Morality’s not that hard. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Yeah, once you get past the small scale maybe it CAN get complicated, but on the one-to-one everyday human level, it’s just not that tricky.
But empathy, is apparently QUITE difficult. Which I don’t understand. It’s the baseline of human. Being able to put one’s self in another’s shoes and, if not truly understand the other person’s Life, at least understand how YOUR actions would feel if someone did them to you. But it seems like even that is too much to ask.
Lack of empathy is the biggest crime. You don’t have to sympathize. You don’t have to agree. But an inability to empathize with another person, that’s simply dangerous.
Motorkat in Takoma Park has just been cleared out by cops and bomb-sniffing dogs because the bar had the audacity to have a drag show and storytime, and someone’s emailed in a bomb threat. Chances are it’s JUST a threat. Making a threat is easy. Making a bomb is hard. But it’s not like you can just laugh it off. All the local businesses have been evacuated, and the cops will earn their pay this day – and I hope the bomb-sniffing dogs receive treats even if they DON’T find anything.
…. And several hours later this isn’t big enough to make the news. I still have to hunt to find a couple of small articles about it. Motorkat’s announcement is about the most you can find. No bomb. Good. No follow up. Bad.
Gosh I hate people.
I didn’t bring it up all day and sans consequence I eventually forgot about it too. Head to the gig Saturday night at 7 Locks. Be concerned about the fact that we’ve got what SURE APPEARS TO BE a kid’s party at the bar. Children racing around in circles making me worry about our gear, balloon guy handing out balloon swords, drunk adults and joyous kids. Set up is made tense by wondering if THIS is the lap where one of the kids is going to not look up in time and come careening into an instrument or a speaker or a monitor or trip over a cable or…
In the many ways that I adore the trappings of childhood, I feel sort of bad about not appreciating the actual children, but it all seems such a recipe for disaster. It’s CROWDED. The floors are concrete. The kids are racing through the whole brewery and the parents are all in their own discrete block on the far side of the building…
Not to compare children to a bomb threat, but this too passes without incident. Weirdly, as we get close to kicking off the parents race up and settle chairs in a straight line right in front of us and seat the kids there as our front row. It’s surreal enough that I don’t protest, and the kids are fascinated for most of our first set before fidgeting and poking Heather with a balloon sword.
It actually turns into a really fun night. Exhausting. Well-played. I’d gone in thinking maybe I didn’t want to nab any more of these for the calendar. I come away thinking… maybe just one more year.
