Cry Beloved Country

Cry Beloved Country (Aug. 2008)

If we remain silent all creation will sing…

Be it from bud, or bloom, or a volcanic eruption

Beneath the very foundations of all our corruption

We’ll begin a revolution, a cry for a solution

From a mixture of all races and creeds

With a need to express a protest to the worldly dreams

For it seems the fruit of this tree is sin and greed

Grown from a seed, a need, perverted

Deserted, and ultimately reverted to

The red dust, the water, the air

That whispers, then screams, to be heard.

Cry Beloved Country.

Just one word could raise the dead.

For every work is built on life.

Cities rise on unmarked graves,

The blood of man bears man’s sweat

Both spilled for commerce and industry

As the works of God are built on Christ

So these nations sacrifice

Innocence for any price

And the mud-flesh we wear,

God-breathed as we are

Remains in silent protest

We need to declare

The truth that we hear.

Stop screaming in fear!

Cry Beloved Country.

Verily, verily I say unto you

If you will not speak

Close your eyes too!

Listen to the red-lettered words,

To the red foundations of the earth,

To the minister come to restore your mirth,

For all your tears will spring forth joy

If you would just see your need

For redemption, for peace,

For faith, hope, and love

The greatest of these.

The world groans with pregnant cries

In this land where the best laid plans

Die turning to seed, and all dreams

As dust, scatter in the breeze.

Cry from bedrock to mountain peak!

Cry from root to canopy!

Cry Beloved Country; redeem your destiny!

And should the drought be so severe

That there is famine in the land

And a tear can’t even fall to ease

The cracks upon your flesh

Listen for the voice that’s crying

In the wilderness.

Cry Beloved Country!

In the valleys, on the hills

In desert sands and jungle trees

From cities to the seas.

Cry for you are free to cry

And grace will suffice for thee.

In the darkest hour before the dawn

When the worlds begins to stir

To the singing of the birds

Rejoice Beloved Country

For your cry is heard!

Op-ed: Neither a borrower nor a lender be…

Neither a borrower nor a lender be… Nov. 2008

I live in this country by choice. I am a resident alien hailing from Canada. I’ve spent the last few years getting my BA and pursuing my own version of the American dream. It’s a dream that I just recently woke up from.

I came back to America after spending four months in Africa with two concrete concepts firmly entrenched in my thoughts: a renewed appreciation of the lands I can call home, mainly for the nigh-limitless opportunities provided herein, and an acute awareness that I owe, another luxury afforded me by the ample sustenance of first-world living. We do not realize it, but our capacity to owe is a luxury in and of itself, which we are in immediate danger of losing, perhaps to all of our gain.

The talk of the town, and by town I mean New York, and by New York I mean America, and I include Canada because most of what Canada discusses is America, is debt. Like most luxuries, we took debt for granted, and now it’s time to pay. What is to be done? Individuals owe. Families owe. Now some of the biggest corporations and even financial institutions in America owe! And all of these are relying on a government, that’s done nothing but owe since its inception, for salvation to the tune of $700,000,000,000.00.

On average Americans save a negative figure of what they earn. Based on that information, having been driven into a culture of debt, where we’re encouraged to build credit, use credit, and die with more stuff still in the wrapper than we could have ever used in life, banks thought it profitable that they should provide loans to America, without any proof of income, or assets, to anyone who asked, honestly thinking that an over-inflated housing market could bear the burden of the costs of living of an under-paid, under-employed, populace. Now they need help?

Even after the 700 Billion dollar magic wand was waved the problem remains. Average Americans (read political buzz word: “Main Street”) are still feeling the walls closing in. Not just the fragile walls of their homes, but the once sturdy edifices of their financial institutions, the walls of their cubicles (provided they haven’t already squeezed them out) and the walls of their Street Journals, harboring gloom and doom in spite of prospective political saviors’ sound bites.

There’s one solution to this problem. It’s one few want to talk about, perhaps because it’s such a revolutionary approach to financial workings, perhaps because it’s uncommon sense, I don’t know. I last heard it from an Englishman in Africa when this was still a predicted crisis, and not the full-blown catastrophe it has become. If I remember my Hamlet, he could in fact be borrowing from another Englishman, a Bard, nevertheless, I’m going to paraphrase, as I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it went something like this:

STOP SPENDING MONEY THAT YOU DON’T HAVE!

What do you think? Perhaps we should give it a try.

B.F. Burden

Op-ed: Are you suffering from Election Dysfunction?

Are you suffering from Election Dysfunction? Oct. 2008

Many of you may not be aware, but Canada just had an election. Don’t feel too bad, I’m Canadian and just recently heard about it myself. Unless you were watching a lot of Canadian television over the past thirty-seven days, you wouldn’t be privy to the campaigning that resulted in re-establishing and strengthening Stephen Harper’s conservative minority government. Of course, the Canadian conservatives are barely distinguishable from American Liberals, so everyone here can remain blissfully ignorant that nothing has changed for your neighbors to the north.

The Election passed like a mild fever in Canada. A few people were vaguely aware of its effects on them. Some were mildly nauseated. Others simply confused it with the abnormally warm weather over the Thanksgiving (Columbus Day) weekend. A few were genuinely caught up in the political fever, but it’s a relatively mild malady, especially in comparison to the veritable plague sweeping this great nation.

The day of the last debate between presidential hopefuls, Senators Obama and McCain, was the day after the Canadian elections. I tried to find the outcome on the msn.ca webpage but there was more new media coverage readily available on the elections here, still weeks away, than those counted at home hours before.

If the Canadian campaign passes like a fever, then the American is more like Malaria. Few of us here are familiar with the disease that grips vast percentages of the world’s populace with cyclic fevers, chills, sweating, malaise, headaches, dizziness, anorexia, fatigue and should the disease pass the blood-brain barrier, eventually death. However, it is estimated that malaria is responsible for ½ of the deaths in the history of mankind; the way the rest of the world views America’s politics you’d think we were vying for the other half. Estimates approximate that 300-500 million people are exposed to Malaria every year, with 1.5-3 million cases proving ultimately fatal.

American politics incites heated conversations, frigid attitudes, pains in necks and, well, other areas, plenty of cold sweats, migraines, loss of appetite, depression, and should card-carrying voters cross the adversary’s demonstration lines, let’s just say their health insurance better not be in arrears. It seems like American politics effectively reaches billions, and while the resulting fatalities are still being tallied, they are generally the result of secondary causes and complications involved in the pseudo-democratic process of a two-party system.

Malaria is a disease carried by the female Anopheles mosquito. Due to its extinction in North America, we’re generally unfamiliar with preventative measures such as mosquito netting, clothing, and sprays all resulting in avoidance of contact, or the varied prophylaxis and their relative effectiveness that is rote for the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has little means of defending itself from the relentless attacks of the American media, politicos, pundits, and populace in their struggle to overcome this bi-annual ailment carried by Washington’s elite, nor do they know about the power button on our remotes, the volume dial on our radios, the mass quantities of alcohol we consume, especially on our college campuses, as the foremost inoculation against this disease passed on from our elders. It’s frightening to think that apathy is the only apparent treatment that is readily available and easy to come by in abundant supply.

Perhaps that is the light at the end of the day, or the end of yet another election: that there is hope on the horizon. There is change in the future. It lies buried, like a seed. The growing disillusionment of the up and coming generations, their seeming immunity to the stings and the venom and the other modes of infection flying around unabated during daily news casts, scheduled debates, blue and red signs littering the autumn countryside, and in voting booths, too-oft-tampered and miscounted to trust, is evidence that there is hope of a cure. The cure is apathy. We caught it from Canada.

(Side effects of apathy include restlessness, depression, anxiety, headaches, ennui, nausea, partial or total paralysis, stagnation, and a lack of targets to relieve pent up aggression, scorn, ridicule and hatred for all the problems that still won’t go away.)

B.F. Burden

(http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/facts.htm)