My Two Cents

Just something I am pondering. I tend to follow my father's advice that the best way to avoid an argument is to keep your mouth shut about politics, religion and money. But being that everyone else has posted an opinion, here comes mine.

It seems that you can sum up an awful lot of the curent "political discourse" as follows:

If you don't agree with me, then...

According to the Far Right: You're a traitor / coward/ unpatriotic/ terrorist sympathizer/ going to hell for sure.

According to the Far Left: You're a war monger / bigot/ stupid/ duped/ a sheep.

How about, none of the above!

I believe that americans generally are people of good will. I believe that extremism, whichever end of the spectrum it falls on, is divisive, counterproductive, and horrifically uncivil and disrespectful. The extreme wings denigrate anyone who doesn't fall into their little clubs by labelling them dismissively. Geez, people, these are your neighbors. They may disagree with you. Why does that make them worthy of vilification? When we discount everyone who doesn't belong to our little club, we risk alienating the vast majority of more moderate thinkers. We wind up preaching to the choir of the like minded and patting ourselves on the backs for our moral or intellectual superiority, and what it gets us is a country fractured down the middle. And a recipe for stagnation and governmental gridlock.

Both parties need to reach out to the moderates in order to get anywhere, and I really hope that is what they do in the future. Comments about people being unfriended on LJ or de-blogrolled because of their political opinions really bother me. How can you ever hope to understand or change the mind of someone who disagrees with you if you cut the lines of communication? How can this hostility ever get us anywhere? Both sides are equally guilty of it. I just don't understand it.

Just because someone doesn’t agree with you doesn’t make them unpatriotic, morally depraved, cowardly, stupid, duped or evil - just different. And no less American.

Life would be so much more pleasant if people could just agree to disagree and respect those holding different ideas and beliefs. I’m hoping that the future holds far more civility, tolerance and peace for us all.

(Also posted on Live Journal.)

Happy Halloween!

Leaves are Falling...

Time seems to be flying. Mikro will be 18 months old in just a few days. It's already getting chilly, and the leaves are changing. Mikro loves the bright yellow ones.

We are not ready for winter here. The fence is still not up, and the ground will soon be too frozen to dig postholes. The electrician never came back to finish the garage portion of the job (which involves trenching), and now it will probably have to wait for spring, like so many other things we had hoped to have finished by now. The Great Flea War (which we seem to have won by literally emptying the house and bombing multiple times) stole a month of prime work time from us, and it looks like we are stuck at this point.

I'm thinking about digging around for Mikro's halloween costume, which I bought last November and packed away, and which got further misplaced in the emptying out of the house process...) If I find it, he will be a purple and green dragon.

I'm sleep deprived, and feeling stupid tired, so this will be an exceedingly short entry...

Updating Mikro's Baby Book

There is a new entry up in Mikro's Baby Book with lots of photos...

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

A family member is in critical condition, and not expected to pull through... What makes this even sadder is that the person in question has led a very limited life, you might even say, hasn't ever really lived at all. She's a year older than me, and there is nothing that can be done for her. I feel powerless, and very sad at how much she will have missed out on.

That is something I really hope is never my epitaph. And with the PTSD thing, and how much time I have already lost to it, it might apply, though to a lesser degree.

There's a poem by Dawna Markova that seems particularly significant to me today:


I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
Of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
To allow my living to open me,
To make me less afraid,
More accessible,
To loosen my heart
Until it becomes a wing,
A torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
To live so that which came to me as seed
Goes to the next as blossom,
Goes on as fruit.

--Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life. Maybe that's my new mantra.