I Know, But We Still Have to Choose.

"I bless the rains down in Africa." - Toto

And we do, unless the folks being rained on want to come here.

When you think of songs that make you immediately crank up the volume when they begin in the car, we all have a list. But I'll bet that if you are a boomer, or whatever came after that, I forget the names, your list will include "Africa" by the group Toto released in 1982.

It is infectious, lovely and as one young commenter on the YouTube video put it, "Everyone is gangsta until Africa starts playing."

And one of those fans was a German artist named Max Siedentopf who thought that it so captured the spirit of the continent that he set up an MP3 player and speakers in the middle of the Namibian desert in 2019, all run on solar power. And it plays the song every minute of every hour of every day for eternity, or until the player gives out. And he won't tell anyone where it is exactly so it won't be disturbed.

The lead singer and co-composer is David Paich, son of the great arranger and conductor Marty Paich, who confessed to me in the 70's his boy was getting a little too famous for him to correct musically anymore. Hell, in his teens, David wrote a hit song for Glen Campbell.

Yes, I know Africa gets the geography wrong, they are all guys from California and there's a little controversy with it, but Billy Joel's "Billy the Kid" gets all the history wrong and I still love it.

So there. You want accuracy, buy an atlas.

And our cultural love for what in less enlightened times were considered "exotic" places includes the Orient, India, the Middle East and Latin America. Yes, like Toto, films and books often got a lot wrong, but we still are attracted and long to see those places.

"Just don't bring them here," seems to be the mantra lately though.

And when the President wants to denaturalize and deport an African woman who criticizes him and claims she comes from a "shithole" country, the attitude does catch on. He even claimed all of her countrymen are not welcome and should go back where they came from.

Hey, you don't have to like or agree with Rep. Ilhan Omar and I'm not a particular fan. But I was under the impression this was still America. You know, that place where men and women brought as slaves, or who crossed the Rio Grande, fled conflicts or were brought over to work on the railroads, could rise to positions of power and influence.

Even the descendants of lace curtain, shanty Irish Micks from County Cork can become President, or at least a news reporter in Houston.

But now all those people seem to scare, or at least, offend us.

We all know about the obvious and crude racism of people like Bo French, who, sadly, is running for Railroad Commissioner here in Texas. But will his ignorant prejudice work on voters? I'm terribly afraid that in this climate, in my home state, it may well.

I have exchanged opinions with one Facebook "friend" who claims that Muslims are out to take over the state and the country. They are about 2% of the population of Texas, and in the US, there are a grand total of 255 elected officials out of 520,000 total.

Their takeover is running a little behind.

But like the .0004% of Texans who are transsexual, and none who are trans athletes, they are a top concern in this campaign.

And then there are the Democrats.

If you disapprove of Donald Trump and the direction he is taking the country, you are free to say so. He is, ostensibly, a Christian and many of his supporters are, but does that mean you don't like Christians? Does it mean you don't like Americans?

But too many Democrats have confused anger over Israeli policies, Benjamin Netanyahu and the plight of Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza and made it about Judaism. It isn't. Like Trump, it's about Israeli politics and as I write this on Monday night, that may change on Tuesday. Israelis go to the polls as we will next month, and pass judgement.

That's because they are free to do so, and I learned on 4 reporting trips to the Middle East, they are just as rough on their politicians as we are here. Yet, no one accuses them of being Anti-Semitic. Of course not, that would be frankly dumb. And yet, too many on the right and the left make that mistake in criticisms of Israel.

By the same token, I have another Facebook "friend" who considers any criticism of Israel as being a sign of Anti-Semitism. It isn't, unless you consider any criticism of China as being Anti-Buddhist or of Ireland as being Anti-Catholic. If that's your arithmetic, the world is an even more hateful place than I thought.

Look, every political campaign stretches the truth, or simply outright lies. It happens and it is our job to sort out the BS from Shinola. James Talerico is going around the state campaigning, and you may not agree with a word he says. But he isn't gay or vegan or escaped from a mental hospital.

Ken Paxton is on his "Come and Take It" tour of the state, and you may worry about that title if you own an expensive fountain pen. But he is the nominee and you have to soberly assess his stands on the issues because again, in Texas the odds are still with him.

Although after that sober consideration, you may want a drink or two before voting on all these people.

Scare tactics about guns and religion are still going to be used, but wouldn't it be nice if just this once, we left religion or national origin out of it? Wouldn't it be nice if people with exotic sounding names didn't scare us so much and were judged on how wacky their ideas really are?

Yep, to quote another popular song, "Wouldn't it be Nice?"