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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Jay Bee
Published Letters: 55 Editor's Choice: 5
Descartes called it with "Cogito, ergo sum." I don't think this situation is far removed from the Terry Schiavo case of a few years ago.
As I see it, we have a pendulum problem. Not that long ago, babies with almost any deficiency (particularly those with poor families) were often killed, sometimes following lies to the parents about a stillbirth. This was sick and wrong.
But now we face the case that every child, no matter how disabled, retarded, or deformed, must be given every opportunity, no matter how futile the situation. In school after school, I see funding for gifted children falling by the wayside in the name of Special Ed. Had I been born into this century, I suspect I'd be a drugged out loser, long having been abandoned by a system not interested in my "special needs."
It is a daily battle for me to get any help for my daughter, a bright but sometimes emotionally fragile child. Most programs are not through her school, but are privately funded organizations, assuming that I have sufficient finances to get assistance. The truth is, many gifted children who could change the world need help in their own way.
I know we must retain our humanity in the face of harsh circumstances. But what is the line? Do we even ask difficult questions like this any more?
...for myself and a number of people I know, anyway. I was told Friday that I will only be working four days a week until things get better. I went to church and heard of jobs lost entirely yesterday. And then I was talking to another friend who told me of yet more acquaintances who are getting axed.
Admittedly, this is all anecdotal. But since I am in a field that was supposed to be a safe, safe bet (transportation consulting), I suspect we're just witnessing the tip of the iceberg.
Goodness, I have read too many posts on Salon, Huffington, and NYT among others. I am reading too many posts that do not possess an ounce of nuance and instead pounds of vitriol.
What continues to amaze me in this so-called "discussion" of race is the ongoing need to boil statements down to their basest elements, stripped of context, into a viscous gruel of bile and rage. I begin to feel like if I want a complex discussion of major issues I should just watch "Battlestar Galactica" DVD's.
We miss important points along the way to the present. Has anyone dared to posit that perhaps, just PERHAPS what is astounding about Barack is that, despite growing up without a father, despite having any inherent privileges, and DESPITE finding a good church with a flawed paster, he manages to conduct a balanced, race-free campaign for several months before being dragged into the mud pit by those on the left and the right?
Barack has put his faith into action, by believing that we can come together, and forgiving his pastor's excessive commentary. Why are so many of us unable to do the same? I cannot consider myself a Christian, lacking faith in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, but to put faith into practice in such a real, consistent, and yet progressive way warms my heart.
I am just another over-educated East Coast effete latte-sipping liberal, but one from a family so poor in my youth that we lived on canned mackerel and crackers for several months. I had a child far too young, and through an odd series of events, found myself married and in a poor minority neighborhood outside of Boston. I HAD thought I had overcome adversity. I never dealt with the obstacles that the children there, typically Black and Hispanic, saw on a daily basis. I didn't spend my youth dodging drug dealers, muggings, and car jackings. How could anyone succeed with so much thrown their way?
But someone did. And it wasn't Hillary Clinton. What is very interesting, and something lost in our rants here, is that Bill Clinton's story has much in common with Barack's. Bill was compelling for some of the very same reasons. But in the end, he was a white boy and didn't have to face the trials by fire that we see now.
This is a poorly-organized post, but I want to leave on last thought: I had many relatives with the "typical white person" reaction to race. I had a great-aunt who once told my now ex-wife that Hispanics working under poor conditions in an egg processing plant should be happy to have any job, since they should all be back in Mexico with "their kind" anyway. It took all but physical effort to keep my wife at time from striking her.
This is a good case of "hate the sin, love the sinner." If we toss out everyone with a racist thought or reaction, ostracize those with inherent contradiction in their thoughts and actions, we'll have all the world be a prison with only the wind as our guards.
The idea of very different technologies co-existing in human civilization is not terribly far-fetched at all, and reminds me of some of the discussions that wrapped around those few episodes of "Firefly."
Our military has submarines with nuclear cores that can travel for years without stopping. Meanwhile, many in the world must travel by horse, donkey, camel, or on foot.
Does anyone honestly think that if we find a way to bend or jump through space that older technologies will suddenly vanish?
Lastly, the FTL drives on this show require a rare material called tyllium that is difficult to find and even harder to refine. It's not the sort of thing that would lend itself to every day use.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
