A Southern Missive

Jimmy Dale Pittman
(April 21, 1954-June 30, 2007)

To Jimmy: Nearly a Year Later

Today is your birthday,
It’s been nearly a year
Since you left us,
I still weep when I think of you.

I always called you on your birthday,
But now I can only call
On your memory with my poems.

Rest now, my brother,
I hope you’ve found peace
And a place where you
Won’t have to work so hard,
A place with green fields and cool breezes,
Like your plot of land in Haslet,
Or an Elysium or Paradise or Valhalla.

Valhalla would so suit your personality
And your Viking blood,
Odin may need wild scrappers like you,
Maybe pretty valkyries greeted you last June,
I imagine them sitting at your table now,
Singing and serving mead as you flirt,
Perhaps they’ll give you this poem,
Or at least tell you that I miss you,
That I promise to stand in the gap
And take care of our parents.
You were loved and will be missed, brother,
Much more than you know.
–2008

TLA Report: I’ll soon post photos and a full report of my Texas Library Association experience in Dallas. You can learn about the conference and the organization here: http://www.txla.org/conference/conf.html

Say It Ain’t So . . .

Just when you think there’s hope for the human race, you read or see something that makes you slap your head. Like these stories for example, as told by a local political pundit.

Obama’s Pastor: I verified this report through a number of sites. Evidently Obama’s pastor is getting a 1.6 million dollar mansion [Ain't America terrible!] from his church for retirement in a white neighborhood. Think about the irony. Here’s one of many good articles on this: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/03/27/obamas-former-pastor-builds-a-multimillion-dollar-retirement-home/

He’s lucky he lives in this age because after his speech Lincoln would have gladly sent him to Liberia to retire there. Lincoln, like many abolitionists, wanted an all white America, so they developed what has been called the Liberian Plan. There are many good sites to read about Lincoln’s ideas on black “colonization” but here is a good one to start with: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n5p-4_Morgan.html

Church of the Big Government Is Hard at Work: I haven’t used tobacco in six months now. Quitting has been good for me. However, I am against organized efforts to force people to quit. For example, take the Kick Butts Day conducted in schools across America where kids walked around painted as dead, marked with “Killed by Tobacco.” There were also some crime scene chalk outlines of bodies marked “Murdered by Big Tobacco.” I wonder about the efficacy of efforts like this in an educational setting. It seems like another government agenda and another sign of intolerance and an effort to weaken the rights of the individual.  What do we really want to teach children in public schools? I’m just thinking out loud here, but does Big Government view public schools as a means of social control?

If you are a writer who uses a POD publisher, according to Booklocker, “here is a developing situation you need to be aware of.

Amazon.com is Telling POD Publishers – Let BookSurge Print Your Books, or Else…

Some Print on Demand (POD) publishers are privately screaming “Monopoly!” while others are seething with rage over startling phone conversations they’re having with Amazon/BookSurge representatives. Why isn’t anybody talking about it openly? Because they’re afraid – very, very afraid…

Read the details here
http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004597_03272008.html

Myths of American Slavery by Walter Donald Kennedy: A Review

There’s a saying, “The victors of a war write the history,” and perhaps there’s no clearer example of that than the misinformation and inaccuracies spread regarding the War Between the States.  However, once a student of history delves into real the facts and past the propaganda of those (often in government) with agendas and past the fiction of the saint-makers and mythmakers, one can find many surprising and iconoclastic truths. Sacred cows do not die easily or quietly usually, for their devotees (in this case the winners of America’s Civil War) are usually numerous and powerful. I would like to devote some articles to reviews of books related to or about the War Between the States that are sure to challenge our thinking

Myths of American Slavery by Walter Donald Kennedy is a fine example of how commonly accepted beliefs can be challenged.  Kennedy is the author of The South Was Right! (Pelican Publishing), a book that is in the best-seller category, having sold over 100,000 copies.  The Foreword is written by Bob Harrison, a black Southern writer. The book’s introduction begins with an epigraph of Jefferson Davis that says, “No subject [slavery] has been more generally misunderstood or more persistently misrepresented.”  The text is well-researched and documented with an impressive bibliography and index.

The book is a balanced, but challenging study of the institution of slavery in the 19th century, is full of surprises and is organized in this fashion:

Chapter 1 Slavery: A Worldwide Phenomenon
Chapter 2 Slavery Comes to the New World
Chapter 3 Abolitionism Versus Christianity
Chapter 4 African-Americans, Free Born and Slave
Chapter 5 Slavery Versus Secession
Chapter 6 Lincoln: The Un-Emancipator
Chapter 7 Slavery and the Confederate States of America
Chapter 8 The Flag of Slavery
Chapter 9 On the State of Slavery in Virginia
Chapter 10 On Jordan’s Stormy Banks
Addendum I Abstract: On the State of Slavery in Virginia
Addendum II Early Anti-Slavery Tract
Addendum III Recommended Reading List

Do yourself a favor and visit Walter Kennedy’s website and take a look at this book and some of his other writings. http://www.kennedytwins.com/