Obscured Path
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the starry, cool island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Friday morning, the 5th day of December, 2014, expecting another beautiful morning before the rains/snows come in once again. Quite an active weather pattern don’t you think Mr. Inhofe? I should think you will do a splendid job come January, Chairing the U.S. Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee and all, we are so proud in Oklahoma! Especially ’cause your not “one of them unreasonable radical, left wing, liberal, dirty, filthy, hippy agitators” (credit the film “The Graduate”, circa 1967), believing in that global warmin’ crap and all, no sir!
You are one of us, the truly ignorant, uninformed Rush Limbaugh hater/listener, who has been instructed to not believe his or her own eyes (nor the many voices in his head), while viewing the news last night on corporate owned TV news station, coast to coast, with the head of the NYPD police union (what’s his name?) spouting off about the ‘fact’ that there was no choke hold on the late Eric Garner, no, ‘that was one of them fancy college wrestling moves the perp, I mean cop learned from his brother who attended Princeton’.
Yep, it’s Christmas season! Ho, Ho, Ho! You can tell because the past couple of nights in New York City has been just crazy! In fact the reaction to the annual lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, an 84 foot Norwegian Blue Spruce, was really up this year, I mean with all of those people running around malls saying they can’t breathe and something about ‘NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE’, really, I thought the whole off Broadway show was a bit much for the kids who were just trying to catch a glimpse of the tree, but hey, at least it was spirited. I too had a hard time catching my breath after the shopping spree at Bloomingdale’s, don’t even get me started on Macy’s…’
You can’t force someone to change their heart. No more than you can change the weather. If a comet were hurtling towards earth at this precise moment, there would be room for some concern, no? But 400 parts per million of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere now (not that high since the days of ‘The Flintstones’, you know, roughly 6000 years ago Mitch?!), that little cataclysmic FACT can be ignored. Even though it may be tough to book a room for the next Winter Olympics. But denial is everywhere these days is it not?
The fact that the NYPD’s union went on TV last night telling us all (with their collective lack of a neck), that there ‘is nothing to see here folks’, that your eyes don’t work so good and you should have your head examined for even thinking about questioning one of our ‘model’ (their exact words) police officers who went above and beyond the call of duty by taking out that…oh, we’re not doing that? But we rehearsed it at the station? OK, I get it, it’s Christmas time, OK. What I was saying is that I am very proud of our boys in blue. America’s finest and no matter what that De Blasio says, we don’t use choke holds no more (thousands of complaints in New York City this year alone regarding these deadly choke holds banned in 1993 by the NYPD–unbeknownst to them apparently), we get it. And we will try to be more, what’s that words? Oh yeah, sensitive and compassionate about people’s feelings and such, especially during this mourning period of major loss for the African-American community, not only in New York, but in Ferguson and all across this great land of ours, bringing us together in peace, community and a common purpose of living and thriving in the greatest city in the world.” How was that? Do you think they bought it? I hope so, because I worked on that speech all day. Forget about it….
May you all have a beautiful week end, hopefully turning off all of this unrest in this wonderful country of ours; praying to a bowl of oatmeal if you have to that somehow we must all learn to live with one another without killing one another. Really, not that hard of a bar to clear…
All of the lesser angels of our makeup as human beings—anger, rage, hate, jealousy, revenge, despair and hopelessness… Embracing those feelings and championing those sentiments is not what this experience on this little blue rock called Earth is all about. Quite the opposite really. Love, Joy, Peace are all attributes we all have within us and represent the higher angels of our nature. Those very virtues, real gifts from a greater force than you or I could ever define in words or any other form of communication, are the very things we hide when things get tough. Peaceful protests, over time, like the Colorado River, will cut a deep Grand Canyon through that nasty ignorance, hate, racism and fear. For what is racism anyway but ignorant fear turned inward on itself, coming out in ways of violence such as what we ALL witnessed with our OWN EYES once again in the case of that 43 year old Staten Island man, Eric Garner, may he rest in peace, who left behind a family (that is just as important as Officer fill in the blank’s), who will not be with him on Christmas morning…all because of a 50 cent cigarette?
‘Tis true that every officer of the law should be able to go home at the end of his shift, safely and in one piece, Amen, Amen I say unto you Amen. But so too should the average citizen in this here US of A. The call to arms against our own citizens is insane and will result in another Michael Brown, Tamir Rice or Eric Garner, may they all rest in peace. We must look within and guard against the easy way out–VIOLENCE & HATE.
The answer always was and always will be LOVE. Love takes work and work takes LOVE. When those two words are synonymous, well then, you might be on to something.
Again, have a great week end everybody and get out and enjoy NATURE BABY!
PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
