Mon Thoughts......

But it's Tue, isn't it?  Heh Heh......

In his Iron Curtain Speech, Winston Churchill said, "Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them." I was reminded of this twice in the past couple of days.  "Closing our eyes" to our problems always has seemed to be like the little kid who puts his hands over his eyes and then exclaims, "You can't see me!"

Do a Google search for "attacks on Jews," say only "in France."  You will come up with hundreds of articles detailing assaults, arsons, rapes, and murders of Jews.  One tells of an adolescent Jewish boy returning from worship who was set upon, beaten, with his hair set on fire and a swastika carved into his forehead.  Yet, a French government minister claimed, "We have no anti-Semitism in France."

ISIS has been perpetrating a genocide against Christians in the Middle East.  Thousands have been murdered.  And, for centuries, these Christians had lived peacefully along side their Muslim neighbors.  Not now......  The killings have also been matched with rapes and beatings.  Some Christians have been taken from their homes and bused hundreds of miles into the desert, where they are released without food and water.  Women have been coerced into sex slavery.  Others have been forced to recant their religious beliefs and convert to Islam.  And what do we hear of this?  Not much, not from the governments of the nations in which this great tragedy is occurring.  Where has been an official condemnation, an often-repeated one, from the US government?  To his credit, the Pope has criticized the murder of Christians in the Middle East, but has he been loud enough?

One of the reasons, we are told, that we teach The Holocaust is so that it will never happen again.  Yet it is happening again.  What is worse than the refusals to confront or even deny these genocides and other violent discrimination, is that some blame the Jews and Christians themselves!  I'd really be curious to see an expose of top politicians and business leaders who have ties to the perpetrators of these tragedies.  But I'm betting we never will.

On a lighter topic, I was a bit disappointed in the release of the Detroit Free Press greatest songs from Michigan/Detroit.  Numbers 100 to 50 were given on Sun, with, I think, another 10 to be revealed on each of the next Sundays.  I figured I'd be disappointed, even considering differences in tastes, age, etc.  But some of the greatest Temptations, Miracles, Four Tops, Aretha, and Bob Seger hits were ranked lower than some, well, let's just say I disagree.  Even the one Kid Rock song I will listen to rated no higher than 71.  (Now, I wouldn't have ranked it that high, but surely many others would.)  I showed the list to a couple of folks and they, like me, never heard of some of those ranked higher than others.  Again, a chacun son gout, but still......  Regardless, I am curious to see the next weeks' rankings and what are the Top Ten.  It's not serious, but a fun thing to do and watch.