Tag Freedom

Faithfully yours

Michael 5 Comments

Even though I’m still reeling from some of the most dictatorial events of all time that have happened and are happening in this country this week, I still have faith that I can find good news to celebrate. (And yes they are dictatorial. Find a German who was around in 1932 and ask if there is any difference between then there and here now.) (Anyway…)

What good went on this week?

The Wellbeing Research Centre releases its annual report on countries’ relative happiness. They polled 100,000 people from 147 countries on their perceived quality of life. This year’s report found Finland taking the top spot (for the eighth successive year), with Denmark, Iceland and Sweden, and The Netherlands rounding out the top five. Surprises included Costa Rica (sixth) and Mexico (tenth), both in the top ten for the first time. Other countries making it into the top ten are Norway, Luxemburg, and Israel. The good ole USA comes in at 24th. (In ‘Freedom” the U.S. comes in at #115. That puts us behind some democratic stalwarts like Mongolia (113), Venezuela (103), and Russia (102).)

From just as recently as 2021, statues in London honoring men have outpaced those honoring women.  Since then, more statues honoring women have been unveiled than in the entire second half of the 20th century. These included war heroes, pop culture icons, medical pioneers, and even royalty (Queen Elizabeth II, England’s longest reigning monarch, received her first statue in 2023.) Why should we care about what happens in London. Because women do things. So do all kinds of humas who are not white and/or orange males. Besides, they scored higher than us on the happiness scale so they must know something.

In April, the Salt Spring Island (B.C.) office of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) received the request from an out-of-town family to check on their elderly father who they’d not heard from. Officer Cst. Lloyd found the senior who appeared to have been living in unhealthy conditions, reluctant to engage, and adamant that he did not need help. The officer stayed with him for over an hour and developed a rapport with the older gentleman. In time, he agreed to be transported to the hospital to be checked. Last month, the man showed up at the RCMP Salt Spring Island office to share the news that he had unknowingly been bleeding internally for some time and, according to doctors, would have succumbed in the next 24 hours had it not been for the intervention of Officer Lloyd. No word if Officer Lloyd was fully masked and decked out in battle gear. I kind of think not. Canada also ranked ahead of us (way ahead of us) on the happiness scale.

Descendants of the Maya in Belize (aka indigenous people) are reviving an old game (even older than the NFL – oh my!). Pok-ta-pok, today the national sport of Belize, is billed as the world’s oldest team ballgame. It’s more curious news than good news but I wanted to bring it up because even though Belize came in one space behind the U.S. on the happiness scale, they ranked #1 in freedom. See what happens when you are nice to your indigenous neighbors.

I have faith you enjoyed this roundup of good news. Hmm. Did I use ‘faith’ properly, or could another word been better. Check out what we wrote about faith in An Article of Faith, this week’s Uplift post at ROAMcare.

Oh, if you’re interested, here’s is a link to the World Happiness Report dashboard compiled by the Gallup organization from this year’s wellbeing report.

Making Beautiful Music Together – Revisited

Michael 5 Comments

While I was pondering what to post on a day that falls between the second of July (lower case “s” and the Fourth of July (upper case “F,” aka Independence Day), I found that recently I had definitely overplayed the not as entertaining as it used to be “weekend holiday sales theme,” the self-righteous “everybody is wrong about what this holiday means” theme, the angry “why do people keep referencing their [fill your favorite amendment] and what they authors of [that favorite amendment] meant when nobody alive now was around when [said aforementioned amendment] was passed” theme.

What was I to do? I went back and checked on some of the previous Fourth of July aka Independence Day posts and found one that I really like, and it wasn’t even sarcastic or flippant. So I’m reposting that here and then I’ll be back at the end to tell you what I think about it today. (This post isn’t that old and some of you might actually remember it.)

For some reason I was thinking of a time ago when my daughter was a teenager filling her after school day hours with after school activities. Two of those activities, or one with two arms perhaps, were concert band and marching band when she played flute and piccolo respectively. The thing about those particular winds is that, except for perhaps in the fingers of Ian Anderson, they rarely play much that by themselves would be recognizable as music. While she would practice, I couldn’t be sure she was playing the right notes but during the performances, with the other winds, strings, and percussion, all the individual pieces came together to form true music. Every now and then an instrument might be featured in a solo, but for far longer the group played ensemble to make the really good stuff.

In a sappy poetic way, America is like those bands. Alone, we don’t sound like much. We’re single instruments playing random notes that make little sense alone. If you put all the piccolos together, they still don’t make much musical sense, only now they make it louder. Likewise, groups of like-thinking individuals spouting the same lines make little sense even when making a lot of noise. No, it’s not the number of people that make the country, it’s the variety. It might not work for other countries and that’s fine, but for America to work, there must be different voices, playing different parts of the same song.

Lately too many of us have been closing our ears to the other instruments that make up the American band. We’re content hearing only our own part, or worse, playing only solos. Then we question why others aren’t thinking the same thing. Oddly, the others are wondering likewise, everybody convinced their part is the main part, that their idea is the right idea. Why won’t everybody think alike? It really isn’t a matter of why everybody won’t think or say or do the same things. It’s because we can’t. We can’t think the same things because we don’t have the same backgrounds to formulate those thoughts. No matter how hard a piccolo tries, it cannot reach the same notes as a tuba.

You can only listen to a tuba solo – or piccolo or sax or marimba – for so long before you get up and walk out on the concert. The strength of the band, the beauty of the music, is not in the instrument. It is in the players who know when to play their notes, trusting that by allowing the other musicians to play their own notes, they will make beautiful music together.

This Independence Day, take a moment to think about how our differences are what makes us unique as a country. Yes, celebrate those differences, but celebrate the whole also. The music sounds best when all the instruments are playing together. Celebrate this Independence Day and enjoy our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of really good harmony.

We’re quite thankful for the freedoms we have and for those who continue to work to keep them for us.  I was one of those some years ago doing just that.  So maybe that’s why when I talk about what freedom means, or how I’d like to envision an harmonious country, I’m willing to take a few liberties with our liberties.  Be as rebellious as you want, but be mindful that freedom doesn’t come easy.  Nor does it come by the actions of one person, one group, or one party.

Go ahead and selfishly enjoy your freedom tomorrow. Wednesday, get back to the work of playing your part to see that next year you can again celebrate with those you don’t see eye to eye with, but you couldn‘t be an American without.

“Love begins with listening,” says Fred Rogers. In the latest Uplift! we say why we think that listening is an essential way of saying I love you, and might be the greatest gift we can give to somebody. (Approximate reading time = 3 minutes)

Happy Birthday America!

With liberty and justice for all who are just like me

Michael 9 Comments

Listen up Americans. Today is Juneteenth, a legal, federal holiday in the US. That means no mail, don’t stop at the bank, and keep alert for road closures during parade hours.

That’s about as much as most Americans know about this holiday. And frankly, that’s about all that most Americans know about any holiday other than Super Bowl Sunday. Something that happened 150 years ago isn’t on the collective radar. “Do I get to keep my gun” and “It’s my right to free speech” are all about what most Americans are concerned with when it comes to American history. It’s a shame that more effort isn’t put into the wide-ranging interpretation of so many other things that are ensconced in the National Archives, like “All men are created equal.”

Back in the middle of the nineteenth century, there was no Internet, no Twitter or its various alternatives, no Facebook, no 24 hour cable news networks. There was basically word of mouth supplemented by telegraph. Even routine mail delivery was limited to few cities and newspapers took the “news” part of their name somewhat tentatively. So the fact that it took over two years to inform the entire country that slavery had been abolished is, although not the best look for the rebuilding government, not completely surprising. The fact that it took 156 years to formally recognize it as a happening worthy of celebration is appalling.

There is another fact that is -ing-worthy. The fact that so little has been written anywhere about Juneteenth is concerning. It has gotten so little press you might think it still is 1865 and the news media is slow in getting around to the news part of things. Granted, this is only the third official celebration of Juneteenth as a national holiday. I suppose the American retailers haven’t yet decided if it will be a good holiday to sell mattresses, used cars, or major appliances. A holiday isn’t a holiday without its own merchandising identity. Coming so close to Father’s Day, propane grills and patio furniture are out of the running.

Again, considering the holiday is but three years old, there hasn’t been enough time for the crazies across the country to work up their usual rallies, protests, or boycotts. There is a chance that Juneteenth might escape those demonstrations of ignorance and anti-inclusivity since many of the loons who would be organizing them are so busy in June protecting us from the terrors of Pride Month.

For those who have made it this far, here is a serious and real history lesson. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Lincoln on September 22, 1862, and took effect January 1, 1863, declaring that slaves held within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” The last state to release slaves as directed by the Proclamation was Texas on June 19, 1965 (hence “Juneteenth”), but that was not the last state to free slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation addressed only states under Confederate control. It wasn’t under the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified in December 1865, that slavery was officially abolished in the United States. Sort of. The Amendment was ratified by the legislatures of 27th state to do so as required then by the Constitution on December 6, 1985 and it was certified by the Secretary of State on December 18, 1865. Because of some conflict with an existing state law on the gradual release of slaves, New Jersey had to amend its state constitution in order to comply with US law, and it wasn’t until January 23, 1866, when New Jersey, a Union State, freed its last 16 slaves.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Rest, recovery, and reflection are the three Rs we are not taught. We need rejuvenate ourselves so we can get back to the serious stuff of life. Just not 24/7. Read our tale in the most recent Uplift! of a time seriousness was seriously overrated. Approximate reading time = 4 minutes.

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The pursuit of clean, filtered air

Michael 2 Comments

I saw an interesting Tweet yesterday. “Going to the US in just a couple days. Planning to wear a mask whenever I’m in public. Looking for fun and creative (preferably not too political) reasons to give in case anyone asks why I’m wearing one.“

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The Tweeter(?) obviouslly lives outside the United States and wants to protect herself against a virus that is still raging, even though less actively than a few weeks ago, while visiting a country with a COVID death rate twice the rest of the world’s – and 82 times higher than her country! (WorldOMeter, “COVID Live – Coronavirus Statistics,” March 9, 2022)  According to a New York Times analysis of mortality, since the first Omicron case was reported in the United States in December 2021, Americans have been killed by the coronavirus at a rate at least 63 percent higher than other large, wealthy nations and was averaging about 2,500 deaths per day. (New York Times, “U.S. Has Far Higher Covid Death Rate Than Other Wealthy Countries.” Feb 1, 2022) The report went on to state that the only European countries with higher death rates are Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece, and the Czech Republic.

Oddly enough, even though the CDC changed their masking recommendations this month, the federal vaccine mandate was never enforced and now seems to be headed for reversal by the courts, and most limitations on businesses have been removed, people still want to protest them.  Brian Brase, the organizer of the so-called People’s Convoy that just burned countless gallons of gasoline and diesel circling Washington, DC, has called mandates an “infringement on their freedoms” as recently as this week. (Washington Post, “‘People’s Convoy’ organizers meet with GOP lawmakers amid pandemic-related demonstrations,” Mar 8, 2022).

You know that I recently was hospitalized with COVID pneumonia in spite of vaccines and mitigation (TRYing to stay 6 feet away from unmasked miscreants sneezing their offensive germs into public spaces like grocery stores and churches). I empathize with our aforementioned Tweeter because I will be going out in public still masked and standing a safe distance from those who aren’t. What should I say to them? Clearly somebody with more pickup truck parts than brains will come up to me and say, quite politely I’m sure, “What’s the f**k wrong with you, you retard? Act like an American and take that f**king mask off, a$$ho*e!” How do I know? Because it’s already happened, and it happened before the CDC issued new guidance. Months before the recent new guidance was released (which really requires people to have an understanding of the surge of cases in their particularly are and the relative burden placed on the local health care systems (read, too difficult for your average simian to even say, yet understand so let’s just concentrate on the no masks part)), the CDC guidelines recommended that those who were fully vaccinated, may attend small indoor gatherings with other fully vaccinated individuals without masking. This was interpreted as “you don’t need to wear no more masks any more yippee yahoo but let’s keep protesting masks anyway” by the under 65 (as in IQ score) crowd. And yes, I had been approached by inquiring sorts of that ilk, while in public with my mouth and nose stylishly clad in the latest surgical garb as to why I was wearing a mask. “Don’t you believe in science?”

Considering how adamant so many non-maskers were in demanding understanding on their positions and their rights to their freedom to breath the air as it was intended, I hope they will also understand why those of us who are medically challenged, immunocompromised, or just plain leery that a long term accord has been reached between the United States of America and SARS-COV-2, elect to exercise our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of breathing clean, filtered air.

And while we at it, it seems to me that those still calling masks, vaccines, and other life-saving measures “infringements on their freedoms,” need to spend some time in the Ukraine right now.

Rockets Glaring Red

Michael Leave a comment

It would be too easy to write up a quick post on the Fourth of July and what it means to us.  Instead, here’s a quick post on what it could have meant to us.  Actually there were two big holidays this year that fall into this “could have been” category:  Independence Day and yes, Groundhog Day.

Groundhog Day is a big deal around here, “here” being the very tight confines of our residences and work places and mostly only when we are there.  Somebody has to keep up a tradition.  Type “Groundhog Day” into our search box and see how many posts will pop up.  It’s so special that it’s the only topic that hosts our only post of a photograph.

What made it very special this year is that it fell on a weekend.  Legitimately that could have meant a trip to the rascal’s lair so we could have seen for ourselves how this ball of fur became the world’s greatest meteorologist.  True, you need a good 3 or 4 year advance plan to get a hotel room but a slightly worn, rented RV could have done the job.   But He’s health just wasn’t going to cooperate and it was a plan better not even brought up.

And now, it the same year, the Fourth of July sits on Friday just begging to be the start of a terrific three day weekend.  Where we live is a pretty good place for fireworks.  Some of the best are put on several times a year within a handful of miles from either of our houses.   But it is the Fourth of July.  No matter how good the ones in our own backyards may be, doesn’t the thought of seeing the display at our nation’s birthplace in Philadelphia or exploding over the same Fort McHenry that Francis Scott Key kept in sight before writing the words for the Star Spangled Banner make you want to check hotel reservations (or RV rental agreements)?  But again, no good cooperation from that package of skin and bones that he keeps dragging around every day.

Strangely, the two holidays aren’t that dissimilar.  It’s because of the actions taken on the Fourth of July some 238 years ago that we can make fools of ourselves on the Second of February.  The cynic in all of us is going to raise its ugly head and ask if that’s the only thing we can relate freedom to, some silly fur-lined frenzy.  Actually, no, it’s not.

We’re quite thankful for the freedoms we have and for those who continue to work to keep them for us.  In fact, He was one of those for some years some years ago doing just that.  So maybe that’s why when we talk about what freedom means to us we’re willing to take a few liberties with our liberties.  Be as serious as you want this weekend and be mindful that freedom doesn’t come easy.  Be as thankful as you can be for those who aren’t going to get to see the artificial displays that we’ll Ooh and Ahh over. But if you really want to thank those who are doing the hard work so you can enjoy the rockets’ multicolor displays, do something special with it.

Maybe make plans to go visit your favorite rodent or your favorite spot on the beach.  And go ahead and selfishly enjoy them.  That’s what they are there for.  The ones making sure they are won’t mind.

We think that because of the cycle of leap years between now and then that Groundhog Day and Independence Day will both be on weekends again in a mere five years.  Maybe if we start planning now…  Hmm.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Liberty and Justice for All

Michael 1 Comment

They are at it again.  It’s that time.  Easter is around the corner and a Michigan based organization of atheists of all people cannot let a religious holiday go by without a celebration.  Now they seem to think that the Ten Commandments are unfit for American consumption. 

This startling report comes after a child is shot and killed in the name of a neighborhood watch.  After a bonded security guard kills his partner and makes off with $2 million.  After five people were found so gruesomely murdered investigators can’t even figure out how they were killed.   Yes, the last thing we need in this country is a moral compass, a set of rules, directions on how to tell the difference between right and wrong. 

If you haven’t had a chance to read our special post, “We Hold These Truths” (January 13, 2012), please do.  It’s long.  It’s far from politically correct.  It has the words “Church” and “Constitution” in the same paragraph.  We think it makes a world of sense.   

We won’t repeat the discussion on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that we presented in January.  We do want to repeat that regardless of what some dolts in Michigan say, the authors of the Bill of Rights don’t say anything about building an atheistic society under the guise of an oft-claimed separation of church and state.     

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

If you don’t recognize it, that is the Famous First Amendment.  The whole thing.  Every word of it.  That’s the one in which Congress says it won’t say how you will worship, and that nobody in the government can stop you from worshipping.  It doesn’t say that you are not allowed to worship, not even in public.  It says that Congress will not prohibit the free exercise of religion, not that Congress will prohibit religion. 

If we had a choice we’d tell the atheists to go to hell.  The only reason we don’t is they probably don’t believe in hell either.  Where do you send a dolt to spend all eternity in despair?  Should we send them to the courtrooms to listen to the testimony of those trying to wiggle out of murder charges?  Maybe we should send them to the crime scenes where real dead bodies lie from the hands of those who didn’t understand “thou shalt not kill.”  Or perhaps they should see their life savings disappear to the charlatan “brokers” who amassed fortunes by stealing from retirement plans and savings accounts.  But whatever you do, don’t send them to church to pray for innocent children who die while left behind to fend for themselves.

Sorry, not so funny today.  But there’s nothing funny about some dolts worried that there is a plaque of The Ten Commandments outside a school.  They should be more worried if people ever stop teaching The Ten Commandments to the children. 

To heck with it.  Hey!  Any atheists out there who are so stuck on this separation of church and state thing that you can’t see how good you have it here, why don’t you just go to hell.  You’ll find your way easily enough.  The signs are all around you.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?