A World Upside Down

LOOSE GRAVEL

Any bike rider knows the problem of coming fast into a turn on a road with loose gravel.  Sometimes it’s impossible to get out of the situation without going down and getting scrapped and bruised.  When I was eleven years old I rode too fast downhill on a hard-packed dirt road into a curve at the bottom.  Two younger cousins were riding with me; I was standing up on the pedals with one cousin on the seat behind me and the other on the rear rack. I couldn’t navigate the curve through the loose gravel, and we went down… We skidded for several feet with the bike and the two cousins on top of me.  I remember getting a mouthful of dirt, a skinned nose, and most of the skin on my right knee scrapped away. The accident put me out of commission for the rest of that summer. I still have scars. I got into loose gravel making a turn today, but I didn’t go down.  I’m much bigger now with longer legs, a long lifetime of experience, and there were no passengers on the seat and rear rack. I rode on to my Wednesday morning coffee date with friends feeling grateful that I hadn’t taken a tumble.  

After leaving the coffee shop a couple of hours later, I headed out on a long bike ride, looking out for road hazards… and thinking about the loose gravel at a curve which our world has skidded into this week. Of course, most of the world is hoping Presidents Obama and Putin will find common ground firm enough to enable them to avoid a crash.  Republican spokespersons John McCain, Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham apparently aren’t joining the rest of the world in hoping for a good outcome for President Obama.  Obviously at any cost they want him to be seen as failing in this and in any crisis. Their remarks to the press, to their colleagues, and to their constituents demonstrate either their failure to recognize the danger to world peace inherent in the Ukraine-Russian crisis or their willingness, even their determination to impede the President’s efforts to deal with the situation correctly. When, I wonder, will moderate Republicans stand up to spokespersons in their own party who will say or do almost anything to gain advantage in American politics.?  A degree of rancor is expected in local, state, and national politics, but the time has come when true patriotism demands that partisan advantage be set aside by both parties in support of efforts to gain national and world security and peace.

The world has come again into a patch of loose gravel. It’s time for Americans to stand together to ride safely through it.