No Man is an Island

entire of itself

John Donne, a Jacobean poet and preacher was born in London England in 1572 and died in 1631. In 1624 he wrote "Devotion upon Emergent Occasions" in which you can find, in Chapter 17 "Meditation", the following passage. It was originally written as prose but later changed into poetry.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. ---"

For many years the question has been; "What does it mean"? To me, it means that no man stands alone and that for every action there is a reaction. If you drop a pebble into a still pool of water it causes ripples to spread outward in every direction, the larger the pebble (stone) the farther the ripples spread. Every small action by man affects someone else and the greater the action the more people are affected. Thus the statement, "It doesn't affect me so I don't care" is illusionary.
That, in part, was the reason my blood pressure spiked by several points when I read the unsigned negative (attack) political ad, in the July 15, 2010 edition of one of our local newspapers, against the sheriff of McNairy County. I immediately reached for my keyboard and fired off the following e-mail to the offending editor:

7/15/10 8:50 PM,

To the Editor:
You may not consider this to be news but I will qualify it by saying that, unless there are drastic changes, I won't be buying any more of your papers. In today's, July 15, issue you have an unsigned political attack ad titled "Why McNairy County Needs a new Sheriff!" it simply states that it was paid for by concerned McNairy County Citizens. I am a concerned McNairy County Citizen and I assure you that I had nothing to do with it. I am not so much concerned with the veracity of said ad as I am the legality. When was the law changed so as to allow the publishing of unsigned political materials? When did it become either legally or morally right to disallow a person the right to face his accuser which is given to us all in the Sixth Amendment to our United States Constitution?
Early voting starts tomorrow so now what can be done to set the record straight? Again I am not contesting the truthfulness of the ad, only the legal and moral issues. If it can be done to him it can be done to you. Is that what we want in McNairy County and America? --- signed with full name, address and telephone number.

After 11 days I finally received a return e-mail. It is; July 26 Mr. (deleted)
The ad was brought in by a group of people and was paid for by (deleted). I spoke with the sheriff's wife the same day the ad ran and informed her and the sheriff who had paid for the ad. Tom

Of course that wasn't exactly what I thought should have been done so I dispatched another e-mal which read; "Tom: Does that make it right or legal? signed (deleted).

By now, probably, everyone in McNairy County already knows that their mission was accomplished and we will have a new sheriff in a few weeks. What will be his fate? That's what worries me. Who's next in line? Until next time, stay tuned - William Lee