In the 10 days I’ve worked at The Newton County Appeal I’ve learned writing a column is a lot harder than it sounds. I just put my opinion down on paper, right? Wrong!
I’ve always struggled with self-confidence, so of course I wanted my first column to be something spectacular. I wanted each perfectly selected word to awe and inspire, leaving no doubt I am smart, educated and a well-rounded member of society.
At first, I thought about writing about the ongoing opioid crisis; how Mississippi’s leadership extolls their own altruism in press releases about providing law enforcement with Narcan to save lives, while failing to mention the budget for state-funded substance abuse programs has been cut every year for the past five years.
It makes me irrationally angry to see politicians take hundreds of thousands of dollars away from the people and programs that work to help addicts and give them to a bunch of lawyers, all the while professing how much they care about the well-being of their constituents.
I also thought about writing on the United States refusing to sign a U.N. resolution banning remote controlled robotic soldiers. As if war wasn’t horrifying enough, we may soon see squads of machine gun wielding battle bots taking the place of critically thinking human soldiers. Has no one in Congress seen the Terminator movies?
Remote warfare has been on dicey ground with me ethically since the first drone was used for a targeted strike. I understand the premise; using a robot to accomplish the objective keeps the human soldier out of harm’s way. I applaud anything that keeps more American lives safe.
However, I worry taking humans out of war will somehow cheapen the value of life.
Or, I could’ve written about Mississippi’s Abstinence Only law for sex education in public schools. I think it’s a noble goal to encourage teens to wait for marriage to be sexually active. The problem is it doesn’t work. Years of academic research and terabytes of data confirm what any realistic parent could have said in a heartbeat: telling teenagers not to do something does not stop them.
Some teenagers are going to wait for marriage to have sex, but some are not. I strongly believe the best course of action would be to prepare our state’s children with medical, fact-based information to keep them safe regardless of their decision.
Rising rates of new HIV infections in Mississippi’s metropolitan areas, the stupidity of self-driving cars and the Department of Education’s repeal of Obama-era safeguards against predatory for-profit colleges were other ideas I considered. I even spent a few minutes deciding not to jump on the my-thoughts-on-the-state-lottery bandwagon.
By the time Monday morning rolled around, I was feeling a little down because I still didn’t have a useable column. Plus, all of my ideas were really negative.
There are a lot of negative things going on in the world, but instead of focusing on the depravity humans are capable of, I eventually decided to use my column to focus on the good.
I have a job I enjoy, good coworkers and plenty of coffee. I have food on my table and money in my pocket. My car runs well, my body is healthy and, barring any major incidents, I have many years of life left to live.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the car crashes, scandals, murders and such that plague the 24-hour news cycle, but today I’m not going to beat myself up over writing the perfect column convincing you to share my outrage. Instead, I’m going be thankful for all good things in my life and enjoy this beautiful summer day.
Maybe I’ll work on world peace tomorrow. #thoughtsandprayers
Contact Thomas at thoward@newtoncountyappeal.com.
