The song Obama's minister want sing
...I have heard my share of sermons, most of which I do not remember and I am sure that disappoints my mom. But I think I would remember one where a preacher asked God to damn America. It would have at least roused me to the point of asking someone next to me to ask, "What did he just say?"The song the Rev. Wright won't sing is by Irving Berlin, a contemporary of Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin and Lorenz Hart, all the sophisticated rhymesters. But only Berlin could have written without embarrassment "God Bless America." He said it directly, unaffectedly, unashamedly – in seven words:
"God Bless America
Land that I love."
Berlin was a Jew, and he suffered slights: He grew up in the poverty of New York's Lower East Side. When he made his name and fortune, his marriage to a Park Avenue heiress resulted in her expulsion from the Social Register. In the Thirties, her sister moved in with a Nazi diplomat and proudly flaunted her diamond swastika to Irving. But Berlin spent his infancy in Temun, Siberia (until the Cossacks rode in and razed his village), and he understood the great gift he'd been given:
"God Bless America
Land that I love."
The Rev. Wright can't say those words. His shtick is:
"God damn America
Land that I loathe."
I understand the Ellis Island experience of Russian Jews was denied to blacks. But not to Obama. His experience surely isn't so different to Berlin's – except that Barack got to go to Harvard. Obama's father was a Kenyan, he spent his childhood in Indonesia, and he ought to thank his lucky stars that he's running for office in Washington rather than Nairobi or Jakarta.
Instead, his whiny wife, Michelle, says that her husband's election as president would be the first reason to have "pride" in America, and complains that this country is "downright mean" and that she's having difficulty finding money for their daughters' piano lessons and summer camp. Between them, Mr. and Mrs. Obama earn $480,000 a year (not including book royalties from "The Audacity Of Hype," but they're whining about how tough they have it to couples who earn 48 grand – or less. Yes, we can. But not on a lousy half-million bucks a year.
...
I prefer Irving Berlin to Rev. Wright.
I wrote Oprah...I don't know if she heard me!
ReplyDeleteIs there anyone out there?
Dear Oprah!
Over the years I have written you, I have sent you my book, and musical project. Somehow my heart never spoke loud enough for you to hear me.
However this time I am crying out to you as loudly as I can.
I almost gave up, and thought, "Perhaps I am just too low", and no one can hear me from way down here.
Though I keep trying to be heard, my cry has sometimes been muted by despair.
Then the night before last night, 'Inside-Edition", reported that President -elect Barack Obama, had slept outside on top of his luggage, on a street, in NYC for a night. He had gone their to attend Columbia University. The person he was suppose to stay with did not answer the door.
I thought to myself, 'if that man had given up! He would never have known what it would be like to sleep in the White House". (The Peoples House Now).
I got up and said...my white house is somewhere out there, I have got to get up and cry louder.
Oprah, I have written a song, called, "World Heal Thyself". I want to sing it to the world, for our First Family, for America, for God.
I know I'm the most unlikely, but so was he, so were you. But someone took your hand, and though you have never been as low as I have, that hand pulled you up.
They had to look past a lot to do it, the color of your skin, your background, your pain, but somebody heard you.
You have heard many cries over the years....can you hear me?
I am among the unlikely, no big recording company, not as young as I once was; and perhaps I should not reach up so high for your hand.
But if Barack had not reached, if he had not believed, if there had not been the, "Yes We Can" somewhere down in his spirit, way before we ever heard him utter the words. We would have never heard him say those words today.
Oprah, I'm crying, as loud as I can today....Does your heart hear mine?
At the Saviors Feet, Crying, "God Let Oprah Hear Me".
Shepherdess
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