the party leadership elections to be postponed until Thanksgiving. Matt Fuller of the Huffington Post wrote, “Pelosi was able to save face, delaying the elections herself instead of actually letting the group force her into moving the date.”

It’s not all about age. We know Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker in history, a champion of women’s rights, and perhaps the greatest fund-raiser in party history. She also blocked George Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security and helped shepherd Obamacare through Congress when others had given up. Conversely, after the Bush regime misled the American people about “weapons of mass destruction” and took the country into an unnecessary war, Pelosi said impeachment was “off the table.” Concerning Trump, Pelosi said that impeachment would be “a gift to the Republicans.” She concluded, “this is not the path [the Party] should go on.” 
Don’t talk about impeachment? I want that lying, ill-tempered, conniving, money-laundering, puffed-up Putin punk not just impeached but arrested and jailed. Our democracy is burning. If there were ever a time to discuss impeachment, it’s now. I don’t care if it motivates the Trump cultists, the Democrats’ job is to turn out more voters than they do. The Republicans are actively involved in their favorite activity; suppressing the vote. 

The right-wing perception of Nancy Pelosi is a blood-sucking San Fransisco liberal who wants to raise your taxes and give it all to MS-13 gang members and abortion clinics. The GOP spent $65 million on anti-Pelosi ads in 2010 and are gearing up to spend even more this time around. The Trumpsters need an enemy, and now that Hillary’s gone, Nancy Pelosi is the best they have. Republican ad men believe “her face on the screen stokes fear and anger.”

Since Nancy Pelosi took the gavel in 2007, Democrats have lost 39 House seats, yet she still claims impeachment is a “distraction.” Former CIA Chief John Brennan tweeted, “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous.” The Need to Impeach campaign of billionaire Tom Steyer has accumulated over 5.4 million signatures, 60 percent of which are “registered voters who don’t vote.” Steyer said, “We believe fighting against a reckless and lawless president is not something that will turn off voters. I have immense respect for Nancy Pelosi. … I love her, but I disagree with her on this.”

One representative has said, “The time has come to make clear to the American people and to this president that his train of injuries to our Constitution must be brought to an end through impeachment.” That was you, Congressman Cohen, and I respect and admire you for your courageous stance.

It is imperative that the Democrats succeed in washing the poison from the body politic in November. There are excellent chances this may happen but not while Pelosi’s amped-up, hysterical backbiters blame her for everything from the wildfires in California to trapping a Thai soccer team in an underwater cave. We should honor Nancy Pelosi’s long and brilliant service as party leader, but as near-President Al Gore once famously said, “It’s time for them to go.”  

Respectfully, your loyal Tennessee District 9 constituent.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Steve Miller Ban

CREDIT: REUTERS | Leah Millis

What would you call a nation that separates children from their immigrant parents and warehouses them in abandoned Big Box stores behind chain-link fences? What do you call a regime that institutes a “zero tolerance” policy for immigrant families fleeing violence, political upheaval, and poverty in their own countries? What does it say about the law when the attorney general quotes Bible scripture to justify the administration’s gestapo tactics while grinning at the camera? And what do you say about a national leader who demands that all followers of a global religion be banned from entering the country?

It used to be verboten for any responsible person to compare our democratic republic with Nazi Germany. But how do you avoid the comparison, when two Texas public defenders testify that some parents were told by U.S. Customs agents that their children were being taken “to be bathed” and were never returned? Reporters have told of nursing babies taken from their mothers; the screams of parents following the realization that their children were gone; and the tears of refugees who presented themselves at proper border crossings seeking asylum but instead were hustled off into criminal custody.

I saw a documentary about children torn from their parents’ arms once, only it took place in 1939 and I had to read the subtitles because it was in German. This is no longer the home of the brave and the land of the free. It’s the home of the intolerant and the land of the incarcerated. I don’t know about you, but I want my country back.

REUTERS | Leah Millis

Stephen Miller

Always looking to deflect his assholism on to someone else, Trump tweeted in his own ungrammatical way, “Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change.”

He’s lying. No law requires this.

During the influx of mothers and children from Central America in 2014, the Obama administration attempted to detain families with Immigration and Customs Enforcement until their cases could be adjudicated, which was administrative rather than criminal detention. Even then, a federal judge ordered a stay for confined asylum seekers and ruled that families could be held in detention for only a short period of time — usually 20 days. And children were not taken from their parents.

In Trump’s America, immigrants are taken into federal criminal custody, thus transforming their children into unaccompanied minors who are then whisked away to one of 200 immigrant detention centers all across the fruited plain. Presidential Chief of Staff John Kelly claimed that children and their parents would be separated “in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network. The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.”

Or whatever.

Currently, the government has opened a “tent city” near El Paso, Texas, to house 360 minors in 100-degree heat, with plans to construct numerous such “cities” across Texas. They are also actively looking at military bases to house immigrant children. Even conservative pastor Franklin Graham said it was “disgraceful.”

It only figures that a corrupted corporatocracy like the United States would eventually cough up a hairball like Donald Trump, but you’d have to look far and wide to find a Jewish Nazi like Stephen Miller. A far-right icon, Miller is a senior advisor to the president at the age of 32. Born into a liberal Jewish family in Santa Monica, California, Miller is a descendant of ancestors who fled the pogroms of what is now Belarus. His conversion to conservatism took place after reading Guns, Crime, and Freedom, a screed against progressive ideas and criminal justice reform written by National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre.

While at Duke University, quasi-Nazi and white nationalist Richard Spencer claims he mentored Miller, although Miller disavows knowing Spencer. Miller’s first D.C. gig came as spokesman for Minnesota’s moron Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who said in 2014 that American Jews “sold out Israel” by voting for Obama, and apologized in Jerusalem only last week for her calls for converting “as many Jews as we can” because “Jesus is coming soon.”

In 2009, Miller became advisor and communications director for then-Senator Jeff Sessions. In an interview with Breitbart News, Sessions praised the National Origins Act of 1924 which restricted immigration from Eastern Europe, saying, “It was good for America.” The irony was lost on Miller.

Miller followed Sessions into the White House, where his white nationalist views meshed perfectly with the new administration. After cozying up to the incendiary Steve Bannon, Miller invited the writers and editors of Breitbart News to the White House to discuss immigration. He played an integral part in Trump’s illegal travel ban and was a crusader for restricting refugee resettlement and immigration from Muslim countries. He even wrote Trump’s “American Carnage” Inaugural speech.

His initial appearance on national news was notable for his assertion that “the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” A recent New York Times article said, “Mr. Miller was instrumental in Mr. Trump’s decision to ratchet up the zero tolerance policy.” Senator Lindsey Graham opined, “As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we are going nowhere.” 

I don’t know the conditions that create a self-loathing Jew. If Miller was oblivious to the darkest chapter of the 20th century, you’d have thought he’d at least seen Schindler’s List. 

The Times reports that over the last six weeks, an estimated 12,000 children have been separated from their families. One immigrant from Honduras killed himself in custody after being separated from his wife and child. With Josef Goebbels wannabes like Miller advising the president, the time has come to decide whether the United States will retain its status as a beacon of liberty to the world or become just another “shithole country.”

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Fall of King Don

There’s this classic soul song that you should hear called “Everybody Plays the Fool,” by The Main Ingredient. You could YouTube it or find it wherever you steal your music. The chorus goes …

Everybody plays the fool/

There’s no exception to the rule/

It may be factual, it may be cruel/

But everybody plays the fool.

I’ll be the first to own up to it. As a younger man, I’ve been stood up, shot down, duped, used, and abused. I have been made a fool of and have made a fool of myself more than once. Often, the most difficult part of being misled is admitting it to yourself. I think of myself as a reasonably smart fellow, so how could I allow myself to be so deceived?

Coming to terms with my willful blindness meant admitting that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. Anyone is capable of being hoodwinked if they truly want to believe in what you’re selling. What’s hard is confessing that you were had. It was a tough life lesson to absorb, but after a while, I emerged a more cautious and wiser person.

So, when are the Trump fanatics going to give it up? How long will it take before it dawns on the MAGA minions that they’ve been conned by a pro? As of this writing, Trump’s approval ratings are at an all-time high. This means the educationally challenged are digging in, abetted by Fox News, Info-Wars, Breitbart, talk radio, and the oxymoronically named “Freedom Caucus,” Trump’s right-wing commandos in the House of Representatives. They are constantly spoon-fed an alternate reality where the “Deep State” and embittered Democrats are out to destroy the Trump presidency. In Trump World, he’s as innocent as Santa Claus. They ask, in all sincerity, “Tell me exactly what he has done wrong?” You’ve probably seen it in your Facebook feed, too.

There is no convincing the “true believer” that their convictions are flawed. They must reach that conclusion alone. When attacked, they search for villains to blame and they give them names like Comey, Mueller, McCabe, Rosenstein, Clinton, and Obama — four of whom are Republicans. The revelation that the FBI had an informant embedded in his campaign has driven the President insane. During a tsunami of tweets last weekend, Trump wrote, “I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes [sic] — and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

The “king” hereby demands … Who does he think he is, Vladimir Putin? Trump is commanding the Justice Department to investigate itself. It’s no mystery. Foreign policy “advisors” George Papadopoulos and Carter Page were caught up in routine foreign wiretaps discussing the Trump campaign with Russian sympathizers. It would be negligent if the FBI did not place an informant in the campaign. Both men have pleaded guilty — Papadopoulos for lying to the FBI, and Page for “conspiracy against the United States.” Both are cooperating with the Mueller investigation and are awaiting sentencing. And this is the low-hanging fruit. Both the GOP-led House of Representatives’ investigation and Trump’s personal porch ghoul, Rudy Giuliani, have declared the Trump campaign to be completely blameless. Nothing has been proven, they say, so the Mueller probe should be shut down immediately.

In one year, the Mueller team has indicted 19 people, including 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies, and obtained five guilty pleas. Former campaign manager Paul Manafort, in a 12-count indictment, is charged with “conspiracy against the United States,” being an unregistered foreign agent, and making false statements.

New charges were brought in February claiming Manafort laundered over $30 million, failed to pay taxes for a decade, and used real estate holdings to fraudulently obtain $20 million in loans. That’s why Manafort is wearing two ankle bracelets while he awaits trial on charges that, if proven guilty, could land him in prison for 300 years.

Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation. Former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about his discussions with Russian contacts over removing Obama-era sanctions for annexing the Crimea. Roger Stone said he is “prepared to be indicted” over his communications with Russian hackers and WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. If this is the “witch hunt” that Trump claims, the brooms are beginning to stack up in the corridors of justice.

We had yet to mention the Trump Tower meeting between Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and a cauldron of Russians, when new information emerged about a heretofore unknown gathering in the Tower between Don the Lesser and emissaries from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia looking to help Daddy. Trump tweeted, “The Witch Hunt finds no Collusion with Russia — so now they’re looking at the rest of the World. Oh’ great.”

Too bad they didn’t teach grammar and punctuation at the Wharton School. Every time Trump sends out a tweet, somewhere an English teacher has a cardiac infarction.

Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, said he would take a bullet for the president. He might have to. There’s not room in a single article to discuss Stormy Daniels, the China bribery, obstruction of justice, personal enrichment, cronyism, nepotism, bank fraud, cover-ups, bribery, extortion, and abuse of power.

Next up is a defamation lawsuit filed by former Apprentice contestant and alleged victim of sexual abuse, Summer Zervos. Trump said Zervos “made up” a “hoax” to aid Hillary Clinton. Several of the other 16 sexual-harassment accusers have said they are willing to be deposed. Most concerning, Zervos’ attorney has subpoenaed recordings from The Apprentice that show Trump speaking of women “in any sexual or inappropriate manner.” I think I just heard that other shoe hit the deck. If all this causes you to despair, consider the words of porn-star attorney and Trump antagonist, Michael Avenatti, who stated, “Mr. Trump will not serve out his term. No way. No how. He will be forced to ultimately resign.” Thanks, Obama.

Randy Haspel writes the Recycled Hippies blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

War Stories

Several months ago, the Flyer featured a cover story with local musicians recounting their “Worst Gigs Ever.” I wish somebody would’ve asked me. I have so many horror stories, they have to be categorized by decade. I’ve been in other bands and played as an acoustic soloist, but most of my performing career has been with the Radiants, a “rock-and-soul” group that lasted from my teen years in the Sixties until our final show two years ago at Lafayette’s.

In a 2011 Flyer, I wrote about being punched out by the bouncers at Club Clearpool, only to be vindicated by Sputnik Monroe. You could look that one up if you’re curious, but first let me tell you about a gig that still gives me the creeps. I was in a band out of Knoxville called Rich Mountain Tower. We had a production deal and were on a mini-tour, opening for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Our bass player — we’ll call him Todd — was going through some serious psychological problems resulting from an LSD-fried brain. He had that 1,000-yard stare, even though he’d never been in combat. When we played Charleston, West Virginia, Todd paused and spoke to the audience. Backstage, I asked what he had said, and he told me that he “asked the audience’s forgiveness for being a coward all my life.”

The next night’s gig was at the Mid-South Coliseum. We set up shop at the old Downtowner Motel, across from the Peabody, where we returned after the concert. I was chatting with friends, when I heard shouting and screams for help coming from the next room. I ran next door to witness Todd standing on the edge of an open window on the 15th floor, with our guitarist bear-hugging Todd’s mid-section to prevent him from jumping. We succeeded in pulling Todd back into the room, but he was on a bus at the crack of dawn, leaving for his home town and psychiatric help.

I had been playing at various joints around Knoxville when an agent booked me and my singing partner, Bob Simon, for a show in Middlesboro, Kentucky, at an Elk’s Club gathering. Or it could have been the Lions Club, I forget. I was dressed in my hippie finery — bell bottoms, flowered shirt, boots, peace sign, and long hair — while we waited in the kitchen for their program to end. Bob looked  at the crowd of rural, middle-aged men in coats and ties and refused to go out. I was in the middle of berating him when we were introduced. He agreed to come out, only after I had sung the first song.

When I entered with my guitar, the room exploded with laughter. I don’t mean snickers or giggles, these were howls and belly laughs at my appearance. I stood in front of the microphone, but the laughter went on and on. As I looked out at the rowdy crowd, waiting for their derision to subside, I felt like Edwin Booth taking the stage just months after his brother had killed Lincoln. I sang a song, introduced Bob, and the room erupted again. Bob’s face turned beet red. We changed our entire set and sang one country song after the next until they finally gave us some begrudging applause. We cursed our agent all the way back to Knoxville and learned the benefits of knowing your audience in advance.

Many years ago, there was a motorbike dirt-track out near Lakeland on I-40. They occasionally staged races and competitions or whatever the hell dirt-bikers do, and I was booked to play an outdoor concert with a four-piece band cleverly named the Hired Hands. We assumed that we would play in a break in the action or after the race. I never imagined they wanted us to play while the race was taking place. We’d start a song and every 30 seconds the whine of a dirt bike would drown us out. It was not only a ridiculous situation, the bikes were kicking up so much dust that I was literally eating dirt while trying to sing. We were coughing and sneezing on our flatbed truck, parked hard against the track while the motorcycles whizzed by, covering the sky in particles of dust.

While wiping my tears when the gig was mercifully over, the track’s owner gave me a check. It bounced. I contacted the owner later, and he assured me the account was solvent and wrote me a second check — which also bounced. When I drove out to the track, it had closed. It was the only time, in a lifetime of performing, that anyone ever stiffed me with a bad check.

The Radiants were playing a gig at an after-hours nightclub in North Little Rock called The Apartment Club. It was a seedy place filled with drunks with nowhere else to go. A scuffle broke out in the crowd and the band went on break. I’ve seen a lot of fistfights. I’ve seen brawls roil from one side of the room to the other while the band continued to play, but this felt different, maybe more menacing.

I was standing outside with the bass player when the front doors flew open and a gangly, drunken redneck tumbled onto the ground followed by two huge bouncers. The drunk staggered to his feet, lunged at the bouncers, and threw a punch. Suddenly, a handgun appeared and we dove for cover. While one bouncer held the gun in the air, the other pulled out a blackjack and started pounding the guy in the head shouting, “You done fucked up now, Bobby Gene!”

The intoxicated Bobby Gene refused to go down and received a Rodney King-like beating until he finally succumbed to the blows to his head and slumped to the sidewalk. He lay there bleeding for a while, but made it back to his feet. He stumbled toward a pickup truck, but the bouncer gave one last sweeping kick to his ribs that dropped him to the gravel.

The band had to regroup. The crowd was visibly shaken by the episode. Things seemed to be calming down a bit, when someone ran in, screaming, “Bobby Gene’s back with a shotgun!” Everyone froze. We were instructed to continue playing, so we did, while an armed Bobby Gene was fighting with the police out in the parking lot. He lost, but all we heard was “Keep playing, boys; that’s what we pay you for.”

Show Biz ain’t for sissies, folks. If you’re unable to tolerate a constant barrage of bullshit and humiliation, there are probably too many singing guitar players out there anyway.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Forward March

CREDIT: Laura Jean Hocking

Before what Life Magazine called, “the largest expression of public dissent ever seen in this country,” President Richard Nixon said, “As far as this activity is concerned, we expect it, but under no circumstances will I be affected whatever by it.”

The delusional traitor Nixon had previously referred to anti-war protesters as “bums,” but half-a-million people were about to descend on Nixon’s front yard in a massive march called the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam.

On November 15, 1969, hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters began marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Washington Monument. The morning was damn cold. I know because I was there. We listened to speeches by Senator George McGovern and Dr. Benjamin Spock and joined in with Pete Seeger singing John Lennon’s tune — “All we are saying is give peace a chance.”

Laura Jean Hocking

March for Our Lives

Nixon spent the day secluded in the White House watching college football, but his venal Vice President, Spiro “Ted” Agnew, called the protesters “an effete corps of impudent snobs.” The work of several anti-war organizations, plus 250 student government officers and student newspaper editors were necessary to draw the massive number of people to Washington. What these young adults from Parkland High School managed to put together last week was nothing short of miraculous.

We are in the midst of an historic moment … “and a little child shall lead them.” These committed students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are an inspiration, and if you’re too old or too cynical or too oblivious to grasp the significance of the March For Our Lives against gun violence, you fall in the same category as the cadre of dead-enders that sat on their couches and cheered on the Vietnam War — on the wrong side of history.

These survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, were poised and eloquent beyond their years. There were a few celebrities in attendance, but the march and the program were organized by the students who witnessed this horror. Their impassioned and heartbreaking testimonies brought on more than a few tears in our house. When Jennifer Hudson, who lost her mother, brother, and nephew to gun violence, sang “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” that did it for me. That brought me full circle. Back when I heard Bob Dylan sing it, I didn’t have to go through half a box of Kleenex. 

These high school kids have started a wave of indignation about this country’s gun violence that appears unstoppable. I don’t know what the popular term is for this generation, whether it’s Millennials or Gen Z or whatever the hell it is, but they are about to effect some real change. Politicians purchased by the NRA have been put on notice by this generation (larger than the Baby-Boomers) and they will vote.

The National Rifle Association’s venomous response was predictable: “Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children,” while referring to the event as the “March for Their Lies.” Videos of their well-paid lackeys, Dana Loesch and Wayne LaPierre, contempt and vitriol dripping from their lips, were regrettably televised. Hate-mongers called the kids “crisis actors.” The students were not intimidated. Gun laws will change the moment politicians realize they must face their voting-age children’s scorn. Enormous marches were held in hundreds of cities in solidarity with the students from Parkland, including Memphis.

If I were a football game, I’d be in the fourth quarter. I haven’t hit the two-minute warning yet, but I can see it out there on the horizon. I figured I had one more march left in me, so Melody and I headed downtown. We gathered at the Clayborn Temple and marched the short distance to the National Civil Rights Museum. I’m not good at estimates, so I’ll just say the crowd was enormous. Young students gave testimonies about their first-hand experiences with gun violence that were both emotional and wrenchingly personal, since Memphis is no stranger to firearm violence.

The encouraging takeaway was the determination of these young people to effect change. I did notice a whole lot of gray hair in the crowd and was pleased and proud that everyone’s knees still worked. Old hippies never die, they just march on.

The Memphis march was great. What was hard was the walk back, and trying to find where we parked the car. We marched about four blocks longer than we had to. My calves are sore and my back hurts, but I’m happy we attended. As for policy, I agree that the Assault Weapons Ban should be reinstated. The opposing argument is there would still be millions in circulation. Maybe so, but there wouldn’t be any new ones for sale so some vengeful teenager with a chip on his shoulder could legally buy and shoot up his school.

If you believe that the Second Amendment entitles you to own a battlefield weapon, where does the right to your firepower end? Grenade launchers? Mortar cannons? Nobody’s coming for your guns. Keep your handguns and your long-guns. Go have fun at the range and protect your home. Just spare the life of my child.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Honor the 3rd Amendment!

CREDIT: Andrei Calangiu | Dreamstime.com

For most of my adult life, I have been a staunch and passionate supporter of the 3rd Amendment. If I’m a single-issue voter, I’m a 3rd Amendment guy. No matter what else Congress or the courts say, I refuse to allow anyone or anything to trample upon my 3rd Amendment rights.

So, the next time the government tries to force me to quarter a soldier in my home during peacetime, they can pry the front door keys from my cold, dead hands. The feds don’t provide rent or board, nor bath supplies or uniform cleaning services, not to mention how those troops scruff up your rugs with their boots and cigarettes. I don’t care what the dad-blamed gub’ment says, I ain’t quartering no damn soldiers in my house. I am protected by the 3rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states, “No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner (sic), nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” 

My mother used to invite a couple of sailors from Millington over for Passover every few years, but that was a far cry from quartering. In fact, after my mother’s Passover meal, the sailors probably would have preferred to have been quartered. And due to the density of the matzo balls, when they awoke, they may have felt like being drawn and quartered.

If this all sounds ridiculous, it is. The Supreme Court has never decided a case on the basis of the 3rd Amendment. Since Congress passed the amendment in 1789, constitutional scholars and politicians alike have conceded that the law is too antiquated to be applicable today.

For a bit of history, however, we have to crack open our American history textbooks to Chapter One and check out the French and Indian War of 1754. When the Brits, with the help of their colonial musketeers, finally kicked out the French in 1760, they decided they needed to stick around for a while to police the new territories. Americans chafed at having to billet the Redcoats. They preferred local militias for their protection rather than professional soldiers. To further incite the colonists, the British Parliament passed the Quartering Act of 1765, which not only required the settlers to provide housing, but also “provisions, firewood, bedding, and beer.” The resulting rebellion against the presence of British troops and the high taxes imposed by the Crown to pay for the war culminated in the Boston Massacre of 1770 and led to the American Revolution.

Before the Bill of Rights was ever written, the state of Virginia passed their own Declaration of Rights in 1776, declaring “That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state.” The Founding Fathers trimmed it down for the 2nd Amendment, passed in 1789, which said, “A Well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Do you see what’s happening here? The 2nd Amendment is merely a watered down version of the Virginia Declaration, which dealt with the regulation of militias and never once mentioned a Constitutional protection for firearms. The colonists believed that full-time, paid soldiers were only necessary to fight foreign enemies. For other emergencies, a militia of ordinary citizens who supplied their own weapons and received part-time training, could be depended upon. Even then, there were laws for the registration of civilian-owned guns deemed appropriate for the militia, sometimes with inspectors going door-to-door. Because of the fear of standing armies living among them, there were even certain laws requiring firearm ownership.

The kicker is that the antiquated and forgotten 3rd Amendment was passed by Congress, and then ratified by the states, on the exact same two dates as the 2nd Amendment. So, if we’re to apply the same logic to the 2nd Amendment that the founders used for the 3rd, everyone is required to purchase a musket, which must be properly cleaned and registered with the Federal Government. The owners of same weapon must periodically assemble for inspection and military training. In time of war, the government has the power to press them into service and regulate the militias. I didn’t say that; the Constitutional Convention did.

Andrei Calangiu | Dreamstime.com

So the entire NRA argument about the absolute American right to own any type of firearm is bullshit. The gun cultists conveniently forget the “well-regulated militia” part, ignore the context of the times, and revere the “shall not be infringed” phrase. Even with all the Founders’ brilliance, none could have envisioned modern military-style weapons or allowed them to fall into the hands of the untrained and unregulated. 

Since the most recent slaughter in Parkland, Florida, a new consciousness has arisen. Young people are rightly appalled at the ease with which any social misfit can acquire a killing machine. After each mass shooting, gun sales go up, weapons manufacturers’ profits rise, shareholders reap financial rewards, and the NRA is handsomely funded by the all-American gun cartels. It’s really not about the 2nd Amendment at all. It’s about profit margin. The NRA is now merely a lobbying group for American arms dealers.

The “most popular rifle in America,” according to the NRA, is the Colt AR-15, with over eight million sold. This semi-automatic rifle, and other brands similarly designed, were prohibited by the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, along with large capacity magazines. Since the ban was allowed to expire in 2004, mass shootings have spiked. Consider the most recent stomach-churning massacres: 26 babies at Sandy Hook; 14 murdered at an office Christmas party in San Bernardino; 49 killed at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando; 58 slaughtered at a Las Vegas music festival; 26 gunned down in a church in Sutherland, Texas; and now, 17 teenagers murdered in their school. They all share something in common. Each heartless killer used an AR-15 styled rifle as the weapon of choice.

Yet the NRA rolls out the same tired defenses to protect gunmakers and their profits. The 2nd Amendment is as primitive as the 3rd when it comes to guns, but this is the year the NRA may finally have met its match. Who could have believed it would arrive in the form of a children’s crusade? Go ahead and keep your long gun or handgun. But if nothing is done to re-instate the Assault Weapons Ban, your children are coming to bust up the NRA and send their paid congressional lackeys packing. 

Randy Haspel writes the Recycled Hippies blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

McMeditation

CREDIT: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi By Global Good News via Wikimedia Commons

In these trying times, when half the nation seems to have gone insane, everyone not in a coma seems to be searching for a way to relax. Some choose vigorous exercise, which can end in pain and regret. Others might enjoy listening to soothing music, if any exists, or keeping a journal, which is like seeing a shrink without the appointment, bill, or condescension.

Rather than elevate my blood pressure by discussing the idiots and assholes that populate our current administration, I thought I might offer a balm for the troubled mind and discuss my experience with meditation. All I knew about the subject was that the Beatles had become interested in Transcendental Meditation (registered copyright, but since I don’t have that symbol on my keyboard, I’ll use an asterisk), or TM*,  from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1967.

The Maharishi, known at the time as the “giggling guru” for his numerous television appearances, developed TM* in India in 1956, but after meeting the Beatles in London, he began making an enterprise of it. When the Beatles and their wives, along with the Farrow sisters (for whom John Lennon wrote “Dear Prudence”), visited the Maharishi in his ashram in India, the mystical glow faded after the Holy Man hit on Mia Farrow. The band walked away disillusioned. Although the discipline of meditation dates back 5,000 years, the Maharishi’s meditation technique caught fire in those halcyon days of spiritual discovery, guaranteeing effortless inner peace, at a price. In 1968, the Maharishi began training TM* teachers from his new global headquarters in Seelisberg, Switzerland, and sent them forth to pacify the world.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi By Global Good News via Wikimedia Commons

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

When I was in the midst of my tortuous decade trying to write country songs in Nashville, I reached the point that if I heard one more song celebrating poverty and ignorance, I was going to lose it. I was in desperate need of stress relief, and TM* was literally the only game in town. Encouraged by a friend who had even moved his family up to Boone, North Carolina to live in a TM* community, I signed up for a course. I knew nothing of meditation or its Eastern origins, and unlike the wizened sage you now witness before you, I had everything to learn. I don’t think I’d even had dinner in an Indian restaurant. My particular impression of Hinduism was a religion with multitudes of goofy-looking gods and goddesses with animal characteristics standing in awkward positions. Since TM* is rooted in the Hindu faith, I approached my lessons with some apprehension. The six-day course cost $250 and could only be taught by a certified TM* instructor, in my case a soft-spoken young man flush with serenity.

The meditation classes were easy enough, based on a repetitive phrase that centered the mind. Practicing for 20 minutes, twice a day, was prescribed to ease stress and anxiety. The big payoff, or mystic goody, was the mantra, a sacred incantation chosen exclusively for you, based on your personal interview with the teacher. For initiation day, I was instructed to bring a clean handkerchief, flowers, some fruit, and naturally, the course fee. A makeshift alter was erected with a peach crate and a bedsheet. On the wall above was a creepy photo of an old, white-bearded man, who was the Maharishi’s guru. I was admonished to never utter my mantra aloud, lest I tarnish it and strip it of its power. The Maharishi said, “Using just any mantra can be dangerous. Mantras commonly found in books can cause a person to withdraw from life.” When the big moment finally came, I was asked to bow before the guru’s photo and receive my mantra.

I initially balked at bowing before anybody but I figured I’d come this far, so I lowered my head. I was hoping for something cool, like “Shanti,” but the teacher leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Hrring.” Since it was chosen especially for me, who was I to disagree? I chose a comfortable chair in my bedroom and began to practice. Focusing squarely on the third eye, I began to silently recite, “Hrring,  Hering, Herring.” I just spent $250 so I could recite a word that sounded like Jewish smoked fish. I told my teacher that my mantra was making me laugh and could I please have another, but I was assured that this was mine and to work with it.

Some time later, I received a call from my old friend Mac, who said, “I heard you took TM*; what’s your mantra?” I was appalled, “I can’t tell you my mantra. I was sworn to secrecy.” Mac said, “If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.” I reluctanty agreed saying, “Mine’s Hrring.” Mac burst into laughter. “What’s so funny?” I asked. He replied, “Mine is Shrring.”

I came to realize that there are a multitude of ways to meditate and the Maharishi had turned TM* into a for-profit, international franchise, much like Weight Watchers — or psychiatry. TM* was quick to reassure its customers that their fees covered not only the initial training, but a lifetime follow-up, like a Kenmore warranty. Even financing is available. In 1984, Omni magazine published an article by “disaffected TM* teachers” listing 16 mantras used by the organization, contradicting the fable that the result was dependent on a trained teacher’s choice. A 2007 study found that details of training and knowledge for TM* teachers are kept private and potential franchisees are required to sign a “loyalty-oath employment contract.” Fortunately, effective meditation doesn’t require the $960 currently being charged for TM* classes.

By the time of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s death in 2008, TM* had become an empire worth an estimated $4 billion, including the Maharishi International University, now The Maharishi University of Management on 381 acres in Fairfield, Iowa. The compound in North Carolina called Heavenly Mountain unfortunately went bust. Built as a TM* community in 1998 for 40 million dollars, the site sold at auction in 2012 for $3.9 million and is now the Art of Living Retreat Center, offering weight loss, detox, yoga, and meditation for an all-inclusive fee. Just YouTube “meditation,” and you don’t have to pay for it. Meditation really works, but it takes the sort of consistent self-discipline that I utterly lack. Which reminds me, there’s a Xanax prescription that I need to refill.

Randy Haspel writes the Recycled Hippies Blog.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Beatitudes: The Gospel of Donald J. Trump

CREDIT: Palinchak | Dreamstime

Among the more perplexing phenomena of the Cult of Trump is the nearly universal backing the president gets from people who identify as Evangelical Christians. Recent exit polls showed eighty-five percent of evangelicals cast their votes for a man who is the antithesis of Christian teaching.

Did they hate Hillary so much that they voted for a sybarite? Prosperity gospel pastor Paula White, chosen by Trump to pray for him at the inauguration, encouraged viewers of the Jim Bakker Show to be obedient and loyal to Trump because it is what God wants. Author Lance Wallnau said God spoke to him and claimed, “I really believe that the mercy of God intervened in the last election cycle.” Reverend Franklin Graham, the poorly informed son of Nixon pal Billy Graham, gushed, “Never in my lifetime have we had a president willing to take a strong, outspoken stand for the Christian faith like President Trump has.” And Texas mega-church pastor Robert Jeffress said, “God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong-Un.” If that were God’s will, you would think He wouldn’t need help from Trump.

It’s unfathomable to me how conservative Christians can still be the main defenders of this crude idolater of mammon. 
My Catholic education informs me that Matthew chapters 5-7 contains the Sermon on the Mount, otherwise known as the Beatitudes. These words are the basis of Jesus’ early moral teachings, so let’s check the record and see how the family values agenda is stacking up.

Palinchak | Dreamstime

Donald Trump

Jesus: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Trump: “Show me someone without an ego, and I’ll show you a loser.” 

“Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest — and you all know it. Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure. It’s not your fault.”

“As for my yacht, The Trump Princess, it is a dazzling trophy … for me, you see, the important thing is the getting, not the having.” 

Jesus: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Trump: “Nobody could have done what I’ve done for Puerto Rico with so little appreciation. So, what’s your death count? Sixteen? You can be very proud, only sixteen instead of thousands in Katrina. … Such poor leadership ability by the mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They want everything done for them.”

Jesus: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Trump: “Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich.”

“I like money. I’m very greedy. … I love money, right?”

“I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far. Ross Perot isn’t successful like me. Romney? I have a Gucci store that’s worth more than Romney.”

Jesus: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Trump: “First of all, I am a great Christian, and I am. I am. Remember that.”

“Why do I have to repent? Why do I have to ask for forgiveness if [I’m] not making mistakes?”

“When I drink my little wine … and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness.”

Jesus: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Trump: “Torture works! … Would I approve of waterboarding? You bet your ass I would — in a heartbeat. And I would approve more than that. Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway.”

“I’m putting people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, they’re going back. … When someone crosses you, my advice is, ‘Get even!'”

Jesus: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Trump: “I did try and fuck her; she was married. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. … When you’re a star, they let you do it. … Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Trump: “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. … If forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”

“With Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures … that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water.”

Jesus: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Trump: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

“When people wrong you, go after those people, because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it. … When someone hurts you, just go after them as viciously and violently as you can.”

“If you do not get even, you are just a schmuck. I love getting even.”

Jesus: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

Trump: “You tell people a lie three times, they will believe anything. You tell people what they want to hear, play to their fantasies, and then you close the deal.”

I don’t know about you, but in a two-man race, I’ll be voting for the liberal candidate: Jesus.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.