Florida ... goad damn it!

By Johnny D. Symon

A good friend jarred my memory a little recently as she conveyed her experience of reading the autobiography of English photographer Cecil Beaton. I've never read his autobiography, and from listening to my friend's experience of having done so herself, I guess I never will. Apparently the guy cheated his way through school and college, and busied himself through climbing the English social ladder. And you know? I reckon that England is the only place on planet earth where a self-proclaimed cheat and ardent social climber could successfully reach the top with a name like Cecil. Why I wouldn't even call my dog by that name. In my book that tag rates as one of the worst imaginable.

Now I said at the start of this week's scribblings that my friend had jarred my memory, and this was indeed so, because her experience of Cecil's autobiography reminded me of the time I watched the cartoon series Family Guy where there was an English invasion of Quahog. Peter Griffin and his cohorts finally took the law into their own hands by reenacting a type of Boston Tea Party. They tossed all the warm English beer into the sea. But I reckon they should have tossed everyone called Cecil into the sea in place of the suds.

Now before we go any further let me say that I'm not poking fun at the English, well not quite, only the Cecil variety gets lined up in my crosshairs, the reason being that over the past fifteen years or so, I've quite often crossed the paths and minds of Cecildom. They don't like me and I don't like them. But truth be known the Cecils of this world are not solely within the confines of Old England, they span the entire planet. Social and political climbing is not a unique English invention, for if it was, planet earth would not be the ever expanding hell it is now. I for one live life according to a strict set of morals and rules, forming a personal portfolio unsuitable for entry into Cecildom. Abe Lincoln once said;

"My great concern is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content with your failure."

There's another old saying that goes, "One man's meat is another man's poison," so logically in my opinion, so goes the term "failure" ... "One man's failure is another man's success."

Cecil Beaton's rise to stardom was no doubt regarded by himself and others as a success, but to me he was simply a failure. There are myriads of gifted photographers throughout the world who are never recognized, they remain unknown and hidden. Artists share the same fate, though some become household names after their passing, though rarely does a social or political climber fail on his chosen route, for all he has to do is prostrate himself before the hierarchy. It's the easy way out because most of the hierarchy reach the top by that selfsame age-old method. Conversely ...

"The words of the wise are as goads,"
— Ecclesiastes 12:11

And a goad as we all know is commonly understood to be a sharp stick, which means that if you happen not to be a Cecil sociopolitical climber, but a self-made honest guy, everything you do and say in this world will act as a sharp stick that pokes the poison ivy league hierarchy on the top of Cecildom. An honest, right living, guy will discover that he's become an enemy to those at the top. We're sharp sticks, and they're crooks, and recent events in the calendar of Dr Alan Keyes placed him firmly in the sharp stick category. His exclusion from the debate in Florida could, in my opinion, be in direct relation to his spiritual and moral beliefs, and his promise to abolish personal income tax should he be elected as President.

As time goes on and the world waxes worse and worse, Alan Keyes and those like him, find that their goad is self-sharpening, far from becoming blunt with use, it gets sharper, which means that the bad guys feel the pain with every jab on an increasing scale. And if they truly believed that all men were born equal, they would provide an equal platform that would include Alan Keyes on it. Therefore, since they won't let the man speak, the pain they feel can only get worse.

Although I've spent much of my life having to face Cecildom, I've never denied them the right to speak their mind. Cecil Gore, Nobhell prize holder, recently visited Spain then France, and everything he said I disagreed with, but I still honor his right to garble. He claims to believe in democracy and free choice, while attempting to force every nation on planet earth to correspond to his lies on global warming. Everything he says and does directly contradicts the Bible, but I still afford him the right to be wrong. He and his ilk are the crooks and we are the goads, and you know something? on any battlefield the sharp sticks will win.

© Johnny D. Symon