Jan 7, 2014

Ode to Cold



I love listening to the winter weather -- the wind, the trees, and the stillness, when it comes. I love the winter sky. I love the personality in the bare branches.
I love the variety of winter coats and the funky ways we wear our hats and scarves. I like mismatched gloves.
I love seeing little kids wrapped up tightly with such loving care that they look like Weeble People -- "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down."
I don't like the sound of my car when it starts up on a day like today, but I like that it starts up. And I like, when the engine warms up, sitting in my car and having a cup of hot chocolate and a Krispy Kreme cruller, gazing at the sky.  
-- ADM, January 7, 2014

Jan 4, 2014

Asking "Why?" not just "Why not?"

Reading in today's paper about D.C. news personality J.C. Hayward and the Options Public Charter School lawsuit.
How far have we really come when our measurements of a good, successful life are limited to (1) social status/fame and (2) wealth? We MUST know better than that, yet we keep perpetuating that standard. Look at how we so quickly defend entrepreneurs with the lame excuse, "Hey, that's just business!" Is there no line? Should we at least not question ourselves, ponder long and hard, and then moderate our thinking and our behavior, if necessary?
There is no one who walks a straight line from start to finish, and I'm not suggesting that. I am saying: Along the way of life, in this quest for a good life, can we sometimes stop and ask ourselves why -- not just why not?
Can the answers to "why" justify the decisions we will make? They might indeed. What seems wrong could be right. Each situation is different, and we don't always see the whole picture, know the whole story. We might end up saying, "Oh, now I see why."
Then there are things that seem wrong on the surface. A closer examination reveals a certain wrongness and selfishness at the very root.
This desire some people have to be universally loved, liked, adored, revered, and celebrated 24/7/365, as, seemingly, with J.C. Hayward, is a rather sad thing, The desire to acquire wealth by any means necessary, as alleged against the charter board's officers, is disgusting. Always has been. Let's see what all the evidence reveals.