Split Ticket

Did I just seriously hear a radio announcer talking about relationships between Democrats and Republicans? Did he just say that over 50 percent of respondents in a recent poll said they could not date someone from an 'opposing' party????

Hell, I've been married to an 'opposing' party for 22 years and been together off and on for another 8 . . . we knew going in that we didn't agree politically but we agreed on the major and life issues. Like children, world peace, the environment . . . We appreciate our mutual passion for and interest in politics and the political process. But politics doesn't belong in the bedroom anyway.

Every couple years, especially when The Shrub was in office, the debates in our home are more often and a bit heated. Yet, we continue to respect one another while disagreeing on divergent opinions. Once we let politics become divisive enough that 50 percent could not relate to a person of another party, we have let it get too personal and has gone too far. Politics should be about governing our nation/state/county/city - not about our relationships to one another as people.

Party politics has gone too far. Isn't this kind of divisive attitude what fueled the Civil War and the Revolutionary War? That might seem a bit extreme but it seems to me that the convictions of the Rebels and the Yankees were just as personal - and they weren't even fueled by a 24-7 media machine.

I am trying to find a positive in this . . .
Nope. Can't.

Comments

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Friday Night Lights

Friday night lights were blazing last week - when for the first time in the history of our little town, the Saugatuck Indians clinched the district title! You can see the sheer joy on Matthew's face and the pride in his father's eyes in the picture above. Leading up to and during the game, there were several things that made the victory even more sweet. The first being that the sports writers in the area, to a person, all predicted the opponents, Climax-Scotts, to win. They'd had a perfect season - until Friday. The second was that we had to travel quite a distance (nearly 90 minutes) to get to the game. And the weather was frigid and snow was blowing - thankfully it was blowing towards the Climax-Scotts stands and was at our backs. And then our quarterback injured his shoulder and had to sit out for a good portion of the game. Thankfully, the replacement quarterback (a sophomore called up for the playoffs from the junior varsity team) did not let the stress effect his ...

Peter Pan no more

It's time. Peter Pan had to grow up. For nearly 18 months of his life, Matthew dressed in this costume. In this picture it's new, just out of the box. He picked the costume out of a catalog and when it arrived, two weeks prior to Halloween, he asked daily if today was the day he could finally wear his Peter Pan costume. He didn't like the hat and only wore it on Halloween, but the rest of the costume he wore daily! You read that correctly - DAILY. He wore it to Meijer (for those of you unfamiliar with Meijer, it's a cleaner, friendlier, more 'upscale' version of WalMart), to church, to play dates and preschool ... Heck, he was three and adorable and it worked for him! (Yes you read that correctly, he even wore it to church on one or two occasions when it seemed arguing with a three year old about not wearing a costume to church was not a battle worth waging. He once mentioned th...

I had to use a calculator

I have been living with MS since 1992 - I used the calculator on my phone to determine that it's 29 years (because unlike the man pictured above my math skills are lacking). That's a long time and you don't need to be mathematically inclined to come to that conclusion. And when first diagnosed, my neurologist declared that with all the research he believed a cure was imminent likely 'within five years'. that would mean that we would have had the cure 24 years ago. We don't. So I am grateful I didn't wager any money on Dr. Wiley's prediction. But what we do have, instead of a cure, is a plethora of pharmaceuticals to help stem this disease's progression and help us live fuller lives, longer. I am happy for that but am also curious and a tad skeptical because these drugs cost a person living with MS a lot of money and pharma has no financial incentive to search for the cure when they can keep us living less gimpy lives for many years reliant on their ...

The Glass is Half-Full

Search This Blog