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28 Minutes to Midnight
More Than Two-Dozen Social Issues Threatening to Drive Us Over the Moral Cliff
Thomas E. Mahon
Copyright © 2013 Thomas E. Mahon
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
The Publisher makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any commercial damages.
2013-03-20
Dedication
For Kelly, Megan and Danny Mahon. Life is beautiful but it is full of challenges. Remember what you’ve been taught. Stay faithful to God. Give life nothing but your best. I love you.
Acknowledgments
A shout out to my wife Jami: my first and most excellent editor.
I’d like to thank Father Pedro Leo. Padre, you give great advice.
Cover artwork by Christian Klein.
Introduction: I Get Ticked, Therefore I Write
It was a lazy Wednesday in the dead-middle of summer school. I was going over a series of What I Believe articles with my freshman composition students. Together, we reviewed a heart-wrenching piece from South Vietnamese napalm victim Phan Thi Kim Phuc. You probably remember that famous picture of her, as a child, running nude and screaming in the middle of the street. Phuc wrote an unsparing account of how she has endured multiple surgeries over the years, while learning to overcome her anger and insecurities. Sister Helen Prejean (the nun Susan Sarandon played in the movie Dead Man Walking) took those of us in the room out of our comfort zone, when she recounted the day she decided to leave her sedate middle class life, and trade it for an opportunity to work with the poorest of the poor in the slums of New Orleans. She reminded us of this simple fact: “I watch what I do to see what I really believe.”
After we finished three or four of these articles, I sat back and exhaled.
“Good stuff, huh?” I asked my students.
Several of them nodded their heads in agreement. One young lady asked me what I believed. I picked up a nearby copy of one of my books, Radical Chemo, and waved it about. I had already read them a few paragraphs from a chapter dealing with the comparison of sea turtle eggs (which get state and federal protection) and unborn human beings (which get nothing of the sort). But why do you write? another wanted to know. I pondered the question. “Honestly,” I said, “I see things that tick me off. I see things that aren’t right. I see things that make no sense, and that have to change.” I looked right at her. “That’s why I write. You might say that I’m ticked, therefore I write.” The young lady nodded her head, and I could immediately tell that she understood what I was saying. I’m not sure the others did, but she got me.
It’s good to be gotten.
Any writer will tell you there’s no feeling like it.
Radical Chemo: Six Psychological Cancers (you may not know you have) and what to do about them (2012) tipped the scales at 158 pages. This book will out-do that one by at least fifty. It seems the more I live (and get ticked) the more I write. God only knows how long my next one will be. Actually, I’m seriously thinking about taking a non-fiction break and going back to my Caitlin Prescott series- The Last Daughter. I think I’ll make it a trilogy. Everybody seems to be into trilogies these days. But not to worry: I won’t be writing about vampires any time soon. Not that there’s anything the matter with vampires. Or zombies, come to think of it. At any rate, this work will take the reader on a twenty-eight minute countdown all the way to sixty seconds before midnight—the witching hour. As a society, I do believe we’re headed straight for a witching hour of sorts. We’re headed for a moral cliff, and something, and I’m being intentionally cliché here, must be done. And fast.
I make no apologies for seeing these twenty-eight topics through the Judeo-Christian paradigm. In Radical Chemo, I rail against relativism and I’ll be darned if I’m going to fall into the trap of trying to consider every angle of a topic for the sake of harmony, coexistence or whatever they’re calling it these days. I’m from the you’ve got to believe in something or you’ll fall for anything school of thought. “What I’m going to do,” I often tell my students, “is take your brains out of your heads, stretch them and then put them back and send you on your way.” If you don’t mind, I’d like to do the same here. And I’ll try to do it with writing that is very direct and to the point, counting on your maturity and understanding as you digest these words. Please remember that I never intend malice, only clarity and honesty. I thank you, in advance, for understanding that.
As you read these pages, feel free to agree or disagree. Make notations. Laugh, cringe, growl, nod your head, shake your head. Anything. Anything but shrug. These issues deserve our immediate attention, and shrugging implies indifference. That just takes us closer to the moral cliff. In my twenty-six years in education I’ve taught students from many walks of life. My friends, even a few of my college roommates, have represented diverse cultures and, in some cases, different religions, philosophies and sexual orientations. I enjoy hearing diverse points of view as long as the arguments make sense, do no damage to the human person, and seek a genuine path to achieving the general good.
After you’ve finished, look me up and slip me a line or two. By then I might just know what this Twitter thing is all about, so you’ll be able to reach me there. I’d love to hear from you. In the meantime, I send you my fondest personal regards.
Thomas E. Mahon
January 21, 2013
The N-word
“Oprah, for instance, still can’t get past the n-word issue (or the n-gga issue, with all apologies to Ms. Winfrey). I can respect her position. To her, it’s a matter of acknowledging the deep and painful history of the word. To me, it’s just a word, a word whose power is owned by the user and his or her intention. People give words power, so banning a word is futile, really. “N-gga” becomes “porch monkey” becomes “coon” and so on if that’s what in a person’s heart. The key is to change the person. And we change people through conversation, not through censorship.” Jay-Z, Decoded
28 Minutes to Midnight…
This is about a word. One lousy word that many people believe should never be used.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I try to choose my words carefully. I’d better. I’m an educator and I’m always talking, forever pontificating and spitting forth bold proclamations. And, like many of my colleagues, I’ve enjoyed a very fulfilling career in the field—mostly, I suppose, because I’ve gotten a kick out of my students and have managed to say the right things at the right times and in the right way. Educators, if you haven’t noticed, live and die by
