homeland concentrate

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the beauty and peace and ugliness and violence I encounter on the streets of the U.S. I fire up the old desktop and check my local weather, check the lakelevels of the local reservoirs, Skim the sporting situation around the world and delve into the bitter,daily violence that is reportedly running rampant around my country.
A horrible man in Texas killed some policemen, and the next day,1500 miles away, a couple of “cops” killed a street vendor. 3000 miles west of there a semitruck damaged a bridge causing a partial collapse that crushed a car killing a 12 yr. old girl.Hundreds of miles to the north and 1300 east, news reports that young men living in slumlike conditions were found to shoot each other at greater rates than any where else in the country.
Meanwhile a few miles from the town I call home, a lady and her children ran out of gas on the highway and a curmudgeonly looking old hippie stopped his pickup truck and reaching into the bed of his truck produced a container of gasoline and immediately poured it into the ladys fuel tank and sent her on her way. A church on the north side of town opened their doors and distributed donated food to the less fortunate residents of the town.A group of lawyers and bankers sued an old woman for her deceased husbands medical bills and evicted her from her home.
Hundreds of miles east a deranged individual knocked an old woman out of her car and drove it across town to purchase drugs, while two miles south of him a group of inner city kids got together and dragged trash out of the mighty Mississippi River.
A group of folks who think more of animal welfare than the well being of their neighbors staged a drive intended to raise funds that will hopefully keep every puppy in the country in chew toys and alpo for the rest of their lives, while across town some homeless people cuddled up with their strays cats while trying to find shelter from the summer sun.
On the west coast the surfers were counting sharks, while their compadres on the southeastern tip of the opposite coast were counting manatees and alligators and such stuff.
In the midland a group of builders donated their skills to raise a community building while across the state a man drove away from the service station without paying for his gas.
Yes, I admit that I am overwhelmed by the ferocity of society but I am likewise overwhelmed by the generosity of our citizens. I am overwhelmed by the diversity of our peoples but I am just as overwhelmed by the sameness of our people. Never will our population be a smooth homogenous mix immediately recognized as having expected responses to any particular stimulus. But there is one certainty that I hold near to my heart. When the media begins reporting equally and without prejudice about all the activities of our varied populace and folks gain an understanding of the scale of the land they call home and realize that a few manners and a bit less selfish behavior could lubricate the skids of society, then a new era of understanding and acceptance will come to pass and no one will have anything to worry or complain about.
Personally, I am not going to hold my breath till that time comes.

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