Cultural Compassion

And yet, notwithstanding some recent unfavorable articles posted here concerning American culture, there is much to hope for, and much to admire. True, the Grammy Awards practically ignored classical music, and true, slutty sex and surrealistic gratuitous violence dominate American television, but yet...

Much of the world will remember that a little less than a year ago a monster tornado destroyed half the big town of Joplin, Missouri, U.S.A.. The place looked at least as bad, if not worse, than Berlin in the summer of 1945, or Nagasaki in the early autumn of that same year. I kept driving around town with my mouth hanging open in utter disbelief.

Then, a miracle happened. One hundred thousand angels from all over America came to Joplin, picked up all the rubble, and brought enough food and beverage to fatten the natives considerably. You couldn't go anywhere without somebody offering you something to eat, drink, or wear. WE had more toilet paper than we knew what to do with. I kept thinking that everyone in Joplin would have to dig rubble fast, to avoid gaining weight.

A man sitting in his front yard, his former house a pile of rubble behind him, had put up a sign which said "I have water. Bring beer"

Another rubble covered yard with nothing but a foundation intact  had a for sale sign which read :"home for sale, reduced price. open floor plan, plenty of sky lights. inquire within."

Now THAT'S a positive attitude, a winning spirit...laugh at it and overcome it.

Picking up rubble all summer was brutal, nightmarish work, but the people, tens of thousands of them doing the work, were beautiful beyond all measure. Cheerful, warm hearted and friendly, and above all self sacrificing, compassionate, they made the nightmare into somewhat of a dream. It was a great honor to meet and associate with them.

Americans may love mindless entertainment, but in a pinch, they are remarkably generous and compassionate. After all, there is more to a country's "culture" than art and intellectual endeavor. There is heart.  Goethe , as always, was right: "Noble be man, compassionate, and good."

Please scroll down for some less favorable yet faintly familiar assessments of American culture in today's issue of The Truthless Reconciler! Thanks!

                             The Black Panthers and Occupy Wall Street

                                                  by Wm Shears

You know, I listen to intellectuals speak to the question, "will the Occupy Wall Street movement last, will it make a difference" and I'm not so sure they're as smart as they think they are or if the media even has a clue! 

News anchors on all networks have mocked OWS, their lack of focus and staying power but now they are a legitimate non-profit organization supported by the populous including the middle class, the lower middle class, the economically disadvantaged lower class and the out of work upper middle class, most Americans, the 99%. 

The movement is growing. Spring is almost here. OWS has survived the winter. America is facing change.

I absolutely love the FIST logo the OWS is using. 

It reminds me of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the brave African American Olympians of 1968 and the Black Panthers. (who by the way I personally was fond of)  

I appreciated the Black Panthers justification of violence under the circumstances. 

They were a group tired of being put down and shut up. 

They were a group that stood up at great cost to themselves, for what was right not what was popular or simply accepting the way it was in the 40's, 50's & 60's.  

Racial injustice is still alive and well in America today and it should be stopped. Needs to be stopped. This is a long standing bitch of mine and a major problem to a healthy America.

If you think you are superior to someone else because of race, gender, creed, religion, wealth or past accomplishments, you are wrong. 

Today, 2012, smells a lot like 1968 to me. I marched in the 60's and I'll march again.

I am in support of a new revolution, peaceful or violent. 

The degree of violence will be decided not by OWS but by our governmental and military response to the growing dissatisfaction with the American Government, unemployment, distribution of wealth, corrupt politics and policies not to mention the greedy politicians serving us.

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. 

MY CHILDREN DESERVE A BETTER AMERICA.

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Who But MItt?

According to surveys a high percentage of republicans, something like sixty percent, would like to have different republican candidates running for president, but alas, it seems too late for that, it seems the GOP is stuck with Mitt, Newt, Rick, and Ron.

This is a real problem, because with the economy improving, Obama might turn out to be a strong candidate, requiring a strong candidate to beat him.

Who would the republicans want, if not Mitt, and not Newt, Rick, or Ron? Rubio? Bobby Jindal? Sarah herself? Jeb Bush? The Donald himself? Any of those might be more attractive to the masses of disenchanted republicans.

Conservative republicans don't like Romney because he's too liberal, and one conservative alternate after another steps up to challenge him, currently Rick Santorum, but, so far, to no avail, Mitt remains the frontrunner.

Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, John Huntsman, Newt Gingrich; a long list of former alternatives to Mitt Romney, but Mitt keeps on ticking. All of these challengers rose and fell, but their support did not transfer to Mitt, and still doesn't. Maybe Santorum is the real deal, the true alternative to Romney.

Mitt, after all, created "Romney care", socialized medicine in Massachussets, and Mitt has, over his career, taken many liberal stands, including pro choice.

But now Santorum may be about even with Mitt, so, this could get interesting. The problem with Rick is that he is too socially conservative for mainstream America, which tends to be libertarian on those issues, and he pushes his social conservative agenda too hard for the general election.Confronted with a popular Obama, Santorum would go down like Goldwater, or Dole.

Anybody but Mitt, for the conservative republicans. But who?

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Our Illusions

Daniel Boorstin, preeminent historian of modern American culture, wrote:
     
                      We Americans risk being the first people in history to have been able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive, so "realistic" that they can live in them. We are the most illusioned people in history on earth. Yet we dare not become disillusioned, because our illusions are the very house in which we live; they are our news, our heroes, our adventure, our forms of art, our very experience."

I recall complaining to my elderly uncle that everytime I turn on TV, the news is being read to me by a beautiful young woman, almost as if the corporate decision makers had decided that I would be more inclinded to watch the news under this arrangement. Almost as if my corporate masters had decided that I am so shallow, that I would have more interest in the news, and the commercials, if they are presented by a beautiful young woman.  Almost as if they are quite correct, and this truth offends me. My uncle replied that the corporations merely are giving us what we want.

I questioned, and I still do, whether that is what they are in fact doing; Or is it maybe that the corporations are more telling us, than asking us, what we want and what we think.

Those who are paid to provide our make believe world are: agents, publicists, marketing departments, promoters, script writers, television and movie producers, advertisers, video technicians, photographers, wardrobe consultants, pollsters, television news personalities.

Our life of illusion in modern American life is well provided by professionals who tempt us, whet our appetites, then supply us whatever we fancy; for a price. The price is high. The price is more than money. The price is a meaningful, truthful view of the world.

If you doubt that we the American people are fed a steady diet of seductive, manipulative, escape oriented TV, just rurn on your cable, and click through all the channels. You'll be amazed at the amount of gratuitous violence, sex, banality, and mindlessness you see.

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Uncommon celebrity

It was the best time of my life, I think.  Summer school at the University of Colorado in Boulder.  My sorority house was nearly empty, so the handful of “sisters” who stayed for summer classes had the run of the mansion.  Summer school was an academic necessity for me as the atmosphere in fall and spring semesters at one of the top party schools in the nation always landed me on academic probation. Not even a conservative, highly respected national sorority could shield its members from the hippie culture that was pervasive in Boulder in the mid 1970s.  It was here that I met Lydia.  Our adjoining rooms were strategically chosen for the access to the rooftop patio where we could sunbathe with our tops off.  (OMG, this is starting to sound like a letter to Penthouse Forum.)  I’m pretty foggy on details here because every day was a party.  Lydia was gorgeous and she had dates every day.  But to me, her best characteristic was her sense of humor; she had the best laugh.  We kept our friendship through the following school year and the next summer, we moved into a house with two other girls, and the constant partying continued.  On the rare occasion that both of us were home by midnight, we would go out in our pajamas to Taco Bell or Dunkin Donuts.  (Of course this is a common attire these days, but in the 1970s, we were quite bold – trendsetters as it turns out.)  My college education was low on my priority list and I just assumed Lydia was an underachiever like me since neither of us ever studied or crawled out of bed with hangovers to get to classes. Little did I know she was highly intelligent.  In fact, I think she hid that fact from everyone, as a woman with her good looks and brains too would be very intimidating, especially to the jocks who chased her relentlessly.

In the 1970s, the great rock band Chicago had a recording studio called Caribou Ranch in the mountains just west up Boulder Canyon.  All the greatest rock groups of that great musical era loved to record there.  It was rumored that Elton John was there.  So one day, Lydia told us, her housemates, that she was going to go to the ranch and she said she wanted to marry Elton John.  It was a pretty funny notion then and even funnier now.  Much to our surprise, she was instantly hired at the recording studio.  We didn’t see much of Lydia after that.  One day, she came home and wanted us to go with her to a Boulder bar to hear a new artist, Billy Joel. He had just released his first big hit, Piano Man, and the concert was pretty good.  But someone had neglected to arrange for transportation for the band back to the studio, so Billy Joel, with Lydia on his lap, and two other band members and our roommate all piled into my cheap little beat-up compact car and drove back to our house.  Honestly, I thought Billy Joel was kind of an arrogant unattractive jerk, so I didn’t stick around that evening, but Lydia and Pam entertained the band.  I didn’t see Lydia again until later that week and she told me how things were going at the studio.  If I had known that would be the last time I would ever see her in person, I would have tried to talk her out of her dream of marrying a rock star.  As it turned out, her dreams were much bigger than that.

A few years later, one of my male friends who had an unfulfilled crush on Lydia called and told me to go out and buy a TV Guide.  Lydia was on the cover, with Ted Knight, in her new TV sitcom.  She played the role of a ditsy blonde college student, living with her sister (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) in an apartment below their parents.  She went on to many more acting roles, including HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.   But her immense talent also includes books, plays, and a radio talk show host.  Her notoriety grew after she made a harmless comment about Ann Coulter, followed by threats from Coulter fans (I didn’t know there were any…).  Head to head, in a mental or physical showdown, my money is on Lydia.

Fast forward (at last) to the present decade.  My male classmate from CU told me about Lydia’s website.  So I wrote her, thinking she wouldn’t even remember me after all her success and legions of fans, but she wrote back right away and continues to keep in touch for several years now. 

Lydia recently hosted the live stream for Variety’s Power of Comedy honoring Russell Brand benefitting the Noreen Fraser Foundation, which raises funds for women's cancer research    www.noreenfraserfoundation.org/  This was a live stream on Kelsey Grammer's network.  She also is featured in the Kelsey Grammer-Bill Zucker Comedy Show.

Which brings me (finally) to the point of this long history of my friendship with Lydia Cornell:  Lydia’s comedic talent will not be her greatest legacy.  She is a very progressive thinker and she enlightens her friends and fans on a regular basis with quotes of her own and others like her.  Her recurring theme is positive energy – that our physical well being is directly related to our mental/spiritual thoughts – lose the fear and keep your thoughts positive and positive physical results will follow.  There is so much negative energy around us and I’m confident that so many people could be helped by this simple truth.  Please check out Lydia’s website, blogspot and twitter:

http://lydiacornell.com/

http://politicallyhot.blogspot.com/

https://twitter.com/LydiaCornell 

http://www.lydiafanclub.blogspot.com/2011/09/charity-triumph-over-tragedy.html

There is one final editorial footnote to this story.  Isn’t it remarkable to hear stories of celebrities using their fame to help others?  There are far more stories in the media every day about celebrities behaving badly.  Cheers to you, Lydia.  Keep up the good work.

Dumbing Down

Having in the previous post accused American culture of being, basically, worthless, please permit a couple of quick examples, just two examples, both ongoing now, both highly indicative of the purposeful lowering of American culture.  

For one, every day new planets are being discovered, some of them very earthlike, and it seems obvious that in the near future an incredible number of new planets will be discovered, because of new telescopes, and we will be able to get a lot of information about these new planets, including, whether there is intelligent ife on them.

This is exciting. This is incredibly exciting, incredibly important, astounding....how many adjectives are needed...and yet, how much are you hearing about it, on a day to day basis? Very little. Instead, what do we hear about? Jennifer Anniston's love life,  Whitney  Houston's mysterious death,  celebrity this, celebrity that, endless shocking, violent, sensational drivel, designed to shock, seduce, and entertain us.

Rest assured that soon the mainstream American "news" media will come out with a shocking, drug related, emotional laden, expose and  explanation of Whitney's tragic death....and will talk about it, and keep talking about it..and....well, you get the picture.

WE ingore fundamental discoveries about the universe and our place in it, we dwell endlessly on celebrity drama, romance, and death, in our shallow vicarious escape culture. The planetary discoveries are real, important, incredibly naturally dramatic....but we ingore them, in favor of petty shallow pre fabricated human drama that our corporate masters feed to us  like the contented little sheep that we are, or, at least, seem to be..but, actually, we're not..we're more than sheep..we can change this culture..

We can force the corporations to get their profits by educating us, instead of  mesmerizing us..

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American Culture of escape

If American culture were a horse, it would be shot. So low has our cultural level sunk intellectually, so sick and depraved is meanstream American entertainment, so devoid of intellectual content, and any redeeming content of any sort - we had best throw it all away and start from scratch.

To quote respected author Chris Hedges: "we are chained to the flickering shadows of celebrity culture, the spectacle of the arena and the airwaves, the lies of advertising, the endless personal dramsas, many of them completely fictional,that have become the staple of news, celebrity gossip, new age mysticism, and pop psychology..."

Historian Daniel Boorstin wrote a fascinating book called "The Image: a Guide to Pseudoculture in America"  in which he demonstrates by example that fabricated, artificial events have replaced genuine, natural, spontaneous events in America mainstream media, as a way to sedate, seduce, and scam the American consumer.

Reality in American culture has been turned into a pre planned entertainment spectacle, and fantasy is more important than reality. Danile Boorstin, one of the great historinas of our day, and Chris Hedges, brilliant student of American society, both agree on this.

It is perfectly obvious to any keen observer that American culture is hypnotic, seductive, shocking and sensational, rather than insightful, educational, and inspiring.

All it takes to understand this ia a quick flick thru of your cable TV. Just notice how much of the programming is stressfully emotionally tense, violent, competitive to the extreme, or just plain mindless, trivial, and hedonistic. It will astound you.

When will the corporate media be done exploiting Whitney Houston's death for financial profit?

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Happy Valentine's Day

I hate Valentine’s Day.  It’s even worse than New Year’s Eve, maybe because at least part of the New Year tradition includes imbibing.  Both occasions really suck if you’re single.  But if you’re married, do you really need a special day to be reminded to be romantic toward each other?  Where did all this nonsense start?

According to History.com, the history is little more than a legend, with several different versions.  Valentine was a priest in the third century in Rome.  Emperor Claudius II had an idea that unmarried men made better soldiers, so he outlawed marriage for young men.  But Valentine felt this was unjust so he continued to marry couples secretly, but when Claudius found out, he ordered Valentine be put to death.  In a similar version of the same story, a more romantic version, Valentine was imprisoned for helping Christians escape from Roman prisons.  While in prison, he fell in love with the jailor’s daughter who visited him, so before his death, he gave her a letter signed “From your Valentine.” (What’s wrong with this version?  I thought the guy was a priest.)

Others believe Valentine’s Day was set in the middle of February to “Christianize” the pagan ritual of Lupercalia, a fertility festival.  Another theory, from the Middle Ages, in France and England, it was commonly believed that February 14^th was the beginning of birds’ mating season.

The first known written Valentine still in existence was a poem written in 1415 by an English duke to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London.  The tradition of exchanging notes or small tokens of affection became popular in England in the 17^th century.  In America, handmade valentines were exchanged in the 1700s, but in 1840, a woman named Esther Howland began mass producing valentines.  Today, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent, but 85% of them are purchased by women.

Valentine’s Day was a big deal for me in elementary school.  Everyone in the class got a cheap card, but the one designated to the secret crush had to have just the right message.  And what about those little heart-shaped candies that tasted like chalk but had messages on them like “Be mine” or “You’re cute”.  If only it was that easy in the adult years.

I’m not expecting any cards or roses this year, but I think I can get my hands on some chocolate to make this holiday worth celebrating.

MY SPECIAL HERO

The term “disability” is broad and often misleading.  I had the rare privilege of growing up with my sister Nan, who was born with Downs Syndrome. Technically a “disability”, I never looked at it that way with Nan.  Things were much different in 1961 when she was born and there has been great progress in education, medical science, and social integration of special needs kids since then. I attribute Nan’s high-functioning as an adult to good education and good parenting.

Nan is an inspirational success story.   She will soon be age 51.  In sharp contrast to my own life and career(s), she has held the same job forever, had a long term boyfriend, lives very well on a budget, never uttered a cuss word, never got drunk or stoned.  She has a beautiful (and clean) apartment with nice furniture, a computer, two flat screen TVs, a huge fashionable wardrobe.  She attends church weekly, where she sings loudly and joyfully, way off key.  She bowls in Special Olympics, attends weekly zumba class and continuing education classes – what am I leaving out?  Oh, yeah, the most important thing: love.  She loves unconditionally, a simple characteristic in theory but rarely demonstrated consistently in society. She judges no one.  She hugs strangers.  She would hug Ahmadinejad.  She has thousands of friends and makes new friends everywhere we go.  At the end of the Wizard of Oz, when the Wizard gave the Tin Man his new heart, he said, “Remember this, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged on how much you love but how much you are loved by others.”  Nan excels on both counts. Every minute I spend with her gives me a brighter perspective on life.  If everyone had a friend or sibling like Nan, the world would be a much better place.  ###annie

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Chutz-spa

I went to college in Colorado in the 1970s and I miss its natural beauty every day, so I road trip back there almost every year.  Many years ago, we discovered another fountain of youth,  fifteen miles west of Denver on I-70 in the small old mining town of Idaho Springs.  Tucked away in the outskirts of this quaint village in the canyon is Indian Springs Resort.  They offer hot springs baths, among many other therapeutic treaments.  Apparently, the Indians believed the hot springs water had special healing powers.  After driving across Kansas, sometimes all night, the hot springs spa is the perfect place to rejuvenate before driving further into the mountains.  In the basement of this quaint old resort, they have separate male and female facilities, including "geo-thermal tunnels", caves where six large tubs are carved out of the rock mountain and filled with the scalding hot spring water.  
The first time I went, I didn't know how it worked; nudity is mandatory in the geothermal tunnel baths, but a towel can be worn to go in;  if you go to the resort unprepared, they will rent you a towel, but the towel is so small, it wouldn't even cover one of my breasts.  On that trip, I was traveling with my brothers, so in the segregated female geothermal tunnel, I shyly crept into the tunnel by myself with only a fraction of my body covered, hoping that the tubs were not filled with a bunch of young skinny bitches.  I was pleasantly surprised that only a few old women, with fat, sagging bodies much like my own, were the only ones in the tunnel that morning, so my fear and shyness was alleviated from then on. Each year thereafter, as I took different friends into the spa, I intentionally neglected to tell them about the towels, but  I always came equipped with a very large beach towel to hide my own body until the very last moment of sinking into the hot springs.
Last summer, I roadtripped out to Colorado with two old schoolmates, Mary Jane and Susan, to visit our friend Sarah at her condo in Breckenridge.  We paid for the hot spring bath and proceeded downstairs to the geothermal tunnel.  Everyone stripped down and we opened the door to the rock pathway leading to the "cave" with the hot springs tubs.  Susan stopped at the door and did not enter because of the density of the steam.  The cave is strictly a quiet zone.  The water seemed exceptionally hot, so we tested each of the tubs with our toes and  Mary Jane sat down and enjoyed the magical water.  The temperature of her tub was too hot for me so I moved on through the cave in search of a tub with more tolerable water temperature.
Much to my dismay, there were women in each of the other tubs, and the only tub cool enough for me to get in was occupied by a couple of attractive, young, skinny bitches.  They were chatting away (I thought this was a quiet zone), but I dipped into the water, towel and all, then pulled the towel out and began to soak.  In a few moments, I heard a loud, annoying beep and Skinny Bitch No. 1 stood up and reached over to the rock shelf and picked up her beeper.  She ignored the call, but as she was explaining to her friend how her office couldn't survive without her, the beeper went off again.  Well, this is annoying, I thought to myself.   The two girls continue to chat, and suddenly, I hear a different tone, one of those annoying cell phone ringtones, and I notice that Skinny Bitch No. 2 is wearing one of those awful blue tooth headset phones over her ear.  She reached up and answered the call and started talking loudly, apparently to one of her employees at some unknown business.  In the meantime, a third beep comes in on the beeper.  Well, I had just had it with these two yuppies disturbing my peaceful soak, so I got up and put on my wet towel and went back out to the locker room. 
When I came back, I walked right back to the tub with these obnoxious, self-important businesswomen, dropped my towel and looked over my shoulder at the toilet paper hanging out of my butt, and said, "Oh, would you look at that - I'm getting a fax."
Disclaimer:  The last paragraph is an embellishment of unknown origin.  Indian Springs Resort is awesome.  Be sure to go next time you're in Colorado, and don't forget to take a big towel.   ###annie

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MAYAN MATH

In my mid 50s, I’m still pursuing a college degree, part time.  I’m in no particular hurry to graduate because I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, but graduation is definitely on my bucket list (def: list of things to do before kicking the bucket).

And speaking of bucket lists, if the Mayans were right, the end of the world, December 21, 2012, will happen before I graduate.  The Mayan people reportedly were very good at math and had an innate sense of time and space.  They calculated this date as the end of a “Great Cycle of the Long Count calendar”.  What happens before, during and after that is open for interpretation.

Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, said “Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today.  It’s already tomorrow in Australia.”  Well, that’s somewhat comforting, but on this issue, I’d rather get my information from a scientist than a cartoonist/humorist.

There are two basic sources of our beliefs, science and religion, and they agree with each other about as often as Congress.  But scientists and religious prophesiers alike point to such things as climate changes, natural disasters, political and social situations as potential signs affirming the ancient Mayan prediction.

Countless other predictions caused great fear and panic and did not come true.  Remember New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1999?  Nothing happened, though many brilliant minds were certain it would, at least in banking and computer failures.

One idiot on one of the hundreds of 12/21/12 websites even went so far as to recommend stopping mortgage and credit card payments because the resulting foreclosure or bankruptcy would not take place until after this date.  If everyone did that, or similar panic moves, there probably would be a disaster of epic proportions, man-made.

So for now, just like back in 1999, I’m not going to make any major changes in anticipation of the end.  I’ll bury my head in the sand and worry about the bucket list.

I’d like to think that if anything happens on or around 12/21/12, it’s something intangible, like the end of a cycle of hate and greed and the beginning of a new cycle of peace and tolerance.

The fact that the Mayans were smarter than me in math is not saying much.  But just in case they were right, I’m going to wait until the Spring 2013 semester to take the required math class.   ### annie

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UNCOMMON CELEBRITY

It was the best time of my life, I think.  Summer school at the University of Colorado in Boulder.  My sorority house was nearly empty, so the handful of “sisters” who stayed for summer classes had the run of the mansion.  Summer school was an academic necessity for me as the atmosphere in fall and spring semesters at one of the top party schools in the nation always landed me on academic probation. Not even a conservative, highly respected national sorority could shield its members from the hippie culture that was pervasive in Boulder in the mid 1970s.  It was here that I met Lydia.  Our adjoining rooms were strategically chosen for the access to the rooftop patio where we could sunbathe with our tops off.  (OMG, this is starting to sound like a letter to Penthouse Forum.)  I’m pretty foggy on details here because every day was a party.  Lydia was gorgeous and she had dates every day.  But to me, her best characteristic was her sense of humor; she had the best laugh.  We kept our friendship through the following school year and the next summer, we moved into a house with two other girls, and the constant partying continued.  On the rare occasion that both of us were home by midnight, we would go out in our pajamas to Taco Bell or Dunkin Donuts.  (Of course this is a common attire these days, but in the 1970s, we were quite bold – trendsetters as it turns out.)  My college education was low on my priority list and I just assumed Lydia was an underachiever like me since neither of us ever studied or crawled out of bed with hangovers to get to classes. Little did I know she was highly intelligent.  In fact, I think she hid that fact from everyone, as a woman with her good looks and brains too would be very intimidating, especially to the jocks who chased her relentlessly.

In the 1970s, the great rock band Chicago had a recording studio called Caribou Ranch in the mountains just west up Boulder Canyon.  All the greatest rock groups of that great musical era loved to record there.  It was rumored that Elton John was there.  So one day, Lydia told us, her housemates, that she was going to go to the ranch and she said she wanted to marry Elton John.  It was a pretty funny notion then and even funnier now.  Much to our surprise, she was instantly hired at the recording studio.  We didn’t see much of Lydia after that.  One day, she came home and wanted us to go with her to a Boulder bar to hear a new artist, Billy Joel. He had just released his first big hit, Piano Man, and the concert was pretty good.  But someone had neglected to arrange for transportation for the band back to the studio, so Billy Joel, with Lydia on his lap, and two other band members and our roommate all piled into my cheap little beat-up compact car and drove back to our house.  Honestly, I thought Billy Joel was kind of an arrogant unattractive jerk, so I didn’t stick around that evening, but Lydia and Pam entertained the band.  I didn’t see Lydia again until later that week and she told me how things were going at the studio.  If I had known that would be the last time I would ever see her in person, I would have tried to talk her out of her dream of marrying a rock star.  As it turned out, her dreams were much bigger than that.

A few years later, one of my male friends who had an unfulfilled crush on Lydia called and told me to go out and buy a TV Guide.  Lydia was on the cover, with Ted Knight, in her new TV sitcom, Too Close for Comfort.  She played the role of a ditsy blonde college student, living with her sister (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) in an apartment below their parents.  She went on to many more acting roles, including HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.   But her immense talent also includes books, plays, and a radio talk show host.  Her notoriety grew after she made a harmless comment about Ann Coulter, followed by threats from Coulter fans (I didn’t know there were any…).  Head to head, in a mental or physical showdown, my money is on Lydia.

Fast forward (at last) to the present decade.  My male classmate from CU told me about Lydia’s website.  So I wrote her, thinking she wouldn’t even remember me after all her success and legions of fans, but she wrote back right away and continues to keep in touch for several years now. 

Lydia recently hosted the live stream for Variety’s Power of Comedy honoring Russell Brand benefitting the Noreen Fraser Foundation, which raises funds for women's cancer research    www.noreenfraserfoundation.org/  This was a live stream on Kelsey Grammer's network.  She also is featured in the Kelsey Grammer-Bill Zucker Comedy Show.

Which brings me (finally) to the point of this long history of my friendship with Lydia Cornell:  Lydia’s comedic talent will not be her greatest legacy.  She is a very progressive thinker and she enlightens her friends and fans on a regular basis with quotes of her own and others like her.  Her recurring theme is positive energy – that our physical well being is directly related to our mental/spiritual thoughts – lose the fear and keep your thoughts positive and positive physical results will follow.  There is so much negative energy around us and I’m confident that so many people could be helped by this simple truth.  Please check out Lydia’s website, blogspot and twitter:

http://lydiacornell.com/

http://politicallyhot.blogspot.com/

https://twitter.com/LydiaCornell 

http://www.lydiafanclub.blogspot.com/2011/09/charity-triumph-over-tragedy.html

There is one final editorial footnote to this story.  Isn’t it remarkable to hear stories of celebrities using their fame to help others?  There are far more stories in the media every day about celebrities behaving badly.  Cheers to you, Lydia.  Keep up the good work. ###annie

This article written and provided by guest writer Annie Clarkson..please scroll down for the other articles in today's issue of The Truthless Reconciler! Thanks!

SPECIAL NEEDS = SPECIAL GIFTS

More than seven months have passed since the Joplin tornado and still not a day goes by that some story pops up in the local media to remind us of the silver lining in that tornado cloud.  Recently the Joplin Globe reported the Rotary Club, with an assist from Keller Williams Realty, will build a “miracle” ball field for special needs kids at the Joplin Athletic Complex.  The field is dedicated to Will Norton, the promising young high school graduate whose tragic death in the tornado made international news.  The greatest tribute to this young man will be the smiles on the faces of the special needs kids who will benefit from this gift.  My sister Nan, age 50, has Downs Syndrome, and throughout her active life, I have witnessed all kinds of sporting events for special kids, including tennis, volleyball, softball, golf, swimming, bowling, and of course, the Special Olympics.  Some have extraordinary athletic skills but they all deserve gold medals for their attitudes.  Kids with special needs also have special gifts, a superior ability to love, laugh, and overcome limitations.  I can’t wait to attend the first game at the miracle field. Cheers to you, Rotary Club and Keller Williams Realty. ### annie

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Ron Paul

And so the republican presidential campaign continues with a narrow Romney win in Maine over Ron Paul, just barely. The G.O.P. scramble has turned out to be a delightful and exciting political event, the very kind we love here in America, the very kind of politickin' that makes America great, and reveals America's greatness.

Not that the U.S. is a better country than any other - but, its great, if only in that there is a constant political dogfight going on, according to an accepted system. And we are willing to change the system, when need be, which is now, as always.

We need to change the system so that political power in this country isn't purchased with money, as it now is, and always has been.

I'm a left wing liberal socialist democrat, a fan of Bernie Sanders, but my favorite republican is Ron Paul, by far. I like his unpretentious honestly,his straight forward talk. I could support him, which seems amazing to me.

Romney make think he can buy the nomination and the white house, but Ron Paul might have something to say about that.

Let's create a left wing right wing ticket of Ron Paul Bernie Sanders.

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Channeling Aliens, part 2

What it comes down to is, I'm jealous. Jealous of all these people having such grand adventures without me. Channeling aliens, getting abducted by aliens, that in particular.

Not that I have a bad life. In fact, I have a very good life, very fortunate, despite the fact that I am now, unbelievably, almost 57 years old, with a hamstring injury from hell.

But the hammy'll heal, and I live in America, and what else can one want?

But these people who've been aboard alien spacecraft and these people who channel messages from extraterrestrials just plain make me jealous. How exciting that must be!  Why them?  Why not me?

If they're making it all up, they're still having alot of fun, and many people believe every word they say. Many people. And there are more of them all the time, and more believers.

There is evidently something called "The Galactic Federationof Light". I'm not making this up. You could probably google it, and find out a lot. I haven't done that, yet. But I will.

This galactic federation of light is allegedly channeling messages to certain people here on earth, who then post the messages on their websites. One such channeler is named Greg Giles, and he does a good job of it. He has his own site, called Ascension 2012, or something like that. (Don't hold me to it).

The Truthless Reconciler hereby applies to become a channeler of messages from the Galactic Federation of Light!  Please give us fair consideration....

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