Jericho

Jericho is answering war with war with its neighbor town, New Bern. I'm glad I'll get to re-watch the installment without commercials. They hack it up too badly.

One really refreshing aspect of this ongoing entertainment is its ability to consider that the terrorism of today's world is not just some outside force, some "other" people who hate us for our freedoms, or whatever. This show continuously explores the possibility that "we have met the enemy, and he is us" and the reality that the black and white of good and evil are situational conflicts of values, needs and perceptions.

("Johnston Green, right? Last year you came to New Bern and placed fourth in the bass fishing competition. I came in second."--enemy truck driver being held at gunpoint by the former mayor of Jericho.)

The other issue that glares at us all througout this series is our society's saturation with guns and the Old West concept that a gun makes all the difference. It does. But think. Remember when Jake was pinned under the truck and couldn't reach his gun? The power of that scene had us all rooting for him to reach it. But suppose he had? My guess is that he would not have been around to finish the story for Jericho. The gun was out of reach and that changed the equation. He had to find a different course of action, and he did.

There's a deer outside my window. I'm trying to see what she's eating. Dandelions, yes. Prairie Coneflowers, no. I guess I need to chase her away, beautiful as she is. She might be the one who's been sleeping in the new grass right beside my vegetable garden.

"For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?"--Kahlil Gibran