On December 3, 2025, Michelle Woster, Executive Director of The Cedar Cultural Center in south Minneapolis, posted the following via social media.
We are saddened that our incredible Somali neighbors are living in fear for their safety and the safety of their loved ones. One way you can support our Cedar-Riverside community at this moment is to activate the block by dining at one of the many immigrant-owned restaurants and showing up for community spaces that make this neighborhood so vibrant. If you plan to attend one of our shows this weekend, we will be excited to welcome you at The Cedar. Our events staff and volunteers are always ready to ensure you enjoy a great evening of live music.
Image: The marquee of The Cedar Cultural Center in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of south Minneapolis – Wednesday, December 3, 2025. (Photo: Michael J. Bayly)
[Trump’s verbal attack] was hurtful. It was shameful, disgraceful. But also, it was flat out wrong calling not only our [Minnesota] congresswoman [Ilhan Omar] “garbage,” but calling the entire [Somali] community “garbage,” saying they’re good for nothing.
It is a community that has been resilient, that has produced so much. We are teachers and doctors and lawyers and even politicians taking part in every part of Minnesota’s economy and the nation’s economy. And so, right now, this is nothing more than political theatre in time for the midterms, by which Trump wants to rally his base.
Language matters, and we know that hateful rhetoric and language leads to action. And right now, our community is afraid. We’ve seen that our president and ICE have overstepped and have consistently violated our residents’ consitution right. And what I mean by that is it’s going far beyond just immigration enforcement. We’ve seen residents, U.S. citizens, getting detained.
. . . President Trump made it very clear he wants all Somalis gone. Not just a category of them, not just the ones he thinks are bad, but all Somalis. I’ve heard from our young people – folks that were born in America, that have never seen Somalia; in fact, some whose parents were born in America – reaching out to us saying that they’re fearful, that they feel like they have to walk around with their passports because they don’t want to be targeted. And in America in 2025, that should not be happening.
In Australia today my Mum celebrates her 87th birthday.
Happy Birthday, Mum!
I’ve said it many times before but it’s always worth repeating: My brothers and I are very fortunate to have Margaret Anne Bayly (née Sparkes) as our mother. She is a beautiful, wise and strong woman who extends care, kindness and love to everyone she encounters.
I love you, Mum, and can’t thank you enough for who you are and for all you continue to be and give to me, my brothers, our family, and so many others whose lives are fortunate enough to be touched by yours. Wishing you the happiest of birthdays! 💗
This is mum’s first birthday since she began her journey of recovery from the stroke she experienced in April. I continue to thank God for her ongoing recovery and for the ways she is participating in this recovery through her chosen attitudes and actions. As I’ve said previously, they are attitudes and actions of grace and gratitude, surrender and trust. I’m grateful too for those in her life who are helping facilitate mum’s healing – our family, her friends, and the staff at the assisted living home where she now resides.
In celebrating Mum’s birthday over the years at The Wild Reed, I’ve shared quite a number of photos from the Bayly family archives. In fact, I’ve pretty much exhausted my supply. So if you’d like to take a wonderful “trip down memory lane,” as they say, then click on any of the links below. You won’t be disappointed!
At an event hosted by an Israeli news outlet owned by Israeli-American billionaire and Trump donor Miriam Adelson, Hillary Clinton says young Americans fell victim to pro-Palestine “propaganda” on social media.
She makes no mention of corporate media’s role in pushing hoaxes following October 7 or publishing Israeli government talking points without scrutiny
Hillary Clinton is out here claiming young people, including young Jewish people, are only pro Palestine because of TikTok – not because of the painfully documented fact by dozens of human rights organizations confirming genocide, famine, mass rape, and war crimes by IDF.
No acknowledgment that people are relying on social media because the Israeli government has illegally blocked out all international media and killed more than 250 journalists inside Gaza.
Her claim is “Just believe Netanyahu.” Absurd.
[Israel’s genocide in Gaza] is more documented and more confessed to than any other genocide-as-it-happened in history. We have detailed reports from the United Nations, non-governmental organizations [NGOs] ranging from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch to Médecins Sans Frontières. We have detailed studies from the likes of Airwars, an NGO comprised of experts who looked at 606 incidents of civilian harm in the first 25 days of the genocide alone in October 2023. According to the most conservative estimates, at least 5,139 civilians were killed in the sample of 606 attacks they analyzed. They made sure to say this was just a fraction. They found evidence of Hamas military casualties in just 26 of those 606 attacks. That’s just 4% of cases. The number of militants believed to be actually killed was between 32 and 60.
We also have overwhelming evidence of Israeli soldiers gleefully posting their war crimes, yes, Hillary, on TikTok, as well as an avalanche of statements of genocide and criminal intent issued by Israeli leaders and officials.
Hillary Clinton should not just be seen as a political failure who handed Donald Trump power in the United States. She’s a monster, with blood on her hands, who was associated with some of the great foreign policy catastrophes and crimes of our age.
The younger generation of Americans, including Jewish Americans, that she smears are far more knowledgable and moral than she is. And it’s not hard to be more moral than Hillary Clinton because there’s no evidence of any moral compass at all.
By boiling down backlash against Israel to a social media problem, Clinton and her allies seem to have forgotten they’re still in an echo chamber that they built with their own hands and words.
– John Smith via social media
December 3, 2025
[Clinton’s] remarks echoed those of former Obama White House speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, who spoke recently about the challenges Zionists are presented with when they try to defend Israel to young Jewish people who have seen widely available, credible images and news out of Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and is continuing to restrict humanitarian aid despite a ceasefire deal reached in October.
“Anything that we try to say to them, they’re hearing it through this wall of carnage,” Hurwitz lamented last month, drawing condemnation.
. . . Clinton has frequently claimed that pro-Palestinian Americans, particularly students who took part in nationwide campus protests last year as they urged the Biden administration to comply with US law and stop funding Israel’s attacks on Gaza, are simply misinformed about Palestine and ignorant of history, particularly pointing to the 2000 Camp David Summit hosted by former President Bill Clinton.
The former secretary of state has repeated the claim that the Palestinians were offered a “generous deal” at the meeting and “walked away” – a “myth” that Camp David negotiator Robert Malley has debunked, warning it’s been used by Clinton and others to “justify Israel’s genocide.”
“She’s the one getting the history wrong,” including at the Israel Hayom event, saidDrop Site News on Tuesday.
A number of observers took issue with Clinton’s suggestion that anti-Israel sentiment in the US is being driven solely by young people, with Just Security executive editor Adil Haque issuing a “periodic reminder that the biggest shift in attitudes toward Israel and Palestine has been among older Democrats.”
In 2022, 43% Democratic voters ages 50 and up had an unfavorable view of Israel. That percentage has risen sharply since Israel began its onslaught in Gaza, with 66% of those voters reporting an unfavorable view in a Pew Research Center poll this year.
Meanwhile, 71% of Democrats ages 49 and under opposed Israel in the same poll, and 62% of them had expressed opposition in 2022, denoting a less extreme shift in opinion.
“Democrats get their news from CNN more than other mainstream sources,” said Haque, pointing to the network’s recent investigation about Palestinian aid-seekers who were killed by Israeli forces. “If you’re a 60-year-old with grandkids and you read or watch CNN‘s Gaza reporting, you don’t need TikTok to know that what’s happening is very, very wrong.”
Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs at the Center for International Policy, also suggested Clinton has an inaccurate view of who opposes Israel’s ongoing attacks on Palestinians.
“I’m nearly 50. I don’t use TikTok. I listen to NPR Morning Edition and read the Financial Times daily,” said Williams. “I’m a lawyer who has worked on Israel-Palestine issues for the last 20 years. The evidence I’ve seen that Israel committed atrocities including genocide in Gaza is overwhelming.”
Today we are invited to imagine the impossible. We are invited to abandon our normal way of perceiving and look through grace-filled eyes. We are asked to imagine feeble hands strong, blind eyes filled with vision, and arid desert in bloom. We are asked to imagine fear withered away.
But God’s vision for creation will not emerge without our participation. Ramakrishna once said: “The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.” This is what the friends of the paralyzed man do in the gospel story of Luke 5:18-25. They raise the sail and are swept along in a movement of grace that changes everything about who they are in God and who God is in them. Surprisingly, they learn that every moment of grace is a movement of reconciliation. To forgive and be forgiven is to be reconciled, to return to the unity that is God’s vision and our hope.
Diana Trask’s “Oh Boy (The Mood I’m In)” is a memorable song from my childhood in 1970s Australia. It was a popular song on the radio and also featured on an LP of various country hits that my paternal grandparents had in their home. So, yes, it’s a song I’ve known now for 50 years, and one I’ve always liked – both for its musicality and for how it brings to mind and heart people and places long gone but still cherished.
As a singer, Diana Trask is largely forgotten – despite the fact she had been a major star in both Australia and the U.S. Indeed, she was the first Australian female vocalist to not only “make it” in the lucrative U.S. market, but to also star in an international top-ratng TV show (Sing Along with Mitch, 1961-1964).
Diana was nominated for a Grammy in 1970 for her cover of “I Fall to Pieces,” and it’s been said that at one point in the 1960s, Billboard magazine ranked her as both the best female jazz vocalist and the best female country vocalist. Given all of this, it’s no wonder Diana Trask paved the way for other Australian female singers to find success in the States in the 1970s, most notably Olivia Newton John and Helen Reddy.
Why, then, has Diana Trask and her musical legacy been largely forgotten? Well, if you’re interested, this 20-minute video claims to “reveal the hidden story of how a powerful voice was quietly erased from the industry she helped shape.”
Before I share “Oh Boy,” here’s a reminder of just how respected Diana Trask was in her heyday. Following (with added images and links) is how she and her career are described by Bob Kirsch in the liner notes of the 1975 ABC Records’ double album, Diana Trask: The ABC Collection.
How many country stars hail from Warburton, Australia? Only one that we know of, a young lady named Diana Trask, who, while she cut her musical teeth in pop and jazz, has come up with more than a dozen country chart singles in the past five years.
How did Diana Trask from Warburton, Australia, end up a bona fide country star living in Nashville and appearing regularly in Las Vegas? Diana grew up in a musical family in Australia, with her mother teaching voice and piano. A childhood ambition to be a singer resulted in constant practice that paid off with a victory in a major talent contest. With a prestigeous award in her pocket, the 16-year-old Diana began piling up TV exposure and experience, including her own TV show.
From television, Diana went on to become an opening concert act for such stellar names as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr [when they toured Australia]. At 19, Diana headed for the United States.
As a pop artist, Diana toured the American nightclub circuit, appeared on Don McNeil’s famous Breakfast Club network radio show and The Jack Benny Show. Eventually, the young artist landed a regular job with Mitch Miller on his long-running Sing Along With Mitch TV show. Known still for her pop and jazz work, Trask was well on her way to becoming one of the nation's top pop stars when she decided that marriage and a family should come first – at least for a while.
So, Diana and her husband returned to Australia for a short leave of absence from the U.S. performing and recording scene (she had enjoyed a stay at Columbia Records in the late ’50s and early ’60s, with Mitch Miller producing).
Ten years ago, however, [in 1965] Diana returned to America with husband/manager Tom Ewen, determined this time around to give country music a go. Not only did she become one of country’s more popular and successful female vocalists, she became one of the few “outsiders” to receive acceptance in the sometimes tightly knit world of country.
Diana has stated in many interviews that it was the honsty of country and the people involved in it that first aroused her interest. As time went on, however, she began developing a deep love and understanding of the music itself -- a love and understanding that came from long hours in the studio with some of Nashville’s most talented producers and musicians, and a touring schedule (often more than 200 one nighters a year) that many other entertainers shied away from. A visit to Nashville and the annual Country Music Awards telecast solidified her interest.
Sure of her genuine interest in country, Diana set out to prove that one need not be from any particular region or background to really be and feel country. Country, she feels, is a way of thinking rather than an accent or style or dress.
Diana’s early Dot LPs, cut with top Nashville producer and publisher Buddy Killen, introduced her to some of the finest American country songs and songwriters, as well as giving her the opportunity to record some of the top rock and R&B songs of some of the biggest artists in the U.S. In addition, Diana cut an entire LP of the best songs of Joe Tex, one of the most prolific pop and R&B songwriters of the ’60s.
In the following years, Trask worked with such leading producers as Danny Davis and Norro Wilson, as well as enjoying some of her biggest hits under the production wing of ABC/Dot president Jim Foglesong.
Whether a ballad or a rocker, country or R&B, Miss Country Soul as she is often called is one of the most dynamic and buoyant artists in all of music. And she has transcended the world of recorded music in putting her message across. The years of one nighters have paid off in Diana becoming one of the most popular and consistent entertainers in Las Vegas. She has appeared many times on The Tonight Show, as well as on Hee Haw, The Dean Martin Show, and a number of others. She has also appeared in a dramatic role on Love, American Style.
Diana Trask remains one of the real rarities in the world of show business, a complete entertainer.
It’s so warm in here
Outside the night is clear
Think I need a walk
Have myself a little talk
Sleep, baby, sleep
While your mama walks the street tonight
To think about your daddy boy
(Oh boy) the mood I'm in
The pain I feel in missin’ him
Oh boy (oh boy), I can’t explain
He haunts my mind, racks my brain
I could comb every home, every neighborhood bar
I could ride every Greyhound or railroad car
Just to find him and say
Hey, wherever you are
Come on home, we love you boy
So I walk and weep
Through the downtown streets I wander sadly
Boy (oh boy), the mood I’m in
The pain I feel in missin’ him
Oh boy (oh boy), I can’t explain
He haunts my mind, racks my brain
I could comb every home, every neighborhood bar
I could ride every Greyhound or railroad car
Just to find him and say
Hey, wherever you are
Come on home, we love you boy
“Oh Boy (The Mood I’m In)” is a popular song written by Tony Romeo. It has been recorded by Diana Trask and Brotherhood of Man, among others. The song is about a woman whose partner/husband is no longer with her and she sadly walks the streets in an attempt to find him. Tony Romeo who wrote the song is best known for his 1970 hit “I Think I Love You” by The Partridge Family, which became a U.S. Number 1.
. . . [Diana Trask’s recording of] “Oh Boy” was released as a single by ABC–Dot Records in December 1974 as a seven-inch vinyl record featuring the B-side “Alone Again Naturally.” Billboard magazine called the track, “Well produced with nice melody changes” and found that Trask “never sounding better.” Cash Box called Trask’s voice “dynamic" and believed it be "a sure hit.” Trask claimed her version never received promotion from ABC–Dot due to label re-configuration and called it “one of my biggest professional disappointments.” Meanwhile, Bobby Wyld of WYTRA Records claimed that he did not give ABC-Dot permission to release Trask’s version in belief that her version “won’t get airplay.” He ultimately sued the company for one million dollars, as reported by Radio & Records.
Despite this, “Oh Boy” rose to the number 21 position on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, becoming Trask’s final top 40 single there.
In Canada, “Oh Boy” rose to number 14 on their RPM Country Tracks chart. It reached the top ten on Australia’s Kent Music Report chart, peaking at the number ten position in 1975.
It was Trask’s first charting single in Australia since 1960 and her only top ten song there. It also appeared on Trask’s tenth studio album titled The Mood I’m In.
About Diana’s career after “Oh Boy,” Wikipediasays the following:
[Diana Trask] reached her peak commercial success in the middle seventies with four top 20 country songs: “Say When,” “It’s a Man’s World,” “When I Get My Hands on You” and “Lean It All on Me.” Her 1974 single, “Oh Boy,” was a top ten song in Australia. She remained popular in Australia through the 1980s with albums like the gold-ceritifed One Day at a Time (1981).
Trask went into semi-retirement as the eighties progressed. Sporadically, she returned to her music career including performing at the 1985 Australian Football League Grand Final. For the most part, Trask and her husband sailed the Caribbean, along with operating a store in Alaska. She also returned to college and received a degree in herbal medicine.
In 2009, Trask’s husband died and she returned to her career. She co-wrote a memoir in 2010 called Whatever Happened to Diana Trask and released three albums on her own label titled Trask Enterprises: Country Lovin’ (2010), Daughter of Australia (2014) and Memories Are Made of This (2016).
I conclude this special post with a 2016 interview with Diana Trask from the Australia TV show Studio 10. (For a longer interview from the same year, click here.)
There is something especially obscene about a man with no conscience sending a midnight Thanksgiving message to the nation, a holiday literally built on gratitude, and using it to vomit hate, fear, and xenophobia into the bloodstream of a hungry country. Donald Trump doesn’t give thanks. Donald Trump takes. And takes. And takes again. Until there’s nothing left but the gristle of whatever moral muscle used to hold this country upright.
His late-night rant wasn’t a greeting; it was a diagnosis. A man who cannot feel empathy trying to imitate it, like a broken instrument straining to play a hymn it never believed in. He speaks of immigrants like they’re a disease, of refugees like they’re vermin, of human beings, real, breathing, suffering human beings, with the cold detachment of someone who has never cared for anyone but himself. Not his country. Not its people. Not its future. Not even his own supporters, except as props to inflate the rotting balloon of his ego.
He’s not thankful for America.
He’s thankful for the billionaires who finance his delusions.
He’s thankful for the cruelty that keeps him relevant.
He’s thankful for the fear that keeps people from looking too closely at what he’s really doing, gutting a nation for parts and selling its soul wholesale to the highest bidder.
This wasn’t a holiday message; it was a threat disguised as patriotism. A promise to punish the weak so the powerful can keep their supremacy. A sermon from a false prophet whose only gospel is greed, whose only religion is himself.
While families struggled to stretch their last dollars into a meal, Trump spent the holiday reminding them that he blames them, the poor, the vulnerable, the displaced, for everything he himself has broken. He cannot conceive of a world in which human dignity is not transactional. He sees suffering and calls it weakness. He sees compassion and calls it treason. He sees immigrants and calls them invaders because he cannot imagine any experience beyond the gold-plated prison of his own emptiness.
This is not leadership.
This is not patriotism.
This is the howl of a frightened man whose only weapon is the misery of others.
And on Thanksgiving, of all days, he chose to use his voice not to lift the country, not to soothe a battered people, not to reflect, not to give thanks, but to darken the room even further. To remind us that fascism doesn’t rest. It doesn’t pause for holidays. It doesn’t bow its head in gratitude. It uses every quiet moment as another opportunity to rewrite the story of who deserves to be here and who doesn’t.
Trump has no passion for humanity because he has no humanity left in him. He doesn’t love this country. He loves the sound it makes when it kneels.
I am disgusted. I am furious. And I am not fooled.
Because the truth is this: A Thanksgiving message without empathy is not a message at all.
It’s a warning.
And America would do well to listen.
– Michael Jochum “The Thanksgiving That Had No Heart”
via social media
November 28, 2025
Image: President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after speaking to troops via video from his Mar-a-Lago estate on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 27, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Photo: AP Photo / Alex Brandon)
I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, “Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.” As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words “progressive,” “gay,” and “Catholic” seek to describe.
Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.
On September 24, 2012,Michael BaylyofCatholics for Marriage Equality MNwas interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.
"I believe your blog to be of utmost importance for all people regardless of their orientation. . . . Thank you for your blog and the care and dedication that you give in bringing the TRUTH to everyone."– William
"Michael, if there is ever a moment in your day or in your life when you feel low and despondent and wonder whether what you are doing is anything worthwhile, think of this: thanks to your writing on the internet, a young man miles away is now willing to embrace life completely and use his talents and passions unashamedly to celebrate God and his creation. Any success I face in the future and any lives I touch would have been made possible thanks to you and your honesty and wisdom."– AB
"Since I discovered your blog I have felt so much more encouraged and inspired knowing that I'm not the only gay guy in the Catholic Church trying to balance my Faith and my sexuality. Continue being a beacon of hope and a guide to the future within our Church!"– Phillip
"Your posts about Catholic issues are always informative and well researched, and I especially appreciate your photography and the personal posts about your own experience. I'm very glad I found your blog and that I've had the chance to get to know you."– Crystal
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"I cannot claim to be an expert on Catholic blogs, but from what I've seen, The Wild Reed ranks among the very best."– Kevin
"Reading your blog leaves me with the consolation of knowing that the words Catholic, gay and progressive are not mutually exclusive.."– Patrick
"I grieve for the Roman institution’s betrayal of God’s invitation to change. I fear that somewhere in the midst of this denial is a great sin that rests on the shoulders of those who lead and those who passively follow. But knowing that there are voices, voices of the prophets out there gives me hope. Please keep up the good work."– Peter
"I ran across your blog the other day looking for something else. I stopped to look at it and then bookmarked it because you have written some excellent articles that I want to read. I find your writing to be insightful and interesting and I'm looking forward to reading more of it. Keep up the good work. We really, really need sane people with a voice these days."– Jane Gael
"Michael, your site is like water in the desert."– Jayden
