Did You Know? Bonnie Donovan
In his inaugural address, President Joe Biden spoke of the need for unity.
We must all pray for this unity in an America that is divided like never before.
However, our new president has pledged to pursue certain policies that do little to remove the onus that has been put on the Americans of European descent that represent traditional Christian family values. This movement has been coming long before Mr. Biden became president.
It is well planned and now in fast forward mode because of the internet and the current lockdown where it can just happen while we’re sitting home behind a mask.
It is hard to see how so many of us were co-opted in college. We are just grateful that many of us were steeped in enough truth and can recognize it, but we continue to contribute what we can in our own domain.
We are no longer the same land of the free of our childhoods, nor is bravery much promoted except on the football field. It is not good. Compassion, only if one claims an ethnicity other than Euro. We are on our own because we were raised with so much “privilege,” right? We were raised to respect certain ideals and our parents. We were raised with a base of faith, and our parents took care of us and instilled us with family values.
Our generation trampled on family values, but we were strategically led in that direction, within a strategic plan to which we were too young and too naïve to recognize.
Some of us, gratefully and by God’s grace, have awakened. Truly, that’s the advantage of being raised by a family who loved us.
I guess that defines privilege. It will have to do, because we now lean into those values and trust in God like never before in our lives.
Because those who were not loved and nurtured, corrected and raised in faith are quick to discount those values and trample them, literally underfoot.
Speaking of the inauguration, with 25,000 personnel from the National Guard marching down the street, it resembled more a military coup than the inauguration of a president of the United States.
Last summer there were several days when D.C. was under attack, and even the historic national church was defaced, yet no National Guard were called, nor were they called when those cities were burned and looted for days on end in Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee or Portland.
During the campaign, in March 2020, Mr. Biden said within his first 100 days as president, no one will be deported unless they have committed a felony within the U.S. That would mean that murderers, drug cartel members, human traffickers could cross the U.S. border and start with a clean slate?
Concerning issues of law-abiding citizens, a little closer to home, the increasing crime that has recently plagued our neighborhoods is not just an Eastside/Westside turf war.
It is visiting Goleta, the Mesa, downtown at Arrellaga/De la Vina and even at the train station.
Take, for instance, the cold-blooded shooting at high noon, as the teenager sat in a car in a quiet Goleta neighborhood, which was witnessed and reported by an elementary school-age child. Again, is there enough pain and suffering caused by the result of the COVID shutdowns? The virus?
Sure, pain and suffering. Residual tragedies are at our doorstep of suicides, alcoholism, drugs, isolation, job loss, and then murder and mayhem even involving children. This malaise because of the lack of normalcy — the absence of the wholesomeness of work, school, play, families, family get togethers, spiritual in-person engagement.
Where is the outrage for no child left behind?
Unless someone dies of COVID or at the hands of cops, do we hear any outrage about the loss of life? All while the rest of the world can fall by the wayside.
What is happening in our town? Is nothing sacred?
The 1932 wood flagpole at Santa Barbara Junior High School was chopped down by a Santa Barbara Unified employee, who had a problem with the American flag. He was released on his own recognizance.
We were contacted by law-abiding Eastsiders distraught by the lack of response from their representative regarding the murders and overdoses of high schoolers in their neighborhood. They asked if we could find them help to protect their area.
We reminded them that all of the Santa Barbara City Council members are responsible for the entire city. We find it reprehensible that our elected officials have such a laissez-faire attitude toward the citizens.
Repeated pleas for help have gone unanswered regarding the homeless, panhandling, littering, defecating, increased and brazen gang activity at the Cacique bridge, which has culminated in a shooting and an overdose in the creek bed. Granted, no one seems to have the answer.
But what good are elected officials if they do nothing to fix these problems?
Instead, these elected officials are spending their time taking the parking lots and changing the streets into something unrecognizable while building oversized housing. For whom? And for whose profit?
The deconstruction, the architectural plans, the construction, ad infinitum. Simply said — officials are so out of touch. So out of touch? These people in charge do realize that the AUD incentives for high rise, high density buildings with no set-backs and inadequate parking have always ended up providing pied-a-terre for out-of-towners. So much for needed housing for Santa Barbara citizens. Pick an address, any address.
And last but not forgotten. Our sincere condolences to the city of Santa Barbara and the de Forest Family for what we have collectively lost in the brilliant mind and altruistic man. Acclaimed researcher and resident Kellam de Forest passed Tuesday night.
“(America) is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos.”
— Ven. Fulton J. Sheen
