MAKING CHOICES AND LIVING WITH THEM

One thing leads to another, or one post leads to another sooner than usual.

There’s a quote from an episode of Blue Bloods on CBS. A character is talking about making a that turned out to be tougher than he’d anticipated but that “somehow you don’t have to talk yourself into the good ones.” In the script the character had made what would be considered a good decision. He chose not to promote an old partner who turned out to be cooking the books. Most of us would agree that the choice was a good one. Even if the choice cost him an old friend.

What’s scary is wondering how hard it was for the Quran burners to talk themselves into what they did. And how hard it was for the extremists who took over the demonstrations in Afghanistan to turn them into riots with fatal results? Too bad there’s no way to guaranty that all those choices will guaranty choices that the majority will agree with.

Hmm, as usual I start in one place and find myself heading somewhere else. I’m sure we all have at least a book or two we’d like to toss on a bonfire. My choices tend to run to anything by a mega church pastor and the entire Left Behind series. There’s some New Ager’s that don’t float my boat either. They don’t rise to book burning levels though. Those Left Behind books those. I’ve read just enough (sis has some of them) to look very longingly at the shredder. But, somehow most of us grit our teeth and admit that “if I don’t like it, I don’t have to read it” and that’s pretty much that.

The closest most of us come to a mob is posting something nasty on Facebook and requesting those who agree with us to “like” what we’re saying. The nuttier groups on the fringe have heart attacks over “wardrobe malfunctions” try to organize boycotts, and the like and…..fill in the blanks.

And we pray to whomever we believe has some say in the matter that our neighbors who may believe that the books we want to shred are just dandy thank you, will accord us the same privilege.