2024 - the year of beautiful things

Dear you,

2024 begins with some anniversaries.  Tomorrow we have to remember the January 6, 2021, insurrection.  I say "have to" because so many among us deny the carnage party happened and someone has to speak truth to idiocy.  Those who admit to the occurrence blame it on the FBI and Dems, suggesting we/they were under-cover actors trying to make the MAGAs look bad.  No, just no.  Why? Consider the vanity defense.  The FBI and Dems are way too attractive to look like the characters "on stage" that day.  The bad denim pants, reactionary baseball caps, the immense facial hair.  No, just no.  So, we remember. And we speak.

We can also happily remember that fifty years ago we were sane enough (and humane enough) to create the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  So many variants saved, if only for the moment.  I was reminded about this anniversary while listening to NPR, a program featuring scientists fighting for the rights of random beautiful things to exist.  I learned this:  top of the endangered list, orchids and red wolves.  As for the red wolves, there are supposedly only twenty left in the wild.  As for the orchids, some species are vanishing due to global warming (honestly, let's call it what it is, global broiling).

I am sure the fate of endangered wild things seems irrelevant when we think about our wars, our poverty, our emerging tendency to embrace the brutal autocrat-type. But why does relevance matter? Beauty is necessary; it cannot be properly priced or assessed in terms of "use value".  Beauty is worth fighting for. 

So, I hereby declare this new year, 2024, with all its predicted chaos and drama and stupid human activity, to be the YEAR OF BEAUTIFUL WILD THINGS!

Let it be so.

Happy New Year,

Joyce