“Lamentation”               Douglas Slayton

Lamentation is not an American cultural value.  Unlike other cultures that uphold sadness, tragedy and death as part of the fabric of life.  America flees from death and ignores it, utterly unwilling to accept it as a integral component of the human experience.
America today refuses to lament.  It refuses to weep, and deliberately chooses not to acknowledge the effects of its decisions upon the world as well as its own citizens.  It legitimizes its actions without accepting the responsibility that no action in the world is conducted without some regret.