My good friend Dr. Thomas Eggebeen wrote a fine piece
and posted it at his blog site about the rampant racism
found in Southern religion and politics. I wrote
the following jingle and left it as a comment at his site.
If you have time, visit Tom at http://takefiveanytime.blogspot.com.

It ain’t so great
right now up in my
great lake state.

Roads are crumblin’
and the legislature
is fumblin’

and the educators
are strugglin’
and the corporations
go a muggin’

the gullible, stumblin’
public that still
thinks it is one
misfortune away
from strikin’

it rich,
so they keep votin’
for the folks who
put them in
such an economic fix.

There’s inequality
in the cities;
the majority
black ones
are under the
governor’s thumb

and it’s still
real easy to buy
a big, bad gun.

Racial tensions
run high
and the law now
states
that public
adoption agencies
can discriminate

against those
they don’t see
as being perfectly
straight.

So, I do cringe
when thinking of
the way-down-south
Southern fear,
but I lived in
the Mid-South for
seventeen years and

in some ways
it ain’t a whole lot
better there or even
up here.