Friday Night Fish Fry : Current Affairs

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

Barack Obama

T loves the brazier but isn't the one who wakes up with puffy eyes from sinus/allergy issues of sitting by it at night.

During this past month things have been as heated and nasty as I ever remember them. I can't think of a time in my life when I honestly started disliking someone just because of their presidential election opinions and how they've handled them. Actually I can't believe some of the negative comments that have spewed from my own mouth about some very hard working, nice people just because they supported who I am against. How can we as a nation rise up from this economic crisis when we are so split against each other? Do we have a right to call each other stupid, a**holes, idiots, morons just because of how we choose to vote? Couldn't we have just a tad bit more respect for each other?

My mom used to say if you didn't have respect for yourself or others you didn't have anything. Maybe it is time for each of us to make some sacrafices and take personal responsibility for ourselves than to blame every problem we have on candidates and politicians. Not that there isn't plenty of blame there but c'mon...when you put more than you make on your credit cards just so you can look good to your neighbors, or trade cars every other year just because you've grown bored with your vehicle of 2 years, what does that say about you. In my parents day you bought a starter home, fixed it up...maybe added some rooms, maybe got to build a new home. I look at the wealthiest people around here, the truly wealthy older generation and they live in modest homes. Yet a couple married only a few years with a baby on the way decides to buy or build a $400,000 home (that is a lot for our area) and they've just started in the working world? What is that? What happened to paying as you go? You can't spend more than you make and it not catch up with you. Trust me, I learned the lesson of credit cards in my 20s when I thought clothes made me.

That is getting off the subject though. My point was that I don't like how I have started feeling about people because of an election. I had started really disliking some people based on their comments. And on the flip side, I don't support Palin at all but I am sick of hearing her being made fun of. We get it.

I have several friends who make over the $250,000 threshold. I respect their right to say they don't want higher taxes. They work too hard for their money. It isn't fair to punish them for putting in those hours and being successful. I get that. I have friends who make over that who see the economy tanking so badly they'd rather pay taxes than see it slide further, that is my stand too. I have friends and family who disagree with me on this election but have been gracious and we've debated in a classy educated way. We agree to disagree.

What does bother me is that, for example, I was in a store in Mount Airy recently and in line at the register. The owner was asking the couple in front of me about the debates, this was after McCain and Obama. Once she understood that the man liked Palin she began just gushing about her. "Oh, I LOVE her. She is just a good ole girl, she will be so good in the White House." "I don't even care what that ole Obama has to say, he can keep his talkin'. I already voted anyway..."Blah, blah, blah..."Palin is so much like me....I can't wait to see her debate. It is just like somethin so excitin' about watching her stick it to 'em."

One, I will never buy anything from this store again in my lifetime because I think that is so unprofessional on many levels. Including some racial undertones when not all of us in line were Caucasian and even if it were just me I find that very wrong to assume all whites support what you have to say. Very very disrespectful. But two because I want to vomit or smack someone when they say they want Palin for a VP because she is just like them. What does that even mean? I don't want a VP like me...I can't run a country and this old bitty from Mayberry certainly couldn't. At least be able to state some issues you support for your party.

If you're sued and going to lose all you own do you go to the lawyer like you or the smartest person? When you get told you might have cancer do you rush to the doctor just like you? Some redneck hack? No, you'd go for the best of the best. So why would you put our country's future in the hands of someone like you unless you are presidential material yourself? I just don't get that.

Anyway I will just be glad when this is all over. I can't even read the polls anymore because I can't stand the comments readers from both sides have typed in slamming each other with very rude and offensive wording. I'm sick of being negative. I'm tired of seeing "moral family values McCain" signs in the yards of people who cheat on their wives. I'm tired of Tina Fey doing Palin.

I could never understand growing up how it was possible for women to have been burned at the stake for being witches in this country. I couldn't understand how a community let anything like that happen. But after watching how we have turned on each other like dogs over their food bowl I can actually see how it might.

I know Earl honey, those chickens are out of control and taking over.

I won't show it on this blog again.

I'm done.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Barack Obama

I am excited. I am hopeful for our future when I haven't been in a long time. I am proud, once again, to be an American.

One of the downsides of growing up in such a small town was that I wasn't exposed to diversity. There were a handful of blacks in my elementary school...all with the same surname, one family that everyone liked. I went to school for seven years without a single black person in my classroom. I knew nothing of the Hispanic culture. I knew no Asians. I didn't even know a Catholic or a Jewish person until I was grown.

I loved the song "Jesus loves the little children of the world" but it seemed that half the adults, including some that would sing it too, had some awful nasty things to say about others who weren't just like them.

The only diversity I had was the Baptists not liking the Methodists or the Pentecostals or the Presbyterians.........they'd argue about who was right in a speck on the globe where they were all essentially the same!

Often when I am watching families or friends interacting I think "Oh I hope they don't think I am judging them" because I am just curious and want to observe.

I was lucky that I had people come along, especially during the college years, that accepted me as just a plain old "cracker head" and weren't offended by my curiosity. I made friends of all types and one day it just seemed like the world I knew finally had diversity. And that was good.

In a strange way blogging itself has been a wonderful way for me to connect to people all over the world and understanding and accepting our differences has made me feel that even more we are all equal pieces in a large puzzle.

Now with Obama I am happy to be in a generation that may have grown up in a time that we heard negative things toward others but we didn't listen, we didn't believe.

There is hope.

Some images for today:

Jackson leaves 2nd grade.

It was 96 today. Tomorrow it will be 97. It is so humid we all want to lie around in mid-day.

I actually fell asleep in Toonces's chair today for a 25 minute cat nap because this heat just drains me. I rarely even sit down during the day time unless it is at the computer.