No one gets remembered for what they didn’t say. If one wants to be remembered either they must do something worth remembering or they must say something worth remembering. Non-fiction writers either write about something that they believe is worth being done or they write about someone who already did something that they thought was worth being done.
Of course, being remembered should not be the main point of life. You can have a street named after you, a building named after you, a star named after you or hundreds of other items, but they are all ephemeral. They will vanish sooner than the wind blows away. They will melt away faster than butter. Nothing in the world is really very permanent. Bricks and bridges age and crumble. Friends and lovers come and go. Good deeds will be forgotten when you are gone as will bad deeds. Life is mercurial, fickle, and impermanent. Trying to be remembered is an exercise in wishful thinking.
We often try to hold onto life by buying, creating, acquiring, or building things. The genius creates new theories. The prodigy leaves people spellbound by their talent. The entrepreneur designs new products and industries. The philanthropist gives their money away. We are all searching for something that will make us feel good about ourselves. You cannot actually blame anyone since a humans’ life is quite short.
We may someday discover the meaning or purpose of our lives, but I doubt many people will do so before they die. And even if they did, so what. Will the world really be better that one man fought the unbeatable fight or reached for the unreachable star or is it only egotistical dreaming on our part? We want to think that we were born on this earth for a reason. Not one of us wants to think that we were an accident or that the only thing on our parents’ minds was recreational sex.
Existence is an osmotic process that links the needs of the outside world with our own inner needs, talents, and abilities. Maturity comes when we stop simply looking outside of ourselves and start searching inside ourselves as well. The good life is one that balances inside and outside focus. This is the Yin and Yang of life. When we find the alchemy that balances these perspectives, we find the true meaning and purpose of our lives. But it is not etched in stone, and it may change several times before we leave this planet. Life is always an evolving process.
I started this blog off by extolling the virtue of speaking out. I believe that an injustice done to anyone is an injustice done to all of us. Audre Lorde, an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist said:
“I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you…. What are the words you do not yet have?”
For much of my life, I have tried to be outspoken against what I perceive as injustice. I often wonder if I do not spout off too much. One friend told me that “You fight too many battles.” When I heard this, I thought of the comment by the Russian Anarchist Bakunin that he would stop being unreasonable when the world around him became reasonable.
Two days ago, I heard a story that is worth being repeated. The story brought tears to my eyes. If you have already heard it, I hope you will not mind hearing it again. I personally would like to hear it being told from every church pulpit, every congressional building, and every auditorium in America. I would like to hear it being told every day until every person in America could empathize with what this young girl went through. I would like to hear it being told until every person in this country would finally speak out and say “enough.”
“Death of bullied Utah girl draws anger over suicides, racism” by Brady McCombs, 12/2/2021.
Ten-year-old Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor was a happy little girl with a sunny disposition who loved life and dreamed of being a professional dancer. Even though she had autism, life was good for Izzy until this school year when in a new grade she became the target of racism and bullying. Isabella was the only Black student in the class. Now if you are familiar with Maslow’s Hierarch of Needs, you will know that 
the issues of Meaning and Purpose that I addressed above relate to a certain position in life. Namely, those of us who are secure enough in our environment that we no longer have to worry about food, shelter, and safety. This is a luxury that does not pertain to all people. In particular it did not pertain to Izzy. She was a girl who because of her skin color and health had to face every day with a battle. A battle designed by others to destroy her peace and serenity. A war waged to undermine her very being by belittling, insulting, and abusing her. Izzy did not have the time to think about the meaning and purpose of her life because she was too busy trying to deal with the very bottom levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy.
Her mom was unaware of the bullying that Izzy was facing until one morning she found Izzy spraying Febreze air freshener on herself before school. Brittany Tichenor-Cox had been wondering what was wrong with her daughter whose beaming smile had gone dormant after she started the fifth grade. She coaxed out of Isabella that a boy in her class told her that she stank after their teacher instructed the class that they needed to shower. It was the latest in a series of bullying episodes that targeted Izzy, the only Black student in class. Other incidents included harassment about her skin color, eyebrows and a beauty mark on her forehead, her mother said.
On November 6th, 2021, Izzy’s mom came home to find that Izzy had hung herself. Can you imagine finding one of your children hanging by a belt around their neck in a closet. Their eyes wide open, their tongue bulging out and their face turned blue. What would your reaction be? Her mom blames the school system for doing nothing. Despite repeated talks and calls to school administrators, the abuse had gone on for months. Perhaps the school did not think that Black Lives Mattered. But what about the life of a little girl with autism who wanted to grow up and be a ballet dancer?
“An ongoing investigation by the Justice Department has uncovered hundreds of documented uses of the N-word and other racial epithets over the last five years in Izzy’s school district against children of color. The probe also found physical assaults, derogatory racial comments, and harsher discipline for students of color.”
Brittany Tichenor- Cox, center, joined by her sister Jasmine Rhodes, right, speaks about her daughter Izzy Tichenor, as hundreds joined the Tichenor family in mourning the death of 10-year-old Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor during a vigil at Foxboro Hollow Park in North Salt Lake, Utah, on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. Tichenor took her own life on Nov. 6th in connection to being repeatedly bullied at her Davis County school for being Black and autistic, according to her mother Brittany Tichenor. (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP)
I am not alone in being appalled by the school’s reaction or lack of reaction to the abuse against Izzy and other minority children. Thousands of people have reacted to this story with indignation and a demand that it be investigated. The concern of so many people is a welcome development in light of the seeming apathy of too many people. I still cannot believe that nearly 32 percent of possible American voters did not vote in the last election. Elie Wiesel said that:
“Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.”
What can you do to help overcome racism and indifference to the sufferings of others? Can you write about it? Can you join an organization to protest it? Can you send money to a group that is fighting for the rights of others? Can you stand up for people when you see that they are being insulted or abused? Can you call the Utah Attorney General and express your outrage against this abuse that Izzy suffered? Can you ask your church leader to say something today, tomorrow, and Sunday about the ongoing abuse that minorities suffer every day in this country?
The more of us that take a stand for Izzy, the sooner this will really be the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.”
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Theory (CRT) comes into this match sporting a record of 25 wins and 25 losses. Both opponents have lost matches to Trickle Down Theory and the Birther Theory. The winner of this match will face the reigning champion, The Theory of the Big Steal.
The testability of the theory’s major tenets
A theory may propose various tenets. That is the theory will assert specific things that belong with the theory. For instance Q’Anon Theory proposes that a group of Democratic politicians who are pedophiles meet regularly in the basement of a pizza parlor in D.C. to plot nefarious schemes for taking over the world. One of the major tenets of CRT is the notion that racism is ordinary and not aberrational. To measure the Q’Anon Theory all we would have to do is find a pizza parlor in D.C. where a number of pedophiliac Democratic politicians meet. This would be an easy tenet to test since the number of good pizza parlors in D.C. can be counted on one hand.
Eliminate all communists
I look out and see lawyers with Magna and Summa Cum Laude degrees from Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, and other Ivy League Universities who can fashion legal arguments designed to circumvent and pervert any sane person’s idea of justice. They have corrupted our Criminal Justice System into a Criminal Injustice System. The winner in a court room is the one with the most money who can hire the best and brightest lawyers. An argument by one defense attorney claims that a self-styled vigilante shooting three unarmed people is a tragic case of self-defense. Another defense lawyer for three murdering racists suggests that the victim in the case was shot because he had come to Satilla Shores “in his khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long, dirty toenails.”
I look out and see corporate executives who will ignore the danger posed to the environment and climate because they can make more money today than by creating a sustainable system. I see too many people willing to “shop till they drop.” A materialistic mentality that supports the greed endemic in Corporate America. A focus on short-term thinking that drains the earth of the resources it needs for sustainability in order to reap mega-profits today. The “hell with the future” is the motto of Corporate America.
Is there any meaning to what I am seeing? Am I just getting too old? Is my brain incapable of understanding things anymore? Journalists are murdered because they report the truth. Innocent people are slaughtered while they watch a Christmas parade. A pregnant woman is shot eleven times on her doorstep. Fifty or more people rob a series of stores in what the news calls “mass grab fests.” A six-year-old child is killed in a car seat by some maniac with road rage. There is no bottom to the bizarre. No one can imagine what the next day will bring. All attempts to discover what is causing these problems or how they can be stopped seem futile. They are meaningless crimes without rhyme or reason in a world that George Orwell would never have imagined possible. Up is down, right is wrong, facts and truth do not exist, everything is fake. There is no sanity.
This morning while doing a 4-mile run in the Casa Grande Mountains, I thought a lot about his advice. I realize that much of what I have said above could be considered a rant. I would like to think it was somewhat of a catharsis. Another friend told me yesterday that I sounded like a man in despair. I resonated with the word despair. I regard optimism as ideologically unsound given our present world. Many people have advised me to stay hopeful. There is a fine line between hopeful and optimism. I am not sure I can manage the divide. Despair on the other hand fits my mood just fine. Despair is defined as: “The complete loss or absence of hope.”
We have elected people that will support an insurrection against free and fair elections. The most important element of Democracy. People that prefer to ignore that on January 6th, we almost had a coup against democracy in America. On November 17th, we had these same people vote to ignore the censuring of one of their comrades who parodied the killing of an opposition opponent.
I look out my window and see a public school system that is being dismantled by racists, bigots, elitists, and sexists who do not want the schools to actually teach anything that might be construed as controversial. Two thousand five hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for trying to teach the children of the Athenian elite to think for themselves. Schools and educators are still being attacked for trying to teach children to think. How can our future generations create a better world when they are besieged with information that keeps them in a past that never existed and feeds them myths about the way the world works?
Will the USA survive? All great empires have eventually declined. It took 300 years for the Roman Empire to fall after it began its decline. We are witnessing the decline of the American Empire. How long will it take to fall is well beyond my ability to foresee. If history is any indication, it will take many years and the decline will be gradual but punctuated by episodes of tragedy and elation. The tragedies will far outnumber the elations. Study any system in decline and you can see the gradual disintegration that accompanies all declines. It is already clear that our Public Education, Political Systems and Legal Systems are in decline. Trying to stop the declines is futile. You cannot stop the decline of an old bridge or an old building. You must rebuild from the ground up. Sadly, I see neither the drive nor the desire to do the work that needs to be done to help restore democracy in America.
underlying or foundation problem to explain many senseless acts of violence and mayhem. We can see pictures today of people screaming at immigrants to go home and realize that many of these raging mobs are driven by fear. Fear of job loss, fear of economic uncertainty, fear of being displaced and fear of strangers.
nation I have heard deals with greed. It has been said that “Greed is not the worst of all sins, but it is the gateway to all others.” Reflecting on this comment provides some very interesting insights. For instance, why does anyone steal? They want more than they have, ergo greed. Why does anyone kill? Typical answers would include: To get more land, ergo greed; to get more money, ergo greed; to get something they want, ergo greed. The more I thought about greed as an explanation, the more I could see it being a key cornerstone to almost all acts of violence and terror. I was content to accept this underlying explanation until a few weeks ago when I attended my annual retreat.
s before me, I thought getting success would be the key to feeling complete. Success meant fame, fortune and admiration from the masses. I would have money to roll in. I would have girlfriends too numerous and beautiful to count. I would have crowds thronging to hear my every utterance. The path to success was uncertain but the laurels and rewards were assured if only I could find the right stair way. I looked everywhere. I read everything. I talked to everyone. Success would come with hard work. Success took risks. Success was not an overnight phenomenon. I needed to get an education first. I needed to save my money. I needed to invest. Everything I did was still not enough. I was not a success.
