Nature must indeed be profligate because I’m seeing more animal road-kill lately. I was concerned that my neighbor was intent on road-harvesting when I pulled out of our driveway and saw her carrying a dead raccoon by the tail. She assured me that she was only clearing the “accident” from the roadway. I watched with fascination as she flung the hefty coon into the brush. I love strong women, and her effort made me think of a track and field event. Perhaps I’ll suggest an addition to the 2016 Olympics. I told Rosemary she would do well in a “coon toss” as I warned her about raccoons and rabies.
Absurdity is something that is preposterous, ridiculously unreasonable or otherwise insane. The painter Salvador Dali is associated with the art movement called surrealism. Dali’s melted clocks amidst dreamlike absurd landscapes is emblematic of surrealism.
These days, the landscape in our country often seems surreal. I’ve written about the trans-gender movement, and wonder if I’m beginning to cross over because, these days, I seem able to find things – it is common knowledge that men can’t ordinarily find things. Even more absurd is the notion of “trans-able.” I may be labeled as “insensitive,” but people who claim that certain body parts are not “theirs” and demand excision of these “foreign” parts, are just nuts.
The newest absurdity is trans-racial. Last week we were asked to accept the notion that a white woman in charge of Spokane’s NAACP, is black because she feels black. She has appeared on TV spinning her fraud to the gullible. Perhaps she’s studied the philosopher Descartes who once said, “I think therefore I am.” Ms. Dolezal and media talking heads demand that we suspend reason and accept their notion that “I feel therefore I am.”
William Wordsworth once began a poem with, “The world is too much with us…” Perhaps he’s right. I turned on my iPhone recently to read that a balcony in Berkeley, California collapsed, and many were killed and injured. Perhaps terrible accidents have always occurred. Perhaps ISIS types have slaughtered innocents for millennia and we were just unaware. We do know that politicians have always lied, but now they have the gall to ask us, “What difference does it make?”
I believe we have left the age of reason and now reside in the information and misinformation age. In times past we might have eventually heard of various atrocities around world, but these events once seemed far away, rather than in our kitchen on TV. I wonder if Joshua was aware of the Trojan War as he led the Hebrew invasion of Canaan. These wars in the Near East occurred about the same time, yet far removed without the internet and 24 hour news.
America (and western civilization) is in a period of cultural rot. A significant factor is the notion that everyone is a victim of some injustice. Political correctness, taken to the extreme, brings us to another new concept, “micro-aggression.” Never heard of it? Well, do you remember Janet Napolitano, Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security? Well, she’s now the President of the University of California and has mandated a policy across that school system to prevent “unintended discrimination” through insensitivity to race or origin. Examples are using the common phrase “you guys” instead of the southern “you all.” Did you know you’re committing micro-aggression by asking someone where they are from or stating that America is the land of opportunity? This absurdity is big on college campuses these days. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock no longer perform on college campuses because the student orthodoxy of political correctness…ah, sensitivity, has rendered students humorless.
As we made our way up I-75 to a family wedding, I was struck by the number of disabled cars on the roadside and it made me think of Skodas as a metaphor of America. I learned of these unreliable cars while traveling in Eastern Europe shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Each Skoda came with an emergency repair kit, necessary because the roadsides were littered with auto road-kill.
Our leaders have failed us, but we are also responsible because we keep electing them and demand no accountability of incompetence or malfeasance. We are contributing to the same cultural rot that destroyed the Davidic Kingdom of ancient Israel, ancient Greece and Rome, and most recently Great Britain.
And yet, there is hope. There are many in the rising generation who will spurn Miley Cyrus, victim status and choose reason over the surrealism of Holly-weird. I have encountered some of these rising stars and future leaders. I hope you know of others.
One example is “R” who made E6 status in the Navy before he was twenty-five. He works as a demolition expert alongside Seal Team units as they protect our country and secure our freedoms despite what the odious New York Times said recently of these heroes. “R” will soon be deployed to the horn of Africa to combat Islamists in Yemen. Pray for him.
“D” graduated number one in his class of a thousand from the Naval Academy. This Navy officer, helicopter pilot and squadron leader is already a gentleman. He too is being deployed to the Middle East to protect our freedom. I wish the confused “journalists” of the Times could be sent in harm’s way instead of these young servicemen. Pray for him.
I have to admit bias in my third selection of excellence because he is my brother’s son, Drew. This rising star graduated Magna Cum Laude from Belmont University and was just drafted by the Houston Astros. His superlatives include this year’s tenth highest batting average in college baseball (.397) and the Belmont Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award. Drew is chasing his dream. Pray for Drew.
King Solomon purportedly wrote Song of Songs as a young man with dreams. His Proverbs were uttered as a wise middle-age leader. Ecclesiastes was penned as a cynical old man.
Fortunately, America’s hope lies not with the likes of me, but with God and rising American heroes. Pray for America.
