Nudging Up Against the Political - Eek in Everyday Ramblings

Have I mentioned it is raining? Yeah, yeah, I know, it is not as bad as the flooding that is going on in Louisiana and Texas. My heart goes out to those folks experiencing flooding for the first time ever. But you know we are at 81% of average rainfall for the month and we are not halfway through yet. And the trees are all blooming and leafing out under cover of dark wet gloom.

And it is windy, a cutting scouring wind. The trees out front are just gorgeous, all with these precious tiny white bloom clusters.

One of the benefits of this effort I make each day to maintain my weight loss is that I go out even when I don’t want to go out. I am making these carrot crepes stuffed with pineapple and topped with yogurt today and I realized after shredding the carrots I had no milk in the house.

So I geared up in my waterproof ensemble and went out for milk and then when I got back I thought, oh well, I am all geared up, so I went back out and went for a walk.

At least it is quiet in the rain on a Sunday morning just at sunrise after the time change. :)

Although I did not read the interesting and informative notes in the back I did finish reading City of Thorns about Kenya, and specifically the huge Somali presence there this last week. Wow.

It is a bit confusing in parts, I couldn’t tell which corrupt person in power he was talking about sometimes and I am not talking about high level government officials, although he writes about them too.

Here we get absolutely outraged when an officer of the law is found to be taking a bribe or taking advantage sexually of individuals over which they might have authority, people are convicted and go to jail for that. In Kenya it is business as usual as there basically is no rule of law. And the description of what actually happened in the terrorist attack on the upscale shopping mall in Nairobi is eye opening.

The entire book made me think seriously about a number of things… one of the main takeaways was… don’t believe you are getting anything close to the whole story from the news.

We hear these tidbits and then form opinions and express them and react without any sort of understanding.

I think this kind of surface knowledge leads to Donald Trump and the whole phenomenon of his attention-seeking narcissistic bid for the leadership of this large and pluralistic land.

What Arbi said recently in her thoughtful note…

“I think most of us have already transcended tribalism in the West; at least we don’t usually kill each other, though in Australia I do think that is partly due to the lack of availability of guns. While we have adequate access to food, shelter, health care, stable income and a reliable justice system I think the genetic urges of tribalism are not so great. However, if we found ourselves without those things, I suspect we’d go back to acting as our tribal ancestors did.”

It doesn’t feel to a number of folks here that they do have adequate food, shelter, health care, stable income and a reliable justice system but in so many ways we are like heaven compared to other places on this planet.

I wish we could celebrate what we do have and recognize the truth in our common humanity.

After finishing the book I was touched by the story of the complicated problem of the Somali employees at the meat packing plant in Colorado that all were let go because an agreement could not be reached about prayer times during the workday. These people are from Dadaab, the refugee camp in Kenya.

Here is the short article

There are all these smart committed young people out there trying to solve problems with technology. I hope they start being heard politically soon because I place my faith in them.

We need fresh inclusive ways to be both looking at and interacting with each other. Not this terrible violent confrontational screaming at each other smug self- righteous behavior we are seeing right now.

May the rain wash our cares away and then head to where it is so badly needed and work its magic there.

Last updated March 14, 2016