(K)ehkashan: The United States of America is still the home
of the brave. I’ll give it that. However, there is an underlying
de-intellectualizing of my generation due to the terrible collaboration between
the status quo elitists and the American media giants. Particularly this
Republican Party conglomerate that misidentifies itself as belonging to the
people when it is clearly setup for meeting special interests like, well, lobby
groups that focus entirely on minimizing commercialization in certain fields of
public interests like what Sheldon Adelson is doing on the East Coast by
interfering in the business of government to keep his reign on the gambling
industry.
(P)apa Harry: What exactly is Sheldon Adelson doing on the
East Coast of the United States, my love?
(D)addy Anwar: What exactly hasn’t Sheldon Adelson been
doing coast-to-coast?
(K)ehkashan: That’s absolutely my point, Daddy. Don’t you
see, Papa? Sheldon Adelson’s got a lot of prominent public figures adorning his
own organizational regalia—the Republican Jewish Coalition’s to be specific—like
Andrew Cuomo, Chris Christie, and Jon Stewart of The Daily Show.
(D)addy Anwar: What kind of regalia specifically?
(P)apa Harry: Wait a minute! Hold on! We are venturing on
sacred ground and I will not tolerate anything less than seriousness as we
speak of the Judeo-Christian and Muslim faiths, because no matter how
cartoonish and deserving of derision the right wing financiers and their
politicians may be, they are socioeconomic forces of nature that mustn’t be
addressed dismissively and religion is never a laughing matter. You understand,
my love?
(K)ehkashan: Papa! Yes! I know!
(P)apa Harry: I meant every word I said then, my love.
(D)addy Anwar: But that mustn’t keep me from inquiring about
the exact nature of this right wing organizational regalia that members of
Sheldon Adelson’s Republican Jewish Coalition adorn?
(K)ehkashan: Daddy! Sheldon Adelson’s public mouthpieces, in
particular Andrew Cuomo, Chris Christie, and Jon Stewart, all wear yarmulkes
with Adelson’s monogram embossed upon the fabric.
(P)apa Harry: Enough! The two of you! Really Anwar?
Kehkashan! The kippah or kippot if plural are the prayer caps that Jewish males
and females wear, as part of custom outlined in both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Judaism.
(K)ehkashan: A custom is known in Judaism as a minhag and
its plural is minhagim. Surprisingly, the practice of a minhag or a set of
minhagim can vary from family to family as well as individual-to-individual.
The Talmud or Shisha Sedarim, or Shas as it is abbreviated in Hebrew, has six
componential parts or “six orders” according to Wikipedia. The Shas reminds me
of the Pillars of Islam and the Hindi word sheesha, which means mirror or glass.
(P)apa Harry: Doesn’t the Hindi word sundaram mean
beautiful?
(K)ehkashan: If the Shisha Sedarim were alternatively viewed
as Sheesha Sundaram, or beautiful mirror or glass, couldn’t the warring tensions
between the Judeo and Christian and Muslim and Hindu and so on and so forth be
rendered alterable? I mean, instead of criticizing and critiquing, can’t we all
just get along and rise up against the status quo making it impossible for US
to live with dignity and self-worth with such insufficient wages and equally
unjust policing? And didn’t the Republican Tea GOP actually want to move part
time work hours up from twenty or thirty to forty hours per week?
(D)addy Anwar: You need to keep your facts checked, darling.
Otherwise, you run the risk of treading in dangerous waters just like the
Republican Tea GOP you mentioned just now. According to a USA Today March 26,
2014 article addressing the number of
hours at minimum wage needed to afford rent, the least amount of hours to
accumulate before being able to pay 30% of one’s income on rent would be 69
hours, the case if you’re living in Montana and Arkansas. How many hours does
it take someone in Texas to afford rent on the state’s minimum wage?
(K)ehkashan: Over 69?
(D)addy Anwar: Ninety-three! It would take someone in Texas at
least 93 hours of minimum wage work to afford a two-bedroom apartment unit in
the state.
(K)ehkashan: I know the plight of Bruce Springsteen’s Outlaw
Pete! At six months old he’d done six
months in jail! Outlaw Pete is the plight of the unborn developing inside
its disenfranchised and desperate mother’s womb! At 25 a Mustang pony he did steal And he rode her ‘round and ‘round on
heaven’s wheel Father Jesus I’m an outlaw, killer, and a thief. Outlaw
Pete’s mother is in her 25th week of pregnancy, or the start of the
third trimester, by which time she has slipped into total self-neglect.
(P)apa Harry: Outlaw Pete’s father’s actions could also be
taken into account?
(K)ehkashan: And I
slow down only to sow my grief.
(D)addy Anwar: I think your Papa means to say that the fate
of the unborn child rests in the circumstances faced by its father too. Reminds
me of Donald Driver’s autobiography Driven.
His emphasis on paying college athletes a living wage alongside their
scholarships and tuitions and fees is explored with such honesty and compassion
by Driver as are the issues of living in poverty with a single working mother
and multiple siblings from different marriages and unsalvageable relationships
but love for each and every one of your sisters and brothers nevertheless
enduring such tidal waves.
(P)apa Harry: Yes. A child’s tomorrows do arise from his or
her parents’ present tensions. Richard Williams’ autobiography Black and White: The Way I See It explores
the ups and downs and highs and lows of race relations and fatherhood, his own
incredible development from street smart kid to savvy businessman to
outstanding life coach to tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams. There are
moments in the book where you hold your breath because Williams writes with
such candor about almost not making it through a hurdle or obstacle placed
before him.
(K)ehkashan: Rob Lowe’s Love
Life is an interesting read and filled with amazing revelations about
Lowe’s persona on and off the camera. Despite being stereotyped otherwise on
camera, Lowe’s a really loyal husband and brilliant father off camera since
circa 1991. He coached his sons’ grade school basketball teams and managed to
get them into the playoffs finally and win before being dismissed from his
position by parents who did not want their children to lose sight of the point
that basketball was just an extracurricular sport.
(D)addy Anwar: Do you think folkie parents personally resent
cool guys like Coach Lowe? Folkie folks get foxy about folkways. Folkie folks
get foxy about folkways.
(K)ehkashan: Daddy? Daddy! You’re dancing! Stop it! You’re
too old for this! Please!
(D)addy Anwar: Folkie folks get foxy about folkways! Folkie
folks get foxy about folkways! Folkie folks get foxy about folkways! Folkie
folks get foxy about folkways! Folkie folks get foxy about folkways! Folkie
folks get foxy about folkways! Folkie folks get foxy about folkways! Folkie
folks get foxy about folkways! Folkie folks get foxy about folkways!
(P)apa Harry: Well, as long as Daddy is lost in his present
pestilent postures, let me ask you about Debbie Allen’s The Hot Chocolate Nutcracker broadcast on Black Entertainment
Television, or BET, last night.
(K)ehkashan: Debbie Allen’s The Hot Chocolate Nutcracker deserves to be performed at President
Vladimir Putin’s Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, Russia and broadcast to a
global audience because of its breathtakingly international rewrite of the
Christmas classic. Plus, Debbie Allen and BET could use the technology utilized
at the Sochi Olympic Games last February. Wow! That February seems so far away,
doesn’t it?
(D)addy Anwar: Since circa 2014? There’s another to arrive
in two months time as well, circa 2015!
(K)ehkashan: I’m too old for this!
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