I just watched a video, posted by one of my Facebook friends, of elephants sky-diving and giraffes walking a tightrope across a gorge.  And as I write this, my wife is watching The Good Lie, a film by and featuring Reese Witherspoon, about the terror and hardship faced by refugees in Sudan and their difficulties here in America.

I think to myself: sky-diving elephants are absurd.  Tightrope-walking giraffes are absurd.  Leather-recliner partakers of human tragedy are also absurd.

And those people, the Sudanese refugees, still wanted to come to America.

Maybe I should not be surprised.  The US of A has a good marketing department.  When a person is reminded on television every day that one’s biggest concerns here in America are the phone you use, the watch you wear, the beer you drink and the team you worship, how can America not look like Paradise, when compared to who will kill me, what will sting me and where will my next taste of food and water come from?

In many ways, we do live in the United States of Absurdia.  Some days, all I can manage to do is grasp my hands, post my blog and sip on my wine.   My brother’s keeper indeed.