I got to hear Danny K. Davis speak for the first time yesterday

[Tweed]

Man is he dynamic. For those of you who don't know, Danny K. Davis is the congressional rep for the 7th district of Illinois (which includes a large part of downtown and the South and West sides of Chicago) and yes, he is a Democrat. He has a great bass voice that is just a pleasure to listen to. His district first put him in the House in 1996 and he would have to do something really bad to get booted out.

I had a couple of things from his speech I wanted to share.

He thanked the person who introduced him for the kind things she said about him. "'My mom told me to watch out for flattery and that it's much like perfume. Flattery is meant to be smelled, not sallowed.' We've got too many people in this world who are sallowing the perfume."

Next he talked about how this is the worst time in America's history. "It has always been assumed by each generation that their generation would be better off than their parents. In America, things have always gotten progressively better for each everyone as time has marched on. No more can our children take that for granted." He stated that many young people black and white don't seem to care about this either. There has been a drop off in political activism among African-American males in particular.

After that he told a story. "I grew up in the South where everyone loves a good preacher. When a preacher would come to town, everyone wanted to host the preacher for dinner. There would be fights over who got to do this. Well one Sunday, the honor fell on a woman, Mrs. Rose. Unfortunately for her, her husband had spent all of the money the family had the night before gambling and boozing. Mrs. Rose had to scrap together whatever she could find. She has a meal that had molasses for dessert instead of a cake. There was chicken and dumplings and she had to use chicken feet instead of anything good. Now a days not even the poorest of poor eat chicken feet, but that's how bad it was for her. After the meal though, the preacher said 'Mmm mmm mmm, Sister Rose, that was the best meal I've ever had!' Now the woman knew that he was probably just being overly nice, and she said, 'Now Reverend, I know you are just being nice, but if you come back this September, I tell you, I will make an exquisite meal for you. I promise'. The preacher could not refuse, so he came back that next September.

The woman said to her husband 'This time you can gamble and booze as much as you want, but when Preacher gets here he'll be saying a funeral and it will be yours!'. So of course this time around the woman was able to prepare a meal that really could have been the best meal that preacher ever had. Everything was perfect. They got to the end of the meal and the preacher said, 'Well I guess it's about time to get to evening services now'. The woman was hoping to get praised just like the last time. She tried to keep it inside, but she just had to ask him, 'Reverend, last time you said the meal you had was the best one you ever had and it had chicken feet! Certainly this meal was much better'. 'Sister Rose, the meal we had last time needed all the help it could get. This meal here, this meal here can stand on its own.'"

It was such a good story and he told it so well. I liked the story as a metaphor for our education system and really our entire society. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, I highly recommend taking advantage of it.

[Cocoa]

1. Davis's voice is indeed a pleasure

but every time I see catch him on C-span, speaking on the House floor, he is using it for some trivial matter.

Last time I saw him he was honoring the basketball player John Stockton for some unknown reason. But it sounded great.

[Southsideirish]

2. Did he tell you that he picked cotton in the South as a youth?

He got something like .12 per hr for back breaking work. I think his story must be the greatest "Horatio ALger" climb in the Congress - maybe ever. He is fantastic.