The Land of the Free

A leisurely cup of coffee in bed instead of a run today. 

Leisurely but not relaxed, because Spiegel International is carrying a frankly terrifying report on the attitude of up to half the people in the US towards Muslims. Terrifying because what is generally regarded as the most powerful nation on the planet will probably soon elect a government which fails to differentiate between the religion of 23% of the world's population and the actions of a small group of extremists.
As the economic centre of gravity shifts away from the West and we have to confront reduced affluence and influence, the conservatives (literally those who wish to conserve the status quo and to deny the movement of our societal tectonic plates) in the US and Europe will be flailing around looking for scapegoats to blame - and who better than an easily identified group of "foreign" people, a tiny faction of whom had the temerity to attack the US. History is full of such pogroms, and of people standing aside to let them happen, and there is little indication that we've changed much since medieval times, let alone since the 1930s.

The glass is also half full as well as half empty though and there are apparently just as many people in the US and Europe who do not share this childish over-simplification. We can only hope that we find both the courage to expose the prejudice, and the stamina to keep doing so.