Food for thought

I'm working on a post with a LOT of photos taken in/around Đà Lạt, on my motorcycle trips to Sài Gòn, Cam Ranh, and Nha Trang, and in Đà Nẵng. In the mean time, I'd like to give you a few somethings to chew on in the back of your mind as you go about your daily life...

Although I live in Da Lat, I still follow U.S. and world politics and events fairly closely; often more closely than I did when I lived in the U.S. To date, my financial donations to Bernie Sanders' Presidential campaign are already more than I donated to all candidates in the previous three Presidential elections because I agree with him on every issue and strongly support taking control of 99% of our elected leaders away from corporations and the oligarchs.

I am FAR from conservative, yet I find myself admiring today's column in the NY Times by David Brooks. Quoting in-part:

"...We live in a society plagued by formlessness and radical flux, in which bonds, social structures and commitments are strained and frayed. Millions of kids live in stressed and fluid living arrangements. Many communities have suffered a loss of social capital. Many young people grow up in a sexual and social environment rendered barbaric because there are no common norms. Many adults hunger for meaning and goodness, but lack a spiritual vocabulary to think things through...

"The defining face of social conservatism could be this: Those are the people who go into underprivileged areas and form organizations to help nurture stable families. Those are the people who build community institutions in places where they are sparse. Those are the people who can help us think about how economic joblessness and spiritual poverty reinforce each other. Those are the people who converse with us about the transcendent in everyday life..."

Whether you call yourself a Libertarian (though you're probably not really) or a Communist, or, like most of us are somewhere in-between, please read the entire column here.

We could all take this suggestion to heart and improve our communities together—instead of watching them deteriorate day-by-day and decade-by-decade.