Hope in a world gone mad
My old Irish grandmother, Julia Garvey, when she was feeling particularly agitated, had a couple of phrases she would blurt.
When the cause of her agitation was me, the exclamation would be, with a fist displayed: “I’ll put your two eyes into one!”
( I never did fully grasp the imagery, but it was fearsome, nonetheless.)
When the source was a development in the news, she’d exclaim with exasperation, “Michael, the world’s gone mad!”
The first time I heard either of these observations was every bit of 65 years ago. I dare say she was right then, and she’d certainly be right now.
Pandemics don’t come along but every so often. Not many of us were here for the Spanish flu of 1918. And I wonder if there was a segment of the population that believed the flu was a hoax perpetrated by the deep state.
We are never going to agree on everything. That’s why we have elections. And that is why the more people who vote in elections will keep us strong as a democracy.
But how did this pandemic situation become a political one? If we can’t agree, for instance, on the wisdom of wearing masks when we’re around each other, what’s next?
We’ve all agreed, for instance, that traffic lights and stop signs are essential to our continued existence. These are among the common- sense restrictions we’ve imposed on ourselves
I see the rebels, the “Don’t Tread on Me” tough guys in the coffee shop, making their stands of independence, boldly asserting their constitutional rights by not wearing a mask.
Racial unrest reminiscent of the late ’ 60s is back.
Could the sickening killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis actually be the straw that breaks the back of police violence against black men?
The outrage seems to be real. Police officers white and black have knelt with protesters. Rogue Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin, now charged with murder, casually — his left hand in pocket — and with utter disdain, knelt on Floyd’s neck, his weight systematically choking the life out of him.
Chauvin and his three fellow officers who also have been charged are not representative of most police officers.
The race thing is so complicated. It goes back centuries. We fought a civil war about it. And it’s still here.
In the wake of the ongoing killings of black men, there’s a righteous path for a train of protest. It’s unfortunate, though, that bad actors jump onto the caboose, and take the opportunity to loot and pillage, giving critics the perfect opportunity to conflate peaceful protest with civil unrest.
The world’s gone mad. But, you know, things can change.
For a couple of years, my oldest daughter, Tara, lived on North Allen Avenue in Richmond, Va., while she was a student at the University of Richmond.
Depending on the time of day, she was literally in the shadow of the 60- foot tall monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on horseback in a circle at the juncture of North Allen and Richmond’s famous Monument Avenue.
Other monuments on the beautiful boulevard honor Confederate heroes J. E. B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury. ( In 1996, despite racially poisonous attacks, a monument to Arthur Ashe, the Richmond native and African- American tennis star, was erected on the avenue.)
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said recently the Confederate statues are coming down, Lee’s “as soon as possible.”
He’s right. We’re in a place where we have to keep looking forward, not back.