IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America


When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw
off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now
the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment
of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts
be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended,
he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of
large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish
the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right
inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their
Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them
into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing
with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers,
incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large
for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed
to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States;
for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither,
and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent
to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure
of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of
and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws;
giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government,
and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once
an example and fit instrument for introducing the same
absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws,
and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves
invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection
and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries
to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun
with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas
to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of
their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,
the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare,
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress
in the most humble terms:  Our repeated Petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury.  A Prince, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler
of a free People.

Nor have We been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren.
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and
settlement here.  We have appealed to their native justice
and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence.  They too have been
deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.  We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them,
as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name,
and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies,
solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are,
and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State
of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to
levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce,
and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may
of right do.  And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm
reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge
to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

I'm back...

Dearest friends,

Thank you so very much for bearing with me during my self-imposed technology break.  I realized that, between moving, blogging, tweeting, and, you know, living, I needed to take some time off. I realized that, although Twitter is fun, it is way too time-consuming (at least for now), so I deactivated that account. I am now back up and running on Blogger, and will be providing details of the move soon.

xo--

h

Happy Father's Day

Moving...

So, those who know me in real life know that I am moving.  Exciting stuff. As you can tell, Max is pretty excited, too.

The Southern Belles recaps are moving as well.  I am a little uncomfortable with how very much attention my personal blog is getting, and wanted to put a little distance between my personal stories and my snarky commentary. Please feel free to keep reading here, and on the new blog, Southern Belle: Kentucky. 

xoxo-

h

Heart Quilt

 

I forgot to tell y'all; my granny made another stunning quilt for me this spring.  

Today...

Today, I suspend all the snark, materialism and John Mayer-hate that generally fuel this blog...

Today, I thank all the men and women who have served our country. Those who aren't remembered; those who sacrificed their lives. Those who believed in freedom. My great-grandfather who served in WWI. My grandfather who fought in WWII's South Pacific. My great-uncle who was awarded a Croix de Guerre by President de Gaulle for his bravery in the European Theatre. My uncle who served during Vietnam. TLOML's relatives who did the same. Friends and neighbors who have recently returned from tours of duty in Iraq. Those who came home scared, changed, injured, broken. Those who didn't come home at all. And those for whom freedom and liberty aren't a punchline.

Today, we remember. Today, I pray that we will always remember.

Life Lessons, Courtesy of American Idol

This morning, as we were drinking our coffee and trying to come online for the day, TLOML asked me whether “all of Facebook is in an uproar over the wrong guy winning American Idol.”

My response? “It seems they are. Apparently, (Cue me talking in my very bestest Dewey Cox’s dad voice) the wrong guy won; the other guy had more talent. It apparently has two levels of unfairness. The story goes that the winner guy is a ‘teeny bopper’, whatever that is—I thought they all died in Fifties plan crashes—but it’s okay because the other guy will have more artistic control over his career. (switch to weird, Don Pardo-esque emcee voice) So eff you American Idol. Other guy is coming at you. Chris Daughtry-style. (Return to smug, bored, pseudo-intellectual voice. You know, my normal tone…) The second level of unfairness is that, apparently, it was some sort of conservative backlash by this damned country because America just wasn’t ready for an openly gay idol.”

TLOML: (with all the deadpan sarcasm he can muster this early in the morning)“That’s right. America doesn’t have many openly gay entertainers.”

I continue, “also, apparently they dug out all the octogenerian rock stars they could find. The non-dead members of Queen, Rod Stewart and that bizarre tartan tuxedo he’s taken to wearing, even AC/DC. So that should be helpful for young singers.”

We can’t sustain our eyerolling, coffee-drinking and discussing all at the same time, so we let it drop.

This story has two morals, really. The first is that it should really come as no surprise to anyone that my fiancé and I have trouble making friends because we’re more than a little aggressive in our smug obnoxiousness. The second, which is more my point, is that American Idol and its slick, easily-produced talent show brethren are, sadly, here to stay. I may not watch them, but I certainly can’t escape them. AI has eaten into our collective consciousness over its roughly ten thousand seasons. Some artists have mercifully gone away, like noted Silver Fox Taylor Hicks, while others keep beating their insidious garbage into our skulls like mind-control torture tactics. I dare you to walk through the touristy end of downtown Nashville at any time during the day or night; the “public entertainment” speaker in front of the awesome Mexican restaurant at 2nd & Broadway plays that one Carrie Underwood song on a 24-hour loop. Don’t even act like you don’t know the one. “AAAhhhh …tuk a Leweyville Slugger to both Heydlihhhhts”….or whatevs. My point? American Idol is, at its root, nothing but a stupid karaoke contest and a popularity contest. That’s okay, because in a lot of ways, so is life.

I’ll admit I’ve watched some episodes of American Idol. TLOML and I consider it as important to stay abreast of cultural zeitgeists as politics and world events. And, I really, really like the cattle call episodes at the beginning of each season—the ones in which people make utter fools of themselves by voluntarily discarding any of the dignity or self-awareness that their mamas tried to instill in them. That is funny stuff. However, once they get to Hollywood, I’m out the door. The singers, as a general rule, sound awful. And the judges’ antics are one-note jokes that grow tiresome almost immediately.

In case you aren’t one of Idol’s 500 trillion viewers (you lucky, lucky bastard), here is the general premise: unknown 17-29 year-old singers audition for the opportunity to humiliate themselves in a nationally televised forum. The winner lands a record contract. Along the way, the contestants are subjected to the critique of a panel of “celebrity” judges: a dude who maybe sort of played bass for Journey and who tells every contestant “that was a little pitchy, dog”, a caustic record-producing Brit with a penchant for displaying his pecs in the tightest t-shirts since Farrah Fawcett’s retirement, and Laker Girl, singer and choreographer Paula Abdul, who clearly realized that her professional zenith was reached with such awe-inspiring videos as “Rush, Rush” and “Opposites Attract” and has decided to go gently into that dark night with the help of many, many prescription drugs. The hopefuls sing songs that have been pre-selected every week – both to fit into the week’s “theme” and to ensure that the show has cleared the song’s rights before airtime. So, we are treated to such groundbreaking vocal treatments as a 17 year-old tattooed straightedge chick, who has never left Arkansas, singing Happy Xmas (War is Over) with no indication that she knows which war it references. After her performance, she is subjected to a review by the judges. The Journey dude, Randy, will tell her “dog, that was a little pitchy.” Paula will say “sweeeeetttharrrttt… that was soooo beautiful”, then slip into a Vicodin coma worthy of Dr. House. The British dude, Simon, will rip her to shreds, tell her that she should go home and work at the Wal-Mart, and smirk. (I think there’s a fourth judge this season, brought in to ultimately hasten Paula’s exit.) Then America votes, via phone. Anybody with telephone access can call as many times as they like and vote for as many people as they like. It’s like all of America is electing a Homecoming Queen.

I’ll let you stop and ruminate on the fact that this show was ever greenlighted, let alone viewed.

Then I’ll remind you that it’s one of the most popular shows in America.

I think it’s safe to assume that Idol is never going to revolutionize American pop music. However, as I watch the Twitter and Facebook feeds go nuts as people cheer for their most-favoritist Idol, I realize that Idol is a lot like life. It’s a big karaoke contest and the popular kids win.

Every week, Idol has some sort of theme. Every single contestant must sing songs from the theme/genre/artist presented; they are even presented with celebrity mentors who “guide” the participants through the song selection. So, the truck-driving cowboy singer might have to sing from the Carole King songbook, while Carole herself looks on in abject horror. Or the gay goth kid may have to sing Willie Nelson. And it’s single-elimination, so one bad week and you’re gone. (Apparently, this season incorporated some sort of “save” by the judges, to be used once in extreme emergency). Basically, we are being told that these fledgling singers’ professional success or failure hinges on their one shot to sing just like a professional recording artist. I often imagine my very favorite artists attempting to succeed in this format: Amy Winehouse on Beatles night, turning Imagine into a seedy torch song? Lyle Lovett or Lucinda Williams getting advice from the members of ABBA on how to nail a disco sound? Nickelback giving Bob Dylan some pointers on how to sing the ultimate pop song?The Killers’ Brandon Flowers paired with Burt Bacharach to reinvent the perfect show tune? Yeah, no.

American Idol neither fosters creativity nor individuality. The voting public wants to hear a spot-on imitation of a song they know and love. Two of the most popular Idol participants, who seemed utterly devoid of any discernable talent, were the Luther Vandross guy and the Michael McDonald guy. They did nothing but imitate, note for note. And America loved it. Now, I don’t blame all of this on the show itself. This is a normal response. The show is predicated upon the audience’s vote. The audience needs a normative rubric on which to judge the competitors. This rubric only makes sense to be the original version of the song being performed. By this logic, of course, Johnny Cash would be voted off the show for his brilliant cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt, but let’s focus on the greater good. American Idol is about repetition and reproduction.

Now, it seems absurd that a creative medium like singing could be reduced to such a formulaic, two-dimensional standard. But look at any of the great historical music factories – Motown producers created performers in their own images, while Phil Spector hid everyone behind his storied Wall of Sound. The artists were often subjected to very little creative control or even input about their own voices. In our own, far more banal lives (at least I hope none of us work for egomaniacal, gun-wielding, giant Jewfro-sporting control freaks…), we are subjected to mindnumbingly prosaic and repetitive tasks. Trial lawyers don’t pull out Perry Mason-esque surprises in their closing arguments like they do on TV, nor do they even ask original questions of their potential jurors. Rather, they adhere to a very controlled, very specific set of proscribed rules and forms. Or else. When I was working in sales, I advised clients on the use of sophisticated research software. Although I held a graduate degree in deciphering the software’s algorithms and optimizing its use, my performance was evaluated on my capacity to repeat the same loop of four questions – tapering down in specificity to eventually end in a yes or no. We are all performing professional karaoke, to some extent. Somehow, John Grisham keeps landing on the Times’ Best Seller List with the same damn book every few months. It must be what the people want.

American Idol competitors, it seems, give the people what they want. The viewers fall in love not only with the singers’ talent, but with their personalities and their backstories. The harder they’ve had to work, or the more they seem to want victory, the more vehement their supporters. There were even legions of die-hard Clay Aiken fans, which, while freakish and inexplicable, demonstrates the triumph of charisma over talent in Idol voting. In our own lives, we see many Clays—the guy who isn’t that talented, but who always gets the promotion, the success, the credit for a job well-done (even if his own contribution was mediocre), simply because people find him charming. The rest of us may have the skills and the work ethic, but we don’t have that indefinable quality that guarantees our position at the top. And the Clays do.

Maybe there is something to this stupid karaoke show, after all...

home

Today was a really amazing day: we awoke to unbelievable flood and storm damage all over my pretty little hometown. As the sun came out and water began to subside, we had a beautiful afternoon and some lovely time with the family.

Thank You for Being a Friend

RIP Bea Arthur, 1922-2009.

Up Late...

I'm up way too late working on this week's column.

Seriously, y'all. I just never get tired of saying that.