I apologize for being absent for so long. My torn rotator cuff made sitting at a keyboard very painful, and even using a mouse required my left hand. Physical therapy is making a difference in a positive way. I don't want to go backwards. . .
Speaking of which, I continue to ponder the amazing weirdness of human beings. It looks like there are 18 people who have thrown their hats into the ring, with two more considering running as conservative Republicans. What amazes me is that outwardly they all look sane. Inwardly. . .
Out here in the West we are used to conservatives who wish for the days without fences, without oil rigs (unless they found oil on their own land, of course!), no hunting or fishing regulations, and no gun restrictions on anyone. They yearn for a time when men were men and women were subservient and pretended to love it! There is an attraction to "the old days" when you live in homes with indoor plumbing, hot showers, and Internet access. I recall one of my parishioners recalling the "good old days" and the poverty, backbreaking labor and uncertainty about even having enough to eat. "The best thing about the good old days," she said, "is that they are GONE!"
She is right, but then she knew how to think.
Of course we didn't have child molesters in the good old days. Just fathers, uncles and brothers. We didn't have crime in the old days. Just murder, lynching, rustling, land grabs, forced bankruptcies, investment scams ("I've got this piece of waterfront property in Florida I have to sell for a loss...), kidnapping, throat slitting, eye gouging, drunkenness, racism, bullying (of the Irish, the Italians, the Swedes, the Chinese, etc.) and functionally legal prostitution. (Can you spell "Gentlemen's Clubs?)
Ah, yes. We wish for the Good Old Days.
Infectious diseases before vaccinations, amputation of limbs now saved with antibiotics, epidemics like influenza, measles and whooping cough, mass illiteracy, and Tammany Hall politics must have been wonderful, right?
Muslims who once pioneered in astronomy, medicine, and courtesy are followed by people who yearn for the good old days by cutting their fellow Muslims heads off and stoning women who allowed themselves [?] to be raped.
Humans are weird. Admittedly we have problems to solve, social problems, mental problems, medical problems. But looking backward will never lead us to a solution. For the most part the solutions of yesterday that worked were invented by people who looked for answers, for the future, and not blind adulation of the past.
What do you think? Leave a comment and let us know.
