When I was a kid, my mom told me that getting the flu acts as simply a good reminder of how lucky we are when we're healthy. Lord knows, this week I know she's right.
Last week, I was flattened silly, like a bug on a windshield, with the flu. My last name at work is being replaced with Birdflu.
So I haven't written in ages -- too much work and that flu, but here's my thoughts for a gratefully blessed and wonderfully healthier Thursday.
Spitzered: To those of you who having loving, loyal husbands, hug him a million times closer, grateful he isn't one of those loser men who get the label "Spitzered". Last week collapsed on the couch, a thermometer in my mouth, nibbling crackers, drunk on cold medicine, I watched my share of the Spitzer saga. All I can say is, there is a God. There are good guys out there catching the bad guys. And I love it. I don't relish the demise of a man, nor his family. But I do relish when crimes are caught. It's freedom working. As no surprise, the prositute is a self-admitted victim of abuse as a kid. The men who purchase sex, not only are pathetically desperate, but they are generally in a long line of abusers. I cheer when they are caught. Get the bad guys out of power, and fight for dignity.
Five Hard Years: Along that same line, there are a bunch of great folks in Iraq getting bad guys out of power. They've been doing it five years straight. I love 'em for it. Guys volunteering to sacrifice their comfort to corner, contain, curtail the villains of violence and anarachy -- they corner the bad guys, chase away the bad guys, catch the bad guys, stop the bad guys. And I love it. It's freedom working.
God Bless America, sing it loud: Lastly, I hope America isn't going to have rewrite the famous song, "God Bless America" to "God Damn America". To that now-famous pastor who is yelling those revisionist themes from the pulpit, claiming America is the #1 killer in the world, I shake my head at his naivete. I suggest he try counting the Bobby Mugage massacre - that's thousands upon thousands. Try having tea with the gang leaders of Sudan -- that count is in the millions. Try expressing that kind of anger to that brutal Korean with bad glasses. Try yelling "God Damn Chávez" and see where that gets him. Lastly, I ask Obama's pastor to try even preaching in China.
There is absolute certainty that the pain of racism runs horribly deep, brutally deep - Obama's pastor speaks from a place of real pain - our country is not without its sin, its arrogance, its share of people who don't get things right. Yet our role is not to relish our own anger and hatred and thus destroy what is good, but to make things right, to inspire, to fight for reconciliation, to relay hope, to build anew where others before us have destroyed.
