Watching the manically depressed oscillation of an appreciable segment of this nation’s political leadership, during the past several days, hyper-ventilating between vociferous variables over implausible positions, on whether or not to consign poverty-plagued children to starvation-edged cutoffs in their already meager Food-Stamp allotments; and/or exposing their inherently stunted gender incongruity in a malicious maneuver against mysterious female body-parts, for which they secretly hunger, one explication came to mind: an aversion expressed by philosopher Blaise Pascal, nearly four-hundred years earlier, at the irritating repudiation exhibited by the male of the species: “…….what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble sink of uncertainty and error, both the glory and the shame of the universe,” he wrote.
For this observer, watching the antics of a great power’s select leadership, seemingly on the brink of losing its self-respect and of disintegration, the operative word is “shame!”
With our language becoming increasingly deprived of its more eloquent means of self-expression, it’s obviously imperative that a dedicated few, with more retentive memories than the rest, continue to remind us of the necessary values we may be missing and the evocative vocabulary essential to spur us back to consciousness.
We can only hope such unselfish elders are already organizing among us--- and that there are enough of them, to make an appreciable difference.
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