Unbiased News Source. I read my hometown newspaper online every morning. I start with the obituaries looking for friends or acquaintances. I confess, I also check to see if someone older than me died.
Recently, as a result of my subscription to the Wichita Eagle, I began receiving The Daily Chatter on-line. I was not sure what to think when it came in my email. I have found it to be the most unbiased reporting of world news I have seen in years. I much prefer reading the events in Ukraine through an unfiltered lens rather than seeing it used for political fodder They have no agenda other than reporting what is happening across our globe. It requires a subscription, but I highly recommend it.
In today’s article, they made me aware of Russian movement of missiles into Belarus, Germany closing their last nuclear plants, fighting in Sudan, and the struggle in France to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Some events are very important and would not appear on local news. National news might cover them but probably with bias commentary.
Dadeville. When I work with golfers, I am always interested in how they respond to shooting a bad round or hitting a very bad shot. I worry when one responds, “that isn’t me.” They are not living in reality if they do not understand they are capable of bad shots and bad rounds. They are trying to avoid responsibility for their shots.
The Dadeville Alabama mass shooting at a birthday party that left four teenagers dead and many more wounded was a tragedy. Several people responded, “this does not represent who we are.”
Just as with golfers, I believe we must live in reality about our communities. I am sure there are many good people in Dadeville, but the fact is every community has the potential for evil acts. When they occur, we should examine the people and why it happened and not minimize personal responsibility.
One way to minimize personal responsibility is to singularly blame guns for mass shootings. As I have stated before, I am in favor of some increased gun legislation because I believe it would reduce mass killings. However, legislation will not end mass killings. Any complete solution will only come with changes in the hearts and souls of humans.
If legislation, licensing and education ended a problem we would not lose 40,000 lives a year to car and truck accidents. Legislation, licensing and education have not ended the problem of highway deaths.
Only respect for life, for others’ property and the rule of law will solve the problem of mass shootings and that requires changes in hearts.
McWorter Chapter 1. For the next few weeks, I will present ideas I find interesting in John McWorter’s book, Woke Racism. In his first chapter, he divides antiracism into three waves. The first wave was the end of slavery and the establishment of segregation in the 1800s. The second wave was the civil rights movement of the 1970s and 80s. The third wave, “Woke Racism” became mainstream beginning in 2010. The latter is his concern.
Woke racism teaches “that because racism is baked into the structure of society, whites’ ‘complicity’ in living within it constitutes racism itself, while for black people, grappling with the racism surrounding them is the totality of experience …” Also “all deemed insufficiently aware of this sense of existing while white as external culpability require bitter condemnation and ostracization …”
He gives three examples of the result of such zealous activity. In 2020, Alison Roman was suspended and eventually left her job as food writer for The New York Times. “She was Twitter-mobbed for having the nerve, as a white woman, to criticize two women of color.” She was accused of “punching down.” Her whiteness trumped all, according to her critics.
In 2020, Leslie Neal-Boylan lost her nursing deanship, for writing a memo against racism but adding the following two sentences: “Black lives matter, but also, everyone’s life matters. No one should have to live in fear that they will be targeted for how they look or what they believe.”
Also in 2020, David Shor tweeted a study by a black political science professor that showed violent protests in the 60s were more likely to make voters vote Republican than nonviolent protests. Some people thought a white man had no right to tweet something that could be seen as criticizing blacks. He lost his job.
McWorter asks three questions – What kind of people do these things? Why do they get away with it? Are we going to let them continue to? I will examine his answers next week.
My personal take on the zealous treatment of the three people is — living in a country where people are punished for making true statements is not exactly a free democracy. Also, one race believing it’s alright to criticize another race, while at the same time being unwilling to accept criticism from others is not a dialog and will not improve race relations. People who believe others are wrong and that they themselves are above criticism are practicing supremacy.
More next week.
Good News
Bad act leads to good response
A Woman Who Feeds The Needy Found Her Garden Sabotaged. TikTokers Rally To Help Her (sunnyskyz.com)
Kindness
This Teen Started A Book Drive For Sick Kids Following Dad’s Cancer Diagnosis (today.com)
Reasons to know CPR
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6325292863112
Peace
Jerry
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