MISSING THE MEMO

     I heard that phrase the other day and I like it. A lot. It seems that many of us have missed the memo on what America should be and what it has become and where we went wrong and are continuing to go wrong. So Alberto evidently cannot read, for otherwise he would have realized that he has arrived too early in the season, but who can tell him to go away?! Memos.
     But what about the other memos that have gone unread these days? Why have so many of us missed the memo or rather memos that come zooming down the track from the government? Weird definitions and lines have been drawn and yet, outrage after outrage and what? Indifference or lack of a combined effort, a sustained effort, has led to a continuation of outrages. Take one. First look at your child or little grandchild. Imagine that child being ripped from you, taken away, screaming, kicking, and you being restrained and/or knocked down by governmental officials or representatives. Worse, imagine that once you get permission - permission! - to get your child back, well, no one knows where your child is. 1,500 are now lost somewhere in the system, out of the system, abandoned somewhere, fallen into the awfulness of child trafficking worlds, possibly dead, tortured, abused and how do we lose track of children we wrongfully separated from, parents!!!! Where is the memo on human decency? Where is the memo on human rights? Where is the memo that one does not do that!!! Where? Lost in the clouds and darkness of the world of Trump.
     Where is the memo that we do not allow our children to be shot at, to fall into a situation where they expect that one day they could be killed while at their school desks, or walking in the hallways, or eating in the cafeteria? So what do we do as supposedly responsible adults? We sit back and tsk, tsk , sending prayers and thoughts but you know what that does. We send a 'moment of silence", a meaningless gesture if not followed, as Kelly Clarkson said, by a moment of action! That is what we need. But where did that memo go?
     Seems another memo came down, one that seems to have been taken to heart by some. It is the memo of increased 'religion'. Oh, we join hands, we pray aloud at every opportunity, we shout how we need to be more 'Christian', more heedful of the words of the Lord. We say that we need to believe in Jesus, or need more Catholicism in the country. And it is all a load of dangerous hooey! It is worse than that, for the religion is fake, with no depth other than that of fostering hate, attitudes toward those who disagree with your statements of religion, or dear lord, believe that they have the right to assault weapons, and here we go again.
     The actions of the football players have done more than the shouting of the haters. It has forced people to think. The actions of our own kids have forced us to think - and be ashamed of ourselves. I just came across a statistic the other day - thirty nine million bullets are made EVERY day in the world. 39 million! Nothing more needs to be said on that topic!
     And now we are back in the hate debate over LGBT. How can one say that there is no discrimination here? How can one say that one's religious feelings and beliefs can determine whether one can discriminate openly or not. Excuse me, but I can then use 'religious' beliefs to enforce my hate, my misdeeds to put it mildly and that, my friends, is yet another memo we have missed. LGBTQ people are just that. People who happen to have a different orientation in one area of their lives, just as other people do in other arenas of life. How is it not sex discrimination when their desires are the same as ours and indeed they are a part of the ours!!If we allow 'religious' discrimination - and that is what it is - to flourish, throwing away all the memos of the past - then we have returned to a dark time of humanity's history.
     So even as the President shouts louder and louder, insane shouts of brazen lies, even 'disappearing' people from meetings where they spoke, in the presence of others, even as he attempts to impose contrary and dangerous new rules upon us, even as he approves of corruption and theft from the people, even with all this, we have missed the memos that are coming faster and faster, with more urgency, heed them, heed them, for if not, no more memos will be forthcoming. A political and religious and societal catastrophe in the making for want of paying attention to memos.
      Even the world of Nature is in upheaval and how long ago did Shakespeare put forth the belief, ancient even then, that if the world of Man is not in order, neither is the world of Nature. Early storms, the fire and wrath of Pele in the paradise of Hawaii, the crack in the Arizona Memorial, the sinkhole by the White House - hmmm -  the desertification of the world, the melting of the icecaps and the loss of so much land to the sea. The violence in the world. The hatred. The bias. The lack of hope and a future for so many. Memos. Memos. Will we pay attention? Ever? Will we cross the line of no return, the tipping point? You think about it.