Thanksgiving

Wow! Things have gotten away from me (again?). I'm headed back to Mich. and Ill. to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends. I'll be away for 8 days but I am hoping to find some time post.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I am excited to spend it with people I don't see very much.
It doesn't matter who you are, what you believe or where you are in your life, everyone has some reason to be grateful. Certainly I am no exception.
Wikipedia has a good article about the holiday. I had forgotten President Lincoln made it a national holiday and the speech he gave is included. I was totally unfamiliar with the text but found it especially moving and powerful since he gave it in the midst of the Civil War (with his popularity at an all time low).
It seems I take a lot for granted these days. But I'm hoping to change that this year. When I return from my trip I will be a whole year older (and oh so much wiser). That by itself is worth some gratefulness.
I hope you all can think of something to be thankful for and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Blogger Blips

Anyone else experiencing problems with Blogger? My posts are being published in my index but not my front page! I have tried editing and republishing to no avail. I'm using this post not only as a plea for help, but as a test and an excuse to whine.

Trolley off the tracks...

Usually, I like to read Peggy Noonan's work. She writes with an uncommonly quiet, calm voice and regardless of what she says, I often look forward to her reserved perspective.
However I think she was having a bad day when she wrote the article A Separate Peace and said

"...I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming." and "...I have wondered if it hasn't all gotten too big, too complicated, too crucial, too many-fronted, too . . . impossible. "
She fears " That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon."

She was referring to the American political climate and I wonder how many times similar sentiments have been expressed. I think about the people I've known who pine away for the “good old days”, strangely never quite as good to me as what they seem to remember them to be. I think of all the folks that resist and fear change for whatever ends.

Does every generation having reached their pinnacle of power, usually middle aged and older, express concern, worry, dismay or alarm by the future they perceive? Is there an age where the comfort of the past no matter how dire trumps the uncertainities of the future? So are these concerns more reflective of a time in life than a true sense of the times?

The world has changed dramatically in the last 50 years not to mention the last 100 years. But are these times really any more uncertain or dangerous and out of control than the many generations prior? I doubt it.

Perhaps Ms. Noonan has been reading and listening to too many of her colleagues, the doomsayers in the popular press, the alarmists who prey on peoples fears and manipulate with perceptions rather than facts.

I'm tired of the the sensationalists and I'm not surprised by their decreasing readership and viewers. I resent their lack of responsibility especially regarding their own roles. They have sadly become the news instead of reporting it.

Maybe, the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley is off the track but it's not just about the politics and practices, the system and the strategies, it's more about how it's all reported and who and what do we believe. Frankly I'm looking forward to some changes. Meanwhile thank god for bloggers.