Cheap Cigars, Expensive Beer And Remembering Dr. King

Yes I know, It's been a long time since my last post. I was issuing my blog from work and then work cranked up so my blog cranked down. I'm gonna endeavor to post more often even if it's at night, from home.

I had a great weekend. I spent the weekend afternoons in front my grill drinking expensive import beer and smoking cheap domestic (I think) cigars. I must admit, I had a blast. The cigars were Garcia Vega Corona's, in the tan plastic tube, available at most corner drug stores/gas stations. Nothing special there which is a shame, I would have loved a Macanudo, Montecristo, Maria Guerrero, Saint Luis Rey, or Cohiba (just to name a few). I usually go for the Robusto's or, if I plan to sit and smoke awhile, the Churchhill's are just fine. I'm lucky enough to like in Tampa, a city rich in cigar history. Most of the cigar factories are long closed now, but we still have some. There are several small shops that roll their own cigars as well.

Now for the beer. There's a small liquor store near where I live that, aside from all the hard core liquor, carry's a large assortment of hard core beers, including my favorite: Murphy's Irish Stout.

I also drank some Smithwick (pronounced smitt-icks) which has become my second favorite. A damn good beer.

If you don't like darker ales but like a smooth beer with a kick to it, I highly recommend Blue Moon Belgian White Ale:

I really like it better than any American beer I've tried and it can kick like a mule too.

So, that was pretty much my weekend. Throw in some gaming and a few sauages rolling off the grill and you have a recipe for a fine relaxing weekend!

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Living The Dream

I don't know what I can say about this man that wouldn't come across as insufficient. I owe this man a great debt, we all do. This day should be a corporate holiday as well as a governmental one. Because of him and a million more like him, I can live and love the way I do. I'm gonna get personal with you all for just a moment. Not because I care to share my personal life with you as much as I feel the need to testify as to the great works of this great man. I am a white man, born and raised to a southern family. I was raised believing that all men are created equal, but not neccessarily the same. Because of Dr King and the civil rights movement, I was able to attend desegregated schools, with black, hispanic, asian, middle eastern and other white kids and be taught by teachers that were just as mixed. I didn't know that less than 10 years prior, that would not have been the case.

My parents were not as lucky as I was. I say lucky because mentally, they had a much longer way to go to accept blacks as completely equal. My black wife had a lot to do with their hearts and minds changeing the way it has. They love her and thank God for her as I do. She's a wonderful person that I have been truly blessed with. Because of Dr. King and desegregation, I am capable of looking past our differences and love her, without worrying what the world would say. It's hard to overcome how you were raised, but not impossible. Hell, I realize now that our skin colors are trivial when it comes right down too it. I have far more in common with her and her family that a lot of people in my own family, not to mention other whites. So if you ever wonder why Palestinians hate the Jews so much, remember, they are raised hating them from infancy. Then those infants grow up to pass it on to their kids. We have to learn to love each other some how, some way and break the cycle of hatred.

For my parents it was "blacks are equal but we don't need to mix with them." For me it was much the same because that was the vibe I got from my family, but it was hard to reconcile because I was being raised different than my parents. My schools were not segregated. My friends were black, my teachers were black. my sports heroes and neighbors were black. Not all of them of course, but enough for it to be normal. So falling in love with a black person was easy, but still made me a bit nerevous. I didn't know how my family would react. All it took was for them to meet her and they were putty in her hands s was I. She is also helping me in raising three children from my previous marriage (custody is all mine). She takes care of them as if they were her natural children and I know they lover her for it. We sat down with them last night and asked them how they saw other races and interracial relationships. I wanted to know because I often compaired my feelings against my parents. They told me that honestly, they don't even notice that a couple is mixed. It doesn't occure them to even think about it. I liked hearing that. That means that Dr. Kings dream is mostly complete, at least in some people.

The I Have a Dream Speech,

The following is the exact text of the spoken speech, transcribed from recordings.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"