Friday, a beautiful Fall day, with frost and full sunlight.  Today is my grand daughter’s 2nd birthday.  Watching her grow day to day has been a rare delight.  She is the advancing edge of the new world that is born with each generation.  And what of that “new world?”  Upon her adulthood some twenty years into the future, human nature will essentially be unchanged.  Society will be different in many ways.  She will inherit the world that my generation has made, one dominated by a few large transnational corporations.  Will Amazon, Facebook, Google remain ascendant in her adulthood?  Will those be in decline?  Will China be at the apogee as the superpower of Asia?  And what about our country?

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I am troubled by news of the trial in Georgia of the three men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbury.   The attorneys for the defense managed to seat an almost all white jury.  One black individual was seated among the eleven white jurors.  I understand that Glynn County Georgia is composed of one third Black Americans.  It appears that the murder of a Black man is to be “settled” in the same manner as such deeds have historically be settled in the former slave-holding states in the South.

Prosecutors on Wednesday accused defense attorneys of disproportionately striking qualified Black jurors from the jury pool and basing some of their strikes on race.

Judge Timothy Walmsley said the defense appeared to be discriminatory but that the case could go forward.

Judge finds ‘intentional discrimination’ in Arbery jury selection but allows trial to move forward with 1 Black member
“This court has found that there appears to be intentional discrimination,” the judge said, but ruled there were valid reasons, beyond race, for why Black jurors were dismissed.

To read the entire CNN article CLICK HERE.

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Inadvertently I watched The Queen Family Singalong last night on ABC television.  This cover of Under Pressure by The Fallout Boy knocked me out!  I find enough hope in music, in the triumphant tragedy of Rock and Roll. 

But still, — sometimes I feel like weeping.

Under Pressure

By Queen

Pressure: pushing down on me,
Pressing down on you, no man ask for.
Under pressure that burns a building down,
Splits a family in two,
Puts people on streets.

That’s OK.

That’s the terror of knowing
What this world is about.
Watching some good friends screaming,
“Let me out!”

Tomorrow gets me higher.
Pressure on people, people on streets.

OK.

Chippin’ around, kick my brains ’round the floor.
These are the days: it never rains but it pours.

People on streets.
People on streets.

It’s the terror of knowing
What this world is about.
Watching some good friends screaming,
“Let me out!”

Tomorrow gets me higher, higher, high!
Pressure on people, people on streets.

Turned away from it all like a blind man.
Sat on a fence, but it don’t work.
Keep coming up with love, but it’s so slashed and torn.

Why, why, why!?

Love, love, love, love, love.

Insanity laughs under pressure.
We’re breaking.

Can’t we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can’t we give love that one more chance?
Why can’t we give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?

‘Cause love’s such an old-fashioned word,
And love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night,
And love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves.
This is our last dance.
This is our last dance.
This is ourselves.

Under pressure.
Under pressure.
Pressure.

Lyrics by Freddie Mercury