In the graduate school class I teach, I open the semester examining moral homilies — stories that are used to manipulate behavior in childhood for the greater good of society — and, I ask my students, why are most of those homilies rooted in religion and culture instead of the law or the economy and what were the moral homilies that formed you growing up?
We have been out of Sacramento for 24 hours now so it’s time to look back and share some impressions while they are fresh and of the mind and not the memory. Flying into Sacramento is like diving into a miles long patchwork of streams and parcels of farmland.
You feel like you’re landing in a pasture when your plane touches down. There is no doubt this part of California thrives on agriculture and living from the land. This Sacramento Reloaded post generally deals with experiences within a 30 minute walking radius of the Sheraton Grand hotel in four directions of the wind.
1. Everything closes at 5pm. Good luck finding an open deli or a Starbucks or a restaurant if you’re thirsty or hungry at 5:01pm. On the East Coast we are used to the 24-Hour Deli and eating and drinking joints that close at 2:00am and open again at 5:00am. Our hotel only served food in their restaurant from 6:30am-2:00pm and from 5:30pm-9:00pm. If you were hungry in the afternoon you were on your own! We are used to hotels having eating places open for 24 hours a day.
2. Janna noticed the children in Sacramento are more fearful than those in New York City and Jersey City. Sacramento children walk in fear of strangers and they make too much eye contact that reveals their terror. On the East Coast, children do not worry if you’re a local or a tourist — is there a difference? — they just go along with their business and don’t bother looking you in the eye unless you cause them trouble and then they stare you down eye-to-eye to send terror into your being! Sacramento children appear more vulnerable and unnerved by the unfamiliar than their East Coast peers.
I am slowly realizing my current hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey is quickly becoming Murder City, USA. Yesterday, I discovered the going street price of a life in Jersey City is $6.66 as the murdered bodies of a woman and her two children — a boy aged six and a girl aged 13 — were found stabbed to death in a Greenville apartment. They died Monday.
Do we have a moral obligation to be intelligent? That is an important question we each must answer in the affirmative. I believe, based on the promises we make to each other, we are, indeed, obligated — not needed or required — to be intelligent because a mass of more intelligent people means smarter solutions beyond the levels of base emotion and political and religious sloganeering. Intelligence knows no attachment.
You must be logged in to post a comment.