Time marches on... or perhaps that's an illusion

The spotlight moves on, inexorably, particularly when a lot of our news outlets abandon local news and many Americans turn to social media for their information.

I read today that Ukraine is suffering nearly 20,000 casualties per MONTH in the ongoing war, and I assume Russia is looking at similar numbers, if not more. That war rages, but there is always something that will draw attention away.

This week it's a combination of the January 6 Committee hearings along with very hot weather across much of the U.S. that we find leading news reports. Then there are crashing stock markets and the continuing pandemic and some 31 right wing wackos were arrested in Idaho, packed in the back of a U-Haul, before they could disrupt an annual Pride parade.

It may be happenstance, but we started watching a four-part series on PBS called "Ridley Road." It takes place in 1962 and focuses on openly Nazi party members complaining about Jews and minorities taking their jobs and crowding out their space and generally causing all that is wrong in their lives. London is the main setting and the story is loosely based on real events from the time... but I kept thinking what I often think: "Nothing really changes."

That the events took place 17 years after WWII ended, after Britain suffered years of bombings and so many deaths at the hands of the Nazi Party in Germany, is shocking. That we are hearing the very same grievances and blaming and threats today is even more shocking to someone who has assumed that the world was moving, fitfully, away from such movements. How naïve of me.

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Watergate burglary, an event that shook the nation (eventually) and brought down a presidency. That amateurish break-in seems positively like a "golden age" compared with the current crimes being committed today by assorted politicians, petty crooks, and newly created ultra-rich people around the globe.

Students don't study history very well, mostly because we have enlarged the scope of history classes to social studies courses... and there has not only been more history added to the database, but now teachers must cover so much more within the same basic number of hours. 

Here in Colorado the department of education is working to issue revised social studies standards for public schools, and the current draft runs nearly 200 pages. Committee members involved in final revisions are busy redlining mentions of LGBTQ+ issues, reportedly. 

Amazingly, the process is increasingly political, with the rabid right trying to hold the line, so to speak, on mentions of events, groups, and movements that they are not comfortable with. I know this politization is not really "amazing," of course, as nearly everything becomes enmeshed in our divided country and world's conflicts.

But if I narrow my focus a bit, and look around at my neighborhood, things seem fine. People smile and wave and no one is waving banners or weapons. The big news on my block is that all the units are being repainted and the crews are swarming buildings, taping and spraying and brushing, while scrambling up long ladders that don't look all that sturdy.

Kathleen and I often remark as we walk around the area that the homes with new paint don't really look much different from how they looked before the new coat was applied. Maybe if we looked much more closely or had created some sort of documentation showing how the last paint job had faded, we would be more impressed.

But, mostly, I think: "Nothing really changes."