Misanthropic Raptor

Yesterday, I reblogged this post, which is all about the extremely messed up (and well written, and thought provoking, and important for critical thought) stories that I and a lot of others remember reading in school.

It included links to all of them, so I re-read them, or read them for the first time, in a couple of cases. Yep. Still messed up. And important.

But one thing struck me about There Will Come Soft Rains, by Ray Bradbury. (Link included so you don't have to go to the first post to find it.) I remember reading it in school, of course, but back then I didn't notice something that really hit me when I read it yesterday. Well, I did read it in the late 90s, to be fair.

The third paragraph starts with the line "Today is August 4, 2026,"

This story was written in 1950, and I'm sure back then, 2026 felt like an incredibly distant year. And yet, me, reading this story again in 2026, I can only be grateful that the vision Mr. Bradbury had of this year didn't come to pass. Read the story- again, if necessary- and I won't spoil it for you, but it's bleak. (I wish I had an automatic breakfast maker like that described in the story, though.)

But yeah. August 2026 was 76 years in the future when the story was written, and is now just around the corner, but thankfully next year when kids read it in school, they'll be able to say that it's in the past.

Time passes, and time passes and time passes. And yet, life still exists, humans still get up and go to work and live (thankfully).

And we read important and messed up stories because they tell us something about ourselves.

I'm sure this is one of those stories that will still be assigned in school, but every student who reads it now will know that it can't happen this way, because it didn't.

And I'm so grateful.

Universal single payer healthcare

Restore reproducive healthcare

Protecting trans rights

Passing the Equality Act

Ending mass deportation

Term limits for Congress

$25/hr minimum wage

Support for rural medical care and schools

$3000/month for stat at home parents

And from this I’ve always drawn two conclusions:

To always distrust Mr. Beast and his ilk who always want their acts of charity done on film, because the people who really want to do good and have no motives to do it besides the doing it never want recognition for it, and