Kim and Pete, or Vladimir and Volodymyr?

 Comment by Louisa Loveridge Gallas, NYT

Yes, Ms. Dowd, the large challenges are so hard to keep in focus, the gothic shadow of climate change, the sadistic brutality of Putin’s war; our attention span and our souls grow weary. We fall into the abyss of end times consciousness. Don’t be too hard, though, on how we divert to glittery shiny things, so long as we don’t get addicted. I admit I have moments of fascination with the stunning gleam of Kim Kardashian and her sleepy eyed, pale, tattooed beloved. The Slap issued in cultural, patriarchal discussions of male conditioning, sexism, misogyny, trauma, family abuse histories and America’s racism that could awaken solutions and help heal the deep problems that underlie war and climate emergency. Dominance, shame and humiliation, greed, rage, willful ignorance, the need to marginalize the ‘other’. May we find our better angels within ourselves and embed them in our conditioning and culture, so we may rise, before a chronic self genocide submits to the violence in our nature and our devastation of our Earth.