Friday, April 26, 2013

My Kinda Town

And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, and all the ships at sea, is yet another reason why ...
I .... Love .... Boston!




Mark Twain Quote:  "Terror is an efficiacious agent only when it doesn't last.  In the long run there is more terror in threats than in execution, for when you get used to terror your emotions get dulled."

Factoid:  On a chilly day in mid November, 1869, a "small man with a deranged mop of curly red hair and a wide-swept red mustache" walked up Tremont St. to the offices of the "Atlantic Monthly," there to meet their young assistant editor, one William Dean Howells, thus establishing a lifelong professional relationship and personal friendship.

Tremont St. is mere blocks from Boylston St. In fact, they intersect close to Copley Square.  And the unkept little man was, of course, Mark Twain.




Monday, April 8, 2013

My Two Cents


Sometimes, when you don’t hear about something for awhile, you get lulled into a daydream  that all is well, that no more needs to be done or said.  So it is with gay marriage.  With only sporadic appearances on the news stage now and then, you kind of assume that things are swimming along smoothly to a perhaps distant, but certain finish. 

That complacent feeling was swept aside recently when the issue was thrust again front and center, above the fold, in both the media and in our conscience.  The reason for this sudden surge in attention…the Supremes, as in court.  In what seems like an instant, but in reality has been eons in coming, gay marriage has reached the pinnacle of our judicial system. The Supremes are examining this from the perspective of two different cases, and will, within months, issue decisions that will have lasting significance for all of us.

Such a fuss.  Over what?  States worry about “procreation rights,” while the federal government frets over “benefits.”  Groups fear the world as they know it will end, that the family will be destroyed (personal aside – the rest of us have been doing a fine job of this without any additional help from anyone, thank you).  And then there is the ever present “the Bible says.”  So many voices, so many concerns, so many opinions. It’s awfully easy to get lost in this thorny forest. 

Sometimes “we the people” make things a lot more complicated than they deserve, when in reality, the right thing to do is so very clear and right before us. Maybe we need to just sit atop that fence post, and ponder.  Maybe we need to look at this from a more basic view…the most basic view, a simple view, if you will.  More often than we give it credit for, simple works just fine.   We need to consider the human aspect.  How utterly novel would that be.

And what does a look at our common humanity tell us?  We are all here on this earth, this tiny, little insignificant speck of dust in our universe, for what, 85 years. It’s just a blink of an eye in the scope of time.  It’s here, and it’s gone.  We have so little time for life and all it offers; we should reserve no time for pettiness.

That in mind, should not all persons, of whatever persuasion, be able to be with the one they love as they travel life’s short journey, and in their brief time here, to strive for their little instant of happiness? And should not all persons be able to legally and rightfully, on equal basis,  if they so choose … marry?

It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it? It sounds so inherently…..human.  Which after all, is exactly what all of us are, or profess to be.

Now, go write your law.

Mark Twain Quote:  “There isn’t time – so brief is life – for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account.  There is only time for loving – and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”