Tom Brokaw Was Offensive?

Tom Brokaw was offensive?  Really?

We've gone way too far with this political correctness.  It has gotten to the point any comment one makes that may be different from yours is 'offensive.'

Maybe this is the greater question. Do all cultures assimilate when they move to the US? Did folks coming into the US from England assimilate?  How about the Chinese?  Japanese?  African-Americans?  Did your family assimilate?

English was our spoken language after we destroyed Native American culture. I admit it is frustrating to have to push #1 for English when trying to access a business on the phone.  It is frustrating to speak to people in other cultures with strong accents.  It is getting easier now.  It always does.

Both sides need to work harder when new folks come into our culture.  I would hope we would welcome them.

Let's get off Brokaw's back.  This is just plain silly.  To do otherwise is to severely limit one's free speech and the liberal/so called progressive types are going over-board on this. Way over-board.  It's becoming like an auto-immune disease, one that continually attacks itself. You're reading way too much into this.

Tom Brokaw offense?  Hardly.

Only When People Are Prepared

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. 

            - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you know me well - really well, you will know that I like people who stand up. Egos, self-aggrandizement and Fb braggers are a total turn off.  Thank you to my friends who posted some neat quotes.  I do love reminders. But the ones above are favs of mine.


"That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient."

— Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Only when we all become self-leaders will we even have a chance to truly change things.  Until then, the bullies, those who seize powers and steal government money will rule.  Have things really changed over time?  Really?

Consider your dome.

17 Years

The moment I said it out loud, was the moment it was time to go.

I'd remembered reading a book about leaving one's home so they could move forward and survive, but the name of it escapes me.  The words do not.

"Come, it is time to go."

It was a story about primitive people living in South America. I believe they were the Yanomami people. They moved from place to place following the destruction of their forests by American corporations.

I was also leaving because of destruction but of a different kind.  Destruction of my marriage.  But this didn't begin at the time the marriage completed.  It began long before we said our vows.  It began with two young people, who hardly know themselves, much less each other.

The ins and outs of the reasons I wanted to end this were more about our differences than our similarities. I was incredibly young at nineteen when we met.  My father had walked out on my parents twenty-five year marriage. He never told us he was leaving.  The U-Haul truck backing into our tiny driveway told the story.

At sixteen I knew what abandonment felt like.  I knew it at twelve when my father refused to talk to me for three months.  People have their problems and I was just in the middle of them.  Undeveloped emotionally, I hoped I wouldn't repeat their history.

It was 'time to go.'

There have been a few such times in my life when I recalled those six words.  One was when my last child left home for college.  As a parent, you are more excited than you can image to see your children grow.  You gave your child wings.  They are ready to emerge from the cocoon, to fly.  You couldn't be happier for them.  You know this day will never come again. That they are gone for good. Forever.

You hold that moment in a special place in your heart. You are thrilled about their growth; they are everything a parent could hope for.  Kind, motivated, bright.

The other time I uttered the six words was when I left my marriage.  When I summoned the courage to speak the words outloud,  there was no turning back.

My son was twenty three and going to south America with the Peace Corps.  I had moved out of our family home two years before.  He's been gone for a year living his dream.  My daughter has just graduated from college.  She was moving to Boston to get away from the pressure she felt when her father and I ended our twenty-eight year marriage.   I wasn't going to be a place holder anymore.  Waiting for my husband to atttain all his degrees and certificates.  Waiting for my beloved children to take their flights.  It was time to live my own dream.  I was going to live in the Great Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina.

It was the first time in my life when I took a leap.  Alone.

Friends

Friends.  That is one of the most dear words to my heart.  This past weekend, I watched as my two granddaughters interacted.  They are three and five.  The five year old has always been very protective of the three year old.  Teaching, nurturing, protecting.

But the cutest, most dear moment happened when they got in a wooden toddler bicycle.  The two year old sat in front with her feet on the wheel bar.  The five year old sat behind her holding her in place and moving from room to room.  Both girls were barefooted.

As their Nana, I was imagining what it would be like in a few years when they both could ride their bicycles together.  The older one would pedal with the younger one sitting on the handlebars.

Both parents and this Nana would hope for the best while the girl cousins had a blast outfitting in helmets and shoes.

It just doesn't get any cuter than this.