Skip to main content

Reaching Across the Aisles and other faux pas

this was written by me five weeks ago and never published to the blog - it seems even more fitting after the Tuscon shootings.

I am a bit of a political/news junkie - though the fixes can be few and far between these days since I'm weary of the depth of discord. So, for several months now I have remained silent - I've written not one word of political observation or belief since many weeks before the election.

However, I feel the need to break that silence with the recent political 'debate'. I use that term - 'debate'- loosely since there does not seem to be a whole lot of debate in the truest sense of the word. There is no intelligent banter - instead it seems there is a whole lot of yelling, positioning and close-mindedness. While it's not a new phenomenon - it does seem to be escalating since the Presidential campaigns of 2008.

The silence-breaker for me is the complete and total discord on both sides of the aisle for the recent 'compromise' reached by the President and the Republican party over the extension of the tax credits and extension of unemployment benefits. The far left criticises the President for agreeing to the extension of the tax credits and the results of the mid-term elections. The far right criticizes the President for the extension of unemployment benefits and the state of economy overall.

Comments

Post a Comment

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 ...
3 comments
Read more

You don't know me . . .

I stopped blogging for awhile. I know some might think that I was being lazy, or overly-involved in some community or school venture or in the middle of some really good books or projects. While all of those are true, that's not the main reason. I stopped because it felt strange to be somewhere and have someone refer to something I wrote. It was like they knew a secret about me (though secrets are not usually published on the Web) that I hadn't shared with them. Though in reality I had shared because I wrote it on the blog.  Truth be told, I don't know who reads this - I have a smattering of followers but a lot more readers. Blogger lets me see how many page views for each posting and I can even tell the referral site. The most I have had for any post was 152 and I've had readers from as far away as New Zealand (thank you Gretchen) and Alaska. Most readers are referred through Facebook. I know that if I were more diligent, I could market the crap out of the blog ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ten years later

We, as a country, were at our best in the months following 9-11. And never was it more evident than in the dichotomy that was shown this past weekend as we acknowledged the tenth anniversary of that horrendous day that is forever etched in our collective memories. (How's that for a slew of cliches?). On the actual anniversary there were a plethora of television programs and newspaper articles - bringing to life the horror and tension that was September 11, 2001. At church, our Pastor, like many others across the country, tried to put the day into perspective. It was a solemn, though rich, day. On Monday, there was a direct contrast - a GOP presidential debate. Politics and the creation and celebration of differences. And it brought back memories of those days and months after 9-11 - when as a country we rallied together. We seemed to understand that there was a lot more at stake than political differences. While there were divergent opinions there seemed to be an acceptance o...
2 comments
Read more