Free Chat Friday, Week 30

Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee

“Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.” It’s an old cartoon, old history, but it’s also scarily reflective of our present. I keep thinking of the quote from baseball player Satchel Paige, “don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.”

Happy Friday News Viewers, and what a week in the news, right? Between the Jan. 6 hearings, the Olympics, the Delta Variant, the increasing heat and the increasing unbelievable confounding lunacy from the Cult of the Right, we’ve reckoned with our daily reality while seeing a frightening past that is gaining on us faster than we think. You said it, Satchel Paige. . . .

At the same time, we notice another reality, a future which also might be closer than we think. The microcosm which was Team USA Women’s Gymnastics saw one athlete fighting for her life and another athlete seamlessly moving in to win for her teammate, the US, and an immigrant community . Both women are minorities, both athletes are women, and both began writing a story about a possible future in this country, a story different than the one we’ve lived through for so long. An African American chooses to go against the pressure to sacrifice all for the country, a Hmong American chooses to win for the country which has tried to beat her for being Asian in the time of the “China Virus.”

Alternate realities– they make the best stories. Time to write them — if there are close objects in the mirror, I want them to show us something new and progressive, not a retread of our past mistakes….. And while we’re at it, we can talk about anything here as long as it’s civilized, my new favorite word……

So what’s going on with all of you in the NV realm?

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