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A Writer’s Week Wrecked by Public Tragedies…or not?

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The “It comes in Threes” began with a Spade

It all started with random comments made when I would check my Facebook feed sporadically earlier this week while juggling summer camp schedules and other countless domestic duties. After reading similar posts saying: “Kate Spade, so sad, RIP” I decided it was time to investigate further.

The news was everywhere and I felt sadness for a woman and her family whom I don’t know—truth be told, I would often see her purses in the department stores and thought them clever and cute but never bought one for myself.

Out of respect for the work she put it into her fashion line with the support of family and friends, however, I wish I had if only to take a moment to say “thank you” to her for coming up with a fun line of products that many people have come to enjoy and share with others through the years.  We sometimes wish that we could have helped another person in pain after the fact right?

No Reservations, Parts Unknown and Clearly No Idea

Friday morning arrives with a foggy mindset as I had been doing my best not to read too much about depression and suicidal tendencies in the wake of Kate Spade’s personal tragedy made public and dissected by everyone who took the time to type, tap or dictate their view on the how, why and what to do to avoid more macabre news notifications.

Again the social media water cooler lit up with the news of yet another soul departed by their own devices. The setting was in France this time starring Anthony Bourdain: his buddy found him and then as I finally just pulled up one of the news websites like CNN it became real and now the tears started to burn. Bourdain found dead by apparent suicide and while on-site filming for a new season of his “Parts Unknown”.  This particular show has been a way for me to vicariously live through his travels and be inspired to have courage in my culinary choices as I most recently tried Jamaican food in a local gas station–while the outside appearance of the establishment was unsavory, the food within is heavenly. (note: Mama D’s Calabash for my local readers in Palm Beach County)

At this point I stopped reading anything online or by way of smart phone except to dispatch some personal messages to some friends about it. When Friday afternoon rolled in, so did a fantastic thunderstorm outside our home here in south Florida with violent flashes of raw electricity and rattling thunder. I walked into our pantry and pulled out a fine red wine and paired it with some cheese from Switzerland (another inspiration from Bourdain, wine and cheese make great bedfellows all over the world). As I drank the wine slowly and savored the cheese, I lit a candle and watched the waterworks rage outside with life-wrestling drama.

Now the tears started to moisten my stoic and disciplined eyes. Simultaneously I felt mad and sad. There were waves of jealously coupled with tremors of righteous anger from feelings that injustice had been rampant this week with the public news of these suicides while there were probably many others in the world who died similarly this week but most of the social media users and cable news companies will never know about.

I didn’t cry as I prayed for Spade and Bourdain’s souls watching the storm continue outside our window, the lights flickering for a moment after a close bolt of lightning struck across the street. You see, I believe many people struggle with depression. Perhaps it could be argued that every human being on this Earth will have a depressive episode even if only once in their life. When these suicidal tragedies occur, there are some of us that feel relief that we dodged the proverbial bullet at least this time.

We can do the research, the therapy and the general public is capable of pontificating our views on the matter of depression and the links to suicide with or without scientific reasoning. Here’s what I know from experiences with depression in my lifetime: it doesn’t discriminate and the dark battles within us all can rival the best cinematic representation of fights, i.e. Lord of Rings or Game or Thrones visuals. It can be lonely and dangerous.

It’s positive that we’re having these discussions regarding depression and the afflictions that can result from it as uncomfortable as they can be at times. How we treat each other really does affect us. People are more connected than they realize and I don’t just mean through “friending” or “snapchatting” each other. We’re in a time of great social evolution but we can get stuck in the mud too easily with our emotional reactions to each other as we interact.

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“Things That Matter”: Crying Now

While still letting the recent news of Bourdain’s simmer and reduce, I made the habitual swipe and tap to check social media only to see a note about a farewell letter from Charles Krauthammer. In the whirly dervish of the past several months of political and economics news cycle it was somehow lost on me that I hadn’t seen him in person during “talking head” shows.

As I read his letter aloud to my husband, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2018/06/08/fox-news-charles-krauthammer-says-goodbye-to-colleagues-friends-and-viewers.html ,the tears started cascading and making it difficult for me to keep my voice calm as his words came alive in our living room. Thomas and I cut our teeth politically in Washington, D.C. together and we always enjoyed Krauthammer’s commentaries in print and in person. As moderates ourselves who believe in people over party, we found his discourse refreshing and hope its legacy continues.

My tears may have been partly for Charles having to suffer physically from such an illness but I suspect my heart also breaks for so many of us that find it difficult to find Peace in our respective lives while we still have healthy breaths to live. We can fall into the trap of hurting each other and ourselves when we lose the stillness and grace of Spirit in this world. Krauthamer loves chess and now sees his “checkmate” ahead and shares an uncommon candor in accepting his fate in the calm letter to the world about it.

Weekend Renewal

Like John Lennon once sung in “Believe” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRhq-yO1KN8, I do hope and believe in the idea that people can strive for peace within themselves as well as with each other to “be as one”. +

R.V.S.Bean

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The State of Media Affairs in the USA

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The State of Media Affairs in the USA

Here’s what happens when a busy teacher and parent sits down finally after a long day following Memorial Day weekend: She (in this case, myself) turns on the television and hits up the cable news networks to see if she can get a mosaic-view of what’s going on in the world—or at least our country here in the United States of America.

History Repeated? We Wish

Let me be clear. My philosophy on life in general is that we humans have the tendency to run the same algorithm over and over again in our life cycles, perhaps in a futile effort to see if we can garner the unique ending that we’d prefer on a Hollywood screen or Netflix episode finale. In 2017, however, I believe we may be hitting a whole new low as a culture.

What I saw in the span of a few hours last night floored me. It’s not that I haven’t seen it before in recent months: CNN says President Trump is awful. MSNBC says President Trump is awful. Headline News says President Trump is awful. FOX News says CNN, MSNBC and Headline News are all awful. We all feel awful.

As a teacher and a mother, good grief as an American whose parents immigrated here, I feel like we’ve all been run through a mill and thrown out on the other side without regard for where we’ve all been and how we may actually see the world in other colors other than just black or white—in other symbols other than a donkey and an elephant.

June 2017

And just like that that, we have hit the 6th month of this year and where are we at when we look at our pop-culture news culture?

I’m afraid it’s an awful smokescreen where we’re at as Americans. Do we really believe that the greatest threat to our respective “pursuits of happiness” is who is our President of the United States at the moment and if or who around him/her had intimate talks with the Russian authorities? нет, спасибо.

Jobless June, July and Beyond… 

Seriously, is it too much to hope that those who have the time and resources to sit in front of cameras would try to focus on some of the issues that truly are impacting Americans right now and in the future?

Here’s a few things that we all need to keep in mind while talking heads are whining about who is running our federal government, who they’re talking to and such:

  1. Artificial Intelligence: AI in our daily lives is a fact now, no longer a musing of what the future holds. With or without our knowledge, AI will touch every American who resides in an urban area and even a good portion of those still in touch with our rural side.
  2. Deep Learning: We humans, especially Americans, could stand to learn a thing or two from this new movement/technology called Deep Learning where a machine or computer is accumulating knowledge based on experience. Unfortunately, I’m afraid to admit that many of us may be regressing in our ability to learn or create—thus creating an easy pathway for Deep Learning technology to trump us (forgive the pun).
  3. In line with points number 1 & 2 above, vehicles that automatically drive for us will start to displace many jobs. This is the story that no one seems to really be talking about but is so obvious for our truckers. This is a major job sector that is set to be shattered if this technology takes off without them being re-trained to either be involved in it or transition to something else.
  4. Our Environment: We’re all talking about it but not really doing anything proactive. I personally have found it most difficult to reduce our trash in the household and have attempted to recycle nearly everything away but my heart still sinks every time I put a plastic wrapping or bag in our waste basket because our local recycling plant won’t accept them.
  5. Biomedical Engineering – Genetic Advances: I don’t even have to be well-versed in these areas to understand that already we’ve far surpassed the idea of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. We’re fast approaching a human reality where we may be able to reproduce/clone humans without the standard male + female = human baby.

Looking Forward

These are literally just a handful of the countless other issues having a direct impact on most of us Americans today.

How do we proceed? Can we all apply so as to be hired and perhaps have some of these news media pundits fired? Obviously not.

The best we can hope to do within our busy schedules is to look at the world from our own eyes and act upon it with our own hearts. Such was the case recently on the Portland commuter train where folks died while protecting a couple of muslim young ladies.

We have to deny cable news media and social media their supposed delusion that we look to them for direction as to how to react to our political parties and our government officials.

Instead we should direct ourselves to evoke what the real truth is, that many of us want to have an enduring part of our nation’s history—not this re-run of Gore vs. Bush malaise or post-Vietnam War hangover types trying to define who and what we are as a nation here in the United States of America.

United we stand, divided we fall.

God we pray to stay united and hear each other out.

R.V.S.B.

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Florida, Trump and the moment of truth…

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A Sleepy Homemaker’s Take:

The GOP debate at University of Miami earlier this evening on CNN was a refreshing change in tone from the latest character attack antics we’ve seen–especially between Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz with Donald J. Trump in last month’s debate in South Carolina.

Mr. Trump rightfully had a more relaxed air about him as his numbers favor a victory over his Republican counterparts in the Florida primary come Tuesday, March 15th.

Senator Rubio is very talented but it’s clear already that there’s not sufficient backing for him to clinch Florida at the very least or even come second at the very best. I keep hearing from colleagues and reading columnists that say he needs to bow out to help make this a cleaner two-man race.

Governor Kasich seemed a bit impatient, not that anyone can blame him. He does come to the stage each time with the most experience working in the “system” of local, state and federal government. Unfortunately the collective media and seemingly voting public don’t acknowledge him as a real POTUS contender. Running mate/V.P. candidate? Perhaps.

Senator Cruz is positioning himself to be the contender against Trump. I am too biased to reflect on Cruz simply because it’s difficult for me to listen to him in general. There are those who do listen to him and are supporting him–all are entitled of course to his/her own opinion which is a great freedom available in our nation.

Mr. Trump may have softened his tone in some rhetoric, namely the immigration/work visas, but he didn’t completely water down his stance when it came to the question of Islam or what he thought about muslims in the world.  While it could be said that he “changed” his behavior or strong condemnations, he was not any different from the resolute businessman that we’ve seen before in these debates.

I’m a native Floridian and I grew up hearing the name Donald J. Trump. In fact, I lived across “the island” in West Palm Beach.  There are many like me who are voting now (early voting) and leading up to our primary this Tuesday. It will be interesting to see what the final numbers turn out to be but my layman’s gut tells me Mr. Trump will win.

At the end of it all, however, whomever is elected President of the United States this upcoming November–either Democrat or Republican–I do believe America as a whole will move on and keep striving to be a nation committed to our principles and hopefully treating each other with more kindness as most folks are working hard to support themselves and their families. Anger and hysteria on either sides of the political aisle will not help heal and unite.

Says a mother of three that tries every day to teach her children how to play fair so that they can work well with others one day as adults in the world,

R.V.S.Bean