January 15, 2018
3:45 p.m.

Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Anyway, happy what's left of the day, because I'm getting a late start on well-wishing.

(As you know, this is early for me. But the day officially starts a lot earlier for most people.)

Once upon a time, Martin Luther King had a dream. Americans embraced that dream, and it is no less a worthy one today that it ever was.

As a matter of fact, it is probably even more worthy. Because this old world is a big old mess.

https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

I am providing a link to the full transcript. I hope you will read it, and remember that this was written in 1963. I was a toddler at the time, too young to understand the situations and the atmosphere of a country that would ever need such an oration to be given. I am now 57 years old, and I am still too young to understand the atmosphere of the country that STILL needs to hear and understand these wise words.

Let that sink in.

It has been 54 years, and we are still living in a country inhabited by people who make it necessary
to repeat and repeat the words spoken in 1963.

And today, January 15, 2018, our country is being "led" by an administration that makes these words more important than ever.

All the progress, all the growth, is systematically being chopped away by the current administration of the USA.

Sad.

I think we should all have a dream, and that dream should include populating our Congress with men and women of true integrity. Time to clean house and start from scratch.

If any one of us did such piss-poor work at our jobs, we'd be fired. Pink slip time. Start at the top and work our way on down. Out, out, out!

" No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Okay, I'm done.
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4:21 p.m.

Dang it, maybe I'm not.

I just found this news story:
 https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/anti-trump-shhole-graffiti-message-appears-in-denver
I live here. This does not make me happy. What is happening to this country?

God, I'm tired.

Do me a favor. Read Dr. King's speech. Apply it to today's world. Take it to heart. We can realize this dream.

We can.
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5:04 p.m.

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go make a big pot of chili. It snowed all morning, it's cold out. It seems very much like a chili day.

Yes, you're right. Chilly nights should always feature chili. Pot's on the stove. Yum.
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6:56 p.m.

Well, I can't help myself. It is MLK Day, and he had so many good things to teach us.

I will never, ever be able to relate to the Black experience, no matter how much I might try. I can be compassionate and empathetic, but I can't really understand, because I never lived with it.

I can, however, relate to this:

"Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations." - "Why We Can't Wait, 1963"
Martin Luther King, Jr. 


We grew up with an awareness of our roots, this Spanish and Native American heritage that was a part of us even though we weren't well-versed in the specifics. I always knew I came from this land, but I've never known for sure which People I descend from.

I know it matters. I'd like to discover the specifics and prove it definively.

In the meantime, at every age, when viewing a western, battles between "cowboys" and "Indians" would ensue, and I always rooted for the braves. It didn't matter if the star was John Wayne--those damned cowboys! Who did they think they were, anyway?

Well, those movies were made long ago, and I'm so far removed from times like those, right? 

I used to think so. But after this past year, with Natives fighting to save their safe drinking water from big oil companies, with a congressional administration that encourages, or at least tolerates white supremacy, with women still having to fight tooth and nail to earn more than a fraction of what their male counterparts make, and with so many children in danger of losing funding for basic health care simply because they were born into less-than-wealthy families, I no longer feel like we've come very far. 

In fact, I feel we've gone backward. 

We have every reason to hope for better, but we need to start doing less hoping and a little more getting off our butts and getting out there to stand up for basic human decency. 

Ugh, I am so not a revolutionary. I can almost guarantee that I will never march in Washington, DC. I can't afford to go there, for one thing. I will never deliver an empassioned speech on courthouse stairs or be in a position of power that invites opposing factions to shoot me in public for my opinions. But I can support those people who are brave enough and strong enough to do those things in the little ways that I am able, and hope that even a little help will be enough to turn the tides back to a more sane and righteous path. 

So can you. 
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I don't feel like I should follow this up with comments about the doll my granddaughter just brought me to hold...

So, goodnight.