And you thought the 4th of JULY was important!! What about living history?

red hibiscus, Webshots

This out of today, June 4, 2007's New York Times, in the What Happened Today section:

"June 4, 1989, Chinese army troops stormed Tiananmen Square in Beijing to crush the pro-democracy movement; hundreds - possibly thousands - of people died."

Now think about that. Possibly thousands. On our watch. During our time. There was so much hope, it tingled right into the American living room. It was downright courageous, brave. I still cry to think of the student standing in front of the tank. They were kids and they were the same age as myself, maybe a little older than I was at the exact same time.

Stuff like that looks like it should be in a history book. In my mind it happened during one of the most dynamic periods of time and very much so in my lifetime. I was getting ready to graduate high school. I was ALIVE, aware of the world, music, and things like this and the Berlin wall coming down calmly yet like a big party, are all real for me.

Maybe I was a liberal Amnesty International member in waiting, even then. Just because you get older and responsibilities grow and you become so beaten down by everyday life is no reason to stop encouraging and being proud of those naïve souls that still care (the college student, basically). Those folks deserve a blessing, and don’t even know it.