New Doctor images; new products at my online store: https://society6.com/mjartscom
I find the concept of a Time Lord trapped inside a wall clock amusing…
Steven Moffat, outgoing showrunner and writer for Doctor Who, once described the stories of The Doctor as being a fairy tale. To me, this is an accurate description; the series has always been aimed at children [I question the creators’ judgement on occasion]; The Doctor is a fairy-tale hero, spending his life saving the Universe—mostly.
I am once-again running down on my Doctor cycle of ‘going to bed’ stories… I find that the best way for me to end my day is watch an episode of The Doctor—here, I find sanity and hope. I remember the stories too well to continually run The Doctor every night—there are plenty of 20th Century episodes I’ve never seen—the cardboard sets tend to get in the way of the story.
We have just witnessed a remarkable election in Alabama—a former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court being accused of what amounts to being a pedophile—running for the US Senate, and being supported by a significant portion of the voting populating. I’ve read the documents in Doe vs. Trump court case, posted on the Internet; so I guess I should not be surprised that allegations of sexual misconduct are no longer cause for a political contender dropping out of the race. Over the 50 or so years that I’ve been paying attention, politicians have dropped out of Federal election races for far less scandalous allegations than are present now. However, after doing some google research for the last 10 minutes, I find that I’m apparently naïve when it comes to such matters. The list is huge.
Should we expect a higher standard of behavior among those who represent us in the three branches of our government? I was raised to believe that the answer is yes. We should hold politicians to a higher standard. The ‘subject’ is ethical behavior; clearly the concept of ‘ethical behavior’ in government is on a downhill slope. “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Corruption in government goes back as far as recorded history.
The question is what happens when unethical behavior is discovered…
For most of my adult life, I’ve encountered people I admired, who committed sexual misconduct; committed fraud; committed bigotry. Somehow, it has never occurred to me that I should set aside ethical behavior simply because others get away with it—they all ‘got away with it’, even when they were caught.
I was given the Grace Gift [I did not earn the gift; nor did I deserve it] of a ‘moral compass’—there are so many these days who have not been given that gift. Fear of consequences—running aground, to continue the nautical metaphor—always has kept me following the course…but it’s not because I’m good; I simply don’t want to bring anymore chaos to my life. It’s chaotic enough, even following the compass…
I have a 15-year old granddaughter who lives a thousand miles away from me. We see her for a few days, most years. Every day I ponder what to say to her. Sometimes I’m ashamed that this world is the one that she’s been given…
I keep coming back to The Man of La Mancha:
I will impersonate a man. His name… Alonso Quijana.
A country gentleman, no longer young.
Being retired, he has much time for books.
He studies them from morn till night…
and often through the night till morn again.
And all he reads oppresses him…
fills him with indignation…
at man’s murderous ways towards man.
He ponders the problem… how to make better a world…
Where fraud, deceit, and malice
are mingled with truth and sincerity.
He broods and broods and broods and broods…
and broods and finally his brains dry up.
He lays down the melancholy burden of sanity…
and conceives the strangest project ever imagined…
to become a knight-errant, and sally forth…
to roam the world in search of adventures…
to right all wrongs, to mount a crusade…
to raise up the weak and those in need.
We need more Don Quixotes in this world.
We need people who crave honor more than power. We need more people who put ethics before adulation.
Another commercial pitch:
Announcing the publication of:
Chronicles in Ordinary Time
An Illustrated Journey
Book One…
…being the mental musings of a man who tries to make sense of this world.
I started my ‘blog’ long before blogs existed [yes, I am a dinosaur, and there was a time when the Internet did not exist, and people were reduced to writing words on literal paper. These writings are mostly on the subject of self-discovery. They aren’t entirely consecutive in order, and my themes often don’t run across a number of chapters. They discuss matters of ‘progressive liberal’ politics [I call it ‘following Jesus’]; and they talk about Faith.
Available on Amazon Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07871XRHY
$4.00
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Tags: commercial, depression, faith, freelance illustration, heroes, hope, material poverty, mental-health, Nerve Pain, Neuropathy, persistence, personal excellence, Polyneuropathy, self-employment, surviving
Chronicles in Ordinary Time 