Other Evil

There are other evils in our city and county.  My 29 year old daughter was mugged a week ago tonight.  she and another young woman were walking to that woman's home, a 2 block walk, at about 11 p.m.  They had been at a popular bar and grill.  Shaw neighborhood should be safe only a couple of blocks north of Tower Grove Park.  Any neighborhood should be safe. But a coward hiding behind a bandanna and a hand gun jumped out of a vehicle and surprised my daughter and her friend from behind. Neither of the young women is wealthy and some of the stolen items, like a silver necklace from Korea, cannot be replaced. Whatever things like bike tools in an old backpack fetch at a pawn shop, the new ones will cost far more. As inexcusable as the sentimental and monetary losses may be, another element of the crime fosters contempt. The real violence of a gun threat, of having a gun held to her head, traumatizes a person and makes trust difficult to rebuild.  The criminal committed not only that assault, but he reached into their shirts and groped the young women adding some vile commentary while supposedly in search for more loot.
My daughter has wondered aloud what in the robber's life must have propelled him into crime.  Right now, I don't care.

Ferguson

I had decided to share my thoughts on the Ferguson miasma but several life circumstances intervened. No better time than the present, however, to get to my intended rant.
Rant may be too strong a word. I have been both angry and sad about the events occurring in Ferguson the past few weeks.  Frustration has also been pretty overpowering.  I want to fix it, whatever "it" is. Michael Brown should not have died.  There should not be a grieving mother, an injured policeman, business people losing their livelihoods to looting scum, outside agitators and media crowding the tiny suburb.  But this is the reality.  Whatever happened that Saturday afternoon, there are now a dead teenager, a mourning family, a ruined police officer and family, burned and damaged businesses, people from Detroit and Texas who have been arrested during unruly protests, and media and other outsiders stirring the pot for their own reasons. How can we ever dig out from under all of this?  
School started finally this week in Ferguson, a sign of normalcy.  Mr. Brown's funeral was Monday. Some of the outsiders have gone on to new pastures.  Now come the weeks and months of navigating the justice system heading toward an indictment of Officer Wilson, or not.  The law suits have already begun.  This death has become a flashpoint for some like Al Sharpton and the New Black Panther Party.  Anger over other incidents and racial prejudice in all its forms has surfaced and swept over  the lives of Brown and Wilson and their loved ones.  What galls me is that there is a truth under all of this that we may never know. Truth has become beside the point.  
Her are a few more observations:

• Looting is just wrong.  I want to bathe after I encounter the activity.
• The ethnicity of a person does not make that person unable to deal with people of other backgrounds.
• Even good eyewitnesses often do not get the whole story.
• Using people who are suffering is evil.

When I pray, I remember both the policeman and the dead young man, and their families. Maybe that is the best most of us can do.

before I write

I came upstairs to the computer to write about the last couple of weeks in my life, but now that I have read a few blog postings from others, I have lost my ambition. The weeks have been difficult and I am trying to work through the detritus. I believe focusing on a specific problem or emotional response is suggested by some professionals. Focus, however, is not my strong point.  If I can whittle my attention down to only a handful of thoughts at one time, I am doing well.
In summary (a phrase I direct my students to avoid), I need to better organize my current brain activity before I write.

Consulting

Has it really been a year?
I came across the following cartoon and it sums up what I feel about much of what goes on here in St. Louis and across the world.

I could fix so much if only I were consulted. . .