[image from here]
Hearing another story this morning, about a man with a .357 magnum who confronted a woman, she called 911, he shot himself, I couldn’t help asking myself for the millionth time, Why do people consider guns a solution to their problems?
Patti-
How do we start. This society has been broken for a long time, and seems to be just getting more so.
Marriage, once a time-honored institution, seems to be something that is done as a convenience, and often it seems that some marry just to get the gifts that come during such a celebration.
Our prison populations are climbing and higher than ever before, yet it seems to me that we reward criminals and punish their victims in so many ways. Look at the benefits that the criminals get, which are not given to the working poor—health care, room, board, cable/satellite TV, gym privileges… is it any wonder criminals keep on committing crimes. They seem to have it pretty good.
When the people who are important to a society are paid as poorly as are our child care workers, elementary school teachers, nurses and other people who contribute to the quality of this society, yet people who are poor role models at best, like rap stars, pro athletes and criminals are treated like royalty and rewarded for their actions, is it any wonder that the moral fabric of society is rotting away?
Mind you, this isn’t to say all athletes, rap stars and such are poor role models, but those that are good role models are vastly outnumbered.
Patti,
I thought you would be heartened to see that a poet is leading us out of the Virginia Tech tragedy: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070417/17convocation.htm
In response to the comment by Adriftatsea, I would refer you to a letter to the editor published in the Globe and Mail on Wednesday April 18, 2007. There is a danger is romanticising the past and forgetting history. It is the immediacy with which news is conveyed that distinguishes the madness of today from that of the past.
Doctor Malcolm Greenshields of the University of Lethbridge wrote:
In May 1927, a school board member, angry over a tax to fund a school building in Bath Township Mich., committed the worst mass murder at a U.S. school. Claiming the added tax burden had contributed to a foreclosure action against his farm, Andrew Kehoe killed his wife and set his farm ablaze.
He had stashed dynamite and fuel in the school; it exploded as fire fighters arrived at his farm. He put a bomb in his shrapnel-filled vehicle, drove among rescuers at the school and denotated it. All told, 45 people died; 58 were injured. Most were children below the seventh grade.
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In 2005, Patti Digh started her blog, 37days, following the death of her stepfather who died just 37 days after being diagnosed with cancer. Six books about living mindfully followed. And there’s more to come.
