Challenge For Change. I like that.

I’m always happy to receive comments from readers. Occasionally I feel compelled to reply to a reader’s comment as I am doing tonight. The Emperor Norton II comment to which I am replying is quoted below.

Dear Emperor Norton II,

With all due respect to your highness, your comparison of America to the Titanic falls short in several ways.

Once the Titanic hit the iceberg it was doomed; there was nothing anyone could do to save the ship. If introducing yourself to your neighbor on the Titanic made your last moments alive together more pleasant, then your time was well spent. However, America is not a sinking ship, our country is most certainly not doomed and there is a lot that can be done to improve our situation.

I completely agree with your comment regarding our need for a new paradigm. I even have a suggestion for one: Americans working together to improve the world around them doing the things they can do rather than standing still, frozen with hopelessness. Americans acting together as agents for change rather than passively waiting for the government to solve our problems. That’s my suggestion for a new paradigm. Does the Emperor have a more radical suggestion he’d like to share?

Regarding baby steps, are you suggesting that people not do small things that will improve the world around them because the actions are small? Small though any action may be, it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness!

I think your suggestion that we take this to the schools is an excellent one that I fully support. School children are our hope and our future. If we can teach children to consider how their actions affect the larger whole and to do the things they can do (however small) to improve the world around them, then we will have taken a big step in the right direction.

Finally as for the lifeboats, what fri@@&% lifeboats? Unless by lifeboat you mean moving to another country, there are no lifeboats. Either Americans join hands and make this work or we all pay the price. There are no lifeboats!!!

Norton II’s comment
Picking up litter and introducing themselves to their neighbors was what the folks were doing on the Titanic before it went down. All very positive and friendly baby steps, to be sure, but not the radical, getinthefrigginglifeboat fast action that was needed for the times. If Skully had taken the time for baby steps cleaning up the cabin or introducing himself to the passengers he probably would have put the plane into a building instead of the Hudson. The humans need a new paradigm and they need it now. But alas, we fear the Boomers will be spending their time recycling plastic bottles and feeling good about it as they drive the SUV to the mall to buy cheap crap they don’t need and more calories than are good for them. We suggest you take your Challenge For Change to the high schools and pray there are some precocious Millenial Generation kids there with what it’ll take to bring society back from the brink of disaster. If not, put on your life vest and getinthefrigginlifeboat.