Chevaliers de Sangreal

Whenever I need to get perspective, I find myself listening to this.  I just close my eyes, and let my thoughts drift to a peaceful place.

The Governor Markell Legacy: Get Rich Education Schemes and The Dying In Wilmington

Six shootings on the same block in Wilmington.  What is up with this block?  If the cops know it is so bad, why don’t they do something?  I don’t get it.  A teenager was killed Friday.  A freshman at A.I. DuPont High School.  What’s it going to take?  How many more young lives have to be destroyed?  Governor Markell, your legacy will be a horrible education system and a city that has no vision except for the fake one at that non-profit building on 100 W. 10th St.  All under your watch.

Were these the dreams you had for Delaware?  You just don’t get it.  If you spent as much time on crime on Wilmington as you utilized the vast amount of resources for education, then I highly doubt you would see what we are all viewing in the news lately.  You have the top job.  It’s your job to oversee this state.  And all I see are tears and anguish.

You have two years.  Spend more time fixing this city than trying to fix the schools.  Stop with your allegiance to Rodel and Arne Duncan and Bill Gates.  Start fixing this city.  It’s not about the corporations you see from 95.  It’s about the people.  They are not human capital, commodities that can be bought and sold.  You are not going to be the next US Secretary of Education.  That ship has sailed.  I’ve heard where your next destination may be, and I’m okay with that.  But you are here now, and you need to set up the future for Delaware, not yourself.

The Leftovers

Last summer I watched a new series on HBO called The Leftovers.  The basic premise of the show was 10% of the world’s populace up and disappears.  Gone.  The survivors, those you left behind, must try to understand this new world and mourn for their losses.  Many assume this is the Biblical Rapture, foretold in the Book of Revelations.

It got me thinking about what would happen if this occurred in the real world.  Current world estimates are that about 10% of the world is disabled in some sort of way.  Not that I would ever want 10% of the world to disappear, but imagine if it was all the disabled of this world, finally at peace.  These are deep, and what some would say, morbid thoughts.  But I am a parent of a special needs child, and I pray every day for an end to his suffering, emotional and physical.  I want him to have the best life possible.

Tourette Syndrome is a wax and wane type of thing, with no predictability whatsoever.  Sometimes my son knows when he is ticcing, and sometimes he is blissfully oblivious.  Lately those tics have been fierce and loud.  And he knows it. I’m not sure if it’s cause of the concussion he’s been healing from, or if this would have been the natural progression of events.  But he’s in pain, and I can see it in his eyes.  He feels like the rug got pulled out from underneath him, and he doesn’t like it.  How do I tell him to keep hoping, to believe things will get better, when he can only see what’s right in front of him?  These are hard times for him, and I hope there is another side to this he will come out of soon.

I read a book about twenty years ago called Embraced By The Light.  It’s about a woman who has a near-death experience and sees angels and heaven.  She talks to God, and he tells her those who suffer the most on this world actually chose that path before they came here.  I don’t know if this is true or not, but it comforts me in an odd sort of way.  I have to keep hoping, because the opposite, it’s not a fun place.