My husband has an amazing sense of humor and is blessed with perfect timing. My California son and his family came for Christmas. My daughter-in-law randomly brought up a song while we were watching music videos, so we played it through external speakers on the iPhone. Not sung by John Prine, it began with a John Prine song about blowing up your TV, ignoring the nerve-wracking current events, and moving to the country. We laughed and joked about the wisdom of that and how my son always tells me to turn off the news because it upsets me so much. Lo and behold, Christmas morning arrives the next day and my husband gives me an unexpected gift since we had stopped exchanging gifts years ago. I opened the box to find three hats bearing the words “Blow up your TV” that he had ordered months ago. We laughed uncontrollably at the perfect coincidence. And we wore the hats proudly, my son, his wife, and I.
But the words were prophetic. The news is awful these days. Not one news station reports accurately the threat of one party wanting to turn this country into a dictatorship. The looming menace of one party wanting to end the Social Security and Medicare systems my husband and I rely on now that he’s retired is not emphasized. And the constant attention to the opposing party’s front-runner for president, a man charged with felonies, treasonous acts, and of low moral character while minimizing the amazing accomplishments of our current president. The news also repeats all the pro-Palestine demonstrators who want to kill all Jews after Israeli Jews were brutally slaughtered by a terrorist organization. There is no logic to this, just the abject hatred of Jews for millennia rearing its ugly head once again.
Every day my knotted-up stomach greets the day hoping things have changed for the better. Every day there’s the same refrain. Those who worship evil and hatred remain steadfast.
There’s only one thing to do:
JohnPrine: Blow Up Your TV (Spanish Pipe Dream)
Blow up your TV, throw away your paper,
Go to the country, build you a home,
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches,
Try and find Jesus on your own.
