11/28/2021

My Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Good news of the day, a court in Argentina has taken on the case of trying leaders in Myanmar for genocide against the Rohingya. While the crime goes back to 2017, before the junta overthrew the elected government, the case will bring to light the Tatmadaw’s systematic efforts to obliterate an ethnic group. We need to maintain our vigilance against such atrocities to prevent more of them.

            It’s the first Sunday of advent. When I was a kid, we would make a wreath in church school with 4 candles for each Sunday leading up to Christmas & then a 5th in the middle to be lit on Christmas Day. I liked anticipating Christmas, but at that time it was about time off from school & presents.

Now I am more inclined to do what the editors at Christian Science Monitor suggest & “reorient ourselves, however briefly, according to a compass of deeper meaning – of generosity, goodwill, forgiveness, and love.” While we may be “witnessing what economists are calling the Great Resignation, the unprecedented decision by many Americans to voluntarily quit their jobs, step back, and ask what they really want from work and life,” we can also engage in a national “Great Reconsideration… recalibrating along higher hopes for equality and fairness, compassion and safety, freedom and responsibility.” I encourage you to try on this rhetoric this week as you try to sell BBB.

            Speaking of BBB, I think it’s great that it includes some $$ to keep locally focused journalists employed. We need our local papers to keep our politicians honest.

            Finally, I gave myself a chuckle after reading Rick Doblin’s piece in the Guardian about legalizing psychedelic drugs to help folks with PTSD.  I imagined administering ketamine to Reps. Lauren Boebert, Paul Goser & Marjorie Taylor Greene. Its ego dissolution effects might make them nicer so IAO & AOC would not have to fear for their lives in the halls of Congress.

            BYBS,

            RCA