Friday, November 20, 2020

While On a Brief Prowl w/a Single #RandomThought: (Requiem for flight 752)-Loris tjeknavorian

While out & about, I wanted to pay homage to the fallen angels of Flight 752.  As of today, none of the culprits have been brought to justice. 

Please #StaySafe & #WearAMask as I close things out with this courtesy the team at the Daily Stoic:


This has probably not been the year you expected. Few of us went into 2020 expecting an impeachment, a pandemic, riots, murder hornets, earthquakes, fires, record-setting unemployment, a contested election, whales swallowing kayakers and god knows what else has hit you individually. Blew out your knee? Lost a big client? A falling out?

It’s easy to sit here and say this has been a bad year. But is it really so bad? Is it 1865 badWinter of 1777 bad? Was it as bad as many of the years in Marcus Aurelius’s reign? The years at the end of Nero’s? How about 1919—when the world was mopping up after the Great War just as a pandemic was making landfall? Or '68, which had civil unrest, terrorist bombings and a major influenza outbreak on top?

Of course, this is not to dismiss or make light of any of your troubles. Things have gotten real. No one would deny that. The Stoics would simply have pointed out those other examples to help you see that you still have options left. There is still room to maneuver. All is not lost.

They’d want you to have some perspective and also to grasp this simple, black and white truth: Humanity will either survive this or we won’t. You will, or you won’t. Things looked dark in 180 AD, in 1777, in 1865, in 1919 and in 2009. But guess what? We made it through. We survived.

And the people who didn’t? They got their own form of relief too, as hard as that is to wrap our heads around in the moment.

This hasn’t been a bad year. It’s been a year. A year more like some others and less like some others. But it is what it is. You don’t control what it has been, but you have some influence over where it’s going—there’s still a couple quarters left to play. So focus on that. Stay objective and don’t despair.

It’ll get better…or as Marcus quips in Meditations, it won’t and you won't be around to worry about it anymore.



Friday, November 13, 2020

Out & About...Remembering.....

 Today was a day to remember as I had the honor to visit the Orange Wall of Valor here in the City of Orange whereby 1176 flags were set up to in honor of America--normally they set up 1776 flags but scaled it back due to Covid.   They also honored Medal of Honor Winners.

Please enjoy scenes of this day I captured while visiting the Wall of Honor:




I close these brief #RandomThoughts with this as the Commanding General, First Army, paid tribute to another American Hero:


Please #StaySafe, #WearAMask & #BeWell as I also note, #WeShallOvercome.









Sunday, November 8, 2020

Out & About w/ #RandomThoughts on Being Witness to History....

 It has been a historic weekend in America.    As I was being supportive of special projects for the Daily Outsider, I wanted to share some of the "discourse" I captured while on Social Media.

The first one below is from the Writer at Large at the Bulwark.   Tim Miller was one of the group of Never-Trumpers in the Conservative Movement that in my view was one of the reasons President Trump was defeated--I am proud to note I am a Bulwark Plus member and what he noted about Joe Biden was spot on: 


  He's never given up and given in.  He endured the loss of his first love, a daughter and a son--fought back from an brain stroke hard and went on to a distinguished career of service.   He notes how he's the luckiest man in the World to have loved twice--and I am confident this will show in how he will govern.   There is no doubt he will disappoint--but he will lead the way in learning to disagree without being disagreeable.   

As I continued my daily "Virtual walkabout" and assessments, what I found especially striking was what the Mayor of Paris noted below: 


When she said, "..Welcome Back America"--it struck a cord.    It was unfortunate when I saw the likes of Lindsey Graham, Roy Blunt (The Senator from Missouri), Kevin McCarthy and others continue to press President Trump to fight.    But, for me, what hilarious was what the great Kaltoons (and I have been a diehart fan ) underscored as President Trump promised to fight on:  


There is of course, Iran.    Some have been speculating that Joe Biden will go "soft" on Iran--I don't believe it at this stage--but vigilance is important because the reality of Iran was captured by this depiction by the leading Iranian Cartoonist for Iran Wire Magazine Below: 
 



There is, then, the matter of the Election itself and claims of Fraud.   As this stage, I won't speculate about what goes on in other States in the United States.   But, I can attest that in California (and especially Orange County, California) fraud and other "stuff" alleged by President Trump and his supporters simply does not happen.   I just served in my 12th Election as an Canvass Board member and helped with canvassing over 66,000 Ballots over a 16 hour period.   It is a painstaking meticulous process and it was very gratifying to see praise on the work of those of us who were involved in it.   I look forward to my Election Day Diary which I will be publishing soon as I remain hopeful about a better day for America and the World.






Friday, November 6, 2020

On A Brief Prowl w/Some Brief #RandomThoughts

 It has been quite a few weeks --I had the pleasure to serve in the elections and continued special projects for the Daily Outsider as we await the elections.  

As I look forward to sharing an Election Diary, I just wanted to share this from General Russel L. HonorΓ© that struck a cord:



I also ran across this from President Roosevelt that furthermore truly struck a cord:


It is overwhelming at times to be witness to history.

As I finish off these brief #RandomThoughts as we await the formal results, please remember to #WearAMask, Practice Social Distancing, Wash your hands as we together will truly shut down the Virus.