Give ‘em hell, Grandpa Cronkrite!

As a kid, Walter Cronkrite was fixture in our home.  I remember seeing him nearly every night, often as we sat down to dinner.  He was a guest at a lot of meals even if he didn’t know it.

Some of my earliest memories are of him covering the day’s events, including the killed-injured-missing in action counts each night from Viet Nam. 

Walter was a pretty no-nonsense guy who seemed like he told it straight – not unlike some of his contemporaries (Helen Thomas comes to mind).

Apparently Walter’s still telling it straight, expressing his dismay over the recent turn of events in Iraq.  He’s pragmatic, though:

"The time has come to put all of our, perhaps distaste, aside, and give our full support to the troops involved. That is the duty we owe our soldiers who had no role in deciding this course of action.”

It would be great but highly unlikely if our leadership listened at all to our well-seasoned ones like Cronkrite.

5:16:02 PM    comment []

Pixie-face

There are times when I wish WeatherPixie really did look more like me.  She’s close, but her eyes are hazel, not brown.

She also wears a chronic, annoyingly persistent, Mona Lisa-like smile.

I’m definitely not smiling.

Not now.

4:54:33 PM    comment []

Blogglenecked again

Nothing.  De nada.  Zilch, zippo.  De rien.

I can’t write a thing about the stuff racing through my mind, cannot spill another bootless rant.  I am depressed, demoralized and anxious as so many of us are now.  This toxic beast wants to eat away all of my mental processing and my spirit.

What’s needed now is something purgative yet healing.  There’s little I can do at the scale required, but I need to do something constructive, honest, whole.

Perhaps I simply need to be present in the moment right here and now.  I still live in a place where my family lives, where chores beckon me, where needs must be filled.  In spite of missiles and bullets flying across the world, in spite of oil wells burning and encrypted messages chasing each other, in spite of political detritus piling like snowdrifts, there still is laundry to be folded, dinner to be cooked, sewing to be done, a child’s school project needing completion.

Keep your head down, stay present, be here now. 

They would if they could, be here now.

1:07:26 PM    comment []