- It was announced this week that President Bush was named
by Time magazine as "Man of the Year". Since Mr. Bush says he
"relishes" in criticism of himself - he shouldn't mind me saying
that I've met the man of the year and it's not him.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
He's the artist in California, the antique collector and doll man in Ohio.
He's the sculptor who lives behind Cumberland Farms in my town, and the
Vermont poet, whose home is an oasis in the midst of mayhem. My man of
the year is the Representative who treats citizens as equals and solicits
their advice.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
My man of the year is a foster father, social worker, Representative, and
advocate for the poor, disenfranchised, and voiceless. My man of the year
cares for his autistic son and champion's justice for the maligned and
abused by a corrupt system. My man of the year is a Quaker who stands adamantly
against war and is never tiring in his quest for peace.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
My man of the year is a craftsman, nature lover, and keeper of past industry.
He is exemplary in the great care and love he had for his ill mother-attentive,
gentle and giving. My man of the year is a genius; a man of superior intellect,
who with his wife has spent his life serving those in other lands-never
too busy to advocate for environmental issues on the local level. My man
of the year is the doctor who cares for his neighbors and has not turned
technocrat, seeing people only as profits. My man of the year is father,
businessman, coach, and activist. He is loving, gentle, soft spoken, and
forever serving others.
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- My man of the year is everyman who lives in Anybody town.
My man of the year is a gentle giant of a man, who works three jobs to
meet expenses and pay for his wife's medical needs. He is Santa, carpenter
and handyman. My man of the year is the local policeman-family man, lover
of community, never brutal, and builder of relationships. My man of the
year is the teacher who sees each child as an individual and challenges
them on to great accomplishments. My man of the year is flute maker, author,
and activist. He has a humble, quiet joy about his person-never seeking
the limelight or accolades.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
He is the farmer rising in the early dawn seeing to his cattle. He is the
mechanic, the truck driver, the mill worker, and prison guard. My man of
the year is the logger, the sanitation man, the doorman, and security guard.
He is the grocer, electrician and carpenter, building other's Trophy homes.
He is the iron worker, the fireman, the bus driver and engineer. He is
the janitor, the dishwasher, the construction man, and forest ranger. My
man of the year is the banker, baker, and Information Techie. He is the
clerk, the barber, the waiter and bartender. My man of the year is the
stone mason, the brick layer, the painter and roofer.
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- My man of the year is the editor, the author, the musician,
and fisherman. He is the Native American-championing people to honesty
and preservation of Mother Earth. He is the tugboat captain, the dockworker,
the miner, and street cleaner. My man of the year goes off to war believing
in freedom-flag-and liberty. He is found in veteran's hospitals, maimed
and many times forgotten. My man of the year is the poor and beaten down,
the homeless veterans, who live in abandoned cars and under bridges. He
stands in unemployment lines, fills out resumes, collects cans (for money),
eats in soup kitchens finding himself a beggar in a Super Power nation.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
He grew up in a small town, a rural farm, and in cold concrete cities.
He fished in mountain creeks, played marbles, mumbly-peg, baseball, stick
ball, street hockey, basketball, went hunting, climbed trees, ice skating,
and camping. He played in haylofts, delivered calves, built forts, stilts,
and snowmen. He splashed in summer puddles, sang in the choir, and rode
his bike down dusty lanes. He worked at odd jobs for pocket money; and
wore durable clothes or many times hand- me- downs. His joy of the year
was the carnival, the county fair, a trip to a ballpark, marshmallows roasted
on a bonfire, his tree house, and fireflies caught on hot summer nights.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
He's never too busy to help a child fix his bike, assist a neighbor in
need, give a needed ride, visit the sick, help someone move, or commit
himself unselfishly to needs and concerns in his community. He coaches,
hangs the Christmas lights, is a selectman (council person), volunteers
at the museum, rescues a kitten, is first at a disaster, and generous with
praise or a needed hug. My man of the year joys in the simple things of
life. He loves meeting the guys down at the Legion-Moose Club-or pool hall.
Baseball and football bring a welcome time of reprieve from his work a
day world-the bowling league or a fishing trip. Some joy in trains others
in planes, race cars, or rodeos.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
He's not into designer duds, facials, $200.00 haircuts, private clubs,
hair implants, gilded boardrooms, yacht races, golf tournaments, or casino
haunts. He doesn't smoke expensive imported cigars, wear lizard cowboy
boots, ride on private or corporate jets, or have his shirts custom made.
He doesn't speak in legalese, Orwellian, double-speak-or corporate jargon.
He's not coddled and protected with armored limousines, concrete barriers,
and legions of guards, fences, helicopters, and metal detectors. He was
never bailed out or protected by money or connections; from the consequences
of his actions. He was never pampered, or supplied with all his monetary
and materialistic needs (and desires).
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
He doesn't lie, cheat, defraud, or pollute his neighbor (or the world)
for profit. He doesn't send men off to war with no equipment (or junk).
He doesn't plunder forests, dump nuclear waste in oceans, use depleted
uranium in weapons (poisoning soldiers and civilians), nor send the young
to die for conquest and oil. He doesn't cut veterans benefits, or eat at
banquet meals, while those who fight eat canned slop and their families
exist on food stamps. He doesn't tell people that God has ordered him to
shred the limbs from children-destroy a whole land with horrifying weapons-torture
people-nor wall people in from their land and the light! He doesn't lie
and tell people that jobs are plentiful or insanely tell them to train
for another career at age 50; with scarred calloused hands from the mines
and the mills! He doesn't see the elderly choosing between food-fuel and
medicine.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
He's not into awards, accolades (not earned), medals, photo-ops, gala inaugurations,
dinners, balls, banquets, fund raisers, fancy titles, selected office,
obscene pensions, nor gyrating buffoons at pretend conventions.
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- My man of the year is Everyman who lives in Anybody town.
He's red, black, yellow, white and brown. The man who should have been
on the front of Time magazine was Everyman Gary Webb, born into a military
family. Gary-a hero-Sir Galahad-just wanted to write. He won the Pulitzer
Prize for General News reporting. He also received the 1997 Media Hero
Award from the 2nd Annual Media and Democracy Congress and in 1996 was
named Journalist for the Year by the Bay Area of Professional Journalists.
In 1994 Gary won the H.L. Mencken Award given by the Free Press Association.
Truth is all colors and therefore Everyman.
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- Gary was forced out of his job after the San Jose Mercury
News retracted their support for the story he'd done exposing the dark-evil-malignant-diabolical
world of drugs. Dangerous writing this-where men sell their souls, their
humanity, the essence of their short lives here on earth; for adventure-craven
greed-and whatever these ill-gotten monies can secure; of those materialistic
things, that rust and rot away. The world of drugs is one of death, violence,
lies, and perpetual darkness. It's a labyrinth of mazes with no exit door
destroying all who enter in. All perish in this underworld-some sooner
than others. None are immune; from the Kingpins to the dealers-profiteers-pimps-prostitutes-crack
dealers-and hungering addicts.
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- In a world (these past decades) of assassinations, suicides,
heart attacks, car wrecks, plane crashes, etc., is it surprising that Truth
found itself deserted (San Jose Mercury News)-alienated, isolated, maligned,
threatened, and friendless? Fear, immobilizes and silences, not only the
Truth tellers; but the perpetuators-the victims-and all those whom Truth
touches. I imagine, given the times, that the hierarchy of the San Jose
Mercury News; had themselves a meeting and voted to kick Gary to the curb
(for the greater good of course).
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- "Historicallythose who told the truth have been
exiled, jailed, or killed by those in power whose fury has been aroused.
To be sure, the obvious explanation is that they were dangerous to their
respective establishments, and that killing them seemed the best way to
protect the status quo. This is true enough, but it does not explain the
fact that the truth-sayers are so deeply hated even when they do not constitute
a real threat to the established order. The reason lies, I believe, in
that by speaking the truth they mobilize (psychological) resisitance of
those who repress it. To the latter, the truth is dangerous no only because
it can threaten their power but because it shakes their whole conscious
system of orientation, deprives them of their rationalizations, and might
even force them to act differently. Only those who have experienced the
process of becoming AWARE of important impulses that were repressed know
the earthquake-like sense of bewilderment and confusion that occurs as
a result. Not all people are willing to risk this adventure, lest of all
those people who PROFIT, at least from the moment, from being blind".
Erich Fromm
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- And so it is in Anybody town that Everyman chooses his
path-chooses his way; man of the year (Truth teller) or that of destroyer.
Some men chose the thunder of war, others the ringing bell of Wall Street,
and some the politically-correct status quo of their peers. A few choose
the echoing darkness of violence with its forever silent screams. Everyman
Mr. Webb who lived in Anybody town heard a different sound."To succeed
means that you may have to step out of line and march to the sound of your
own drummer". Listen-can you hear it in Anybody town? Shhh!-Gary may
be gone but not the drumbeat. Why even the trees have taken up his song
beating against the winds. He wouldn't want anger-revenge-hate-nor accusation.
He simply asks that we continue the resounding drumbeat of Truth in Anybody
town.
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- noahshouse@adelphia.net
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