October 11th, 2018
“Myttin da” Wishing you a “Good Morning” in Cornish, a Celtic language spoken mainly in Cornwall in the UK
This is the last week to Vote for your favorite reads!!! The Great American Read is still running. I am still voting. Are you? You only have until October 18th to vote for your favorites!!!!
As I write this week’s installment of the UJT, Hurricane Michael is bearing down on some of the UJT family in the south east corner of the US(Florida, Georgia, The Carolinas and Norfolk, Va. Please keep a good thought for all the folks in the path of this terrible and unprecedented storm (another 100yr storm!).
Parents are going to have a harder time saying that doing the right thing will be rewarded. The Republicans sat on President Obama’s moderate jurist as his nominee to the Supreme Court. He was urged to load the court with a far left leaning jurist but Obama didn’t feel the court was a tool to be used politically. As it turned out, it didn’t matter, the unprincipled Republican Majority in the Senate was not going process any nomination as presented for the 10 months left in the presidents term. Now the tee up a rapist and go thru the motions of investigating allegations against him and award him a lifetime appointment to the bench simply because he is politically correct. I love my country but I fear that by the time these unprincipled shit birds are done, there won’t be much to love about the United States. This is what it feels like when greatness dies.
This week I learned some stuff:
• October 11th is the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL CHILD which seeks to bring awareness and solutions to the unique challenges that girls around the world face every day. I would personally like to thank all the moms of girls for being girls and bringing more girls into the world!!
Website Update:
• “New” Vocabulary Quiz!!!
• This is the second week for the new “UJT Music Trivia Quiz” !
• This week I added two micro memoirs to the Things to Read pages. My writers workshop gave us an assignment to write something called a Micro Memoir. I enjoyed it so much thatI wrote two. When critiqued at the last workshop the commentary was encouraging so I decided to put them on the UJT. They are called “Rainy Ride Home” and “All Grown Up” . Please let me know what you think of them.
Writing, Ceramics and Painting Update:
• Still churning creative juices this week! I edited the two micro-memoirs from the Workshop critique (and published them on the UJT), did a couple of paintings and glazed one of my new coil clay pots.
Weird-Stuff-O-Meter:
• Did you happen to watch “Madam Secretary” this week?? I enjoy this show as it often takes on difficult issues facing our country and gives various political and religious responses to real valid challenges facing our country. They have taken on Nuclear Disarmament from the perspective of a false alarm and through the show we get to live out some of the decisions and actions real people have to face from the White House to the submarines and missile silos simply because nuclear weapons exist in a usable state. It was horrifying! This week’s episode was particularly interesting to me because it carried on the nuclear disarmament topic while folding in domestic terrorism. The portrayed how homegrown nationalists might actually oppose any attempt to reduce or eliminate the world’s stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the nine countries with nuclear weapons. I was stunned to see Madeline Albright, General Collin Powell and Hillary Clinton, all former Secretaries of State, playing themselves on the show exposing the dangers of nationalism on prime time television! This Fear of Differences and this America First and all the other nonsense that attended the last election is going to destroy our country. It occurs to me that this reaction may meet every goal any jihadist terrorist organization ever had.
Music Update:
Here is another musical smorgasbord for you to feast upon. I know that not ever dish will be your favorite but I hope you will sample it all.
Go to this week’s UJT Radio program.
• Matchbox Twenty — How Long? — This is a deep cut from their great album, “North” released in 2012.
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — 4 + 20 — This one comes from their wonderful, “Deja Vu” released in 1970.
• Phoebe Snow — It Must Be Sunday — This is a song only Phoebe could write. Its so sweet and soulful that it makes me feel like swaying with the music. This one comes from her album,”Phoebe Snow” released in 1995.
• Vance Joy — From Afar — “…. thats not how friends behave…” This song comes from his amazing, “Dream Your Life Away” album released in 2014.
• Joni Mitchell — Woodstock — From the Vinyl !!!! I love the irony. Joni never got to Woodstock. She wrote this in a NYC Hotel room waiting for CSN&Y to get back from Woodstock. This comes from her “Miles of Aisles” album on which she is accompanied by Tom Scott and his LA Express band. This version is so different but Sooooo Good!!
• Dave Mason — Only You Know and I Know — From the Vinyl !!!! This one is from his, “Alone Together” first solo album released in 1971 after he left Traffic.
• Dave Matthews Band – You & Me – I just love this song!!! It makes me tear up every time. If you have ever had that feeling with someone its magic! I realized today that I have been spelling Dave’s last name wrong forever(I swear I never noticed the extra “t”!) This one comes from his “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King” released in 2009.
• Mat Kearney – Straight Away – This one comes from his “City of Black & White (Deluxe Version)” album also released in 2009. I feel really bad about this one. I have misspelled both his first and last name (its not Matt Kearny!!!) for the entire 5 or so years I have been playing his songs on UJT.
That’s it… Do the best you can; Laugh every chance you get; And always remember … The best is yet to come!
As always, thank you for being my friend!
James
Under the Jacaranda Tree URL: http://www.jfmccann.com