When You're Smiling (Take Two)

 I continue to be baffled by the censored version of my When You're Smiling post. Apparently you can read it by clicking on something that shows you understand it was edgy. I could leave it at that— not the most inspired writing I've ever done. But figured since I wrote it, I might as well repost it without the sentence that I think (wrongly) got it flagged. (See post "Confused.") Let's see if this gets through. 

“When you’re smilin’, when you’re smilin’, the whole world smiles with you…”

 

This old jazz standard is part of my Happy Songs for kids (and adults). Alongside songs like Side by Side, The Sunnyside of the Street, My Favorite Things, High Hopes, Pick Yourself Up, Accentuate the Positive— mostly songs written during the Depression—they do their job of uplifting kids and bringing positivity into their life. One of my favorite examples was a time when the whole second grade was working on a difficult math problem and one student (Isaac) threw his pencil down in frustration and sighed, “This is impossible!” His classmate Sophie, without missing a beat, responded by singing“Nothing is impossible I have found, for when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again…” All the class joined in and then went back to work. (My memory is they still didn’t solve it, but had a happier time trying!)

 

Amongst many things I love about Kamala Harris is that virtually every photo of her shows her smiling or laughing. Such a refreshing change from the angry, dour old sourpuss. No surprise that all he had to offer in last night’s debate were his exaggerated—no, truly outrageous and off-the-charts unbelievable— lies poking at people’s fears. Millions of violent criminals are crossing the border, schools are performing forced operations on your children (!!!????!!!! WTF?), nuclear war is right around the corner unless he's elected. 

Meanwhile, Ms. Harris kept her calm and countered everything with actual facts and sometimes with a smile. Her message is based on reality and hope and commitment to serve others, his based on fantasy designed to dupe, fear and his Me! Me! Me! pathological narcissism. We humans are designed for both, often needlessly (but sometimes wisely) stoking our fears and longing to feed our hopes and dreams. Beyond all the rhetoric, party-allegiance and money raised, it all comes down to this— fear or hope, people. Pick one and vote accordingly.