|
|
Mediabistro.com
Career and community for media professionals.
 mediabistro.com
|
Guru
Find freelance jobs at the world's largest online service marketplace.
 www.guru.com
|
|
|
Are We Ready?
When I was a freshman in college, my drama professor asked me what I wanted to accomplish in life. It seemed an unfair question then, and I’ve never asked any of my students that question. I don’t remember exactly how I
answered Dr. Parker’s question, but it was probably something suitably
jejune like wanting to convulse the world or to upset society’s apple cart. If
that was what I said, I have failed..
Few ever get the chance to change anything beyond their own small worlds,
their individual apple carts. Most people settle for improving things for
themselves and their families. Their idea of bettering society is to
donate money to World Wildlife or the American Red Cross. These are worthy
causes, but what happens when something really big comes along? An earthquake
in Haiti, Katrina, or a massive oil spill? A tornado, or a tsunami, or a
religious minority hell-bent on destroying Western culture? If I were so
determined to ‘convulse the world,’ I would grab the axle of al-Qaeda’s and
the Taliban apple carts and shake them to pieces. But I’m not prepared to
do that. It’s all I can do to keep my bank account solvent enough to
afford apples.
Whenever something big challenges our way of life, we are ill prepared to
meet it. Nature never tires of exerting itself in threatening ways: a
volcano in Iceland, hours of terror when hurricanes and tornadoes strike,
floods along most of our rivers, forest fires on a grand scale. Each time
people are killed and property destroyed, we cope, and soon everything gets
cleaned up. Then it happens again. We have never come to grips with nature,
and we continue building and expanding in areas and ways that ignore the
threats. We line our streets with cables and wires and then curse the utility
companies when our power fails.
Human nature presents an even greater problem. Sometimes we learn from
conflicts in little ways. Ireland and Northern Ireland have found some kind
of peace. Europe gets along after two world wars, and we seem to be friends
with Japan again. And yet we still settle differences by threatening to
kill our enemies and attempting to destroy their cultures. When diplomats
meet, they represent states that are friendly to each other and gang up on
those that are not. We haven’t moved far from the cave-man mentality and
until we do, the world will remain convulsed and all society’s apple carts
upset. And I had nothing to do with it, Dr. Parker.
by Laurence W. Thomas |
|
Fringe
The noun that verbs your world
|
Momwriter
Mom writers who have something to say...
|
John Coltrane |
|
