Good morning to you!
It is Tuesday, September 21, 2021, the 264th day of the year.
We only have 101 days left until this wretched year ends, and we are able to try again in 2022.
Yes, 2021 is just what we used to describe as “a silly millimeter longer,” taking after a cigarette commercial from a long time ago.
Anyway, I believe that today is also the final day of summer, an up-and-down season for myself and my family this year, to be honest with you, and I think an up-and-down year for our civilization too, what with the delta variant spoiling a lot of plans for a “normal” summer.
But today is also something else, a day that I had no idea actually existed.
As I look at my desk calendar, today is also the day we are all supposed to celebrate “Peace Day.”
I had no idea what “Peace Day” was, so I looked it up, and this comes from the actual official site of the day, https://internationaldayofpeace.org/
The site describes the day as the following:
“The International Day of Peace ("Peace Day") is observed around the world each year on 21 September. Established in 1981 by unanimous United Nations resolution, Peace Day provides a globally shared date for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace.”
And this year is particularly significant, because if you can add two and two together, you can see that 2021 is the 40th anniversary of this special day.
I will bet dollars to donuts that you didn’t know about any of this; I know that I certainly didn’t.
To me, it is a nice holiday in practice, but is it really practical?
Not only do wars and unpeaceful acts continue to permeate our civilization, but right here in the good old U. S. of A., there is plenty of infighting and other unpeaceful actions that we feel and experience every day, a lot of it around the pandemic that we are all fighting, and specifically about wearing a mask or not, and whether certain decisions constitute a loss of freedom.
A lot of it centers around our schools, whether students and teachers should be wearing masks or not.
I think a lot of people on both sides have made this subject, and our educational institutions, into their own personal battlegrounds, and that certainly hasn’t brought much peace to the school districts involved—whether you are talking about the largest school system in the country in New York City or those in the suburbs, like the Massapequa School District, which is suing to prevent New York State from enforcing mask mandates in the district’s schools.
No, when you see the protests, and the craziness form both sides of the coin, there is nothing peaceful about any of this, and all it does is make our children pawns in this game their parents and the school districts are playing.
So Peace Day, while on paper a nice idea, simply isn’t an idea which is viable.
We are always at each others throats about something, and for the day to come from the United Nations itself—one of the most polarizing political bodies on the face of the planet—begs one to hold their nose and cover their eyes in disbelief.
I would give the day an “A” for effort, but a “D’ in execution.
Reading a little bit more about the day, I found that to inaugurate the occasion, the United Nations Peace Bell is rung at UN Headquarters in New York City.
The bell is cast from coins donated by children from all continents except Africa, and was a gift from the United Nations Association of Japan, as "a reminder of the human cost of war.”
The inscription on its side reads, "Long live absolute world peace"
I have never heard this bell rung; have you?
Each year, Peace Day has a theme, and 2021 is no exception.
The 2021 theme for the International Day of Peace is "Recovering Better for an Equitable and Sustainable World.”
So that theme, I assume, covers two hot political topics of our current time, including the pandemic and climate change.
Just based on that theme, it is already a turn-off to me, because even something that is supposed to celebrate peace is nothing but another excuse to bring politics into everything we say, do or think on a daily basis.
I mean, did I expect anything else from the United Nations?
“Peace Day,” while a nice idea, is just another day for the U.N. to push its own agenda, and that doesn’t seem too peaceful to me.
To me, September 21 simply means the final day of summer, nothing more and nothing less.
I’ve given their version of “peace” a chance, and it simply doesn’t work for me.
It is Tuesday, September 21, 2021, the 264th day of the year.
We only have 101 days left until this wretched year ends, and we are able to try again in 2022.
Yes, 2021 is just what we used to describe as “a silly millimeter longer,” taking after a cigarette commercial from a long time ago.
Anyway, I believe that today is also the final day of summer, an up-and-down season for myself and my family this year, to be honest with you, and I think an up-and-down year for our civilization too, what with the delta variant spoiling a lot of plans for a “normal” summer.
But today is also something else, a day that I had no idea actually existed.
As I look at my desk calendar, today is also the day we are all supposed to celebrate “Peace Day.”
I had no idea what “Peace Day” was, so I looked it up, and this comes from the actual official site of the day, https://internationaldayofpeace.org/
The site describes the day as the following:
“The International Day of Peace ("Peace Day") is observed around the world each year on 21 September. Established in 1981 by unanimous United Nations resolution, Peace Day provides a globally shared date for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace.”
And this year is particularly significant, because if you can add two and two together, you can see that 2021 is the 40th anniversary of this special day.
I will bet dollars to donuts that you didn’t know about any of this; I know that I certainly didn’t.
To me, it is a nice holiday in practice, but is it really practical?
Not only do wars and unpeaceful acts continue to permeate our civilization, but right here in the good old U. S. of A., there is plenty of infighting and other unpeaceful actions that we feel and experience every day, a lot of it around the pandemic that we are all fighting, and specifically about wearing a mask or not, and whether certain decisions constitute a loss of freedom.
A lot of it centers around our schools, whether students and teachers should be wearing masks or not.
I think a lot of people on both sides have made this subject, and our educational institutions, into their own personal battlegrounds, and that certainly hasn’t brought much peace to the school districts involved—whether you are talking about the largest school system in the country in New York City or those in the suburbs, like the Massapequa School District, which is suing to prevent New York State from enforcing mask mandates in the district’s schools.
No, when you see the protests, and the craziness form both sides of the coin, there is nothing peaceful about any of this, and all it does is make our children pawns in this game their parents and the school districts are playing.
So Peace Day, while on paper a nice idea, simply isn’t an idea which is viable.
We are always at each others throats about something, and for the day to come from the United Nations itself—one of the most polarizing political bodies on the face of the planet—begs one to hold their nose and cover their eyes in disbelief.
I would give the day an “A” for effort, but a “D’ in execution.
Reading a little bit more about the day, I found that to inaugurate the occasion, the United Nations Peace Bell is rung at UN Headquarters in New York City.
The bell is cast from coins donated by children from all continents except Africa, and was a gift from the United Nations Association of Japan, as "a reminder of the human cost of war.”
The inscription on its side reads, "Long live absolute world peace"
I have never heard this bell rung; have you?
Each year, Peace Day has a theme, and 2021 is no exception.
The 2021 theme for the International Day of Peace is "Recovering Better for an Equitable and Sustainable World.”
So that theme, I assume, covers two hot political topics of our current time, including the pandemic and climate change.
Just based on that theme, it is already a turn-off to me, because even something that is supposed to celebrate peace is nothing but another excuse to bring politics into everything we say, do or think on a daily basis.
I mean, did I expect anything else from the United Nations?
“Peace Day,” while a nice idea, is just another day for the U.N. to push its own agenda, and that doesn’t seem too peaceful to me.
To me, September 21 simply means the final day of summer, nothing more and nothing less.
I’ve given their version of “peace” a chance, and it simply doesn’t work for me.
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