The Great Divider

Part of the Solution

I’ve had a couple people who know I’m a veteran come up and ask me over the past couple days what I think about het NFL players protesting by kneeling during the national anthem. I honestly answer that they piss me off on a very fundamental level. I think I can speak for most veterans in making that assessment. Those who’ve worn the uniform take our relationship with this country very personally. If you’re asked to put your life on the line for something that entity better be worth the effort. Again most veterans and certainly I would answer that this country is more than worth the potential donation and stands as the greatest example of self-determination and personal freedom the world has ever seen.

That’s why having pampered millionaires protesting their country pisses me off.

At the same time I would be a complete hypocrite to try to limit their desire to protest. The protests validates my service. I served for a country in which freedom is assured and that includes the freedom to protest. I believe these protests are misguided because they are aimed at the symbol of this country which is their greatest hope for a better future. Misguided because their “message” of protesting racial inequality and police brutality is lost because people conveniently choose to ignore that because they believe the country they hold dear is being attacked instead of the real issues.

Proud of this Guy

I don’t believe that. I think those real issues that can only be addressed through change. Change will happen only when people acknowledge the color of a person’s skin doesn’t define their character. The Divider in Chief seized on these protests as another way to inflame our divisions and that says more about him, trying to distract us from his shenanigans than anything else. I’ll continue to believe in this country and our future that we’re better than that.  We will find a way. One has to only look at how far we’ve come in a generation. It won’t happen overnight but racism can’t survive the spotlight, it withers and dies when exposed to rational thought. A great example of that hope lay in a picture my daughter sent yesterday from their block party this past Saturday. They live in a very multi-cultural neighborhood. The photos shows my granddaughter sitting on a fire truck with one of her best friends in the neighborhood. They’re the same age and will grow up together.

Hope

In decidedly more mundane news my wife has launched on yet another front yard beautification project. I thought all our prior projects had produced an acceptable level of pulchritude but alas this is not my strong suit. I blame the local box store which had a sale for Mums. I’m still not sure how she got the huge number of flowers into the car to transport home but some questions are better left unanswered. All I know is that I was back out in the front yard with a shovel yesterday burying the damned things. Of course it turned out she was right (again) – they look great.

The Architect at Work Last Night

I also finished L.E. Modesitt's Antiagon Fire, in the usual pell-mell manner I handle all of Modesitt’s fantastic fantasy writing. He makes you care so much about the heroes and their bone deep decency against seemingly insurmountable odds that the reader can’t wait to find out how they fare. The brutal battles fought in Imager's Battalion have earned Quaeryt, that hero, a promotion and an assignment to help his brother in law unite the entire continent. He sets out to do that accompanied by his wife who lends a lot of spice and needed humor to Quaeryt’s bleak choices in life. He tries diplomacy and then launches an invasion against the last holdout country. I literally could not put this book down for the last hundred pages and was almost late to work this morning because of that. I’m already on to the next in the series despite having the latest Nelson DeMille book waiting on my kindle.

The Bad Cinema project count rises #14 out of 100 with Gammera the Invincible, another one of those 1960s Japanese giant monster aberrations with a giant turtle (yep) laying waste to Tokyo (again).