The Rudy

Trey Gowdy investigated Hillary Clinton and Benghazi for over two years (26 months) and came up
with nothing. Now Robert Mueller has investigated Donald Trump for collusion with Russia for 22 months and come up with nothing proving collusion. I'd like to see both sides stop trying to "lock up" their opposition and find some things they can agree on and start getting some work done.

I've seen the 2015 Kennedy Center performance of "(You make me feel like) A Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin dedicated to the song's composer, Carol Klein. It is truly inspirational. I love Carole King's unbridled enthusiastic reaction. She looks like a little kid who just came downstairs on Christmas morning to find a 5 foot teddy bear under the tree. I just want to point out that, to me, the impact of the song is as much a result of the lyrics which were written by Carole King's husband, Gerry Goffin and inspired by the suggestion of Aretha's record producer, Jerry Wexler who asked King and Goffin write a song called Natural Woman specifically for Aretha Franklin. It bothers me a tad when people keep saying it's Carole King's song. It's actually the result of the collaborative effort of all four of them. You could even throw in Muddy Waters, John Lee Ho**er and other African American blues artists who sang about the quintessential 'natural man' which led Wexler to come up with the idea of Aretha as the 'natural woman' as the inspiration and subject of the song. I have add that I'm getting most of this info from Wikipedia. For all I know Goffin might have no more input into the song than John Lennon did with "Yesterday". Maybe he got credit for the lyrics because that was the deal he had with Carole King.

"Ripple" montage. Poetry by Robert Hunter.