Musings – on the editor’s mind

Once there was a story about a women named Cassandra. She was conjured up in Greece, during a time of deceit and destruction, when shrill voices drove men to war against their brothers.

Cassandra was a princess of Troy, said to be the most beautiful of the king’s daughters. The god Apollo fell for her, naturally. He wooed her by promising her the power of prophecy, to see accurately into the future. Cassandra said yes, was given the gift, but then changed her mind, refusing Apollo's advances. In revenge, Apollo cursed her, decreeing that her prophecies would never be believed.

Poor Cassandra. She told her brother, Paris, to not abduct the Greek queen Helen, that bringing her to Troy would lead to war with the Greeks. She was not listened to. War ensued.

The Trojans held against the Greek siege of their city. Cassandra warned against accepting presents from the Greeks. The Greeks left a huge wooden horse on wheels at the city's gate and left the battlefield, sailing away. The Trojans brought the horse into their walled city.

That night the soldiers in the hollow horse crept out, opened the gate and let their army in. They sacked Troy, defeating the Trojans. Cassandra had been ignored. She was right. It was enough to drive her mad.

Cassandra was probably a sexual assault survivor. Gods will do that to princesses. There is no balance in relationships with the most powerful.

No wonder Cassandra went mad. Neither her personal truth of her abuse nor her warning to save her community was believed.

For surviving, for spurning the powerful and for being unrepentant Cassandra was cursed. She told the truth and was not believed. She warned those she loved against poor decisions they were about to make and the terrible consequences if they insisted and persisted and was ignored. She then lived through the destruction and death that followed, seeing her family and people decimated.

Cassandra was no Chicken Little or even a boy crying wolf. She was not misinformed or purposefully generating fake news for her own pleasure and purpose. No, she was stuck – cursed – forced to tell the facts that others did not want to and refused to hear, facts that were to play out into an unpleasant – no, destructive – future, a disaster that could have been avoided, if the people had so chosen.

In current times, editorialists and genuine journalists are more and more disbelieved as they sift through and share the facts with a world that doesn’t want to read or hear about the truths in their midst.