When I get overwhelmed by climate change and our other seemingly insurmountable challenges, I remember that in the early 1980s I didn't think we'd be here today because of the threat of nuclear weapons. Yet here we are. Maybe there's a way through all of this, too.
I had a couple of reminders in the past week. One was the huge climate-change march in Manhattan, the largest march there since the 1982 antinuclear march (which I attended). The other was this article, also from 1982, which I found while clearing out boxes of stuff with family:
As if there could be a best plan. Sheesh. What a strange feeling it was to find this clipping and remember when this was a normal thing to see in the newspaper.
Then there was this cool bit of misinformed prophecy from another small-town newspaper:
Written for the Oneonta Star in December 1976 by a curmudgeon named Ed Moore, it was part of a column where he ruminated on whatever struck his fancy. Here, he wrote:
President-elect Jimmy Carter has his troubles ahead of him and he is going to have plenty. As we see it and contrary to the opinion of a lot of people, Jimmy is going to end up not far to the left of Ronald Reagan. Jimmy is a conservative from way back...Well, I guess he got one that wrong. Carter not only had a childhood immersed in a black-majority village, he maintains what I would call a truly Christian worldview, unlike right-wingers like Reagan and the even worse examples since his days. From his work with Habitat for Humanity to helping to eliminate the guinea worm to his most recent book about sexism, Carter has shown he is nothing like Reagan.
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