(edited from my comment at Body and Soul)When I talk with close friends it turns out that I'm considered the starry-eyed one, who believes that things will start to turn around, perhaps in November. I also believed that things simply had to take a turn for the better in 2004. Despite the setbacks, I see the toughness, the intelligence and compassion of people in the blogs I read every day; and I understand that the outcome for our country depends upon the deeper resources of our community and our national character.
I don't know what political change will come in November. But I can't yield to any rising consensus about how doomed we are. I went with two friends to see the Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", which,-- although it shows an awful forecast for our world if we don't reverse the damage,-- also conveyed our human potential to make moral choices. In that sense it was uplifting. The choice remains with us. as it always has.
When the news that President Kennedy had been shot came out, I was sitting in my high school math class; we had just come in from lunch. The intercom sputtered strangely, with low background chatter that seemed to put my nerves on edge. Right away I sensed that something was wrong. They gave us the news about the shooting, and Miss Morris, our teacher, said in shock, "Well, I guess we just go home", a repetition of the announcement. My friend, Donnie East, had driven Ray Lewis and I to school that morning, and was waiting for us in the parking lot. We were just driving away in the '52 Chevy; the old radio was a disaster, and we heard a jumble of voices, not quite synchronized, say these words, "The President is dead".
We were 17 years old. I was sitting in the back seat. Donnie switched off the radio, turned his head to the side and said, "We're in for it, now."
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