Fools Rush In

Every time you turn around there seems to be another epidemic breaking out.  Now it’s foolishness.  Just a few days ago I saw on the news that someone has been dropping flyers with the statement # white lives matter in Westport CT.  Whoever wrote article I was reading called the flyers “racially charged”.  I don’t know if I’m buying that sack of potatoes just yet.

In another article the writer (Anne M. Amato) called the flyer “an apparent racist response to the widely used social-media hash tag, “Black Lives Matter”.  It would be my guess she is assuming it is a racist response since she has no idea who is doing it or what whoever did it actually had in their heart.  In some corners of the world to “assume” is in itself foolish.  I attempted to contact her to clarify how she decided it was racist.  She is either hiding under her desk or her email isn’t working.  You can decide which.

Perhaps the writer of the flyers just wants everyone to know that all lives matter.  Black White or whatever color you might be.  I’ve been working in the sun so I’m kind of red at the moment.  Then, perhaps I’m foolish.  Just in case I won’t rush in and judge whoever did it just yet.

I guess how you see a thing has more to do with the tint you have on your glasses than what is actually there.  You spend your life tinting the glasses that you are looking through.  What you think you see isn’t always what you actually get.

When I was a teenager I thought race was what you did when you were at a track meet.  It never occurred to me that the family two houses away were different from us because of their skin color.  I knew one thing for sure, the mom was a really good cook and she would share that talent with the kids in the neighborhood.  They also had something no one else in the neighborhood had.   They had a cow.

Jim Marpe was quoted as saying “This kind of racial ugliness has no place anywhere”.  He’s a first Selectman.  I guess he is practicing the assumption game as well.  I’m thinking that a first selectman is some kind of politician.  It would be my assumption that most politicians can’t be trusted.  That is if I were into assuming things.  I also attempted to contact Mister Marpe via email (twice) to get his take on his choice of words.  He did not reply.  Gee, I wonder why?

Using the standard in the articles I have read I would guess saying black lives matter would also be racist.  Funny but I didn’t see it that way.  I’m not quite sure I understand the logic in all of this.  I mean if you say that Cop’s Lives Matter is that racist?  How about my favorite, Unborn Babies Lives Matter?  That surely can’t be racist.  Just imagine this, what if the author of the flyers is black; does that change the equation Mister First Selectman?  Isn’t this whole thing starting to sound foolish?  Like the song says, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.  All that you have to do is figure out who the fools are that are rushing in.  That should be easy or maybe not. 

The Real Threats:

 There has to be a bunch of fools in government.  I’m thinking that because it seems to be a trend in government to spend money foolishly and they say the most foolish things.  Then when I think about it something that I might see as foolish someone else might not and vise versa (whatever that means).

I would hope that the government spends our money (and it is OUR money) with the goal of protecting the country from threats.  That’s their job, right?  At least that is what I was thinking.  Just what are the real threats?

Consider this, it has been reported that the Department of Homeland Security is now looking into climate change (formally global warming before the warming thing wasn’t happening).  Whose idea was that?  The government is reported to be spending 22.2 billion on climate change (check it out ).  They are spending just 12 billion on customs and boarder enforcement.  Does that sound as foolish to you as it does to me?  Shouldn’t those numbers be reversed?  Someone once said you put your money where your heart is or was it your mouth?  Either way that should tell us something which ought to scare us just a bit.

So let’s get this straight, the people in charge think that Global Warming, sorry I mean Climate Change is twice as important as keeping people from slipping across the border illegally (oops I meant undocumented) or shipping who knows what into the country through customs?  This sure makes the plot of my next novel “A Borrowed Life” much more believable.

To add to the foolishness our President while making the commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy called climate change “an immediate risk to our national security”.  I guess that answers my question about whose idea it was to put all that money on that particular horse.

Well, I feel much better knowing that the weather is the real threat and not the guys cutting off heads and blowing things up.  I mean now I don’t have to spend money on a bullet proof vest or a metal collar for my neck!  Don’t you feel better knowing that?  After all, you would be a fool to worry about . . . Hey, I think they are playing us for the fool on this one!! 

The Bumper Sticker Crowd, “Fools on Parade” (well sometimes) 

I get a real kick out of bumper stickers and the people who put them there.  I was once considering writing a short novel titled “The Bumper Sticker Murders”.  It involved a sudden rash of murders across the country that had no apparent common denominator.  The Police would be baffled by what was happening and have no clue why they were happening.  The motive was of course in the title of the book.  The common denominator was the bumper stickers.  That one is on the back burner for now.

I toured a Walmart parking lot just to see what kind of bumper stickers I would find there.  I was surprised to discover there were very few stuck to the bumpers of the cars in that parking lot.  So I went next door to the Big Y lot.

There was one there that said “I brake for The Black Keys”.  I had no idea what that referred to.  Then using First Selectman Jim Marpe’s possible logic I assumed it was some kind of ugly racist thing.  Then I looked up “The Black Keys” on the internet and discovered they are a rock duo.  I like that much better than the ugly racist thing.  Sorry Jim, maybe next time.

I headed over to the Stop and Shop to see what was cooking over there, get it, cooking, grocery store, oh never mind.  I found one that I thought was very nice.  It said “Autism, be aware, be understanding”.  A kind and thoughtful person must own that automobile.  Another car had two.  One said “Cattitude” and the other “well behaved women rarely make history”.  I have no idea what the Cattitude thing is but the other one made me first think of Lizzie Borden.  I’m guessing that wasn’t what it meant.  Later I thought of Mother Teresa, Clara Barton and Amelia Earhart.

I would give odds that those three might just be called well behaved with the possible exception of Amelia who was touted to be “tomboyish” in her younger years.  Wait a minute, does being a Tomboy constitute bad behavior?

I’m guessing that some of the authors of that particular statement displayed on the bumper sticker may have been trying to justify some bad behavior.  It might be even money that the driver of the car with that bumper sticker had the same thing in mind.  Just sayin and I would like to clarify it is a guess not an assumption.

There were three cars with the “Coexist” bumper sticker.  You know, the one that uses all those religious symbols to spell the word coexist.  If you don’t know why that one is foolish you are living in fairy tale land where reality just doesn’t exist.  You also have no understanding of the religions represented on that bumper sticker.

Most of the bumper stickers I saw had a positive message.  That was a good thing to see.  Some, like the one “My jack rustle terrier is smarter than your honor student” were just insulting and displayed the apparent ignorance of the owner of the car.  The frightening thing about that is they probably thought it was funny.

My last three recorded bumper stickers were on a Jeep.  One read “Play in the Dirt”.  Okay, it’s a Jeep, I get that one.  Another read “Red Neck Girl”.  The last one read “Support Fornicating” (only the word used was not fornicating but it did begin with an “F” and it means the same thing).  I watched as a young girl of not much more than twenty got in the Jeep and drove away.  She is in the running for the “Fool of the Year” award or perhaps she trying to make history.  Or maybe she is too uninformed (that sounds better than stupid) about men to realize what she is telling them.  If she were my daughter I would be ashamed of her.  I would also buy a can of black spray paint and, well, you get the point. 

How not to be a fool. 

I’m not sure that we can find a way to never be a fool.  We can however not rush into things thus avoiding the fools rush in deal.  Perhaps when we are not sure about it we should remain silent.  The saying “Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and erase all doubt” has merit here.  Abraham Lincoln was reputed to be the author of that one and he was no one’s fool.

One more thing, if you have a bumper sticker on your car that is rude or insulting you might want to remove it because it is one thing to be in the foolish category it is something else to wade into the jerk category.

In closing I would like to add this, it is never foolish to help someone in need.  A simple act of kindness can make all the difference in the world to someone who is struggling.

If you like to read you might be interested in having a look at my books in trade paperback.  I thank you for your time.

I thought I was done with this article.  I thought I had said all I wanted to say.  It’s four AM and I just woke up thinking about what got me started on this article in the first place…

Imagine this for just a moment.  Imagine that the author of the #White Lives Matter is not an ugly racist individual.  Imagine that she is a black woman married to a white man.  Imagine the unimaginable, imagine that she believes in God!  Imagine that she sees life through a pair of glasses that you Mister First Selectman or I for that matter can never put on.

Imagine that she is trying to tell everyone that ALL lives mater even her husband’s.  They matter, not because of the color of their skin, but because it is the way in which the God she believes in intended it to be.  Imagine that although we can’t see through her glasses we insist on spraying everyone else’s glasses with the imperfections we have colored our own glasses with.  Imagine that we are the fools who rush in where the angels fear to tread to make our prejudgments without a clue of what is in the heart of the author.  Imagine that we and not she are the ugly racists.  That thought scares me more than a little.  How about you?

Okay, now I am done.