Michael, these Earthlings are having far too much fun! They skylark around making music, but not with harps, they fiddle. They enjoy the sports they enjoyed when I was here last, but they are more violent now. Little League umpires are walking off the field, refusing to take abuse from parents and Little Leaguers alike. While most individuals still do get along, political factions are mutating into warring tribes that dump vitriol by the bucketful on each other’s heads.
Smart and civilized nations are making misbegotten wars on each other. Russia is presently attacking neighboring Ukraine, creating hell's own acre. At the same time, the atom is making its way from worker to warrior, and the threat of internecine nuclear war is palpable. It’s disheartening to see international relations tainted so by toxic testosterone.
Here in America the only thing left that the two major parties have in common is humor impairment, and while floating rudderless upon zero-sum politics, congress has become the world's greatest non-deliberative body.
Amidst a world-wide pandemic there are still those who do not, or cannot, recognize that freedom comes with a responsibility to the commonwealth. And from Genesis to Revelation, I never saw the likes of what Earthlings are doing to their climate, resulting in floods, fires, and yes, there are locusts swarming across East Africa’s draught induced famine.
Young people seem to grasp the gravity and urgency of their climate calamity, but their elders continue to attend daily ostrich classes. Some of Earth’s best minds are fixated on space, when they ought rightly be fixated on fixing the planet. Time is running out for these Earthlings, for they continue to fiddle, while their Earth burns. It is a terrible thing to contemplate. I’m going to leave them a note, a call to action if you will, in all caps…
EARTHLINGS, TURN YOUR ENTIRE ATTENTIONS TO SAVING YOUR PLANET,
OR, ACCEPT THE INEXORABLE CONSEQUENCES OF EXTINCTION. -A FRIEND
When it comes to short-term gains, the state of Nevada has a leg up on the other 49 states, having posted gambling winnings of over a billion dollars in each of the last twelve months, then too, in Las Vegas the word “book,” continues to be a verb, and they continue to party-on.
Well Michael, I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have time…
Audio: https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne
About the Author McAvoy Layne
For thirty-four years now, in four thousand performances from
Piper’s Opera House to Leningrad University in Russia,
McAvoy has been preeminent in preserving the wit & wisdom of
The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope, Mark Twain.
McAvoy is a winner of the Nevada Award for Excellence in School and Library Service.
He plays the ghost of Mark Twain in the Discovery Channel’s Cronkite Award winning documentary, 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.'
Says McAvoy, “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher,
whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.”