The rain has continued steadily from yesterday, so we are getting a good soaking. I love the sound of it. Surely this will help the vegetation around, and clean the air. I am picking my friend up from radiation today, and then we're going out to lunch. After that, I pick up my foster granddaughter and we will work on her gifts some more. I bought some good iron-on decorations and feel she's going to make really nice presents.
I realize that it is not November 22, and I am already a bit sick of all the hoopla around the 50th anniversary around JFK's assassination. Somehow, all the attention seems trivalizing not respectful. And I am even sick of the Gettysburg Address anniversary. I guess I don't much like the media's manipulation of us. Maybe it is useful to younger people. A history lesson. But I don't really see touchy issues addressed: like the hatred towards public figures and what that means psychologically (Gabby Giffords, for instance) or how we need our Presidents to remind us why we have government and what it would mean if we didn't (Obama has attempted this on occasion, but we need more framing of who we are, what government does for us, and that there will always be a cost to individual liberty). Instead, we get the same stale images and cliched reactions, and then we romanticize and idealize these very human figures, and that makes us turn away from the ugliness that we ought to face, at least once in a while.
Why are we afraid to talk about hate? That is what young people could really use some help with. We need to admit it in ourselves, and see the causes and conditions of it's dominance over some of us. We need to know how to counter and name it, so it does not go underground and harm.
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