Gary, Thanks for your post, as it makes me feel much better. I was starting to feel like a real wimp, since in my 84 years, I had severe asthma from age 3 to 17, measles around 10 or 11, and an appendectomy at age 7. Once I moved from humid Puerto Rico & Florida and Louisiana to California to California at 22, I haven't had any illnesses. My husband had severe Covid X 2 last year and I nursed him each time, didn't get it. I don't remember my last cold, but I know it was 15+ years ago. In 1988 I had a left breast cancer with radical mastectomy (my choice) & 6 lymph nodes removed, and since then I've been healthy. I think I was saving for the big one, the big C and in the worse place possible, lung. I'm fighting this one with all my strength and keeping my husband's spirits up, because he's devastated. My motto was my paternal grandmother's who survived 2 brain tumors and the 3rd, a malignant in the medula took her life at 65 - she always said: "Nena, me voy con las botas puestas" = "Nena, I'll leave with my boots on". I'd rather not go at all, as I have so much left to do, but if I go, it will be fighting like a warrior, and definitely with my boots on.
I love reading the comments because it really gives me more to reflect on.
How to live in a very right wing area where most of my thoughts have to stay within me because I am not equipped to really argue a plate, but I don’t hide the fact from anyone that I am a democrat.
One thing that really bothers me is listening to the right wingers talk about being Christians because I really think that how the word Christian has lost its true meaning I don’t think that they really know that to be a Christian means to be a follower of the peaceful, loving Jesus, the Christ!
Thank you Dan and Elliott for building such a caring community via Steady and for consistently producing such thoughtful articles. The articles and comments on them are insightful and uplifting.
I really appreciate sharing the video from one of my favorite singers performing what is undoubtedly her best song (the acoustic version is just as good, if not better, than the original). This is a masterpiece that I listen to and think about often.
It's been a bit of a rough stretch lately for me, including being let go from a job. However, I'm keeping optimistic and reminding myself of all the good things I have in life, including this community.
As do I. But I give to charity. I don't envy the lot of those who benefit from my donations. I lend support, I give voice to their cause. It's all words; this blog is words. Just written words.
Words have the potential to be powerful, or to sound like flannel. The crunch is this: does standing with Ukraine mean that we are prepared, should Ukraine fall, to also fall, with Ukraine? To fall to our knees in a realisation of abject failure and weep for a fate we were unable to prevent? For, in truth, that is what we imply when we state that we stand shoulder to shoulder with a cause. It should mean, in fact, that we will take up arms on its behalf.
I have no weapon to take up. Except it be made of words. So I use words to encourage, rationalise, and I use words to criticise Ukraine, where I feel criticism is just and warranted and may help Ukraine have a better peace, should peace come to it.
The Ukraine question is an ultimate challenge for Ukraine. I believe it is an ultimate challenge to all of us, wherever we might be. If we feel the challenge lacks any "pressing nature", then that is solely due to our geographical or emotional distance from it. But challenge it is, nonetheless. The largest part of which is, for me at this time, to gain an understanding of the reasons for the invasion or, as someone put it once: "the nature of the Misunderstanding between these two neighbours" (their own capital "M"). For there is, into this aspect of it, little or no inquiry to be found beyond "greed" or "madness". What inquiry I have made has revealed to me material aspects such as censorship, poverty, subjugation, gas, the primacy of commercial interests, criminal actings as a system of government; and the differences between these aspects in Russia, and in Ukraine, and elsewhere, which all amount to questions of "degree".
All the reasons impelling Russia to its invasion of its neighbour are present, to some degree, in relationships that permeate life elsewhere. Where you are, for instance. The East Palestine disaster is a case in point. What we are not told is censorship. It is surely the poverty of those residents affected that guides their treatment. The papers are full of worker policies that sound awfully akin to subjugation. Gas plays a role by a quirk of circumstance. The primacy of commercial interests is present in spades. And he who would deny any criminal actings in the pursuit of government lives in a bliss for which I envy him. Besides which, thinly veiled accusations of "greed" circulate. "Madness" surely cannot be far off, but to date it's not perceived by me in the press. The ground on which I was propelled into embracing the phrase "I stand with Ukraine" is one of humane simplicity: killing is no solution for anything. I'd like to profess that as a principle of governments around the world, but I cannot. (Stand with Ukraine. Why should I? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stand-ukraine-why-should-i-graham-vincent/)
If degree is all that separates two practitioners of the same policy direction, then the ultimate challenge presented by this war is not Ukraine's alone. It confronts us all, yet despite its similarities of tone, if not register, to aspects commonly thought of as "benign" or, at best, "unrelated", makes of war a "totally separate entity to peace"; I see peacetime's commercial competition as simply being warfare without the weapons. Warfare is an exceptional example of who Man is, which instils the feeling that it is not who Man is.
The response to the Ukraine question cannot be a conclusion that the holder of the opinion is good. And he against whom the opinion is directed is bad. That is not "degrees", it is dogma.
I am so grateful that Steady exists. You provide a calming reminder that there is a path to kindness. I am very fortunate that I have a wonderful husband; and we are able to live a peaceful life amidst these chaotic times. I wish you peace and resilience too…as you continue to provide this forum.
Love the uplifting song and a reminder to enjoy every day. I think, now as a grandmother to teenagers, that I can't help but think what my grandparents thought of the state of the world when their kids were teenagers or how the world would be for them. My grandparents lost a son in WWII. Every generation is shaped by their shared experiences. As a baby boomer and married to a Vietnam Veteran, our generation had shared experiences that impacted our lives and still do. I am and optimist but has been hard . But we must carry on.
Great song choice - thank you, indeed!
I love this song! We have to focus on the positives even as simple as a hug.
I did check out the achristians against Christian Nationalism.
Thank you for the information. I signed up.
Gary, Thanks for your post, as it makes me feel much better. I was starting to feel like a real wimp, since in my 84 years, I had severe asthma from age 3 to 17, measles around 10 or 11, and an appendectomy at age 7. Once I moved from humid Puerto Rico & Florida and Louisiana to California to California at 22, I haven't had any illnesses. My husband had severe Covid X 2 last year and I nursed him each time, didn't get it. I don't remember my last cold, but I know it was 15+ years ago. In 1988 I had a left breast cancer with radical mastectomy (my choice) & 6 lymph nodes removed, and since then I've been healthy. I think I was saving for the big one, the big C and in the worse place possible, lung. I'm fighting this one with all my strength and keeping my husband's spirits up, because he's devastated. My motto was my paternal grandmother's who survived 2 brain tumors and the 3rd, a malignant in the medula took her life at 65 - she always said: "Nena, me voy con las botas puestas" = "Nena, I'll leave with my boots on". I'd rather not go at all, as I have so much left to do, but if I go, it will be fighting like a warrior, and definitely with my boots on.
I love reading the comments because it really gives me more to reflect on.
How to live in a very right wing area where most of my thoughts have to stay within me because I am not equipped to really argue a plate, but I don’t hide the fact from anyone that I am a democrat.
One thing that really bothers me is listening to the right wingers talk about being Christians because I really think that how the word Christian has lost its true meaning I don’t think that they really know that to be a Christian means to be a follower of the peaceful, loving Jesus, the Christ!
Yes. Thank YOU.
Thank you for this. So very appreciated!
Thank you Dan and Elliott for building such a caring community via Steady and for consistently producing such thoughtful articles. The articles and comments on them are insightful and uplifting.
I really appreciate sharing the video from one of my favorite singers performing what is undoubtedly her best song (the acoustic version is just as good, if not better, than the original). This is a masterpiece that I listen to and think about often.
It's been a bit of a rough stretch lately for me, including being let go from a job. However, I'm keeping optimistic and reminding myself of all the good things I have in life, including this community.
Thanks again!
Thank you❤️
I so very much enjoy reading your email.
Thank you, Dan Rather, for providing wisdom and a calm thinking narrative in an often weird world.
The lyrics remind me that I have so many people in my life who give or have given me "The Best Days of My Life." Thanks for reminding me!
As do I. But I give to charity. I don't envy the lot of those who benefit from my donations. I lend support, I give voice to their cause. It's all words; this blog is words. Just written words.
Words have the potential to be powerful, or to sound like flannel. The crunch is this: does standing with Ukraine mean that we are prepared, should Ukraine fall, to also fall, with Ukraine? To fall to our knees in a realisation of abject failure and weep for a fate we were unable to prevent? For, in truth, that is what we imply when we state that we stand shoulder to shoulder with a cause. It should mean, in fact, that we will take up arms on its behalf.
I have no weapon to take up. Except it be made of words. So I use words to encourage, rationalise, and I use words to criticise Ukraine, where I feel criticism is just and warranted and may help Ukraine have a better peace, should peace come to it.
The Ukraine question is an ultimate challenge for Ukraine. I believe it is an ultimate challenge to all of us, wherever we might be. If we feel the challenge lacks any "pressing nature", then that is solely due to our geographical or emotional distance from it. But challenge it is, nonetheless. The largest part of which is, for me at this time, to gain an understanding of the reasons for the invasion or, as someone put it once: "the nature of the Misunderstanding between these two neighbours" (their own capital "M"). For there is, into this aspect of it, little or no inquiry to be found beyond "greed" or "madness". What inquiry I have made has revealed to me material aspects such as censorship, poverty, subjugation, gas, the primacy of commercial interests, criminal actings as a system of government; and the differences between these aspects in Russia, and in Ukraine, and elsewhere, which all amount to questions of "degree".
All the reasons impelling Russia to its invasion of its neighbour are present, to some degree, in relationships that permeate life elsewhere. Where you are, for instance. The East Palestine disaster is a case in point. What we are not told is censorship. It is surely the poverty of those residents affected that guides their treatment. The papers are full of worker policies that sound awfully akin to subjugation. Gas plays a role by a quirk of circumstance. The primacy of commercial interests is present in spades. And he who would deny any criminal actings in the pursuit of government lives in a bliss for which I envy him. Besides which, thinly veiled accusations of "greed" circulate. "Madness" surely cannot be far off, but to date it's not perceived by me in the press. The ground on which I was propelled into embracing the phrase "I stand with Ukraine" is one of humane simplicity: killing is no solution for anything. I'd like to profess that as a principle of governments around the world, but I cannot. (Stand with Ukraine. Why should I? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stand-ukraine-why-should-i-graham-vincent/)
If degree is all that separates two practitioners of the same policy direction, then the ultimate challenge presented by this war is not Ukraine's alone. It confronts us all, yet despite its similarities of tone, if not register, to aspects commonly thought of as "benign" or, at best, "unrelated", makes of war a "totally separate entity to peace"; I see peacetime's commercial competition as simply being warfare without the weapons. Warfare is an exceptional example of who Man is, which instils the feeling that it is not who Man is.
The response to the Ukraine question cannot be a conclusion that the holder of the opinion is good. And he against whom the opinion is directed is bad. That is not "degrees", it is dogma.
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/to-mr-zelenskiy
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/the-russians-love-their-children
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/at-the-going-down-of-the-sun-and
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/a-year-of-tears
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/will-a-pacifist-topple-his-government
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/whither-ukraine-whither-the-principle
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/referenda
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/nato-says
https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/of-mice-men-and-mouse-like-men-the
Thank you.
Beautiful song
I am so grateful that Steady exists. You provide a calming reminder that there is a path to kindness. I am very fortunate that I have a wonderful husband; and we are able to live a peaceful life amidst these chaotic times. I wish you peace and resilience too…as you continue to provide this forum.
Love the uplifting song and a reminder to enjoy every day. I think, now as a grandmother to teenagers, that I can't help but think what my grandparents thought of the state of the world when their kids were teenagers or how the world would be for them. My grandparents lost a son in WWII. Every generation is shaped by their shared experiences. As a baby boomer and married to a Vietnam Veteran, our generation had shared experiences that impacted our lives and still do. I am and optimist but has been hard . But we must carry on.