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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.

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

Parenting

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When you encounter a totally different reality

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When a small town is huge

  In the movie "it's a Wonderful Life", the protagonist George Bailey has longed nearly his whole life to 'shake off the dust of this crummy little town off my feet," to see the world. But Bedford Falls, that crummy little town, felt differently about George. And with the help of a quirky guardian angel, George eventually sees that his life and his town were pretty wonderful. Good lord, but I love that movie and it's characters and it's moral and that small town. I watch it every year at least twice and still cry every time. And I wonder too about the man that pushes the devious Mr. Potter's wheelchair and stands by his side- you know the man, he looks a little like Lurch from "The Addams Family". I wonder, what was he thinking as he listened and watched his boss ruin the lives of everyone he could. What kind of an Non-disclosure agreement did he sign, to keep him silent as he stood by and watched Potter pocket the money Uncle Billy was depo...
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