When I was growing up in Arkansas (back in the Mesozoic era), we’d see TV commercials for a grocery chain called The Mad Butcher. Every commercial ended with a caricature of “the Mad Butcher” accompanied by some maniacal laughter, straight out of the Vincent Price bag of tricks:
My dad could imitate that laugh perfectly – it cracked us up as kids.
We’re not laughing anymore.
This was a week ago. In Fordyce, Arkansas, a town of 3,000.
Normally the folks roaming the aisles of a small-town grocery store are called “shoppers.” In the blink of an eye, they became “targets of opportunity” and “victims.”
The perpetrator didn’t really have a criminal record. It’s doubtful tighter gun restrictions would’ve prevented this tragedy. Meanwhile, closer to home last weekend:
This one could’ve been prevented.
A bottle of water. Kids arguing. It should’ve been nothing more than a petty squabble. But add a gun to the equation and it ends with a teenager dead. Yet the story gets even sadder:
[Full story from the Cincinnati Enquirer is here.]
Three generations of gun violence. We can do more to stop the cycle. We should do more to stop the cycle. We must do more to stop the cycle.
Our grandkids aren’t old enough to know better. What’s our excuse?
The “Heat Dome” has descended upon the Midwest. Welcome to the Terror Dome.
Meanwhile, Southern Florida got flooded last week.
We have only ourselves to blame, really. By ignoring the warnings from scientists. By turning a blind eye to alternative energy sources instead of incentivizing them at scale.
“Given that we’ve seen an unprecedented jump in global warmth over the last 11 months, it is not surprising to see worsening climate extremes so early in the year,” said University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck. “If this record pace of warming continues, 2024 will likely be a record year of climate disasters and human suffering.”
And the ones who suffer the most are the poor and elderly.
Help is on the way. It just needs to get here sooner. Here’s an excerpt from the 6/1 post on Bill McKibben’s excellent — and aptly named — Substack called “The Crucial Years”:
But here’s the thing: At the exact same moment—the same string of months—that the planet is beginning to unravel, human beings are finally accelerating the only real response we have: the rapid rollout of sun, wind, and batteries. The rate at which we’re adding renewable energy capacity jumped fifty percent last year. A new report this week found that wind and sun aren’t just growing faster than fossil fuels—they’re growing faster than any electricity source in history.
The rise of wind and solar has been stemming the growth of fossil fuel power, which would have been 22% higher in 2023 without them, Ember says. This would have added around 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) to annual global emissions.
Nevertheless, the growth of clean electricity sources needs to accelerate to meet the global goal of tripling renewables by 2030, Ember says.
Meeting this goal would almost halve power sector emissions by the end of the decade, and put the world on a pathway aligned with the 1.5C climate target set in the Paris Agreement.
Even in India, the share of electricity generated by coal dropped below 50 percent for the first time since 1966. There’s every sign that, globally, 2023 saw the peak in global emissions; all those solar panels are not just accounting for growth in energy demand any more, but beginning to cut into the actual consumption of fossil fuels. Now the job is to make the decline so steep that we build enough momentum to begin catching up with the physics of global warming.
It is a terrible story, almost unbearably tragic. But its ending hasn’t been written yet.
The more we harness the sun, the fewer unbearable heat waves we’ll have to endure. The more we lasso the wind, the fewer destructive hurricanes we’ll have to witness.
Easy to say, easy to remember… but really tough to put into practice. The vast majority of social media can make us feel inferior – it engenders a lot more envy than empathy. And most advertising is designed to make us want “more” when what we already have is more than enough.
Maybe less content (noun) will make us more content (adjective).
Happiness – it’s not a pursuit, it’s a state of mind.
[Shout-out as always to Grateful Living for the great gratitude reminders via their daily email.]
I hate Alzheimer’s disease. But I love pie. And I love that someone is using the latter to fight the former. And someone else is shining a light on it.
Chris Joecken is someone I met when he was a student at Cincinnati State, and he was looking to break into the video/agency business. Great kid. Now he’s using his talents to tell powerful stories, and bring light and love into the world.
Beautiful. Simply beautiful. I know Helen makes fruit pies, but someone must be cutting onions in here. Those “ripples” are streaming down my cheeks right now.
Chris’ post is right on point. Thoreau said “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” but I think most of us have it within us to be more like Helen, and channel our energies toward lives of humble service. A pebble in the ocean, maybe… but enough to make a ripple.
What can we do with our sorrow? How can we be stewards of what we already possess? How can we transform our pain into something beneficial for others?
Our youngest kid finished up his freshman year at Indiana University a couple of days ago. He came home yesterday. I use the term “came home” very loosely. I saw him for all of five minutes. He’s got other priorities now. Off to see his girlfriend. Home for about five minutes to change clothes, then off to play volleyball with his friends. Then to a friend’s house to watch a movie and hang out. This old man was long asleep when he came rolling home.
He’s already made plans to spend Memorial Day Weekend with his Hoosier friends from Indianapolis. They’re going to the Indy 500.
I feel like he’s already IN the Indy 500 – racing here, racing there… rarely making a pit stop at home. It’s part of the growth process, I know. But it’s still tough when you become a bit player in your baby boy’s life. He’s more “gone” than “here.”
The child born at dawn, By evening has moved on, grey and gone
Buffalo Tom “Here I Come”
I know life is fleeting. I just wish the pace car went a little slower. Instead, I’ll have to cherish the pit stops.
This past Sunday, I went to the initial “Grateful Gathering” in Cincinnati. It was organized and led by my friend and co-worker Susan Jackson.
It was just 14 folks at a coffee shop, chatting. Actually it was much more than that. Thanks to Susan’s prompts from the Grateful Gatherings guide, the conversation got pretty deep quite quickly.
Sharing with strangers can be daunting. And the whole concept may seem a little too “woo-woo” for you.
I get it. Getting deep with people you just met at a coffee shop may not be your cup of tea.
But this Grateful Dude is here for it… all of it. Anything that adds more positivity to the world is much-needed these days.
Here’s the welcome session video:
“Everyone will be blessed by you, just by your presence”
Next session is Sunday, June 30, 10 a.m. at Moonflower Coffee Collective. Please join. I’ll be grateful if you do. And even if you don’t!
Damian on Connecting the Dots: “Thanks for reading, Doug! Not surprised that your media roots run deep.” Jul 3, 23:07
Douglas Balogh on Connecting the Dots: “6 degrees from KSD. They were my client when they were a Pulitzer station. Tell Alicia I was with Blair…” Jul 2, 22:40
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