Spirits in the Sky - Norma Jean aka Marilyn Monroe

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Marilyn Monroe born Norma Jeane Mortenson

June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962

 

 

Candle in the Wind

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Norma Jean
Though I never knew you at all
You had the grace to hold yourself
While those around you crawled
They crawled out of the woodwork
And they whispered into your brain
They set you on the treadmill
And they made you change your name

chorus:

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in
And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever did

Loneliness was tough
The toughest role you ever played
Hollywood created a superstar
And pain was the price you paid
Even when you died
Oh the press still hounded you
All the papers had to say
Was that Marilyn was found in the nude

 

(repeat chorus)

Goodbye Norma Jean
Though I never knew you at all
You had the grace to hold yourself
While those around you crawled
Goodbye Norma Jean
From the young man in the 22nd row
Who sees you as something more than sexual
More than just our Marilyn Monroe

(repeat chorus)

Music: Elton John

Lyrics: Bernie Taupin

Piano & Vocals: Elton John

 

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Ted Sorenson - Intellectual Blood Bank to JFK - Dies

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Coming from the Great Plains and always dreaming of being a presidential advisor, speech writer and a journalist, Ted Kennedy of neighboring Nebraska was always a hero. JFK was the first president I campaigned for in my life and not just because I went to Catholic schools, but because my grandfather had drilled into me the importance of knowing current events. Every weekend he tested me on the events in the nation and world and you really don't want to make an Irishman mad or disappointed in you.

So early on I knew about Sorenson from Nebraska in the inner circles of Kennedy's Camelot and was aware of the brilliant work he performed writing JFK's speeches. I could not imagine how someone from the Midwest and the University of Nebraska was as smart as all the Harvard people surrounding Kennedy. Sorenson taught me that everyone can rise to their potential.

Later on I had occasion to meet Sorenson and was more impressed. However, what was most impressive to me about this brilliant word man was that Kennedy himself admitted that some of his best speeches were written by Sorenson and even referred to him as his "intellectual blood bank". People like Sorenson who helped people like JFK build bridges are sorely missed in the partisan polarization that exists in politics today.

Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen (May 8, 1928– October 31, 2010) was an American presidential advisor, lawyer and writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel and adviser, legendary speechwriter, and alter ego. President Kennedy once called him his “intellectual blood bank.” He was Of Counsel at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He died on October 31, 2010, following a stroke.

Sorensen was born in Nebraska, the son of Christian A. Sorensen, a Danish American and the future attorney general of Nebraska, and Annis Chaikin, who was of Russian Jewish descent. He graduated from Lincoln High School in 1945. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and attended law school at the same university, graduating first in his class.

Sorensen was President Kennedy's Special Counsel & Adviser, and primary speechwriter, the role for which he is best remembered today. He was particularly famous for having helped draft the inaugural address in which Kennedy exhorted listeners to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." This call to service is the phrase still most closely associated with the Kennedy administration. Although Sorensen played an important part in the composition of the Inaugural Address, "the speech and its famous turn of phrase that everyone remembers was," Sorensen firmly states (counter to what the majority of authors, journalists and other media sources have claimed), "written by Kennedy himself."

In the early months of the administration the scope of Sorensen's responsibilities lay within the domestic agenda; however, after the Bay of Pigs debacle Kennedy asked Sorensen to take part in foreign policy discussions as well. During the Cuban Missile Crisis Sorensen served as a member of ExComm and was named by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara as one of the "true inner circle" members who advised the president, the others being Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, General Maxwell D. Taylor (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs), former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Llewellyn Thompson and McNamara himself.[6] Sorensen played a critical role in drafting Kennedy's correspondence with Nikita Khrushchev and worked on Kennedy's first address to the nation about the crisis on October 22.

Sorensen was devastated by Kennedy's assassination, which he called "the most deeply traumatic experience of my life...I had never considered a future without him."[7] He submitted a letter of resignation to President Johnson the day after the assassination but was persuaded to stay through the transition. Sorensen drafted Johnson's first address to Congress as well as the 1964 State of the Union. He officially resigned February 29, 1964, and was the first member of the Kennedy Administration to do so.

Prior to his resignation, Sorensen stated his intent to write Kennedy's biography, calling it "the book that President Kennedy had intended to write with my help after his second term." He was not the only Kennedy aide to turn to writing; historian and Special Assistant Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. wrote his Pulitzer-winning memoir A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House during the same time span. Sorensen's biography Kennedy was published in 1965 and became an international bestseller.
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Will Boston be Obama's Waterloo? Did He Meddle Once too Often?

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You don't mess around in Boston, the heart and soul of tea party movements in America, the citadel of freedom and the home of America's first tea party that sent shock waves throughout the world. I think people underestimate the Bostonians, take them for granted. Obama's Chicago gang thinks the people of Boston and Massachusetts will do whatever Obama tells them because they are the most liberal state in America. But the people of Boston are populists first. They do not like being told what to do by outsiders.



As the Massachusetts Senate race comes down to the wire next week and the White House goes into full blown panic mode because of the surge in polls by the Republican, Scott Brown, and the collapse of the Democrat, Martha Coakley, will this be the race that convinces our young president to stop meddling in the state races once and for all?



He did not read the mood of the public in New Jersey and Virginia where Democratic candidates for governor in states Obama won handily and with Democratic governors took a beating from the Republican candidates in spite of being outspent by huge margins. Yet here we are, just a few weeks later and the bullies in the White House once again want to tell state voters who to elect. Such arrogance, even from Chicago politicians, is rather stupid.



As a supporter of the Kennedys and supporter of Kennedy candidates in the past I can tell you Martha Coakley is not Ted Kennedy. If she were really in touch with the people, as John and Bobby Kennedy were, she would have campaigned with the people. She said she would not waste her time meeting workers when she could just meet with their bosses. Both John and Bobby would be shocked by such an elitist attitude.



I remember shaking Bobby Kennedy's hand in Nebraska in 1968, along with a crowd of people, when he was surging into the lead in the presidential race and just a couple of days before his assassination. The Kennedy's were always the people's choice, not the bosses and they never forgot it.

If Coakley wanted to be like the Kennedys she would not have squandered her time as Attorney General. She could have sued the banks of Wall Street and the hedge fund and derivative manipulators in Boston who ripped off the American Treasury, stole the retirement dreams from millions of Americans, and destroyed the dream of home ownership for millions more. But instead she asks them for money for her campaign.

She could have demanded accountability from the pharmaceutical companies, health companies and insurance companies for their role in health care price increases but instead gets their money from Democratic party officials. Her special interest campaign contributors read like a Wall Street who's who and we all know by now that when they give money they expect money in return. Just ask our young president with his bailouts, buyouts, loans and stimulus. Who did that money benefit?



And if Teddy Kennedy were still alive you can bet he would be outraged at the shape the Obama health care reform debacle has taken. There are more bribes, more backroom deals than constructive initiatives in this bill. I cannot believe Kennedy would stand for the Obama, Pelosi, Reid pyramid scheme intended to fill everyone's pockets with cash except the public who will be paying for it for generations.



Teddy Kennedy had integrity. He was patient for a generation waiting to get meaningful reform. He would not have endorsed this sham just to get anything approved so the president and congress would look like they did something this past year. The Obama health care bill is not reform but a bureaucratic boondoggle the likes of which we have never seen and no one understands. Coakley wants it, Brown does not. Maybe that has a lot to do with her falling star and his rising popularity.

If Obama fails again to impose his will on the people of yet another sovereign state in America maybe, just maybe, he will finally stop meddling in state affairs and get on with governing all the people. If not he will fill out his term maintaining his do nothing administration while achieving record deficits and national debt. Not a legacy one should seek.

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