PREFATORY NOTE I: Nineteen percent of manic-depressives (clinically known as “bipolars”) take their own life. Of the five charter members of “Carl Brown’s Mad Dog Army,” one took her life with drugs and another blew his face off with a shotgun.
There is help. The Louisville Depressive/Bipolar Support Alliance meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on the corner of Bardstown Road at Douglass Loop, room 110. We also meet on Mondays in New Albany. Call for details: (502) 479-9941, day or night, especially if you are near the abyss. I only sleep every few days, so you’ll not likely awaken me. Do not be afraid to seek help.
PREFATORY NOTE II: My vote goes to a Democrat, a Republican and an Independent.
JOHN YARMUTH FOR CONGRESS: John and I disagree on some of his well-intended liberal policies, but I have known him for 20 years and he is not just a good man, John is a great man. My loyalty transcends my party. John promised to represent us with “intelligence and class,” and so he has. BE SURE TO VOTE! My friends in the Tea Party will turn out, for sure. Yarmuth supporters must also. This race will be close – not by virtue of John’s record, but by the sole fact that he is an incumbent.
RAND PAUL FOR SENATE: I, without hesitation or reservation, endorse Rand Paul for Senate. We need men and women who will shake the establishment and roll those grenades down Cathedral aisles during high mass. If wanting the Constitution to matter, desiring less government and demanding less taxes makes one a Tea Party guy, count me in. Besides, Rand has promised not to vote for Addison (as in snake) Mitchell McConnell, Jr. for either Majority or Minority Leader. The enemy of my Ancient Enemy is my friend ... My next best friend. A vote for Rand is a vote against Mitch the Bitch.
JACKIE GREEN FOR MAYOR: Both major candidates are good men, I think, but are REPUBLOCRATS. Jackie Green represents real change, real vision and inside info as to the real skinny of local government. C’mon people, most of you are registered INDEPENDENT. So vote your party this time. I have worked firsthand with Jackie and believe he is the man.
ERRATA: “Meet the new boss ... same as the old boss ... ” was a song of The Who. Not the Guess Who. I blame memory loss on pot. Sorry.
MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS: Had I written this column last night (and been only three days late), it would have just been more venom heaped on President Obama. Last month, I hit him on his Afghan War surge, his repudiation of campaign finance reform in 2008, his ineptitude with the Gulf Spill crisis, his failed promise to end Gitmo and military tribunals, his wrong-headed stance on building A MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO (!) and his continuation of Bush’s fascist policy of warrantless surveillance.
I had five more body blows ready for this PART II, but was stopped in my tracks by a pretty blonde named Kathleen Lyons. She and her boyfriend Ross kicked back and Kathleen rolled out the big guns. She was convincing. Our Commander-In-Chief has been in office less than two years and Obama’s inheritance of the challenges left like traps by Bush are inherent and overwhelming. “Give him a chance,” she exhorted, and her point was well taken.
I have no problem with a man being man enough (sorry, girls) to change his mind in light of new information. Otherwise, folks, he is a slave to old data.
I am not a Republican who wants Obama to fail (some of his policies, yes, but not the administration, per se). I still want change I can believe in (however grammatically atrocious this rings).
I want to believe.
Pray for the President. Let us be Americans before Democrats, Republicans or Independents. Like Kathleen said: “We should have Democratic hearts and Republican heads.” An original.
I’m just a pundit. President Barack Obama is “the man in the arena.” As President Roosevelt said in his “Citizenship in a Republic” speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
RAPPER LOCAL BUSINESS PICKS OF THE MONTH: On Highland Avenue between Baxter and Cherokee have popped up two of the coolest stores ever: BANANAS – a vintage clothing and jewelry store plus more, and SECOND STORY BOOKS – which I predict will become the legendary bookstore of the Highlands. I plan to shop both places a lot. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL HIGHLANDS BUSINESSES AND TIP LARGE THE WAITERS AND WAITRESSES.
E-mail Carl at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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