I intended to spend some time researching and writing about Thanksgiving. I was going to do that last year, but got distracted. Yesterday I planned to take the morning today to research and write about Thanksgiving  but it will have to wait because I am distracted again.

Like watching a train wreck is “Ferguson”. It has risen (or has been reduced) to the level of one name status, like Chernobyl or Iwo Jima or Prince. Ferguson has character and personality of its own, and it is ugly.

Life can be ugly. Life can be beautiful too.  We can find ugliness and beauty in many places. Sometimes all we see is the ugliness. Sometimes beauty can be seen in the midst of the ugliness, like a line of Ferguson protestors standing guard in front of a business to protect it.

Ferguson is more than an incident that some simply find unfortunate. It is more than an incident that demonstrates over militaristic modern police tactics, the foolishness of brazen, gangsta youth or vestiges of raw racism. Ferguson has reopened the deep wound of centuries of slavery, oppression and injustice. We dare not brush it off.

Consider the now iconic missive: “Can’t we all just get along?” (To be perfectly sardonic)

It is not that simple. Continue reading →