Non-country fan rediscovers legend Lyle Lovett

Published in Cumberland Times-News Tuesday, June 17, 2014.

Sorting through my old LPs recently, I came upon Lyle Lovett’s Pontiac, copyrighted 1987. It’s probably one of the last albums I bought; my stereo died in the years shortly thereafter. I never replaced it, or my albums with CDs, figuring someday I might buy a record player, if it could sound good enough to do the recordings justice.

So I forgot about Lyle Lovett. I never heard him on the radio or saw him on TV, after the PBS program that spurred me to special order his album so many years ago.

I am not a country music fan, and so I was surprised to learn, as I probed the depths of YouTube, that Lyle Lovett is a country music legend. I never would have classified him country. Some sort of jazz, gospel, soul,bluegrass fusion, maybe: A folk-type unique.

That high-rise hair-do. The sharp-dresser suits. The stunning,chiseled good looks. Such an easy way on an acoustic guitar. Effortless precision. And the voice, shimmering, crystalline, gravely when right, always spot on.

I’ve listened to about all YouTube has to offer on the topic of Lyle Lovett, including a Diane Sawyer interview with his spouse of 21 months, Julia Roberts --who, Sawyer comments, said her heart stopped when he walked into a room.

Where was I in 1993? I don’t remember hearing of that marriage, broken, according to Internet reports, by career demands, though they reportedly remained friends. Roberts re-married in 2002; Lovett remains engaged (since 2003) to his former personal assistant, whom he apparently has known for16 years.

Mr. Lovett lives where his family always has, since immigrating from Germany in the 1840s, where he grew up, where his mother and her six siblings grew up, in the house his grandfather built in 1911, in a community called Klein (named for his mother’s father’s grandfather), outside Houston, in north Harris County, Texas. He is a lifelong member of Trinity Lutheran Church and attended the parish school through eighth grade. (His hometown minister helped with the ceremony when he and Roberts married in a Lutheran church in Indiana.)

In a Q TV interview, Mr. Lovett says that because he is “a make-it-up-as-you-go singer-songwriter,” as opposed to an in-demand studio musician, he has the freedom to live on the family ranch. He says his grandparents’ house is “just through the pasture,” next to his mom, who is his next-door neighbor (his dad died in 1999); his uncle is on the other side.

Never knowing what he wanted to do, Mr. Lovett says his career developed with people encouraging him at each step to go to the next. His first booking was a coffeehouse while a journalism and German student at Texas A&M.

He’s earned four Grammys, the Americana Music Association’s inaugural Trailblazer Award, been Texas’official musician, inducted into the Texas Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, and fulfilled his commitment to Curb Records, who signed him in 1985, with ReleaseMe in 2012.

Some of Mr. Lovett’s lyrics are “just silliness,” as he puts it, but all are poetry. His tunes are engaging and beautiful, but not memorable. I wish they were. I’d like to get a Lyle Lovett tune stuck in my head all day. As it is, I have to go to YouTube, and, well, that view is just fine.

The chiseled good looks are still there, refined with rugged lines and less-wild hair. He’s on tour now and will be at Wolf Trap on Aug. 22. That would be a show to see, even for a non-country fan like me.

Is Dick Cheney's backstory anything like mine?

Published in Cumberland Times-News Friday, November 15, 2013.

"Like Mr. Cheney’s, my story, and survival, is very much about the intertwining of technology, timing and expertise – and my unshakable gratitude for God’s blessings. Sadly, my story also features 20-plus years of turbulence with dozens of doctors who wouldn’t face facts about my situation..."

 

Watching former Vice President Dick Cheney’s Oct. 20 “60 Minutes” interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, I thought, “He’s a daring man, to publish a book about his heart struggles. After all, who will read it?”

In 2006, after my second heart surgery to correct birth defects and their effects, my home health care team told me I should write a book. “Who would want to read my story?” I replied. “No one wants to hear it!”

Mine is a fascinating story, though -- to me, and my cardiologist, and a few other inquisitive folks. Interestingly, Mr. Cheney’s cardiologist and mine are colleagues. Maybe he’ll read the book. I don’t plan to.

As my cardiologist could attest, I’ve endured sufficient drama, and trauma, in my lifetime. Two difficult heart surgeries, three catheterizations, a dozen-plus other surgical procedures; an artificial aortic valve, chronic atrial fibrillation; 10 pacemaker implants, an infected pacer (and plastic surgery to remove a baseball-sized keloid and close the wound), two malfunctioning pacers, two recalled, one broken lead (that was an emergency!), one fractured lead; 10 years managing congestive heart failure -- prior to the last heart surgery, which left me with profound vision loss as a complication; near death several times: I’ve experienced just about all there is, short of a heart attack, which I hope I never do!

Like Mr. Cheney’s, my story, and survival, is very much about the intertwining of technology, timing and expertise – and my unshakable gratitude for God’s blessings.

Sadly, my story also features 20-plus years of turbulence with dozens of doctors who wouldn’t face facts about my situation and were uncooperative, disrespectful at best, manipulative, deceitful and abusive at worst. Surely, Mr. Cheney experienced this phenomenon. He didn’t mention it in the interview, but at times, Dr. Gupta showed himself to be incredulous, combative.

In the late 1980s and early ‘90s, when my pacemakers malfunctioned (the leads were “improperly implanted”), my then-cardiologist expressed his concern for my symptoms as, “You’re crazy.” And there was the endocrinologist who said she didn’t need to know about my heart condition, because “that all happened before I knew you.”

Then came the dentist who wanted me to stop taking Coumadin five days prior to a routine cleaning. My current cardiologist, and the ADA, said, “No!” And my cardiologist’s response to the dermatologist who, in spite of my high risk for infection, insisted on treating my acne with daily antibiotics: “Out of the question.” That dispute got me barred from the practice!

Then there was the family doctor who swore he knew nothing about hearts, as he proceeded to commiserate with pharmacy staff to rewrite my cardiologist’s Lasix prescription for the generic, which didn’t work for me – because the pharmacy didn’t want to stock Lasix. That trick elicited a firestorm from me, which got me barred from his practice!

The dishonesty, denial and betrayal became overwhelming, and eventually, anxiety built into a breakdown, with PTSD. Enter the inept shrink who misdiagnosed me manic-depressive!

The correct diagnosis came seven years later from a competent and compassionate psychologist in Gaithersburg. With my capable cardiologist, he made two doctors I trusted by that time; well, three, including my dermatologist, who practices in Winchester.

She never balked or blinked at my heart history. Neither has my current internist, who is in Cumberland. He put me at ease in our first visit four years ago when he told me, “I’ll respect your specialists.”

I’ve assembled an ideal team, but finding them took decades of perseverance and hard work. I wonder if that is Mr. Cheney’s backstory. That I’d be interested to read.

Religious freedom events oppose HHS mandate

Published in Cumberland Times-News Wednesday, June 5, 2013.

"Whereas tyrannical maneuvers that incriminate news reporters for investigating the government, or harass taxpayers for disagreeing with the president’s policies, or cover up officials’ refusals to aid our compatriots in distress effectively compromise citizens’ livelihoods and lives, the HHS mandate endangers our immortal souls."

With public attention focused on recent Obama administration scandals, the controversy over religious freedom – ignited last year by the coercive Health and Human Services contraceptives mandate -- smolders relatively unnoticed.

Unless overturned, the HHS mandate goes into effect Aug. 1. A Health Conscience Rights Act would amend the Affordable Care Act to remedy the situation, but H.R. 940 hasn’t gotten air.

“Many religious employers, businesses operated by people of faith, and individuals will be forced to violate their religious principles to comply with the new healthcare law,” writes Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, in a May 21 email to the faithful.

A direct assault on the Catholic Church and all believers in life, the HHS mandate denies First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and religious practice by forcing people of conscience – against their teachings and God’s will -- to participate in health insurance plans that provide contraceptive services.

Whereas tyrannical maneuvers that incriminate news reporters for investigating the government, or harass taxpayers for disagreeing with the president’s policies, or cover up officials’ refusals to aid our compatriots in distress effectively compromise citizens’ livelihoods and lives, the HHS mandate endangers our immortal souls.

On April 8, Archbishop Lori thanked and commended litigants -- Catholic dioceses, Catholic and other religious non-profit organizations, and conscionable for-profit companies -- in dozens of lawsuits filed nationwide against the mandate.

In his statement, Bishop Lori quotes Cardinal Timothy Dolan, USCCB president, in his praise for business owners fighting in the courts: Dolan calls their actions “a source of encouragement, particularly because of their high rate of success in obtaining early injunctions to block the mandate.”

To further opposition to the HHS mandate, and to call attention to other increasingly egregious infringements on religious liberty in America, the USCCB will stage its second Fortnight for Freedom June 21 to July 4.

Bishop Lori calls Catholics and other faithful “to pray, study, and prayerfully act” in support of religious freedom.

H.R. 940, introduced March 4 by Rep. Diane Black (R-TN-6) and in committee since March 8, would give individuals and employers the right to decline insurance coverage that contradicts their moral or religious beliefs.

The National Committee for a Human Life Amendment provides an easy format for sending an email to our representatives and the House Speaker in support of H.R. 940. Find it at http://www.votervoice.net/NCHLA/Campaigns/30688/Respond.

On a regional scale, the second Religious Freedom Walk June 9-16 will be eight days and 100 miles of camaraderie, penance and solidarity from St. Peter Catholic Church in Hancock to the National Shrine Basilica in Washington, D.C.

Along the route, the group (24 walked last year) will do education and public service outreaches; and this year, they will gather supporters’ signatures onto event t-shirts for presenting to Senators Mikulski and Cardin, and Representative Delaney.

Walkers may join start to finish, or anywhere along the way. Volunteers help in other ways, as well, and donations assist the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Baltimore and the Interfaith Service Coalition in Hancock.

For more information about the Religious Freedom Walk, call Father Jack Lombardi, director, at 301-678-6339. Video form last year’s walk can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBNKdPFsQW0.

Religious freedom is moral freedom. Our founders, having fled tyranny, guaranteed it first in the Bill of Rights. The right – indeed, obligation -- to object to oppression is fundamental to our fair and just system of laws. Without it, we are subjects. With it, we can move mountains.

Can Judeo-Christian tradition guide, or survive?

Published in Cumberland Times-News Monday, Nov. 19, 2012.

"Not structured to “evolve” with the times, Judeo-Christian values reflect nature’s and God’s truths, eternal and unchanging points of reference that our founders firmly fixed  into the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, to anchor our government and civil society in inherent freedoms, and to provide us the courage to defend them – on our soil, and around the globe."

With the rise of socialist and neo-communist ideals in the WhiteHouse and emboldened atheism in our state houses, along with federal mandatesthat violate religious freedoms and a Democratic party that denies God and compromisesIsrael, we can hardly recognize traditional Judeo-Christian principles of liberty and justice, and civility, in America today. Indeed, we might wonder if they are tattered beyond repair.

Politicians and citizens who hold these traditions dear take a special beating. Consider former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat and a man of God.

Presenting party platform amendments for a voice vote at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Strickland professed, “As an ordained United Methodist minister, I am here to attest and affirm that our faith and belief in God is central to the American story and informs the values we’ve expressed in our party's platform.” 

That sounds great, and may have held true in Strickland’s time; but on Sept. 5, 2012, the party base did not back him up. A large constituency loudly shouted “NO” to proposals to reinsert the name of God, and to proclaim Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

Convention chair Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Strickland looked baffled and abandoned before bright lights, the nation staring.

The scene, viewable on YouTube, is comical, and pathetic, as Villaraigosa searches for someone to guide him. He calls for the vote a second time, and then a third. Finally, he rules that the ayes are a two-thirds majority. Anyone watching knows the vote was a draw, at best.

In hindsight, we might wonder: Were Strickland and Villaraigosa truly naive about their party’s sentiments? Or did they know, but figure that the base would go along with the president, who requested the hasty platform changes in response to public pressure? Or could Strickland have been sincere? As an ordained minister, despite his party’s current bent, might he still view the world through Judeo-Christian lenses?

Smeared by feminists, homosexuals and atheists in an Obama-influenced culture war, Judeo-Christian traditions, and anyone who holds to them, get pushed to the sidelines, or under the bus, in the progressive political fray.

Not structured to “evolve” with the times, Judeo-Christian values reflect nature’s and God’s truths, eternal and unchanging points of reference that our founders firmly fixed  into the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, to anchor our government and civil society in inherent freedoms, and to provide us the courage to defend them – on our soil, and around the globe.

“Judeo-Christian values have a foundational role in America,” writes Ronald R. Cherry in a Sept. 15, 2007 AmericanThinker column.

Cherry quotes from the Declaration of Independence those self-evident truths “endowed by their Creator” that he calls “the seed of American Social Justice.”

Cherry figures that happiness is equivalent to creativity, and that the founders expanded their vision of freedom in the Constitution “through reason and common sense, unencumbered by the dysfunctional religious and secular traditions and laws of Old Europe.” 

Well today, what’s old is new again. Dysfunctional religious and secular ideas – the Marxist “social justice” agenda of liberation theologythat stirs class warfare; the neo-communist “separation of church and state” agenda of atheism that shuns God; and the administration’s despotic laws that require the faithful to commit deadly sin -- characterize Obama’s rule.

History shows that creativity becomes diabolical under the destructive specter of spite and godlessness. Reason and common sense are not driving forces in totalitarian ideologies. Without God as its guide, government is a tyrant, and the governed are fools.

The founders had been there and known that. Must we learn it for ourselves?

Democratic Party faithful...to whom?

Published in Cumberland Times-News Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012.

"The founders’ intent was not to remove faith from the hearts and actions of our public servants. What a cold, bold, capricious, remorseless arena society will be, if the atheists – and Democrats – have their way."

In a “revealing moment,” as Mike Huckabee calls it, in his Sept. 8 television program, the nation witnessed the Democratic Party faithful, gathered at their national convention, object to reinstating the tern “God-given,” and inserting a declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, into their party platform.

Ben Shapiro at Breitbart (Sept. 5) calls ramming the verbiage through -- after its absence was criticized -- “a political move designed to prevent disillusioned Jewish voters from leaving the (party) in droves.” Smart Jews, though, Shapiro says, “(will) realize that the base of the Democratic Party simply does not support Israel.”

Vote replays indicate, too, that the Democratic base does not support God. One YouTube commenter cites Matthew 26:34 to put into context the three votes led by convention chair, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: “Truly, I tell you, this very night…you will deny me three times.”

Seems Villaraigosa may know how Pilate, and Christ’s faithful, felt: Dismayed, at the least. Will the condemning Dems react to their deceit the way Peter did, and repent? Or will they go the route of Judas, and self-destruct?

Or will they take the audacious high road of Pilate, and shrug the ugly scenario off as someone else’s problem?

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, platform committee chair, who introduced the amendments, told the Toledo Blade (Sept. 6) that President Obama requested the hasty changes. “I was happy to do it,” says Strickland, an ordained minister.

How telling, that this president would entangle one of God’s faithful to represent his fellowmen in their bold betrayal of the Creator and His holy city, before an incredulous nation – indeed, world -- and then blithely bound forward with no signs of remorse.

We, the masses, are a bunch of chumps, left to wonder: Can this president be re-elected the same way? “NO,” we will shout, to the proposition to re-seat Obama. Yet somehow, will he win by a declared majority?

Atheists seem suddenly emboldened. On the same day as the vote, the Baltimore Sun reported that “secular-minded Marylanders” are organizing a Secular Coalition for America chapter, to lobby this spring in Annapolis (as they will in other capital cities across the nation) “for strong separation of church and state.”

Having intimate knowledge of religious persecution -- the reason the Pilgrims braved the seas to come to our shores -- the Founding Fathers provided that our government should not encroach upon citizens’ religious freedoms of conscience, instruction, culture, life.

The founders’ intent was not to remove faith from the hearts and actions of our public servants. What a cold, bold, capricious, remorseless arena society will be, if the atheists – and Democrats – have their way.

Government will be god, and we its servants. A new communism, ushered in by a misguided electorate, dawns on that horizon where Obama points.

As Michael Dresser notes in his Sun article, “Annapolis has a long history of lobbying by religious groups,” Catholic, Jewish, Muslim. “If the secular coalition is successful, (then) the non-religious would have their own presence in the General Assembly.”

At least one professed atheist serves now in the state senate, Jamin Raskin, D-Montgomery. Dresser, the Sun’s State House correspondent, wrote me in an e-mail, “There are probably several, but politicians who are atheists tend not to advertise it.” Why not?

Presenting his Democratic platform committee’s amendments, Gov. Strickland professes, “As an ordained United Methodist Minister, I am here to attest and affirm that our faith and belief in God is central to the American story and informs the values we’ve expressed in our party's platform.” 

For whom does Strickland speak? Would he know?