Skip to main content

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 ...

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 ...

Struggling to not feel like a failure

Okay all of you 'struggling to stand' or 'not wanting to have to use a wheelchair' or others that look upon using a wheelchair as a symbol of failure, you're about to get punched. Punched in the figurative sense. I am about to go on my soap box and my Irish is up which means that I'm fairly peeved (though I've been mulling this over for awhile so I'm not as angry as I once was, which means there will be fewer expletives and a kinder tone). If you've read this blog or know me at all, you know that I did not go easily into using a wheelchair as my primary mode of transport. I too, may have had a little bit of your attitude about the wheelchair being sign of failure or of having given up. My sister, Kerri, helped put it in a different light. She said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "It's actually an energy saver since walking is stressful and you're worried about falling - using a wheelchair will take away a lot of that stress. You will hav...

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 ...