Remember The Others

“The free must remember the forgotten.”  Amnesty International

On this Independence Weekend, take a moment to think about all those who do not have your freedom.  The forgotten prisoners of conscience across the world.  There but for the grace of happenstance and fortune go you.

Millennials And The Future of Uncool

The Millenials should not get too smug.  They are not immune to succeeding generational divides.  The aspects they think are cool or hip and set them apart today—whether it be tattoos, body piercings, or just fascination with phone apps—will not be so much to the generations that follow them.

It’s the pattern of chronology. J

My Daughter Inadvertently Gave This Extra Father’s Day Message

My daughter follows the news of terror incidents against black Americans.  For the question, particularly appropriate today, of “How hard is it to be an African-American father; what does he—what CAN an African-American father—tell his kids?”, my daughter’s conversation provides some insight:

My daughter and her friend were talking about foreign travel.  Her friend:

“I don’t think I’d feel safe in foreign countries.”

My daughter:

“Oh, so you know a little then of what it feels like to be black in white America.”

"Diary"

Is “love” really love when it is selfish?

“You’re mine,” we hear supposed lovers say to each other.

Possessive.

“You are what I want.  You belong to ME.”

And then we wonder—actually, we DON’T think enough to wonder—why the relationships we have often become destructive, hurtful wrecks that disrupt and sometimes shatter lives.

A selfish society of individuals functions poorly in relationships.  A society of people concerned with trying to make others’ lives better, on the other hand, would be transformative, both at the personal level and the societal level.

Thoughts that came to me when listening to the David Gates’ and Bread’s song “Diary.”  The last two lines make the song.

Dangerous Drivel

People who have never truly experienced war often speak and write of it like it’s some romantic thing of glory that will solve much and inhibit little.

No.

War is the failure of humankind.  The times that it is necessary are very, VERY few.

Word for today in this all-too-early season of campaigning, which has become more the activity than governing or working for real, problem-solving, society-enhancing policy: Jingoism.

The Giant

The blundering giant noticed a creature crawling on the ground.

 

“It looks weak and thirsty.  I will help it into the blades of grass where it can drink the dew,” the giant thought.

It did not occur to the dim-witted giant that there used to be many creatures below his feet, and now there was just this little one.

His boots and his size protected him for the moment, so to speak, from the poison that was on the field of “green.”  A poison he did not even realize was there.

He picked up the creature and tossed it into the grass, then walked merrily away, whistling at how pleased he was with himself for his deed of kindness.

And the creature, which had crawled away from the poisoned ground where its fellows had suffered their fate, now writhed in its last fatal agony in the poisoned grass.   If it could have read, it might have known, in its last thoughts, the irony of the words on the large sign above its head: 

Lawn “Care.” 

Did A Generation Ever Love Its Descendants Less?

2014 was the hottest year on record, and 14 of the record 15 hottest have been in this century.  The 1998 El Nino year was the only other.

We have comforted ourselves in the selfish expectation that any results of our actions or inactions about the environment will only manifest significantly after we are gone.

Truly, we will be judged as evil idiots.

Are we not setting our world up for sudden, dramatic climate change?  The release of so much methane as the tundra and arctic regions thaw will accelerate climate change, probably geometrically. Already, places which once had moderate winters have severe ones now because the arctic is not warm enough to keep the cold air there, leaving the cold air blasts to sweep down.

Oh wait, the Chair of the Senate Environmental Committee says that only proves that global warming isn’t happening. Oklahoma, can’t you do better?