All tagged 2020
The year 2020 will go down as one of the more challenging times in recent memory for our nation. Of course, the biggest story has been the COVID-19 pandemic. But other stories – a host of elections, endless negative campaigning, executive orders by the bushel baskets, and a vague dread of the impending loss of individual liberty – have also caused our collective vision to blur.
Well, another Thanksgiving observance has come and gone, and I hope you had a wonderful time. As I mentioned in last week's Column, I had the wondrous opportunity to spend a few days with my wonderful children & grandchildren, and blessings abounded. And now we can all look forward, you and I, to Christmas and the love and laughter we will once again have the opportunity to experience. One of my favorite movies of all time is "It's A Wonderful Life."
Defunding the Police has been one of the most controversial topics of 2020, stemming from the wake of high-profile cases involving concerns of racial profiling or cases of police brutality. While some calls for Defunding the Police mask redistributing money from police budgets to social programs, others are a bit more blatant by defunding police departments altogether.
Fast forward to this past week in La Grange, where 31 policing agencies descended on our area. They came with helicopters, heat-seeking devices, K-9s, SWAT teams, armored vehicles, and more. Tax dollars well spent to protect our community from harm. Imagine living near Kennedy Home or Banks School Road in an era where Defunding the Police wasn’t a phrase but a policy.
At this point in 2020, you might feel like me, and wish for help in figuring out how to take news in. So much conjecture, so much agenda, so much spin… and we are dealing with really big issues: This Spring we’ve had to wrestle with Covid, Racial Questions, and Protests. As the Fall comes we face Presidential Politics. It’s more important than ever that we remind ourselves how to digest the headlines, stories, information, data, and feelings that come at us like so many inter-continental ballistic missiles.
I stumbled across a column I had written around Christmastime in 1999. “Sometime around Thanksgiving, wives and children begin firing the question that never seems to end until Christmas Day. What do you want for Christmas, Dad?”
Lenoir-Greene United Way Executive Director Molly Taylor shares her love for her organization.
