Who has the greatest power in all the world? Who can make a prince rakish and cause a princess to fall to her knees? Who is greatly feared by politicians, celebrities, and leaders? Who can overtly or subliminally penetrate your day -time thoughts with images that produce hellish nightmares?. Who can show us limbless soldiers and skeletons popping out of coffins upon a sea of murky misery without concern; oblivious to the power of these images to instantly de-range the mind? Who can judge the famous prior to a court hearing and declare them guilty? Who can isolate and marginalize segments of our society with a few words and a few images?

I am sure that by now you know who can make a president a person of loathing no matter what he truly believes. The media can do these things because we have allowed them to. We are afraid of them. They wield the power to make or break anyone, anytime, anywhere. The media have become the soothsayers of our times. Very few question their prognostications after the pundits have extrapolated and peddled their latest books. We are convinced by the “sincere” news commentator who is ready to put on his boxing gloves and fight any and every body who does not conform to his sense of morality. (All the while shamelessly hawking t-shirts and books.)

The worst culprits of all are the paparazzi. Who really killed Princes Diana? Who makes celebrities wish that they were anonymous and even homeless? Who has turned talented and naturally attractive people into “gods and goddesses” by virtue of their beautiful photographs? Being an idol in this day and age is a very risky thing. Idols are falling. Who is bringing them down? The very same people who built them up. Why are so many people afraid of these stalkers? They peddle celebrities; causing them to have to have numerous bodyguards to protect them from the people that have been whipped into a frenzy because of the latest photos of them. Oh, how they love to see the big star have a public melt-down. Bleary-eyed, teary-eyed stars are visible in a half a dozen magazines, when all regular people want to do is to buy some groceries. Are we dealing with seared consciences at large and in charge?

The question is not why the media has unbridled power, but rather why has the average Joe puts up with it? Why haven’t a sea of diverse people risen up and said, “enough is enough. If you do not have any new news, then stop barraging us with the same old news clips 24/7.” This of course, will not happen. All of these things are driven by mammon. Brow- beating the famous pays well. What will bring change? My prediction is that the predictions of the Babylonian Soothsayers shall fail: the idols are falling like Dagon, before the living God.

Published at Written in 2005; its truth not diminished in time.



There comes a point in everyone’s life when they have to shift gears. For purposes of survival or sanity, a decision will be made to alter the speed of engagement or the direction of the course being taken. For some, boredom is just the norm. Low level depression has become a tolerable condition. Feeling alive doesn’t seem as important as staying alive. Those who have multiple talents and no longer find life to be enjoyable or even bearable, must make this shift. Some people are good at being in the present, while others languish in the past and view the future with uncertainty. We create our tomorrows by what we engage in today. Very simple. No matter how successful someone is, in any given field, if the juice is gone-then it’s gone. It is not anyone’s fault. It is just a universal demand for change in the lives of every living creature. Homosapiens (while more complex) also experience this primal need for change. 

We have become trapped by want. Our want of anything and everything. It keeps us locked in. What would happen if we just stopped wanting? If we simplified and in some cases downsized our lives. We have been told to “super-size” everything-except for our weight! We went along with this agenda because it fed our want. Having fed our want, we wanted even more. How disappointing when our want has consumed so much of our planet. But, I am mainly talking about being personally content. Stop wanting. I plan to. I did not give up wanting as a New Year’s Resolution. I did not give it up for Lent. I am giving it up because I find it to be anxiety producing and the source of great misery when the object of want does not lend itself to being wanted…by me.

I am involved with multiple creative endeavors and I hit a dry spell. I did not want to read. I did not want to write. I barely wanted to create lyrics. I did not want to sing. I lost the song in my heart. It was the end result of having wanted too damned much. Old story, but perhaps a salvation for me. Without want there are no “knobs to turn.”  There are no “carrots” to be successfully dangled. There won’t be the sucking sound as the takers take what they promised to give. Now, I plan to create a new tomorrow. I plan on slashing anything upon the ledger that will bring me back to the state of wanting. Creating a new tomorrow requires going deep within ones “spirit well.”  I am going and I will stay there until I have sorted out what it is that my eyes would like to see.

I have created many futures, already. I started as a fortune-teller, long ago. Then, I became a Registered Nurse. After a season, I went into Forensic Psychiatric Nursing. Rough stuff. I would find myself on night-shift writing poetry. I intended to get the poems published-but they just seemed too dark.  Simultaneously, I had been writing lyrics. I studied everything worth reading on the subject. I got the general idea of how to structure lyrics. Having been an abstract poet, lyric writing required discipline. I, then, hooked up with a talented musician(Bobby Parris) for a Spoken Word CD.  I wrote blues, Contemporary Christian and jazz lyrics that were published and became beautiful songs. I sang jazz songs from the 30’s & 40’s to Afro-Euro Groove. This was all while having had five consecutive  husbands and raising five children(ages thirty-five to thirteen)

There are so many things that we are told that we cannot do without. Well, the list is not as long as one would suppose. I wanted to make my mark in the earth and that I have done. I never wanted riches. My family has had prosperity for generations. By nineteen years old, I had discovered that money and status never made me happy. I spent my time giving away anything that I had and did not utilize. Now, that was fun! I have blogged my heartfelt opinions. Now, I am fairly well blogged-out. Cyberpace has been sucking up my future life. I have to make it stop. I have got to change these gears!


Alice Parris