An age of instant globe-circling information inundates us with a daily dose of things we know close-up, often too close to really see. Sometimes a mirror held up illuminates what otherwise would go ignored. Who reads these words without knowledge of someone whose child died of an overdose? Who is not aware of slavery to this very day? And who does not think at some time of inhumanity written in words we understand?

Carrie Fisher

She needs no introduction. Did Carrie Fisher need a friend? I do not know. I read that she died of an overdose and I reflect on my own past.

For I have flirted with some substances that are now headlines, detailing death after death. I owe my salvation to the promptings of a body that somehow manages to just say no with saving regularity. We should never be sanguine about such things. Nor should we assume weakness and indecisiveness as the probable causes of another's mortality. We cannot be the judges of another's pain.

However, we can note that millions now suffer from the criminal and demonically simple circulation of killer drugs. It is ironical that we read daily of AI when our native intelligence has trouble sorting out things that harm the most and troubles making them the objects of our urgent concern.

What is Juneteenth? Day

The convoluted story of Juneteenth is noted in the embedded account. In essence, Texas suffered a delay of more than two years before being told that the institution of slavery had been ended by President Lincoln.

It is appropriate to have a national holiday to celebrate that, but we don't. It is appropriate to note that slavery persists in many forms in many places and the need to fight it. We do, but not enough. Exercising power over another is onerous and unacceptable. People need space to exercise freedom.

RIP Otto Warmbier

There is much interest in the causes of Otto Warmbier's death after he was returned to the US following imprisonment in North Korea.

Any premature death is hurtful and knowing the cause may bring some closure. That helps explain interest. In this case also, the current back and forth between the US and North Korea intensifies concern. It raises questions about the possibility of a foul play.

Woe

Reading the NBC account that is accessible from the embed above, it seems that some mystery will continue to prevail. Warmbier was apparently in good health when imprisoned, on what seems a very inconsequential pretext. His subsequent state reads like a sad and forlorn tale of woe. All the things in this article speak woe to me.
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