Late morning in January

View from the back porch

Craig took the plow truck to work again. Freezing rain on top of snow made for dangerous driving conditions. I had big plans to attend the Saturday morning yoga class, gas up the car, stop at the post office and drop by the college campus. Instead, Hank and I did our driveway walk. I am staying in for the duration. Started artisan no-knead bread and leek, mushroom, onion soup.

The walk is generally an effective mind-soother. I start out reviewing annoying conversations from the day, moving forward into various to-do lists. It takes 10 minutes to calm down into more creative thinking. I dug into the previous night’s dinner discussion about Edward Snowden. Someone threw out (like a grenade) “do you think Snowden is a traitor or a whistle-blower?”

The general consensus was that Snowden betrayed our country because it was his job to protect secrets that could jeopardize lives. I had just read the following quote on someone’s car “Morality is doing the right thing, even if it means breaking the law, obedience is following orders even when it’s not the right thing to do.” I might be wrong about the breaking the law part, but you get the drift. I can’t imagine what motivated Snowden, but this is what I do know. Human beings have a long, long history of powerful forces monitoring and persecuting less powerful people. We are not living in particularly dangerous times. It’s always been dangerous to live in this world, just different kinds of dangers depending on the times and location. We need  to have a healthy suspicion of government monitoring. It should only be accepted with crankiness and indignation. Never make it easy for governments to monitor the people.

Speaking of government, I am so disappointed in Chris Christie. If he didn’t know what his staff was up to….then boo. If he did know….well then, you are breaking my heart Chris Christie.