Survival

From Ferguson, Missouri, to Staten Island, New York, to Kobani, Syria, to Kabul and Yemen, and Sierra Leone and Liberia (don't forget oft-forgotten Guinea), people are concerned about surviving.

This is our way. Life finds a a way. We all want to survive...then thrive. But first things first.

On Mazlo's hierarchy, you gotta have the basics. Air. Shelter. Food. Protection. Health. In 2014, here is a slight look around the world as to some people's fundamental concerns.








Someone on my computer put the above image in my post. 
Nice!

      Anyway, back to the topic of survival. There are many Americans in our country protesting now about the treatment of individuals who have paid with their lives. Many of these US citizens (and probably a few abroad) feel that people are not getting fair treatment when they are confronted and arrested. Michael Brown of greater Saint Louis, and the Eric Garner gentleman who died of asphyxiation in New York City, where in both cases the law enforcement professionals who killed them were not indicted on charges of misconduct. Many black Americans and others feel aggrieved. If whole populations of the United States feel that their lives count less, that they are not truly safe because of threats to their lives through the legal process (before, during and after arrests and legal proceedings), then they feel a need to protest. I think many Americans have never felt this threat from the law that is meant to protect them, but enough have to where these protests have become valid and must be addressed. Our law enforcement and legal system must improvement for the benefit of all, for the survival of all our populations. 

I learned that the city of Kobani, Syria, was named after a combination of German words. Basically meaning "Company Road" or " Company Way". It has been under a lot of sturm and drang lately, the Sunni ISIS fighters going against their opponents, be they Shia or Kurds, or the Syrian median, Ismailis. Meanwhile, Turkey and the US and others have attempted to help the local populations of Syria to fight back, mostly from air support and missile launches and drops.

Yes, survival. Violent and brutal. The Near and Middle East has been a "hot spot", code word for awful place of murder and mayhem for decades. For those of my generation growing up since Vietnam, all our lives. You could say it has been bad from Algeria to Pakistan (and sometimes beyond) ever since World War II. But it goes further back than that, of course.

Kabul, the capital of that war-ravaged nation has been bad lately.

Survival.

People are doing things that they think will ensure their survival. I suppose even the extremist suicide bombers believe in their causes for the "greater good", right?

In Yemen an American and a South African are killed after trying to practice some journalism. The free press can be that messy. And a Romanian born American is killed for being Western in Qatar, a western leaning Arab state of the Persian/Arab Gulf.

And UAVS, drones, have killed a few more Al Qaida leaders in such places as Pakistan. And we lost a special forces soldier from my home state of Indiana.

Then there is this Ebola mess in the corner elbow of Africa, a three country area where the deaths have been rampant. How to survive?

Health care is a part of it.

And there is politics. Sometimes it is not easy to survive.

But we will. Right?

Blog it, EMC.