…I am wiped out, truly and totally. We are nearing the end of the semester, and I am either grading, thinking about grading, or wondering why I assigned so much so that I would have to do all this grading.
But last night, as everyone was heading home and I was holed up in my office grading journalism ethics papers. The topic was whether news outlets should give coverage to hate groups, and if so, how. And then I came upon this:
It would be a perfect world if we guided each other out of our ignorance toward one another.
Boom. It’s been a great semester.
Dating Jesus 
“It would be a perfect world if we guided each other out of our ignorance toward one another.”
It would indeed. A dinner-table discussion last night included a question about why people are responding to the bad-dream-smell-idea that is, say, Donald Trump. Is it fear that’s informing that ignorance?
I have had this conversation multiple times. That’s what I keep landing on. Fear.
Not discounting fear but I’ve always considered self-loathing a big part of the equation. I look at the popularity of reality TV and how much of it has to do with humiliation and rejection or obnoxious people who are extremely privileged. People who are bigger losers than we are and those whose status we envy but will never attain. We hate ourselves for looking down on and enjoying the fate of the “losers” and hate ourselves for not being one of the “winners”. But hey, hating ourselves is no fun so let’s hate “the other”. They’re “the takers”, “the rapers”, “the thugs”, “fat pigs”, “bimbos”…………….
Guiding each other out of our ignorance is kinda what journalism is supposed to be all about. Yeah?
But today I am just grateful I don’t have to drive anywhere…or ride…because I can’t drive anymore anyway. It took my housemate almost 3 hours to navigate what should have been, at most, a thirty minute trip last night.
Both of them have to go into town today and return, climb the hill to the house, and then traverse even more of The Killer Road to get to the Thanksgiving Feast location, hopefully before the next storm front moves in tonight.
The extent of my foray into the Winter Wonderland will be getting the garbage cans to the curb. Which is a little harder for me than it sounds, but is still infinitely preferable to being on the roadways this weekend.
Have a great holiday! Eat! Drink! Be Safe and Warm and Cozy from the ravages of Winter!
Wow. You all are getting hammered, aren’t you? I saw that on the Weather Channel. Stay warm my friend.
Warm is no problem.
We did get hammered, but we didn’t get the worst of it. We’ll probably see some temperature relief by Saturday/Sunday, but that’s not going to improve driving conditions today and tomorrow. It’s very icy out there.
Sounds very winter-like. We’e having 40s-50s, freakishly warm weather.