Unless you live under a rock you probably noticed The Artist won the Academy Award for best Picture this year.  At the very least you saw a commercial for the black and white silent film or the soon to a DVD announcement.  It was ironic with all the digital affects, sound and editing we have come to demand in our movies and lives, that a silent film with a co-starring dog, took home all the marbles (sorry for those without knowledge and imagination, marbles are something you trade, treasure and play with in the dirt with friends – and are the first to disappear when life leaves you).

In the dark years Americans lived through – my parents included. The movies were a wonderful place to escape and dream the what was, what will be and what could be.  However, before the movie started with musical scores and dazzling costumes and beautiful stars, there was a news reel.  The news reel, an ancestor to Twitter and Face Book, gave a short look at the world news and also gave upbeat hope for the future.  It made for an odd double feature, (sorry – that was when you got TWO movies for the price of one, or in today’s dollar about 40 for the price of one).  You got a movie which was better than anything in a bottle to relax and bring harmony into your soul, and some knowledge, to help you understand the reality you would walk back into once the lights came on.  It wasn’t that we were ignorant or protected; we just knew what needed to be known at the time.  Now we know too much and are we better for it? Ok yes Area 51 I know, and the flag on moon is flying damnit!

I am a news junkie.  I was raised on newsprint and Chet telling David good-night and Mike Douglas in white polyester pants looking for starlet gossip with a tiny wand microphone.   But the news was different then and so was life.  Black and white, like the Artist has a place, and tells a good story without any words.  But we have evolved into animals that have passed both the Farm and Orwell.  I must say even I am flying a white flag. There is no Mike Douglas anymore to moderate just MONDERATION! If we eat, it is to excess – 8,000 calorie hamburgers? Come on people – and if we have money, it is to Excess as well – $100 million dollar football players and $15,000 purses? Seriously?  Human Rights? Those have evolved sadly into my right to kill you. – What is with that? – And Politian’s? Vote me in office so I can be rich and screw you over, as well as my secretary and send a picture on Twitter at the same time? Huh?

The current race to the White House is producing no winners, especially the American people. We are being treated to slander and lies, money spending embarrassment that could feed homeless for years, and our personal privileges and religious beliefs are being bartered on an open media market, as if there was a Hand Maiden’s tale waiting to be told.  When did this happen?  When did all the color run together and why have we allowed it to happen?  When I turn on the news it is nothing but repeated death and lies, parents and children killing each other and money being spent for everything but what would do good, as if it truly did grow on trees – which The Lorax will tell you, we’ve about depleted – just check your neighborhood rainforest.

I was raised to love my neighbor, and to care and sacrifice myself for my children, not kill them.  To share what I had with those who had less or none at all, and to have pride that I lived in the greatest nation in the world, the one who looked after all of us and those in need – even if the mouse hadn’t roared yet.  Behind my computer I enjoy friends in far places, news at my finger tips and history and facts, art and adventure just with the click of a mouse – not roaring, just clicking.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t love my life, want to stop living it or no longer participate and see what is happening to it.

It seems the world and it’s political agenda’s sent an email and we all stayed home to read it, letting them get away with changing every value we take for granted:  Speech, Religion, Family, Protection, and just life in general.  I’d like to say I saw it coming when the Christmas Play at the elementary school became a Snowflake Pageant and Jesus didn’t get a ticket, but that would of course cause people to complain and it might get on the news.  Guess it is a good thing he was born during a tax collection period because that is when everyone avoids the news, rules and attention, even though there was a political blueprint.  He just snuck in under the wire, big shining star status and all, even if there was a Donkey and an unmarried woman involved. God, can you image that headline now?

Sometimes black and white works, sometimes the yes, no, mine and yours is what we need to live by, but that isn’t news to any of us with values and morals.  Somewhere, like the voice of The Lorax, in all of the loud and ugly of our daily life, there needs to be some silence – that same silence which was a look my father would give me in lieu of discipline.   I knew what it meant; I gave it to my daughters as they grew up too.  No need for Hollywood, the silent look can still say it all, we just need to remember the golden script on our souls again to make it happen.

Yes Tiny Tim – “God Bless us, everyone.”  This time we’re gonna need it, because we are in for a bumpy ride…….