The Lopsided Life

A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.

Daniel Webster
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Hello Stuart
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Watchman, tell us of the night.
(I write because I must.)

I was more than mildly miffed at some parents who, when the World Trade Center was attacked, complained to the television networks for showing photos and videos of the destruction. Those parents didn't want their children to see what happened for fear they would grow up with a warped attitude about life and the world. Innocence is a beautiful thing, but how long can it go unchallenged?

When I was a child, before the era of television, we got our visual news from newsreels. When you went to a movie you got newsreels. I saw Hitler swaggering around, German troops marching in rank and file, bombs dropping and buildings being blown up. But I also saw the poor, emaciated prisoners of the concentration camps, some so weak from starvation they couldn't even sit up. I saw the blank looks of horror and despair. I saw the piles of corpses.

When you went to a movie you had to watch those things, you had no choice. No one was putting their hands over my eyes to prevent me from seeing them. (Ironically, and perhaps therapeutically, there was also always a cartoon.)

So maybe my point of view about the world has been shaped, altered, warped if you must, by having witnessed those heinous films and photos. But, if nothing else, it has given me a sturdier view of evil when I see it and the instinct to recognize the seeds of evil among the still falsely innocent, "unwarped" people of power. For example, those who compared President Obama with Adolf Hitler have absolutely no idea who Hitler was. They never watched those films.

I grew up in an unhappy home with no father and a verbally abusive mother. I made adjustments and survived. Now I worry about the child next door. The two adults, one of whom is her mother, fight frequently. The little girl cries and screams "No. No." They pay no attention to her except to scold her. She has no friends. She never goes out to play. No one visits her.

I am their closest neighbor. I often feel that I should do something, but I don't see what possible measure I can take that would be positive and not cause more trouble. If and until I decide what to do, I can ultimately trust, as I trusted myself, that she will grow up, make the proper adjustments to her lopsided life and survive.

DB - The Vagabond's Journey
Never give up.

Choosing Sides

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Alfred Tennyson
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Which side are we on? Those who consider Osama bin Laden a hero, consider Barack Obama a villain. Which side are we on? Those who consider Al Queda friends, consider the current American government an enemy. Which side are we on?

And why must we take sides at all? I was born into a nation which I came to understand was the vanguard of cultural coexistence, liberty. opportunity and human rights. At least it was in theory. I saw the struggles, and got involved in some of them, to try and establish those ideals as true. But all the time I was growing up, and still today I hear about who is in and who is out, who is right and who is wrong, even who is an American and who isn't.

I have also seen the American ideal plummet into ignorance, divisiveness, sensationalism and street corner nastiness. What brought us so low? We are caught in an evil vise where Americans are bombing Muslims and Muslims are bombing Americans. As long as we keep bombing them they will keep bombing us and as long as they keep bombing us we will keep bombing them. What kind of so-called leadership ever brought us to this desperate madness? In all my reading and viewing I haven't found one serious example of anyone trying to figure out why. .I don't know what the average citizen in an Islamic country thinks, but I know that the average American doesn't.

Islam may be the fastest growing religion in the world, but the Muslim fanatics are not going to make the United States a Muslim country any more than the fanatical Christians are going to make it a Christian country in spite of their claims.

Where are the diplomats, the statesmen and women, those who can discuss without venomous name calling? Why can't responsible, progressive thinkers sit down with theologians of all faiths, find out what are the common denominators of Constitutional law, Parliamentary law, Talmudic law and Sheria law, and from there start to work out compromises that allow for a real coexistence among people, a newer world?

Or should we just continue to attack each other until someone drops THE BIG ONE?

Which side are we on? From my point of view, considering the power, technology and weaponry available, it has never been more important to grasp the need to make the world more livable for every nation and to demonstrate what the American ideal was about from the beginning. Are savagery, brutality and war our ideals, or mutual respect, honest competition and good sportsmanship? It is too late to regress into outgrown positions, but to seek and inch forward into a newer world "Tis not too late."

DB - The Vagabond
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AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

Only 5 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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