The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled.

Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things!

Blunt the sharpness,

Untangle the knot,

Soften the glare,

Merge with dust.

Oh, hidden deep but ever present!

I do not know from whence it comes.

It is the forefather of the emperors.

Tao Te Ching (Ch-4)

Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th President of the United States

September 24, 1957

He would die within five years of acute alcoholism. There he was, resting upon Archie Bunker's throne with his 'beer and a bump'.

The rabbit ears had been carefully positioned on the Black & White. There was an art to all this. I mean the right ear was bent ever so slightly. Some days the turning of an ear ritual would have to be completed every hour or so, although when the weather was hospitable, a clear picture could be had little longer.  That 'snow' would appear and the sound distorted if the ritual were not properly followed.

My father was about to reach his 33rd birthday. He was a WWII veteran having served on a secret American Air Base in the old Czechoslovakia. There had been approximately 17 Americans stationed at that base which was about the number of Americans stationed in Czechoslovakia.

His favorite obscenities were: Bullshit!!! and Goddamnit!!!! and Ni...........!!!!

Two of which I have adopted as my own precious condemnations.  You must understand that Dad was a Roman Catholic who never went to church; a dyed-in-the wool Democrat and an avowed racist.

The real irony was that he made his money selling used cars to the lower middle class in a poorer side of town. The main hazards of the business involved repossessions of automobiles from those who did not carry through with 'their end' of the bargain and parking tickets. Where the irony in all of this came was that his main clientele were African-Americans.

The year before, I had participated in my first Presidential Election. I remember looking at the ballot. There were two choices: The President of the United States and...the other guy. Of course I voted for The President of the United States of America of course.

I mean you had to be one of those communists portrayed on 'I Led Three Lives' to vote for 'the other guy.' I recall telling my parents my choice in this very important election. They laughed.

I was then instructed that 'we' were Democrats and that I should never vote for a Republican again. I have honored this promise over the next five decades.

We are watching the President of the United States tonight boys, just as the President was about to speak.

But he is a Republican and we are Democrats, Daddy

THIS IS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, NOW SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP AND LISTEN FOR A CHANGE.

All righty then!!! I got that message.

Now I must add a little background here and Wiki does it so well at times:

The Little Rock Nine were a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.[1]

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, on May 17, 1954. The decision declared all laws establishing segregated schools to be unconstitutional, and it called for the desegregation of all schools throughout the nation.[2] After the decision the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to register black students in previously all-white schools in cities throughout the South. In Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, the Little Rock School Board agreed to comply with the high court's ruling. Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board on May 24, 1955, which the board unanimously approved. The plan would be implemented during the 1958 school year, which would begin in September 1957.

There is another personal story relevant here. Six months before all this our school had a 'paper drive'.  This was during a time when newspapers were delivered to your door for about a dime a day. People would store up and bundle those papers, at least the ones not used for new puppies and such.  Then the schools would have drives where everyone would place all their bundles in front of their homes on a certain designated morn and vans would come by and pick them up and deliver them to the schools.

The Newspaper companies would eventually pick up all the newspapers and give the schools a sum representing remuneration for their trouble. The School Board would designate the proper charity to which the remuneration would go.  That year an all Black  school in Little Rock, Arkansas was designated as the destination for our charitable contribution.

We had been taught that the poor Negro Students were being discriminated against by the evil white people in Little Rock and they needed our help and our consolation.  So we all wrote letters about how we hoped everything would turn out better for these children and how happy we were that we might help them in their quest for a decent education.

I found out later in college, that  at the same time my school was working on our paper drive, a school in Little Rock, Arkansas had conducted their own paper drive. The final destination of that school's charitable contribution? A charity in Minneapolis that helped American Indians who were being treated terribly by the Northern Racists.  The students in Little Rock wrote their letters of consolation to members of the Chippewa Tribes up here in Minnesota hoping that one day they too could receive a decent education.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Great Speech began on CBS:

Good Evening, My Fellow Citizens: -- For a few minutes this evening I want to speak to you about the serious situation that has arisen in Little Rock...

In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.

This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the Court's order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.

The proper use of the powers of the Executive Branch to enforce the orders of a Federal Court is limited to extraordinary and compelling circumstances. Manifestly, such an extreme situation has been created in Little Rock. This challenge must be met and with such measures as will preserve to the people as a whole their lawfully-protected rights in a climate permitting their free and fair exercise. The overwhelming majority of our people in every section of the country are united in their respect for observance of the law - even in those cases where they may disagree with that law.

They deplore the call of extremists to violence.

We then turned to 'The Honeymooners'.

I have my own confession to make here. When w was appointed President of the United States by the Supreme Court of the United States, I was devastated. I would rant and rave that the rich will now rape this country, that the poor will be abandoned, that the military-industrial complex will be even more energized and that we were all going to hell in a hand basket.

The first year I turned it around and gave w some deference. He was President of the United States. I would watch him speak, or whatever he was doing in order to communicate anyway. Besides, in a few years there would be another election and the Dems might quit yelling at each other, and we would get a good man as chief executive because the American People may not have liked how he had stolen the election in 2000.

Then I watched the towers get hit and I gave w the benefit of the doubt again.

And then I started hearing that we were going to invade Iraq.  All the hijackers save one were Saudis.  I would watch cable news--which was my only source of news--and try to discover WHAT IN THE HELL IRAQ HAD TO DO WITH ALL THIS.

Then a man by the name of Paul O'Neill who had been Secretary of the Treasury came on these cable shows and said that the President had told him and his National Security team that "We are goin into Iraq find a way."  EIGHT MONTHS BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001:

From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," says Suskind. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed."

As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml

I was so angry I cannot fully relate the extent of that anger here. I never watched a full speech of w after that. I lost any respect for w that I had once mustered. And every single time one of his administration would come on television, they would lie. I new they were lying. Hell Tom Brokaw knew they were lying and they were getting away with it.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/1849/2009/09/teaching-parents-a-lesson.php#comments

1849 had a post concerning the President's speech dedicated to children upon their first day of school. Some people actually kept their children home from school to avoid the disgusting propaganda that was sure to be spewing from My President's mouth. Other schools omitted the speech from their curriculum during the day. Catch JSFOX's beautiful tribute to the children who desired to hear their Chief Executive.  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/jsfox/2009/09/and-a-child-shall-lead-us.php?ref=reccafe

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared on "Fox & Friends," the Fox News morning show, to preview President Obama's speech to Congress tonight on health care reform. Gibbs ribbed the morning show hosts about the fact that Fox broadcast channel is choosing to run the dance reality show "So You Think You Can Dance?" instead of the President's speech.

"I do hope the viewers of FOX will find a way to watch this speech tonight," Gibbs said. "I know the network, instead of dealing with the reality of millions of people on health insurance reform have decided to show a reality show called 'So You Think You Can Dance?'"

The Fox News hosts defended their sister network's decision, noting that the Fox News channel would be carrying the speech live. Gibbs replied: "I do hope people will check in to the reality of what's going on in America rather than the distraction of a reality TV show.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/09/gibbs-on-fox-news-critici_n_280309.html

This is the President of the United States giving a major speech to a Joint Session of Congress. However it goes, it is history, real history. There are not that many speeches given in this manner by the Chief Executive of this country. It is a rarity, indeed.

DO YOU REALLY WISH TO DANCE?