It’s not unusual to hear people complaining about the present and longing for the “good ol’ days.” The complaints are about almost anything that requires new knowledge, different skills, or uncertainty.

Recently a friend of mine said something like “remember polio?” He was comparing that scourge to the current pandemic. During the early 50’s approximately 35,000 people a year became infected with polio. Our nation was terrified by the prospects of paralysis and being confined to an iron lung.

On May 5 Mitch McConnell told reporters that he was, “One-hundred percent [focused] on stopping this new administration.”

It was an interesting line in the sand that he was drawing, not based on any principle or vision other than just putting his party back in power in Congress. It is a stunning assertion and effectively stops any possibility of inter-party dialogue or decision making for the good of the country.

Yesterday a friend of mine told me about “One-way Missionaries.” In the early 1900s there was a group of missionaries who, when they were about to embark on a mission to a foreign land, would not pack a suitcase as most people would. Instead, they took a coffin which they packed with their belongings, along with a one-way ticket. By so doing, they demonstrated their intention to die sooner or later in the new land they were adopting.

In 1947, the year I was born, television had been invented and was being used in some U.S. households that could be measured in the thousands. However, by the late 90’s, 98% of U.S. homes had at least one television that was one for more than 7 hours per day.