A Time for Change

When I last posted, it was near Memorial Day and now Labor day is upon us.  So much has happened.  I have thought about posting many, many times.  Instead, I have been reading a lot of other posts on various blogs all over the web.  I have also been watching the news and tweeting about some of the changes that have been going on in the world. Below are a few of my observations from a very long and somewhat heartbreaking summer.

First of all, I wanted to say how sad I was to say goodbye to Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate, distinguished Senator, family patriarch and a man with a passion for not only the downtrodden, but those who have felt the searing wound of grief and sorrow.  He was a man easy to characterize as some liberal ideologue, but he was so much more than that.  He was a soldier who carried on for his family, he fought the good fight and he was loving and very tender hearted.  Who could not admire that kind of man.  Was he perfect. No.  None of us are.  It was that he so openly dealt with his shortcomings that endeared him to me and numerous others.  He will be missed.

Iran. The Twitter Revolution.  It was rather interesting to see how Twitter put pressure on CNN to cover the events in Iran over the first weekend of the protests.  The power of the people on Twitter.  You are an absolutely amazing group of very passionate people with strong convictions.  I so enjoy reading your tweets because they are more immediate than blogs.  The exchange is rapid, witty and really fun.  More importantly, the events in Iran showed the power of that medium for both good and bad.  Something to think about there.

Race.  I remember when I was watching the inauguration and there were some talking heads on Faux news insisting that now that we had a black President that race was a thing of the past.  I distinctly remember almost falling out of my chair the first time that I heard that.  No, the events of the summer have more than amply demonstrated that race is still an issue in this country.  I think until and unless the “nude” crayon is no longer pale flesh, we have a ways to go.  Yes, I know you might think that is a rather silly way to think about race, after all it is just a crayon.  You’re wrong.  It is so much more than that.  It’s a symbol that allows some to have the belief of both superiority and majority.   It facilitates that Plessy v. Ferguson type of thinking.  It puts an imprimatur of correctness in throwing a resume away without granting an African American a job interview in the must subtle and unprovable form of discrimination, but discrimination that I have seen first hand. So I vote no on “pale” flesh colored crayons and opt for coffee flesh color instead.

Judge Sotomayor.  The debate over this lady was patently absurd and the most bigoted, misogynistic display that I have seen in recent history (well, other than all of the garbage that Hillary had to endure when she ran for President).  When are people going to wake up and realize that women are not only highly competent, but actually better at their jobs than a substantial amount of men would be in the same position?  Even worse, when are women going to start supporting women?

Guns.  If you have read this blog, you know I an not a fan of  guns.  You also know that a lot of gun bloggers and other people harassed me while I was steadily blogging.  Why?  Like the Teabaggers and the Town Hall gangs, rather than have a real dialogue, they prefer to drown out the opposition.  You know, I DON’T LIKE GUNS.  Yes.  There you have it.  I don’t need to apologize to anyone for how I believe and I am not going to ever deal with people attempting to silence my opinion while I give a voice to theirs. You may not like that I make that decision, but it is mine to make.

Now,  can you actually believe that we allegedly live in a “civilized” country where people are walking around with automatic weapons strapped to their leg in open view?  People from far more civilized societies think we, as a country, are nuts.  No, we are just held hostage to the NRA.

Blogs.  I remain steadfast in my belief that the danger of blogs is that you develop a following of people who just adore everything you write.  How is that different from Rush’s dittoheads? Just sayin’.  More importantly, does it make you think and see things in a new way? No.  So, why blog?  To feel validated?  To meet other like minded people?  To feel like you are part of a community? Just to rant?  My conclusion after all of these months is that we blog because we feel that we have something to say and that is really a good enough reason to do it.  I just wish that there was more of a middle ground between adoring fans and crude, rude trolls.

Manners.  The other thing that drove me away into my hiatus was the apalling manners that I have seen on blogs.  Some people like to get into verbal skirmishes on blogs.  I really don’t.  I do enough of that at work.  So, to the people who want to leave abusive comments, you are warned that I will not engage you and I won’t even post you.  That has nothing to do with your First Amendment rights so go to law school so that you can try to figure that out for yourself.  I will not try to educate you anymore on that topic.  I find that sort of comment boring and, at least with me, I have so little free time, boring is about as bad as it gets.  If you don’t like what I post, post on your own blog about what you believe, just don’t leave any vitriol here because no one else will ever see it and I have a filter so either will I.

Well, I had many more observations from my long hiatus, but I won’t go into them all now.  I have loved what I have read over the summer.  Really, I have.

I hope you all had a most excellent summer.  I’ll be seeing you around.