The odd time when I come up short of new things to write, I find it fun, to stoke the muse, to forge a new post by a firm law – thou shalt not use this word or that word, that sort of thing.  This time I opt for a rule whose form I leave, as is my wont, to you to solve.  The sport, or the art, if you will, is in the need to keep the tales sound and full of flow, and the bane is in how few themes of sense and worth can be talked up thus.  It’s by no means the first time this has been done – I just think it’s neat and worth a go of my own.

What, pray tell then, has the news for us on this day?  A globe on the brink (as per its wont).  The price of gas.  The death of the man who wrote “Feed the Birds,” “Step in Time” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.”  Mitt, Rick and Newt.  Rush and his big mouth.  And here at home, more phone calls made to squelch votes.  The reign of the mad, the romps of the rich, the plight of the poor.  Far more, it seems, than can be scribed in just a few brief words.  In a sense, there lies the rub – our Earth and the lives of those who have walked it and walk it still are too big to be shrunk to sound bites, to be dumbed down for mass ears with the truth not then lost in the noise.  I wish we were not as keen on fast news; that we took the time to probe, to ask, and in the end to judge with our own minds, and not on the “facts” of the loud.  Why are we so prone to cede the right to choose our way to the guy with the big bucks – and the brash voice?  We are, each of us, free to think on our own.  To look at each new day with our own eyes, and to not be swayed by the rants of the mean guy next door.  To give up this great right is to say, in fact, that we don’t want to be who we are – we want to be sheep, we want to be led, we don’t want to be forced to pick our own fates.  It is so sad.  You wish you could scream this at the folks you pass on the street.  But it seems that this too is a truth to which we each must come in our own way, in our own time.

But in spite of this, there is still cause for hope.  The good do wake if they are nudged.  Mean old Rush has lost scores of ads and fans in the past week thanks to his slurs.  This could be, one craves, the start of a trend.  Most of us do not want to hate; we just want to live life, to love and be loved.  We want things to be great.  I have faith, crazed some might say, that at some point quite soon, the scale will tip, and there will come a flood of good men who will say, “No more.  I am my own man, I walk my own path, and lies shall not slow me, make me sad or make me hate.  I choose to go forth.”  That’s how we make it up the next step.  Shall we walk there as one?

(Hint to those who still want to guess:  The last word there is a clue.  As to if this post is a win or a loss?  That’s your choice to make.)