Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Year/Decade End!


In a few hours it’ll be 2020.  A New Year.  A New Decade.  A time in which many are taking stock.

I find there is a lot more looking back than looking forward.  Most Memorable Moments.  Best film.  How new technology changed our lives.  Worst film.  Advances in medicine.  Best TV show.  Person of the Year/Decade.  Worst TV show.  Etc.

I choose to live in the present and look forward.  The problem with my choice is that what occurs to me first, what looms ahead most ominously, is all the bad stuff.  The outlook for what matters most to me is dismal.  The list is long:

Human rights
The environment
The rule of law
A democratic form of government
Freedom – of thought and action
Tolerance for the other
Personal safety
And more . . .

What matters most are under attack and are not winning.  In the past I’ve had a basic assumption that even if it looks bad it’ll all turn out OK.  In the end the good guys will win.  More and more in the past Year/Decade my basic assumption looks less likely to happen.

Is it really hopeless?  Thankfully, I’m not willing to give up yet.  I’m willing to be skeptical but am not ready to let hopelessness win.  Not today.  And not in the Year/Decade that begins tomorrow.

Onward . . .

Monday, December 16, 2019

Boring!



I’m a news junkie, so one would assume I’d be paying a lot of attention to the unending stream of “Breaking News” stories with which we are inundated 24/7.  But that’s not what’s happening.  Instead I find that much of what is Breaking is Boring.

Especially the political stuff.  What I’m being fed is an unending stream of predictable, partisan tripe.  Boring!  Like most people, where I stand on the political issues of the day are pretty much already set in stone.  So nothing that is being said is going to change my mind.  But that doesn’t stop the politicians.  Their views, too, are set in stone, so nothing they say is new.  Not new, and Boring!

I’m sure that when the impeachment trial in the Senate begins I’ll be watching.  But won’t this be just another example of predictable arguments being put forth ad nauseam, for days, weeks?  Boring!

There is one Breaking item about which I haven’t decided.  Who do I support to run against Trump?  More and more I’m becoming a Never Trumper.  If I had any degree of complacency on this score, the British election made it clear that beating him will not be easy.  The prospect of a Trump victory is truly alarming.  So this I’m paying attention to.

But better to watch a movie or read a book or take a nap than to subject yourself to all the garbage that is being thrown at us.  Boring!