"Caring educator"

A story, today, in my hometown paper, the Lawrence Journal World, is a nice reminder of what really matters in life.

Officer remembered as caring educator

Real men and women don't have to go around swaggering about, proving how tough they are all the time. It's the fuckin' poseurs who sit behind desks, and those too callous to the harm they inflict, who romanticize tough when better and less destructive options are available.

Meaning, it's the weak who romanticize tough when other less destructive options are available or when its really not their place, at all, to impose themselves. People like Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hassan Nasrallah, Khaled Mashaal, Osama Bin Laden, and Mohammed Omar. Plenty of people in the United States and all over the world too close to those examples to be proud of themselves.

And David Dillon is a nice reminder of that fact that compassion does not mean soft, except to the weak.

Compassion is strength. In fact, it is this strength that more solidly than any other distinguishes the efforts of the West and liberal democracies from the efforts of the more repressive forces of the world.

In a world where the weak and the insecure are always turning to tough and denigrating compassion to avoid facing themselves, it's nice to know that people like David Dillon spent some time here, if only for awhile.

That's what I want people saying at my funeral. I don't want some asshole talking about what a "tough sum bitch," I was. That will be apparent from my life, well enough.

I want people to remember what a big heart I had. And that I was someone who gave having a big heart a good name. And that I'd gladly kick the ass and anyone who said different, if need be.

Thank you, Officer Dillon. You'll be missed.