Comments on: The opposite of ‘whatever’

By: tanita

tanita — Sun, 14 May 2017 22:52:13 +0000

This just makes me want to SCREAM and weep. I …yeah. The “whatever” is … unconscionable. HOW LONG are we going to accept the truth of “well, this is Alabama?” Aren’t Southerners even a tiny bit ashamed? And yet: it took – and takes – so much for people to rise up against obvious (45) incompetence and lawlessness.

And yet, I hear this guy: they stole twenty eight years of his life. He truly cannot afford to give them anything more, and they certainly give no effs for him. Let God sort it, and move on. But, oh, how deeply, egregiously, and grossly unfair.

*goes back to throwing things*

By: JDM

JDM — Sat, 13 May 2017 20:26:20 +0000

I’ve thought a wrongful conviction being overturned should trigger an automatic payment of $1 million per year of jail time. Having more consequences for those – prosecutors, police, and judges – who commit crimes to get the conviction would be good, but just start with money.

And the thing that gets me, perhaps most, is that when you hear of these cases where gross injustice is deliberately done or perpetuated after ward, that means they’re letting some guilty person go free. If I had a relation to the victim that would infuriate me. I don’t often hear of such fury being expressed.

By: Katherine Catmull

Katherine Catmull — Sat, 13 May 2017 18:40:44 +0000

this piece made me cry!

By: nettie

nettie — Sat, 13 May 2017 08:02:48 +0000

In reply to sumac.

I actually got that wrong. Sorry, it isn’t reverence for the weaker person but more a reverence for the distance between oneself and the divine, an awareness of one’s own ability to make mistakes which keeps us from committing hubris. Woodruff contends that reverence is the thing that protects the weaker people in a society. I can’t find the book at the moment, but he explains it much better than I’m doing in this interview with Bill Moyers.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/woodruff.html

By: sumac

sumac — Sat, 13 May 2017 04:28:04 +0000

In reply to nettie. What an interesting parallel. And I like the image of getting off the trampling horse....

By: Susan Oliver

Susan Oliver — Sat, 13 May 2017 04:06:02 +0000

I sit here, humbled not only by the writing but by the wisdom.

Shit.

By: David Doty

David Doty — Sat, 13 May 2017 03:24:06 +0000

Tell it, sister!

By: nettie

nettie — Sat, 13 May 2017 03:23:46 +0000

Thanks for that, sumac. Such compelling writing. These stories remind me a little of Paul Woodruff’s book “Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue.” https://smile.amazon.com/Reverence-Renewing-Forgotten-Paul-Woodruff/dp/0199350809/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494644155&sr=1-1&keywords=paul+woodruff
Woodruff is a classicist who has spent a lot of time translating and studying Greek philosophers. One of the points he makes is that, in a civilised society, it’s incumbent upon a person who holds more power, people like teachers, policemen and even parents, to maintain a heightened attitude of reverence toward the people he/she has power over. It occurred to me that this extends even to the dynamics between a couple. If there seems to be a power imbalance, the one who feels more powerful is always going to be in danger of abusing their power and must try to remain vigilant about that. I suppose getting down off of one’s high horse to say sorry after you’ve trampled someone would be a part of that.