GIGGLES, SILVER POUNDS STERLING, WHEN IS TOO LATE

AT LARGE IN A WORLD OF WONDER

   The ever curious Hemingway, partially committed to a quest.

Looks as though he's thinking about moving the rest of his body through-but, that won't happen easily.  Wonder if he "knows" that?

  Looks like his logic kicked in and he'll just stare from where he is.

NOTES FROM THE NEWS ROOM
 Silver Pounds Sterling

    The almost universal praise for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is deserved. In banishing Donald Sterling for life, Silver added an historic chapter to the American story.  The racism evidenced in the recording may have been a personal statement, but when someone who owns a team in a league where African Americans are not only full participants but some the best of the game, the stupidity alone is deserving of a lifetime ban. In a culturally diverse modern world such sick and poisonous thought needs the kind of bold, decisive and courageous action taken by the still new Commissioner.  Silver earned his spurs.

     All of that being said, there is lesson and/or conundrum in the Donald Sterling incident. Stupid and foul though it was, Sterling was speaking privately and obviously his words were his thoughts. We are all entitled to our words and thoughts, though we must be mindful of how those words and thoughts enter into a wider world as well as the impact they have. There are no doubt tricky and complex under girding legal and philosophical issues here, but the bottom line in this case--if you say it, you must be prepared for the consequence.

ALARM BELLS SOUNDING

     Paul Rogers of the San Jose Mercury News writes here of the chilling discovery of increasing acidity level in the Pacific that in fact threatens all life on this blue planet.

     I saw a teleplay featuring a haunting scene where a journalist reviewed how human kind had ignored warnings of air and water pollution, climate changes, toxic discharges, extinction of species, decimation of forests, loss of crops until all of life was trapped in a terminal spiral. 

     It was only a drama, but I raged at how generations put financial concerns, politics and expediency above the well being of future generations. Increasingly I worry that we are the generation that has ignored the clear warning signs. And perhaps we are watching a rapidly escalating compounding of the consequences of such. Indeed we are reaping what we have sewn. When is too late?

     See you down the trail.

     

A GAY SLUR? AND GETTING AWAY FROM PEOPLE

WORDS

CUTTING BOTH WAYS

     Teaching us diplomacy and providing a way to keep us out of continual scrapes, fights and altercations, mom taught us the childhood adage

      "sticks and stones may break my bones-

       but words will never hurt me."

     How I wish that were still true.  Maybe it would be if only we all lived that reality.  But words have power and the meaning can hurt.

      An NBA star is in trouble and has been fined for something he said.  The phrase "no homo" derives from a black idiom, complicated by African American attitudes about gay life, but has mutated in use to where in the macho world of professional athletes it meant to imply something else and was not meant in disrespect, though it could be offensive to some.  No harm intended, but offense could be taken.  Such is the tyranny of political correctness especially in the hyper amplified world where big name stardom and social media meet. 

       I don't know if it is an improvement that we now are more aware of our language skills and word choices and sensitive to their impact, or if we have just netted ourselves in a time and place where, despite intent, a word or phrase can lead to a knee jerk type of social persecution.

      I'm inclined to think we must indeed be wise in our word choice, but still there was so much wisdom-and hassle avoidance, in that old childhood retort.

SO LET'S JUST GET AWAY FROM PEOPLE

Big Sur-Lime Kiln Canyon-One of the world's special places

    A simple pleasure is to hike from where water falls out of the mountains to where it runs into the Pacific.

  Here, words and language seem secondary.

  See you down the trail.