I would award the peace prize to whomever it is who could effect a truce between the political warring factions in our country. I’m sure many Americans agree it’s as though we’re caught up in another Civil War. Let’s hope it doesn’t erupt into violence and bloodshed. No matter the appearance of a civilized society, beneath the facade we are still given to primal instincts…the survival of me and mine.

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Joe Queenan recently wrote in his Wall Street Journal article “Who’s Our Daniel Boone or Joan of Arc?”

IN TIMES OF CRISIS, great nations have always turned to folk heroes, be it Samson, Robin Hood, Joan of Arc or William Tell.
     Well, America is certainly in a time of crisis, and a bona fide folk hero would be handy just now. At a moment when the president is perceived to be unfocused and ineffectual, both houses of Congress are universally despised, our business leaders are mistrusted and loathed, and our cultural icons are invisible or clownish, we could really use a Davy Crockett, an Annie Oakley, a Johnny Appleseed, a John Henry.

I would add that factions in our midst, among them…tea partiers, states instituting laws against illegal immigrants, politicians inflaming religious zealots, financial institutions filling their coffers, and even those protesting against the top wealthy 1%…are unwittingly pulling our society apart at the seams. So while Queenan would like someone…anyone…to lead us back from the brink…

If the closest we can get to a real live folk hero today is a Betty White or a George Foreman, that’s good enough for me. Frankly, things being the way they are today, I’d settle for the guy in the Ford commercial. I’d settle for Cher. I’d settle for Charlie Sheen. I’d settle for somebody masquerading as Betty Crocker. Any port in a storm. And believe me, this is a storm.

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…i’d prefer…a mandela…a buddha…a moses…a solomon…a jesus…a peacemaker…not a folk hero…

………hugmamma.