We just watched Ken Burns special on Bison. I am going to attempt to put our impressions in context with current news

[NewHendoLib]

What the hell is wrong with us - us being we humans. We are capable of such great things - acts of creativity and empathy and wonder and acceptance and love.

We are also equally capable of such incredible narcissism that we wipe out entire species. We kill, we bomb, we shoot, we cheat, we lie, we deceive.

The Ken Burns special made us embarrassed - and enlightened - on so many levels. The special was as much a sad indictment of what we did to indigenous people in this country as to what we did to the bison.

We turn from that to the news - to mass killings, to an inability to deal with the embarrassing, disgusting addiction to killing machines - to marching out the old tired trope of "thoughts and prayers" (while lining pockets with lobbying money). We can be terrorists, we can indiscriminately kill - then react by equally indiscriminately killing - all the while cherry picking religious books for the words that justify our actions.

To top it all off, we now have a speaker of the house who pictures in his mind people and dinosaurs enjoying weenie roasts together - a speaker with - pun intended - unspeakable views on social issues.

It is bizarre - last week my wife and I spent a week in the Great Smokey Mountains hiking and reveling in the beauty. We've spent most of this week hiking locally and seeing the resplendent foliage. Then we briefly immerse ourselves into the horror that so many in the world are having to ensure in.

And it all makes no sense whatsoever - the only linking factor is how dysfunctional, how cognitively dissonant, we humans seem to often be.

[randr]

1. Along with the Bison 10 million indigenous people were "eliminated"

When the Israelis called for a forced march of Palestinians I lost it. Nothing has changed.

[NewHendoLib]

2. Nothing has changed - indeed. we do not learn. we never have - and likely never will.

how we are not dealing with the climate issue proved it.

[moonscape]

3. I'm just home from a month of

hiking and visiting old friends in the Carolinas. Spent 10 days hiking in the Smokies, 2 at the lodge on Mt LeConte, and wrapped up hiking in your environs (and my former one) of the Blue Ridge Mtns with the splendid color. (Loved Boone Fork Trail)

Anyway, although I plugged in enough to be aware of do,estic and international horrors on the surface, I couldn’t bear to dig for details as I needed to savor the splendor that was a much-needed respite from it all.

The dichotomy is jarring indeed.

[NewHendoLib]

4. Kick

[Backseat Driver]

5. Shout out to H20 Man - We began streaming Ken Burns

documentary on The American Buffalo that was streamed as a series on pbs.org. Last night, we got a 7-day trial through our provider for this documentary, and I have to say that the first episode last night embarrassed and saddened me like nothing else I've known in our American history, matched only by Hitler's Holocost and the Ukrainian Holodomor in its horror on human populations across the globe in more recent days. Don't know how I'll get through the rest of the series on top of all the current hurt over the gun violence, hate, and greed in our news these days. What hurt the most was the shooting of the mamas but not the babies who depended on the herd for so much -- learning the life, food, protection -- we killed the adult herds and the babies starved to death or were deprived of their social village and the experienced lessons of that village--The indigenous native Americans died too by gun, disease, and starvation and would never return to their "rich" cultural lives on the grasslands and prairies of America. I have to ask, "Who, as humans, have really ever lived it better by active violence or passive agression?"

[llmart]

9. Another great PBS documentary currently showing is "Little Bird".

It is about the removal of native American children from their parents and sending them off to foster homes in the States and Canada. It's painful to watch but important too.

[Brenda]

6. I understand what you are saying but I disagree it is "humans" or "human nature"

who are or what is responsible for all of the carnage throughout history. There clearly have been billions and billions of humans who were NOT violent, blood thirsty, narcissists, weapon fetishizing, bigots, ignorant, hateful, greedy, rapist assholes.

There are some simple common denominators for all of the reigns of terror upon the Earth and other people.

[NewHendoLib]

8. We have the capability of these horrors as a species

Of course, we are diverse in whether each of us act on such potential capability. But enough have to create such horrors throughout history.

[malaise]

7. Very thoughtful OP

Thanks
Rec

[Ferrets are Cool]

10. Great post