People don’t like to hear bad news.  The phrase “See no evil; speak no evil, .hear no evil,” comes to mind.

In the current day, when it comes to political conversation, people choose what they want to believe, and self-censor their own access to other opinions.  It is a dangerous situation

Occcasionally I come across thoughts that deserve the time, and following are some recent ones.

It up to you to choose to take the time to read and really think about how the present applies to you, personally, in these very troubled times.

The Big Picture for August 21st from Jay Kuo on “Sadopopulism and the Fascist MAGA ethos”

Robert Reich on August 7 wrote an insightful piece of  “What you can do now“.

The Weekly Sift  for August 25 gives some important inservice education.

Get in action.

August 26: Robert Reich on Trump’s Downfall

August 26, Heather Cox Richardson Letter from an American.  Also August 28.

Wednesday, August 27: This morning a solitary killer murdered two young people at Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.  Additionally there were 17 injured, most of whom were young students in their first week  of school year.  Tonight was the first vigil, which I watched on TV.  Flags around the country are at half staff.  The story is newsworthy – but it is almost commonplace.  It is a tragedy, multiplied over and over and over in our country awash in guns, which make killing so easy.

Ironically, the previous day, August 26,  I met with my son from Littleton Co, and gave him two items of clothing to give to his daughter, my granddaughter Lindsay.

The clothing was significant.  They were the shirt and trousers I wore on a sad day in April, 1999, when Lindsay, her parents, and I were among those who slowly walked up what had been dubbed “Cross Hill” in memory of those killed at Columbine High School in the massacre there a week or so earlier.  I was in Littleton by coincidence: I had booked a stopover in Denver enroute home from hiking in Utah with a brother and sister.  Before my flight to Utah from Minneapolis, on a car radio, I first heard about the massacre at Columbine High School.  I didn’t know where the school was.  It turned out to be about a mile from where my family lived.  Lindsay, then a middle schooler, was 12.

Columbine was an unprecedented disaster 26 years ago.  It seems to have become almost commonplace.  The list of mass murders is now very long.

Also yesterday came a photo of grandson Spencer, just promoted to Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Marines.  Thirteen years ago – Dec 14, 2012 – I was at a suburban mall where Spencer’s Middle School Band was doing a concert.  I think he was 8th grade at the time.  Enroute home from that concert came another announcement on the car radio about another school massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown CT.

Will we ever take action against largely unregulated weapons of war awash in todays United States?  I don’t know.  But I hope we keep trying to bring sanity back.

August 28, 2025: This mornings Minnesota Star Tribune is pretty clear.

Leaving the Health Center after my morning walk today, the tune playing was the Bruce Springsteen anthem “Born in the USA”(1984).  Listen to it.  It has a lesson for citizens today.  Let’s continue the conversation….

POSTNOTE August 29, 2025:  Today’s Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the police “have recovered 116 rifle rounds from the church“, and that the death and injury count is now up to 20.  The topic of Guns is no stranger to this blog: a search just now shows reference to “Guns” in 101 posts over the last 16 years.