What To Do, What To Do?

I think I'm Piglet.

I'm trying to be brave.
I really want to be helpful, but I'm just not sure of how to make that happen.
And today, I'm scared.
I feel very small and lost in the mist.

Here's what scares me:

I'm frightened by the ugliness I see on social media, coming from all sides.  No matter what happens in Washington, DC or our statehouses in the next 2-4 years, can we ever repair the fissure that the 2016 elections have ripped in our national consciousness?

I'm frightened by those who think social media is the media.

I'm frightened by those who think they know things, but don't.  But yet, they feel compelled to speak or write without knowing the facts or the truth.  I am not afraid to tell you that there are lots of things I don't know and even more that I don't understand.  I do know lots of things; however, because I was a smart girl growing up in the 1960's in small town Indiana and spent a lot of my elementary school days with tape over my mouth because I just couldn't not say the things I knew, I am still a little afraid to tell you what I know.  Because it's bothersome, plus the boys wouldn't find it attractive ... but that, my darlings, is a blog post for another day...

I'm frightened by those who think they know things and believe that "research" is looking something up on the Internet and then quoting Breitbart or Newsmax.
I wish I had a nickle and two Advil for every time I read "Do your research!" on Facebook.

I know I'm a bit of a snob about this, but I was one of those kids on the high school debate team who read and took notes from The Congressional Record (even though I wasn't a very good debater nor a very good note taker)  and spent my first two semesters at the University of Akron as a miserable research assistant (I started to hate going to the library, and I love the library).  Research involves investigating, citing, annotating, other time-consuming work and a crap ton of index cards.  Research is not re-posting a meme, and a meme is not a fact even though 32,496 people have shared it.

Today, I'm frightened by those who say, "Keep you hands off of my sacred 2nd Amendment rights" and yet think it is perfectly fine to question the validity of 1st Amendment, one of my personal favorites.  It  is so important that it is first, and guarantees freedoms of the press, of speech, of the free exercise of religion and of assembly.  (There's a printable Constitution link on the right.  It's good reading; I'm also quite fond of the 13th, the 15th, the 19th and the 21st -- let's all vote and drink together!)

See?  So important they have always had a spot on our dining room wall.  

President Trump denounced the press throughout his campaign, hoping that we would all conclude that the press was biased.  Primarily against him.

Geeze, Louise, Mr. Trump.  Of course the press is biased -- from Benjamin Franklin, whose anonymous pamphlets generated interest in issues that would profit him ("Hey, let's print paper money!  On my printing presses!"), to Spiro Agnew lashing out against the liberal press opposed to the Vietnam war by calling them "nattering nabobs of negativism" (my dad loved that phrase -- I probably got tape on my mouth for repeating it at school)  to every American paper in every American city endorsing a candidate in every American presidential election. Read a little Noam Chomsky, will you?

And as for the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 tax code which prohibits certain organizations (like churches) from endorsing political candidates, and which I hadn't even heard of until Mr. Trump made it an issue, I'll just say this:  I love my country and I love my church.  I also love coffee and gravy, but don't want them in the same cup -- that is a disgusting mess that would end up in the garbage.  Allowing more religious influence in American politics is opening a Pandora's box of discrimination and hatred, i.e., disgusting mess.

Meanwhile, there were 5,037 episodes of gun violence in this country in January, 2017.
There were 1,316 deaths due to gun violence in January, 2017.
This morning in Virginia, a 6-year-old brought a gun to school in a backpack.
Happy February, 2nd Amendment fans.

My dad always said a little fear was a good thing.  While I think he said it in regard to my teenage curfew, I think it applies here, as well.  Being a little frightened makes you a little more aware and a lot more careful.

"'Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?'

'Supposing it didn't,' said Pooh after careful thought.

Piglet was comforted by this."

       - A. A. Milne

Peace.