May 25, 2023- This is a “slow news” day, here at Home Base. We had a productive session on public discourse, this morning, though, and the thought occurred to me that, with the fairly minor act of moving Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb” to a middle school library in a central Florida school (No, it was not “banned”), a posting of the young lady reading the poem, (which I happen to like), in the same place as Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA”, (which I also happen to like), would be appropriate on the cusp of Memorial Day weekend.

The fact is, many people are climbing the hill towards that Shining City, that Ronald Reagan mentioned all those years ago. Some have been in the city for a while now; others are at the gates, and are trying to get in, by various means. I was born on the city’s edge and was raised there, by two hard-working, honest folks. Many of my compatriots were also born and raised in the Shining City. Some were relegated to its far outskirts and have yet to work their way inward. Others have done relatively well. This City, though, is not the result of a zero sum game. There is room, for all those born here, to succeed. Pretending otherwise is a sorry delusion.

The following are two views of America, one celebratory, the other an admonition. Neither is an extreme view, although to those who themselves harbor exclusionary mindsets, that with which they disagree is always going to represent a threat. Please give a listen, and some thought, to both. .