Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one below.) You respond with something CREATIVE
Each for ALL
“For our safety, Earth’s people shall be One!” But cohesive families are meant to be small. Single edicts for world masses they would run. “For our safety, Earth’s people shall be One!”
Broader than the farthest reaches of the sun Diverse clans fight such tyranny ‘each for All’. “For our safety, Earth’s people shall be One!” But cohesive families are meant to be small.
This morning my granddaughter texted me from school asking to be “signed out” and for a ride home. It took only a few minutes by text to confirm her mom’s okay and let her know that I was on my way. How cool is that? It probably doesn’t seem extraordinary to anyone under 25 but the development of technology during my lifetime has given us many good outcomes. That ‘good’ news is currently overshadowed by a flood of bad news about the ‘evil’ perpetrated online. Who didn’t imagine a ‘downside’ to something that brought us so much good? It’s there. Let’s learn and adapt.
We mustn’t ignore the ‘bad’. Gosh, it’s scary to think about. But it seems complaining and outrage has overtaken the old philosophy of “live and learn”. Any innovation to solve problems doesn’t seem to ‘rule the day’. Doesn’t anyone remember “necessity is the mother of invention”? Most of what we call ‘progress’ was born from a problem that needed to be solved.
But there’s more to this morning’s tale… My daughter gave us the ‘thumbs up’ on the dismissal but my son-in-law wasn’t told about it in the interest of time. Before my granddaughter and I got home, I stopped for a gallon of milk at a convenience store. While there, my granddaughter’s phone lit up with a message from Dad. “What are you doing at a store? You’re supposed to be at school.”
Ahhh. I remember during the early days of cellphones imagining ways kids could mislead their parents about their location. [ We were once teenagers ourselves. You can’t possibly imagine that they wouldn’t find that loophole.]
But the necessity of parents to keep track of their kids encouraged them to ‘learn’ and caused the development of an app that would notify them of their child’s cellphone location. Genius! That innovation has endless potential in favor of safety.
Bad things can be tamed, even conquered, when we promote innovation. [That’s a large part of our American spirit.]
Why does it lately appear that we’re trending toward just ‘banning things’ as the go-to, inefficient, and lazy solution? Didn’t we learn anything from Prohibition?
Seems like our society is taking a really bad turn. There’s a lot of ‘banning’ proposed. Even worse, there’s a clear movement toward simply indulging our problems rather than creating solutions to them. This widespread surrender of problem solving isn’t going to end well. I don’t even know where it came from.
A rise in homelessness? Give them tents. A rise in drug abuse? Give them the tools to use. A rise in single motherhood? Offer them abortions.
I didn’t intend for this to be what many might consider a “political” post. I don’t think it is at all. “Giving up” isn’t a political topic. It’s a tragedy for us all.
I can’t imagine why “live and learn” has been replaced with “whatever”.
So, I am asking, why has that philosophy gone missing?
Your prompt for #JusJoJan the 14th and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “once upon a time.” Start your post with “Once upon a time,” then write whatever comes to you, whether it be fact or fiction. Have fun!
Once upon a time on the African savannah, rabbits lived happily in their dens. The savannah was dangerous, and they knew some of them would fall prey to predators, extreme weather, and disease but they took precautions and counted upon their instincts which had been, so far, the safest way to live wild and free. One summer some of the rabbits became aware of jackals on their perimeter and naturally avoided them. Their ancient warning system of stomps and flashing their white tails kept the communities informed of that danger. But when the jackals failed to move to invade their area, the rabbits grew less attentive to their presence until a few got close enough for the jackals to communicate with. The jackals smiled and told the rabbits that they’d come to enjoy watching the rabbits so much that they would be willing to serve as their protectors by keeping an ‘eye’ out for any danger that might arise and report it to them. The proposal made the persuasive claim that jackals covered far more area and certainly had access to a larger and farther source of information than rabbits could obtain. Soon the rabbits agreed to that partnership. The jackals would laze in the shade offering the rabbits frequent reports on elephant migration, impending floods, and hungry hyenas and rabbits could now be free from all dangers. The rabbits soon came to the decision that thumping feet and flagging tails were ‘old school’ and unreliable methods that served no more use to them since they’d found such a modern solution. The happy, carefree, rabbits grew in numbers. The trust in ‘jackal reports’ became nearly universal. When an occasional rabbit thumped his foot, the others shamed him and called him an ‘alarmist’ and troublemaker until he ‘got with the program’.
Once the jackals realized that their reports had gained complete acceptance, they went right to work. Occasional ‘made up’ reports of raiding hyenas sent some rabbits running outside of their domain in panic. Those outliers were abruptly gobbled up! The next day report from those jackals made no mention of the missing rabbits and instead foretold of new imminent dangers producing the delicious same affect. No doubt, the most gullible rabbits were their easiest and most constant meal tickets.
And so, it still goes on the savannah, the rabbits no longer trust in their ability to warn each other, have a delusional sense of ‘perfect’ safety, and refuse to listen to (even bash) any rabbits who ‘think outside of the box’ suspecting that jackal con game. Those choosing to trust their instincts over the reporting from jackals are sadly becoming rarer every day. Notably, the most effective panicked response to date has been the reaction to the recent report of a deadly disease sweeping the area. Boy, are those jackals getting fat!
Just so ya know, this isn’t The End but the most promising prospect for Happily Ever After still belongs to the jackals at the moment.
Happy Saturday friends! (I’m busy tomorrow so I need to post my stream today.)
[I had no idea that an old English tale about a jackal and rabbit existed before I wrote this post. This tale came directly from my own Stream of Consciousness. I’ll be looking it up to read and compare English tale with mine soon. When I searched for the image for this post, the existence of the other tale popped up.]
Nope! We weren’t going on a boat again. The kids got seasick the last time and learned nothing more than how to vomit over the railing without falling in. We hadn’t saved enough money to fly anywhere so trapsing the Nature’s Wonders Club of 8-year-olds through our own local natural wonders seemed thebest decision. One of the parents offered to drive us to the base of the trail leading to our famous woodland peak which was the tallest in our state. I would carry a concealed handgun which I’d thoroughly oiled and loaded in private. It was likely I wouldn’t need to shoot it but having it was the wisest thing to do. Some of the parents may have objected but speaking to them about the value of guns in the wild was out of the question. Naive and ignorant of many topics concerning Nature and pro-active safety, discussing my decision would have complicated the matter and brought political resistance into play. Bears and ‘bad guys’ aren’t usually political, but they are, on occasion, more dangerous than those who are.
Now we are at a crime scene! Lights, rescue crews, and State Police surround my huddled, yet safe, group of 6. Professionals worked to preserve the drug evidence and are done with the questioning. We’d had a great time telling ghost stories and roasting marshmallows by the overnight fire, but on our way back in the morning, two men surprised us on the trail. They were most certainly drug smugglers who didn’t want any witnesses. My handgun saved us from certain death by wounding one and detaining the other. The kids had gotten more than a Nature training but a real-life lesson about not allowing strangers to get too close and that carrying a gun can be the right choice. Not one parent has complained about me carrying a gun since.
Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one below.) You respond with something CREATIVE
On a walk in the forest went Joan, Forgetting to bring her cellphone. Her hat later found, With no one around. Why the heck did she set off alone?
Will she ever be found, who can say? People still think this reeks of foul play. Public places seem nice, But take some advice, Make your safety your own job each day.
Yumi motioned to Ernesto to follow her outside once Abria was safely tucked into bed and offered him an ancient cellphone, a small amount of money, and what sounded like an order for him to proceed to the border without his little sister who didn’t have the strength to make it.
Ernesto knew she was right about Abria but, having every ounce of trust beaten out of him by now, decided to spark a conversation about Yumi’s relationship to Maria so he could be sure that his sister was in good hands.
Theirs was a similar journey 40 years before when Maria was forced to leave her best friend Yumi behind in this little village deathly ill and unable to continue to the sanctuary of the United States of America.
Satisfied of Yumi’s ability to care for Abria until he could send for her, Ernesto bid Yumi farewell with instructions conveyed to her by Aunt Maria for him to reach Mission Texas and set out to reconnect with Mig to complete the perilous trek. ******
George Navarro was just about to the end of his 20-hour border patrol shift in Mission Texas when he heard a terrified bloodcurdling squeal ahead of him and gave his horse a kick galloping toward the sound.
He spotted a real four-legged coyote yanking a lone small child by the hood of his jacket to the ground with four other pack members drawing a closing circle, so he lifted his rifle and neutralized one sending the rest scattering as George swiftly dismounted and swept the sobbing child into his arms.
She’d always thought her grandparents- born at the beginning of the 20th century- were the generation who witnessed the most dynamic human change in a lifetime, but the cultural changes of her sixty-six years eclipsed those industrial, medical, and technological advances they had beheld.
Her stomach twisted every time she reminisced about her childhood of jumping rope on the playground and feeling completely safe only to return to her present, a place and time of declared progress yet tragically foreign and ominous.
She’d like to blame it all on the 1960s but on closer examination there really was a labyrinth of cultural rot that went unnoticed while the rapid “advancement” of the human experience was cheered along.
The hippies, militaristic feminism, and the drug culture, were just the first glaringly emboldened movements to take center stage; all made possible by the everyday comforts and prosperity that the enormous leap of the sciences had secured.
Earlier, when she walked by the schoolyard, small children stood separated wearing surgical masks just twirling in circles with one child erupting in a rant filled with vulgar language getting no notice from the teacher nearby.
One child’s eyes widened with shock and met hers, but to steal her hoping to guard her precious innocence was not possible, so she wept for her instead as she walked home praying for all those children’s future.
Mensen maken de samenleving en nemen daarin een positie in. Deze website geeft toegang tot een diversiteit aan artikelen die gaan over 'samenleven', belicht vanuit verschillende perspectieven. De artikelen hebben gemeen dat er gezocht wordt naar wat 'mensen bindt, in plaats van wat hen scheidt'.
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