I just won a lottery!

I woke up this morning, and as always immediately went to brew large amounts of coffee for myself. But I was out of coffee! 🙁 I just went to the grocery store yesterday… How did I forget coffee?

Anyway, I drove my son to the bus stop for school. Since I was already out, I drove to Dunkin Donuts with my daughter in the backseat.

From the drive-through, I treated myself to a coffee, but of course I had to order a chocolate frosted doughnut with sprinkles for my daughter. This is required if she is present during the ordering or consumption process of any Dunkin Donuts paraphernalia.

Then the guy at Dunkin Donuts asks me if I want to get two doughtnuts because then it’s a combo. I say, “Uhhhh, yes,” because I’m a decision-maker.

Then I see a homeless guy wondering around in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot like some kind of weirdo.

So I gave him the extra doughnut.

Yay! Now thanks to getting caught in this random chain of events, I get to feel awesome all day. Science shows us that giving even a small bit charitably has a positive biochemical reaction inside of us worth hundreds of dollars in so-called ‘happy pills’ or other drugs, without the side-effects. That means I just won a lottery worth hundreds of dollars!

Please congratulate me on my lucky winnings in the comments!

George Takei on U.S. Concentration Camps and Refugees

My family and I spent 4 years in prison camps
My family and I spent 4 years in prison camps because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor.

What do you think? Post a comment now or read the full statement by George Takei immediately below:

Earlier today, the mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, Mr. David A. Bowers, in the attached letter, joined several state governors in ordering that Syrian refugees not receive any government assistance, or be relocated to their jurisdiction. Apart from the lack of legal authority to do so (under the Refugee Act of 1980, only the President has authority to accept or deny refugees), his resort to fear-based tactics, and his galling lack of compassion for people fleeing these same terrorists, Mayor Bowers made the following startling statement:

“I’m reminded that Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from Isis now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then.”

Mayor Bowers, there are a few key points of history you seem to have missed:

1) The internment (not a “sequester”) was not of Japanese “foreign nationals,” but of Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens. I was one of them, and my family and I spent 4 years in prison camps because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. It is my life’s mission to never let such a thing happen again in America.

2) There never was any proven incident of espionage or sabotage from the suspected “enemies” then, just as there has been no act of terrorism from any of the 1,854 Syrian refugees the U.S. already has accepted. We were judged based on who we looked like, and that is about as un-American as it gets.

3) If you are attempting to compare the actual threat of harm from the 120,000 of us who were interned then to the Syrian situation now, the simple answer is this: There was no threat. We loved America. We were decent, honest, hard-working folks. Tens of thousands of lives were ruined, over nothing.

Mayor Bowers, one of the reasons I am telling our story on Broadway eight times a week in Allegiance is because of people like you. You who hold a position of authority and power, but you demonstrably have failed to learn the most basic of American civics or history lessons. So Mayor Bowers, I am officially inviting you to come see our show, as my personal guest. Perhaps you, too, will come away with more compassion and understanding.

— George Takei

Learn more about our show here: www.allegiancemusical.com

What do you think? Please leave a comment below. 😀

Casting the First Stone ~ Do you love murderers?

My friend E-Jay Morris recently asked the following interesting questions.

How many people telling me what Jesus would do want to extend their love to Jared Fogle? Or Dylann Roof? Or Kim Davis?

How many of you, on September 11, 2001, said, “I think I’ll pray for our attackers,” as you watched the towers crash?

How many of you think Jesus would tell a pregnant woman it’s “her choice?”

My Answer

Putting both the religious and the specific issues referenced aside for now… My book club recently read the novel, Defending Jacob. Defending Jacob also reminds me of the novel We Need to Talk about Kevin. I recommend both books, both of which in very different ways ask through compelling fiction the question what would you do if your own child was accused of or known to be guilty of a brutal murder?

For someone who loves their own child–and who may say they would unconditionally love their own child no mater what–the question tells us how someone who loves all humans might want to behave.

It’s possible to love your murderous, psychologically sick child–and thus not inherently want your beloved child to suffer–but still agree with the use of force to stop the child if needed to protect others such as by putting the child in jail. Right?

There is a difference between:

(a) using force as a last resort when needed to protect people because in our love of all people we love the people we are trying to protect as opposed to

(b) wanting someone to suffer, which usually occurs with anger, hate and self-righteous judgement.

Right?

None of us is perfect. But it’s easy to want to believe our wrath against criminals, against alleged terrorists, or simply against the other side in a war is justified with fierce judgement. And it’s not necessarily false. But often it might be. And would it be unexpected from an imperfect people like you and I who neglect the 18,000 children–children–who starve to death every single day?

Again through fiction, the stories in Holding Fire: Short Stories of Self-Destruction show how hate and vengeance cause us to destroy not just others but ourselves. The beautiful fictional stories come not from Hollywood-type writers, but from talented everyday people like you and I.

I think these ideas apply across all religions including atheism.

However, if the question of Jesus matters to you, whether because you’re Christian or because you think he gives great advice in the Bible, here’s some of Jesus’s most fundamental teachings:

Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Luke 6:37

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Luke 23:33-34

When they came to a place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals – one on his right, the other on his left, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

John 8:7

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

What do you think? What would you do if your child committed an atrocity? Do you hope to treat other humans differently than your child or do you hope to show the same love to all humanity? These questions aren’t rhetorical. Please post your answer in the comments! 😀

The Family Hypothetical ~ What Would You Do?

I saw an intriguing question on Facebook posted by my sister Cindy, who’s literally a scientist if that matters.

Well, what definitely matters is extremely early in her scientist-ing she quit working for big drug companies to take a significant pay cut and teach in public high schools. She teaches kids of all levels, but through an advanced placement program she helps a lot of public high school kids earn college credit. Anyway, back to her intriguing question:

IMAGINE THIS…

You are in bed, house all locked up for the night, and there is a pounding on your front door…

Cautiously you look through the peephole…

A family stands there, they have been chased out of their house by a group of gunmen…

Do you really tell them they should go back home and leave you alone?

My Answer

I think we are all inclined to say we would not tell the family to go home. But almost all of us would.

We are all as foolish and as out of control as the recovering alcoholic who says–before he goes to the bar–that he can go to the bar and not have a drink when surrounded by it.

There’s so much cruelty and neglect in the world. I don’t believe for a second that it’s caused by a few bad apples. I don’t believe in bad apples. Just us.

We are neither better than the people who chase the refugees away nor better than the people who fearfully refuse to take the refugees in.

People disagree about political ideas because politics is theoretical and hypothetical. But, in reality, the battle is just each man versus himself.

And we’re all in that battle together on the same side. We are #InItTogether.

What do you think? What would do? Please post your answer as a comment below.

If you like my answer, make sure to follow me @scottmhughes. I’m planning to release a new book very soon! 😀