27 Sep Safety Lecture for Cement Slides
“Fit the metal fitting into the buckle.” I snort at this part of the safety lecture. I am reminded of George Carlin’s Airport rant and how silly these instructions are. We are a nation surrounded by pillows and orange safety cones.
Sebastian’s first birthday is coming up. A very exciting day indeed. We decide to have the party at the cement slides in the Castro. The best way to enjoy them is with wax paper or cardboard and we did not have either. We scrambled up and down the cement swell for about an hour. Perfect place for a birthday party.
Sadly, there was no safety lecture this day. Somehow, I ended up with a concussion and road rash on the side of my face. Maybe a 40 foot slide is not the best place for a party of toddlers.
Or is this just a sign of age? My inability to act like a kid and not cause serious harm. And why is it the frozen Bean and Cheese burrito my husband bought at the liquor store to reduce the swelling did not feel cold.
It concerns me. How much our world is changing. As I held that burrito to my hamburger face I thought about Iran. I am unsure how my brain led me to that thought.. maybe it was the brain swelling. Maybe thinking about Iraq and bombs and mothers with devastating injury and harm. Feeling a mother 7472 miles from my little town, holding her son injured in all the fighting. My brain scanning all of the scary things in the world, I suppose my temporary pain placed me on a slippery slope of fear for the world.
Iranian President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly made some scary statements about Jews in Israel. One in particular, called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” I worry about these statements. It seems there is a movement to another holocaust. Perhaps not just of Jews, but all infidels who do not believe in the same things.
All of the Bush war machine crap is perhaps making us numb to a growing movement away from acceptance and toward persecution. Is there someone standing in the aisle way clearly pointing out we are not safe and there needs to be a move toward the freedom we are all so accustomed to enjoying? Can I even write these words with out sounding like the current government who has done so much to let the world’s people down?
Heavy stuff for 5am.
My husband told me this morning that the Berlin opera house elected not to allow the Mozart’s “Idomeneo” due to Muslim protest and fear of retaliation.
“We know the consequences of the conflict over the (Muhammad) caricatures,” Deutsche Oper said in a statement. “We believe that needs to be taken very seriously and hope for your support.”
The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, thank goodness, said today, “We must be careful that we do not increasingly shy away out of fear of violent radicals,” Merkel told the Hannover Neue Presse. “Self-censorship out of fear is not tolerable.”
I wish for every human on the planet to believe what they want to believe. Allow them the wide arms of god, their god, or lack thereof, to embrace them in their practice. (or no practice) As long as they are not hurting anyone. Martyrs are not supposed to kill innocent people- this just does not make sense.
Do I wish someone would have been at the playground to stop me from temporarily destroying my brain and my face? Yes. Is it my right as a human to make my own mistakes, especially if those mistakes are about my own salvation and any after life that might be. Yes. I do not need to be harmed, or see others be harmed, to get the lesson.
All of this fundamentalism is flashing red light and a slippery slope.. a cement slide – we need to be mindful of the freedom we give up to assuage fear and accomodation. The progressives are avoiding this discussion as it sounds too much like the Republicans. I can’t even write the word “t_rr_rist” here as I do not want to use Bush’s favorite word. We are becoming numb to the fear mongering…
This isn’t about a religion – there are incredible humans who I love with the same beliefs. This is not about politics – we are all human and those of us in the United States demand a certain level of those unalienable rights we learned about in 3rd grade. We are damn lucky.
This is about fundamentalism and using violence and force to push a belief on another. This is about our government talking so much about something that we are numb to it. This is the rest of the world wanting so much to NOT be like Bush that they are making some dreadful missteps in how they deal with this issue.
History has shown us what can happen to 6,000,000 people when we sit and ignore all the little things that happened before the trains came to pick them up. A slippery slope indeed…
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