Editorial: What we missed

Flooding, severe weather warnings, snow packed and garbage heaped in New York City Streets, belligerent bombings, shootings, 14 dead, a black swan, epic mealtime, The Kings Speech and The Fighter, protests in Egypt and education price rise in England, riots, Tunisia, David Kato, Russia, the yuan, the world afloat on fiat, Qari Hussain Mehsud, Jared Loughner and “blood libel” misinterpreted, entire peoples diluted and politics polluted: this, an editor’s digression on what we missed.

Natural Disaster: Blizzards were the forecast for everywhere from Georgia to Massachusetts. New York City found itself drowned in some of the largest snows memory can recall. Sanitation workers were disposed; trash lined the streets while snow covered sidewalks and Bloomburg ushered citizens into the pavement to clear their dregs. Meanwhile flooding ransacked Australia. Infrastructure in areas so populated as Brizbane, Australia collapsed to the force of flooding while homes were left to flounder afloat in their own debris.

The world’s political topography is proving just as unpredictable as it’s meteorological counterpart. It has been 60 years since an Arab regime has fallen, and in just 23 days the largely oppressed peoples of Tunisia redefined possibility. Meanwhile yet another threat is placed on the United State’s State Department list of terrorists; Qari Hussain Mehsud is renowned for training suicide bombers and planning threats to security from Pakistan to the United States. Bin Laden is believed to have sent a message to French officials warning them of their allegiances: a wish that our world is broke. France has not subsided.

Of all these notables, for those who know the term, the use of blood libel may be the most shockingly indignant. A term stemming from a false accusation against the Jewish community further contorted its way out of former Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin’s pallet in response to the Arizona shootings. Some things are still indignant.

And a study shows that college may be ineffective after sophomore year. All this for nothing: no, at least not hear. It seems this study is very likely to have been miswritten and in large part testing for the wrong sort of aptitudes.

In our college town we continue to make macro connections in just another of earth’s microcosms. We find, for eight months of twelve, home in Alfred. We find we were missed, we were wanted – we are alive. Home in Alfred to grow and hopefully pursue a shared goal to learn.

In the face of adversity pursuit of literacy emancipated an American people – education, tolerance and ingenuity have always pushed this nation’s finer aspects to the forefront of the global stage. As a nation we often have less than forthright notions, yet we pursue, we mend and we prosper.

President Barack Obama has throughout his presidency kept a firmly public stance on education – much like his predecessor President G. W. Bush with his No Child Left Behind Act. It can be argued that thus far neither president has seen their conception of this nation’s capacity fulfilled.

Now on Jan. 31 we have no longer a new year by which to wish dedications, but tomorrow will always bring opportunity for a better day. A new way of thinking allows a new dedication to find renewed ways and thus – with some luck – more progressive days. So silence your stilled pens and write. Sometimes all ones’ world needs is a little piece of silence to inspire peace. This is mine, my piece of catharsis.