<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;">Achy Breaky Heart</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">I am really an
oldie. I do not know the Kardashians
though I remember a Robert, one of O. J. Simpson's good friend who, without
formally joining the dream team, stayed in the background so that he can hanky-panky
without being legally accountable.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">I went to school
in Kentucky and Texas half of the 60s and the start of the 70s. I did not listen to country music because I
grew up worrying just how many Patsy Clines one can sing. I did not know of Billy Ray Cyrus except I
recall his name associated with a line dance craze I watched but did not
practice. Touted as one of the best in
country western, I got versed on Billy Ray's "Achy Breaky Heart". </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">The uppity crowd
of Washington DC considered the song one of the worst songs ever written. But I
was clear America was better off doing line dancing rather than dusting off the
Garand or oiling the Enfield rifle, hoarding an M-16 or AK-47, and palming a
9mm Beretta, nursing a grudge on an acquaintance, a classmate, or a neighbor. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">I taught at CNMI
PSS (I subbed until Ms. Janet of SVES thought my extensive travels were good
for Social Studies) bringing a wide range of global teaching experiences reflected
in the pedagogical ease, comfort, confidence and composure I manifested in the
classroom. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">I head this
direction because in the last four years, I was considered a wordsmith to
friends who read my ST writings; I also taught Oral English to University
students, lectured in macroeconomics to foreign students at Shenyang Aerospace
U, tutored students at Shou Wang School, and held English conversations at the
bar down the street that grows cannabis in its front pots. I knew a lot of twerps, but I never heard of
"twerking" before. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">A portmanteau of
"twist" and "jerk", twerking is a sexually suggestive way
of dancing in the US deep South where getting down "dirty" included
those who "twerked" their butt down to and up from the floor. So when Miley Cyrus popularized the style, I
realized how far back I had calcified. I
did not know Miley Cyrus, and when I was told that she and Justin Bieber
twerked in video, I quietly asked, "Who is Bieber?" (I resided in Prairie Canada in the late 70s
but that was before he was a twinkle in his parents' eyes.) </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">I got
straightened out on the boyish Canadian who ludicrously sang "Baby"
with deep voiced Ludacris, then got introduced to a scantily clad Miley as a
child of Billy Ray Cyrus of <i>Achy Breaky
Heart</i>. That left me holding the tail
end of twerking. Some of my students in
China wanted to know what twerking was, or, if they already knew, wanted to
know if it was legal in America so they can learn it well and be ready to dance
it when they got to Uncle Sam's shore! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">Now media tries
to paint an "achy breaky heart" scenario on Obama after the midterm
elections. As midterm elections go, the
incumbent did not lose as much compared to recent Presidents during their
term. Obama was not on the ballot; many
Democrats distanced themselves from the White House rather than deal with the
manifest ire of the white male, many of whom were southern Democrats who voted
Republican. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">Mary Landrieu,
Louisiana's lady Senator was the only one who had enough guts to point out the
obvious, that whites had problems with the President given his Kenyan and
Anglophile pedigree. Surprisingly, the
lady was ahead in the actual voting vs. poll count though she may not survive
the run-off. But if she does, that will
be one "achy breaky heart" for the Republicans I will not mind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">Like Obama, a Democrat in Hawaii, I am of the Abe Lincoln Republican Party against
the likes of George Wallace. Call him
names but BHO is one smart dude. White
males of both parties have machismo and race problems with the Brit-Kenyan-Hawaiian-Indonesian
American and vented it in the polls, a reflex after the fact. Commentators after the last election who
analyze the current political situation says that of the waged culture war, the
liberals and the progressives won!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">Now come the
conservative Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church who call Francis the Protestant
Pope when he opened up church discourse without much reservation or secrecy;
the bishops are up in arms over the Vatican's welcoming stance on the LGBT
crowd and divorcees.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family:">In Western
Alberta this summer, I told a colleague, "I want to be old, to look old,
to be listened to for the wisdom of my experience rather than the cosmetology
of my skin. I am old, and I love
it." Folks obsess at looking young;
nothing is more ridiculous than someone trying to fit into tight denims
marketed for people more than half their age at three inches less on the girth. Virtual reality is where America's butt
lives.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px;">"Achy breaky
heart" is probably not the metaphor I'd use to lament the coming of old
age - wrinkles on the brow, lines under the eye lashes, spandex battle at the
bulge, the debate on the extra sugar on the tea, and tiffs with those who can't
handle Francis<i>. </i> I am a real oldie who is a Goldie, though, no</span><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="4"> longer pliant</font><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18px;"> to twerk! </span></div>
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<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; clear: both;"><i style="font-size: 18px;">j'aime la vie</i><br>
<div><i><font size="4">yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. in all, celebrate!</font></i></div>
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