Being champions of truth requires embracing: all humans are created equal and that women have always been worthy of the gold of economic equality as well as our liberated vote of confidence for excellence -- for America comes from a better place than Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and Koch Bros.
Where I come from nobody knows and where I am going everything goes. The wind blows, the sea flows, but slithering down from an Abraham to a GOP walled-in small government, is not the place of champions.
Whether Portrait of Jennie or Dorian Gray, we are anchored in a universal truth: all there is comes from a before place -- Light, Sound -- even the courage of a Desert Dancer.
Big Bang or Garden, metaphorically, all roads lead to and from a life emitting tree, emanating a myriad of branches beaming with endless possibilities -- solidly rooted in the soil of the sum total of our origin. Thus we are limited only by our words, thoughts and deeds.
Arguably, our greatest national self-inflicted wound -- prejudicial education & income disparity and racial & gender discrimination -- is the tremendous loss of the genius of the human resources of Native-American, African-American and female Americans.
I'm man enough to yield to my wife's admonition, the Olympics only come every four years, and sacrifice my movie viewing to cast a glance or two toward our big screen when Michael Phelps appears to confirm, unlike the Donald, he, like Ali, is indeed the greatest of all time.
However, in 2016 what most captivated my least sports qualified spectator experience, was the competing champions whose names I'd never heard: Kathleen Baker, Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Allyson Felix, Lauren Hernandez, Gwen Jorgensen, Lilly King, Madison Kocian, Simone Manuel, Aly Raisman, Dana Vollmer, and my all-time favorite, Katie Ledecky -- even more disturbing: the difficulty locating these female names in the online reporting during the televised Rio games.
Of course, Out of Many, One, by its very non-Republican, all-inclusive dictum, encompasses the potential of incorporating both American Dream and nightmare -- for among us survives a multi-layered spectrum evaluating and rewarding both our achievement highs and hypocritical lows.
Truth is, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in a Love it or Leave it, Right-Wing Un-American activities overcome by over-comb cheerleaders lying to themselves, philosophy. We are a nation that comes from someplace else -- another time with another set of goals to reach, ideas to fulfil and ideals to be.
Before our 233rd year of experimental existence, we torched both New Deal and New Frontier and launched a new birth of, by and for Wall Street, lying in wait, armed with the profits of lives lost for lies.
In truth, still bearing our wounds from team Watergate, we come from a place of Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars, and daily share the agony of Gold Star Families.
We ascend from another place; from Philadelphia & Valley Forge, through Ellis Island to San Francisco, from exceptional expansionist exile imposed on Native Americans to enslaving people of color, as young as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh.
However, America is also pieces of silver, Black Gold greed and treasonous Mushroom Cloud deceit, as it is the forgotten women and men who bled the lyrics of The Star Bangled Banner, who saw the glory of the coming of the Lord, Over There and who, over here, went beyond what trickles down from behind the wall trumpeting The Street of regression and recession.
We were not always proven worthy of the gold medal or even brass ring, but we are the living breathing descendants of hope, and like Malala, life's promise, knowing not only one child, one teacher, one book and one pen, but one vote can change the world.