Our ‘All Hands on Deck’ Moment is Here

WILL WE BE HERE FOR GOOD … OR NOT? a lot will depend on the company we keep.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”
—Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Some of you may be wondering why I didn’t respond immediately to ICE’s vicious murder of Renee Nicole Macklin Good. It wasn’t because I was too numb to have a reaction. I did. It was ugly. You did not need to be privy to it. Those of you who know me, understand that when shit flies in my face, I try to sit with it awhile before I open my mouth. It hasn’t always been that way, but there’s something about getting closer to 90 that seems to make that choice easier. I may not be a super fast learner but I can still learn. My poem, “In the Midst of the Pandemic”, identifies me this way … I tend to sit with things awhile until finally words begin oozing from my pores … If you’d like, you can read that poem here.

And speaking of poetry, did you know that She was a prize-winning poet? Yes, Her, the brutal, vicious domestic terrorist that weaponized her vehicle to run over a federal employee just doing his job; a mom-van filled with ‘stuffies’ and kids’ hoodies and snack wrappers and scraps of love notes, and the family dog in the back seat; the pathetic left-wing radicalized woman with the wife and three children, whose cold-blooded murder must not be allowed to be disguised as anything but the cold-blooded murder that it was; another ice-cold-blooded murder that must not be swept under the rug. I could go on, but I won’t. There are others whose thinking I appreciate and whose eloquence far exceeds mine. I’ll direct you to them in a minute, but in the meantime I really want you to see this …

Renee’s poem, “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs”, was written while studying biology as a college student, pregnant with her now motherless 6-year-old. The poem was awarded the 2020 Academy of American Poets Prize and starts this way … “I want back my rocking chairs, solipsist sunsets, & coastal jungle sounds” … then goes on “At 2:45 AM I study&repeat ribosome / endoplasmic / lactic acid / stamen”. Watch out for the place where the words “make room for wonder” lead to her final lines … May you rest in peace, dear fellow poet & fellow human, and may your precious children, your beloved wife, your grieving mother and all your family be forever proud of who you were in the world.

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So … What’s Next for Us? We know we can’t just keep dangling and as tempting as it is, we’re not going to curl up and hide under the covers … well maybe for just a little while. “Right now, there is a strategy coming from the White House. Here is how that strategy works. You witness so much wrongdoing that your ability to be shocked begins to erode. You are hit with so many scandals that the details blur together. Eventually, the effort required to stay informed becomes so draining that tuning out feels like the only option left. That is not a failure on your part. That is the goal. They do not need your agreement. They only need your fatigue.” These words are from Aaron Parnas (The Parnas Perspective) a remarkable GenZ journalist who is not afraid to speak truth to power. I’ve come to not only pay attention to what he says, but to trust it. I encourage you to give him a look.

And while you’re at it, maybe take a few minutes to watch one of my favorite GenX guys, Robert Arnold, a poet himself, one with a gentle southern drawl and a heart the size of Mississippi; a dad & husband who knows of what he speaks. Here are a few excerpts from his January 8^th video post … “What gets lost when power rushes to justify itself is the ordinary truth of a life … The inside of Renee Nicole Good’s car does not look like a weapon. There’s evidence, evidence of love stretched thin across busy days. A stuffed animal shoved into the glove box because there was nowhere else to put it. Snack wrappers on the floor from backseat negotiations … Crumbs pressed deep into seat crevasses from granola bars broken in half with one hand while steering with the other. A mismatched water bottle rolling under the seat. A forgotten library book. A receipt she meant to keep. A reminder note she meant to read … That kind of chaos isn’t that of a menace. It’s parenthood … It’s the quiet archaeology of a life spent showing up … over and over … when no one is applauding. It’s the smell of sunscreen and stale coffee. The echo of arguments that ended in laughter. The residue of carpools and drop-offs and apologies for being late again … That is not what violence looks like. And yet the federal government chose a word that erases all of that … They chose terrorist. “ You can watch Robert’s video here. It will take about 6 minutes out of your busy day. Maybe a good cry is just what you need.

So again … what will it take for us to let go, and trust that as we continue to draw the circle wider with each one of us identifying and actually doing, whatever it is that is ours to do, no matter how small, we will be taught to fly. As I said, a lot will depend on The Company We Keep.

If you happened to visit my New Year’s Day post, you know that I plan to devote a lot of my attention in 2026 to the promotion of “Intergen Conversations” like the ones I’m having with a small but robust gathering of GenZs who join me about once a month for supper and whatever is on our minds. As I like to say (jokingly) “If I feed them, they will talk to me”. But it’s more than that. We feed and talk to each other from both ends of the spectrum … these five amazing Digital Natives and me of the ‘traditional’ language of what’s euphemistically known as the “Silent Generation,” exploring together what it’s like to be part of this crazy, upside down world where the n-word of my childhood’s einy meeny miny mo schoolyard game is (thank goodness) definitely not allowed, but where use of the f-word, which along with damn, hell, and shit got our mouths washed out with soap, is part of the everyday vocabulary.

Enough of that, but not unrelated … What I’m offering for your consideration today is another version of “intergen conversation” – reflections on current events voiced next by another GenX person, Rabbi Sandra Lawson, whose musings I’ve invited you to read before. It’s a very thoughtful and heartfelt nine-minute video. I hope you’ll take the time to watch it.

Then this from one of my favorite, very thoughtful Boomers, Thom Hartmann. In his Substack Hartmann Report (1.13) he quotes Thomas Paine’s 1776 publication, Common Sense, in addition to addressing a whole lot of current news: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. … The reflection is awful, and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.” (I couldn’t find a definition for “cavilings”. If you do, please share it with us in Comments.)

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Here’s a couple of pieces of GOOD NEWS. First, from GenZ. An 18-year-old engineering student in Ontario has designed a modular, fiberglass tiny-home system to help address homelessness in his city, with plans to live in his prototype for a year to test and refine the weather-resistant shelters for potential mass production. And FOR Boomers: Researchers at Stanford Medicine found that a drug blocking the aging-related protein 15-PGDH regenerated knee cartilage in older mice, prevented arthritis after injuries, and triggered new cartilage growth in human joint tissue—raising hopes that treatments developed by scientists including Helen Blau and Nidhi Bhutani could one day eliminate the need for knee and hip replacements.

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Never to be outdone, how about this from one of my fellow SilentGen Rascals, Garrison Keillor. You may have noticed that in his ‘80s he has become much more outspoken. For some of us, it comes with the territory. We’ve reached the age where we tend to look around and say “What the Hell? I don’t really care what you think of me. I don’t even need you to like me. This is who I am. Take it or leave it.” In his column, Garrison Keillor and Friends (1.9) Garrison writes: We never imagined our country would come to this but it has … You and I should be astonished. We may be witnessing the end of America as the Founders envisioned it, establishing the rule of law, the separation of powers, and promoting the general welfare and, as Lincoln said, “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” — and if so, we should at least pay attention.

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So … last but definitely not least, let’s end our time together with fresh words from the beautiful former Youth Poet Laureate who occupies the very cusp of GenZ / Millennialism, who stunned us all at the inauguration of our last real President in 2021 when she declared … there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.

For Renee Nicole Good
Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026
by Amanda Gorman

They say she is no more,
That there her absence roars,
Blood-blown like a rose.
Iced wheels flinched & froze.
Now, bare riot of candles,
Dark fury of flowers,
Pure howling of hymns.

If for us she arose,
Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,
Crouches our power,
The howl where we begin,
Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater
Of the worst of what we’ve been.

Change is only possible,
& all the greater,
When the labour
& bitter anger of our neighbors
Is moved by the love
& better angels of our nature.

What they call death & void,
We know is breath & voice;
In the end, gorgeously,
Endures our enormity.

You could believe departed to be the dawn
When the blank night has so long stood.
But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone,
When they forever are so fiercely Good.

Until next time,
Love, Sulima

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Buying me an occasional coffee helps me keep these stories coming … and gives me one less reason to cross my fingers when my Social Security payment is due!

Originally published at sulimamalzin.net