@Empty_America Who said atheists were “sure” of anything? Doubt is part of human thinking. I get it that you’re talking about the absolutists, but that’s not all “20th Century Atheists.”
So when you read about eight members of an NBC News Team being beaten by Israeli settlers today in the West Bank, it's important to note two things:
1. The settler wouldn't do this to Americans had they not received a green light from the Israeli gov.
2. Israel's gov would not have given such a green light unless it felt confident that the US gov - and Amb. Huckabee - wouldn't lift a finger to defend the Americans.
Man the hits just keep on coming this month. Dolly Parton. A lesson to me, as a songwriter, for sure. I was raised to see her as an object of scorn and ridicule - she was the butt of jokes among the mean and sexist fourth grade boys I ached to impress - and slowly, over the course of decades, I realized she was one of the most powerful and self-possessed songwriters, entertainers and bridge-builders of the last and current century.
My friends and I talk about her a lot, about her careful navigation of the slippery slope in Trump’s America.
How she sided with humanity. How she kept working hard and kept her sense of humor. How she refused to apologize for what she found beautiful. How she maintained her integrity, her very dolly-ness through time and never tried to impress anybody but her awe-struck inner child. She wrote countless bitching and tear-jerking tunes and she was never, ever mean-spirited.
Never a hater.
Fitting that I would get this news at the airport with my own instrument in hand, ready to go tour and try to use my voice for some semblance of good. Every songwriter who leaves, leaves a mark in our hearts and keeps traveling through time and space…she’ll last a long time, this one.
My favorite Dolly Parton quote of all time:
“Is that your real hair?”
“If I bought it with my own money, then it’s my real hair."
….in other words: stop judging me, shut up and love me.
Thank you for your service, Dolly Parton, to humanity, to the world of art and feminism and show business, to book readers everywhere…
We will always love you.
♥️♥️♥️
@AJEnglish He’s the one that is TAKING stakes in private companies like Dell for the government’s own profits, and he calls the people protesting his corruption, “communist”. 🧐