For the Other

Please stop telling me how to feel.

Stop telling me to calm down. Stop telling me to get over it. Don’t tell me to relax or to stop being offended.

If you know me, and you care about me, I would be grateful if you would give me a minute; if you would really pay attention.

I am grieving the outcome of this election. I am disheartened, discouraged, and disappointed. I have just recently attained a small degree of emotional health and stability after a crushing personal loss—and this feels like a set-back to me.

You may not understand this. You probably don’t understand it. That’s OK. You don’t have to understand it in order to be empathetic. All you have to do is believe me that this is really how I feel.

I am trying my best to not say unkind things about people who supported Trump. I think I’ve succeeded for the most part—but if I’ve said or written something that feels like a personal attack or insult, please bring it to my attention. I do not want to hurt or offend you. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I would like you to do the same for me.

You say how upset you are by the negativity—as though “negativity” on its own is a bad thing. “Negativity” is the only appropriate response to racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, and violence. No matter who we voted for, we should ALL be negative when we read a story about a young Saudi college student in Wisconsin beaten to death, or middle-school students in Michigan chanting “build the wall” at Latino classmates.

This is why I grieve. This is why I am discouraged, and even afraid for my friends who are Latino, black, gay, Jewish, or Muslim.

White Trump supporters do not, as a group, I presume, feel threatened and afraid when they leave their homes. They don’t wonder if they will be insulted or demeaned or threatened just because of who they are or what they look like.

But the groups that are targeted by Trump and some of his supporters do feel these kinds of threats and fear. The president-elect of the United States has said rude, scary, demeaning, threatening things about them—and some of his supporters take this as license to bring their formerly hidden racism, ethocentrism, misogyny out into the light.

Trump’s America is frightening for some people—entire groups of people. If you could acknowledge this without minimizing it, or contradicting it, or blaming it on the media, it would go a long way to helping those of us who are grieving and/or afraid to believe that this is not the America that you want to see.

Please don’t minimize it by saying it goes both ways.

I know of a few incidents that went the other way—Trump protesters that went too far, a white man who was beaten possibly because he voted for Trump. But these, I believe, are rare events in a backdrop of rising intolerance for the Other.

Pointing out that some Trump supporters have been insulted and even harmed by Trump-opposers does not mitigate the fact that Trump’s presidency, aligned with the KKK and other hate groups, represents an increase in fear and actual danger to at-risk groups. This comparison is another false equivalence in a sea of false equivalencies. It doesn’t even come close to being the same because Trump supporters are the ones who have the power and influence of the President on their side.

I’m not in any way saying that all Trump supporters are racist or sexist or any other “-ist.” I’m not saying you are. I’m saying it’s out there, and it appears to be getting worse.

I started out by telling you about my own grief and discouragement—but none of this is really about me and my feelings. I acknowledge my own white, cis-gender privilege. My sorrow is not for me.

I grieve for the Other. For the immigrant. For the mother of young black men. For a Muslim woman afraid to wear a scarf. For a brown-skinned store owner, for a young woman getting her first job, for a queer student in a classroom.

I am grieving for America.

A Cautionary Tale

M. Peevie was pushing the shopping cart through Target. We picked up toilet paper, cereal, dryer sheets--the usual stuff.

We passed two women chatting at the end of the bulk snack aisle. I walked ahead of M. Peevie, and she pushed the cart behind me. When we were about one aisle away, I heard one woman say to her friend, "What's the matter?"

The other woman said, "I just got run over--without an apology!"

M. Peevie heard it too. She looked at me, and tears instantly filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. "I bumped her with my cart by accident, and I did apologize!" she said. "She was blocking the end of the aisle, and I tried to get past her. I said I was sorry that I bumped her!" She looked stricken.

"Hold on just a second, baby girl," I said. "Wait here." I walked back to the bulk snack aisle and walked up to the lady that had made my daughter cry.

She was looking at something on the shelf. "Excuse me," I said, and she turned and looked at me.

"Apparently my daughter bumped you with our cart. I'm very sorry that you did not hear her apologize, but she did say she was sorry," I said. "She heard what you said, and now she's crying. She just lost her brother three weeks ago, and she's a bit fragile. She would never hurt anyone on purpose, and I wanted you to know that she did apologize. I'm sorry that she didn't say it loud enough for you to hear."

The woman looked at me with the expression of a paradigm shift on her face--if a paradigm shift has an expression. "Oh. Oh...oh," she said. "I'm so sorry. It hurt, but...I'm just so sorry." I think she may have reached out to touch my arm.

I told her thanks and walked back and wrapped my arms around M. Peevie, who still had tears rolling down her cheeks. We stood, holding each other, for a full minute; and then we held hands and browsed the chip aisle.

I couldn't stay mad at the woman who had made my daughter cry, because I have been her. I have not given the benefit of the doubt. I have taken offense when none was intended. I have made passive-aggressive comments designed to inflict pain or provoke anger. I have not given grace, when so much grace has been given to me.

So the moral of the story is, I suppose, stay out of the bulk snack aisle. Or be gentle, and give the benefit of the doubt whenever possible.

A Huge Win

M. Peevie's softball team, the Hurricanes, were making a valiant effort to pull out a win in the last game of the season. They were down 3-1, and the Orange Crush were (was?) up to bat. 

Being down by only two runs was already sort of a victory. We had often found ourselves down by 30, 40, even 50 runs this season--so we could already taste the sweet, sweet honey of not being slaughtered.

But the girls really wanted to record an actual statistical win, not just a moral victory; and they were in ready position, gloves on the ground, chanting support for the pitcher, hoping to make a big play that would end the inning. 

The Orange Crush batter hit an infield fly, which soared up over the pitcher's head, making a high arc toward the short stop. It moved in slow motion; we held our breath. 

Just as the ball plopped into her glove, a fan from the other team yelled, "Drop it!"

She held onto the ball, and ended the inning. Phew. But now there was the matter of poor sportsmanship from the adult fans on the sidelines, which I could not let pass without a correction. I got out my brass knuckles and headed over to the group of Orange Crush parents and grandparents, ready to teach somebody a lesson.

"Did somebody over here yell out, 'Drop it!'? I asked pleasantly. I looked at the most likely culprits, what looked like a grandpa, plus two other adults sitting on the fan bench. I expected a conflict, because sometimes--you may not have noticed this--people are stupid. But instead:

"Yes, he did," the woman on the bench said, not disclosing which guy made the comment. "And we told him that it was not acceptable. It won't happen again. Sorry about that."

Oh. Well then. That was exactly right.

"Oh," I said, "Well, thank you for that. We appreciate it." I walked back to our bench and told the team, who had heard the heckle, that the guy had been corrected by his own people. End of story, time to concentrate on getting some hits.

But it wasn't the end of the story. A few minutes later, the grandpa walked over to our bench. He walked straight up to me and looked me in the eye. "It was me," he said. "I was the one who said, 'Drop it!'." I shouldn't have said it, it was wrong, and I'm very sorry."

Wow. 

I practically burst into tears. I grabbed his hand and shook it, and said, "It was really good of you to come over here and say that. It's very honorable, and I appreciate you doing that." He said again that he was sorry; he was caught up in the game; and he knew it was wrong. "We all do and say things that we shouldn't," I said, "but very few people step up to take responsibility. You are a good man."

The Hurricanes ended up losing that game after all. But a few of them got to see a beautiful example of an adult taking personal responsibility for his mistake--and that is a huge win.

Urban Jungle

This is what my next-door neighbor's yard looks like.


This is the view from my deck. It's an urban jungle. The weeds covering the backyard are literally six feet tall. See the grape vines that seem to be covering a building? They are. They completely blanket the coach house and have crept over the fence and started making themselves at home on my garage. They are tightwalking across the phone wires from the coach house to the main house.

God only knows what animals are moving into his yard and building condos and having babies. Raccoons, possums, rats, squirrels, bears, lemurs, meerkats?

The owner used to live in the coach house and rent out the house that's attached to the deck on the right side of the photo; but both have been vacant for about two months. He made it impossible for the tenants to continue to live there. I heard both sides of the story, as well as the prior tenants' similar story; and I'm inclined to believe the tenants.

Their side: he didn't pay the water bill, and their water got shut off. Twice. (I know this is true because they asked to use my shower. It also happened to the prior tenants.) They paid his past-due water bills in order to get the water turned back on.

His side: He always told me what terrible tenants they were, but never gave me specifics. After they moved out, he told me he had to spend $3,000 to repair walls and doors and other things. They "trashed the place," he said. (I was in the home many times while they lived there, and every time the home was spotlessly clean and neat, with no visible damage anywhere.)

Anyway, back to the back yard. So I saw him--or rather, I heard him moving around behind the wall of grape leaves on his tiny coach house deck.

"Hey, JungleDude," I called through the vines. "Is that you?"

He popped his head through the labyrinth. "Hey, E. Peevie!" he said cheerfully. "Long time no see!"

"Yeah, Dude," I said. "What are you going to do about that jungle?" He assured me that he had a guy coming in at any moment to give him a quote on hacking down the nature preserve and doing regular maintenance. And, he said, he had a prospective renter coming by to look at the house.

"She's a teacher at the high school," he said. "And she's Caucasian!" he added happily.

I looked at him. I blinked.

"Whut?" he said defensively, "I'm allowed to like my own kind!" Then he non sequitured, "I like myself! I'm allowed to like myself."

I looked at him. I blinked.

"Hey, my best friend is Mexican!" he said. "But I'm also allowed to be happy to get a white renter."

"Well," I said, irritated. "It doesn't matter to me whether your renter is white or not."

"It's starting to matter to me," he said, officially breaking the law. "I'm just sayin'."

"Look," I should have said, but in the interests of keeping things neighborly, I didn't, "shut your racist trap about your Caucasian renter, and just get somebody out here to get this jungle under control!"

I find it ironic that he has no qualms about putting his offensive opinions about racial preferences and prejudices out there, and neither does he make any apologies for keeping his property in a nasty, unrentable condition. Like, he's so much better than those non-white people--but meanwhile, I'm living next door to an abandoned property.

If he's going to discriminate, shouldn't he at least make an attempt, at least superficially, to appear to be a better neighbor than the people that he's trying to keep out? I suppose perhaps his brain is so clogged up with rationalizing and other-bashing that he doesn't have the mental energy to appreciate the irony.

But I do. I appreciate irony. And for that, JungleDude, I thank you.

Did He Really Say That? Um, Not Exactly.

Speaking about health care reform, did Mike Huckabee really say that under proposed health care legislation, Senator Kennedy would have been told to "go home to take pain pills and die" as blogger after blogger after blogger and even Salon reported? Seriously?

Actually, that's not what he said. You can listen to his commentary here (click on the Thursday, August 27, morning commentary link). What he said was this:

[I]t was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don't have as long to live might want to consider just taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them," said Huckabee. "Yet when Sen. Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 77, did he give up on life and go home to take pain pills and die? Of course not. He freely did what most of us would do. He chose an expensive operation and painful follow-up treatments. He saw his work as vitally important and so he fought for every minute he could stay on this earth doing it. He would be a very fortunate man if his heroic last few months were what future generations remember him most for."

For liberals to take the words "go home to take pain pills and die" out of context and mis-characterize them is just as bad as what Huckabee did in that clip, which is to take President Obama's words, distort them a little, and mis-characterize them as quasi-euthanasia. In both cases, what's missing is integrity.

The President did not suggest that seniors "might want to just consider taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them," as Huckabee said. What he did say was this:

I don’t want bureaucracies making those decisions. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made by private insurers. …

[W]hat we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that’s not making anybody’s mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know, and your mom know, that you know what, maybe this isn’t going to help, maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller. …

The point is we want to use science, we want doctors and medical experts to be making decisions that all too often right now are driven by skewed policies, by outdated means of reimbursement, or by insurance companies.

Is it ironic, or merely hypocritical, that in the same radio segment Mr. Huckabee criticized Dems for using Kennedy's death as a springboard for promoting health care legislation, saying, "Senator Ted Kennedy's death had barely hit the news before we started hearing calls that Congress must hurry and pass the health care reform bill and do it in his memory"? This kind of talk "defies good taste," he said, but then he went on to use Kennedy as an object lesson in support of his own health care arguments.

Now that's talking out of both sides of his mouth.

It really doesn't help in the long run if Dems trash Republicans and Republicans trash Dems and everyone proves that they are not really listening to and understanding the other side.

Don't you think we'd do a better job solving the healthcare problems if we actually spoke to one another with respect, and demonstrated a teeny bit of willingness to compromise?

I Fought the Law and the Law Won

We left town at 8 a.m. on a Monday morning on our recent trip to South Dakota. At 8:30 I got pulled over for speeding.

"Shit," I muttered under my breath when I saw the flashing lights behind me.

"PULL ONTO THE SIDE STREET," the black and white ordered. I obediently pulled over, and opened my window. The officer walked up and I mustered as much innocence as a sinner with a black heart can muster.

"Is there a problem, officer?" I asked sweetly.


"Yes, ma'am," the young officer said politely, "You were going 45 in a 30. May I see your license and proof of insurance, please?"

I handed over my license, newly renewed last month, thankthelittlebabyjesus, or I'd be paying for a driving-without-a-license ticket as well as a speeding ticket. But when I searched for the current insurance card, it was nowhere to be found. I had the last two cards, but the most recent one expired in May.

"Do you have current insurance on the vehicle?" Young Officer Friendly (YOF) asked.

"Yes, sir," I said truthfully, but I was sure I was going down not just for speeding, but for POI as well. POI--Proof of Insurance. That's how us bad'uns talk about our rap sheets.

"When was the last time you had a moving violation?" he asked.

"Oh, I can't remember," I said. "Years, I think." It turns out this was an inadvertent lie. Days later I remembered that I got a ticket in the mail a couple of months ago for an illegal right turn on red. I am a regular Public Enemy.

YOF went back to his vehicle to write my tickets and do whatever mysterious things police officers do when they leave you waiting and sweating it out in your car after they pull you over. He was probably playing Scramble on his laptop while he waited for my extensive rap sheet to print out.

Meanwhile the kids were all speculating about my lawlessness in the back seat. "Were you speeding, Mommy?"

"Are you going to jail?"

"How fast were you going?"

"Are we still going to be able to go on vacation?"

When he returned to my window, he handed me back my license, plus a speeding ticket.

"You're sure you have insurance on the vehicle?" he asked one more time. Yes, I was sure.

"I'm not going to write you a ticket for not having your card," he said, "but I have to write you up for speeding." He explained what I needed to do about the ticket--which, uh oh, did I actually pay it? Crap! I can't remember!--and he let me know that if he had written me up for POI I'd have to show up in court to get my license back, and the cost of the ticket would automatically triple, or something ridiculous like that. I promised him I'd pay it as soon as I got home. Oops.

Frankly, he was so polite, and so civil and friendly--he actually asked where we were headed on vacation, and we talked about the Badlands for a couple of minutes--that it was almost a pleasure doing business with him. Except for the fact that "doing business" meant paying a $75 speeding ticket.
So, I fought the law, and the law won.

But when Dr. Paradigm Shift got pulled over for speeding through the Badlands several days later, she fought the law, and she won! The officer who pulled Dr. PS over told her that she had got her on radar going 55 in a 35, and, she hyperbolized, "I've never seen anyone going that fast in the park!" I was kind of proud of Dr. PS for that, but she was not buying it AT ALL.

The officer said she was not going to write her a ticket after all, because she didn't have a "clear reading" or some such nonsense, and this, Dr. PS said, was "fishy."

"Either she got me, and she'd write me a ticket," she theorized, "or she didn't get me, and she's not giving me a ticket." And what, she just likes to pull random people over and tell them that she's never seen anyone driving so fast through the Badlands?

I don't know. All I'm saying is, Dr. PS has a history of speediness in the Badlands, and I think she should take her Get Out of Jail Free card and run.

Plus, I was praying the whole time that I wouldn't have to show POI. The last thing I need is to have to show up in court in Interior, South Dakota, population 67, just to get my license back.

Naming Names

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I wrote about bad clients? Well, I'm ready to name names now.

The Elance client that is screwing me over (to put it delicately) is BLM Technologies of Florida. They contracted with me to re-write one page of a tri-fold brochure that they would distribute at trade shows.

(First of all, who uses tri-fold brochures anymore? That is so 1970s. I tried to talk them out of it, but they appear to get their marketing advice from a misogynist named Frank who has one foot in the 70s and one foot in dogshit.)

They sent me the existing brochure, which was absolutely awful. I think my first mistake with this company was being too blunt about their current marketing piece. You could tell that someone had cut and pasted--in a different font--the new marketing name of the company (BLM Now) over the old name throughout the brochure. Tacky.

Also, the piece was so crammed with information that no white space remained except a thin margin along the outside edge. Anyone who knows anything about graphic design will tell you that white space (also called "negative space") is an important element of graphic design, and the last thing you want to do is fill all your space with copy. People just won't read it--and plus, it's unattractive. It makes every piece of information have the same value, instead of directing the reader's attention to the most important words, phrases and images.

A big chunk of the brochure space was taken up with the logos of the companies whose products BLM is licensed to service. Why spend your money to advertise the products of other companies? I wondered.

I advised the client to cut the content and produce a smaller piece--perhaps a two-sided card--
with the purpose of driving prospects to their web site for more information. They wanted a fast turnaround, so I delivered the first draft of a tight, punchy text less than 40 hours later.

As I mentioned previously, they hated it. I didn't proof it carefully enough, and I made a minor typo (left off an "s") and a major content error: I put "BMI" instead of "BLM" about halfway through the draft. Yeeks. Embarrassing. But is it enough to justify the client ditching our contract and hiring another writer to write the brochure?

Misogynist Frank thought so. He also picked a fight with me over a so-called grammatical error: he did not approve of the phrase "no matter your," as in "No matter your IT needs, ..." I pointed out to him that the phrase shows up half a million times if you google "no matter your," and even the New York Times approves of it.

In his complaints to me, M. Frank became uncivil, saying, "If you had half a clue, you would..." Seriously. This is probably the guy responsible for the crappy existing brochure, and when I criticized it, I became his enemy.

I am confident that if the client had called me with his instructions for the second draft, he would have received a brochure text that would have more than satisfied him. Instead, my emails and phone calls went unanswered. At one point, the primary contact (NotFrank) agreed to send me his comments and edits so that I could produce a second draft that they could use for another piece--but he never followed through.

I could go through the dispute resolution process on Elance, but it would take time and cost money for an arbitrator--and for a hundred and fifty bucks, less the Elance fees of 7-9%, it's just not worth it. I emailed the client directly, side-stepping M. Frank, and asked him to pay me $90 for the first draft. I am not optimistic.

The moral of the story is: avoid Elance, which is a marketplace for buyers who do not value the services they are seeking. M. Frank said two telling things to me. He said, We're hiring you even though you weren't the lowest bidder. (As I mentioned, I bid $150 on a project that I would normally quote three or four times higher. The other bidders were coming in at $50 and $75.) Then he said, We're paying you "a lot of money." Yes. A lot of money. $150 for five or six hours of work.

It's just not worth it.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

The night before the inauguration, I mentioned to my mom that I'd be keeping my kids home to watch the swearing in, and to do inauguration-related learning activities. I was excited about the historical significance of the event, and thrilled that my kids were involved and aware and enthusiastic about learning more.

"It's so great, Mom," I said. "I don't want them to miss a minute of it. They even seem to get that it's a historical moment!"

"Because he's our first Arab-American president?" she said.

Oh, yes she did. Of course, being me, I took the bait.

Yes, he has Arabic family connections, I said--but so what? Why is that the important thing to emphasize? Because it's the TRUTH, she said. I care about the TRUTH. Don't YOU?

But why is that important? I asked her. Because no one ever mentions it, and it's the TRUTH, she said. I pointed out that Obama has written two memoirs, in which he has very openly and clearly talked about his family heritage, and in fact, one is called Dreams From my Father--but apparently she still thinks he's trying to hide something.

It just sounds like you're being disrespectful of him, and not really appreciating what an enormously important thing this is for our country. What, she said, that we now have an ARAB-American president? He's not black, why do they always say he's black? Arabs are not black!

He has dark skin, mom, I said. It's got to be so encouraging and hopeful for people who have darker skin to actually see someone become president who looks a little more like them--maybe it makes them feel a little more included, or a little more optimistic. He's not black, she repeated. Arabs are not black. He's not African-American; he's Arab-American. Why are they trying to hide the TRUTH?

Mom, I said. Seriously? He's very clearly not an old white guy, and that's one thing that's different. Of course my mother found that remark to be disrespectful, and I apologized.

"I'm not trying to be disrespectful," I said. "I'm pointing out the obvious--that he LOOKS different, and his background is different, and to me and many other people, he also SOUNDS different." Either way, it's historic and important--why would she want to be hostile and angry about it?

And she's not the only one. Another family member sent me an email the other day saying this:

Now that your man is in, I have to rib you a bit. An AP wire reported that US military planes attacked a group of Afghans and killed 15-16. The president of Afghanistan says they were all civilians. If the republicans were as vicious, stupid and arrogant as their democrat rivals they would be printing bumper stickers reading, "Obama Lied, People Died".

I don't get it. I understand that he didn't vote for Obama, and that he would probably never vote for a Democrat. That's fine. But to smear all democrats as "vicious, stupid and arrogant" is so over-the-top that it's not even possible to return to a civil disagreement. Or am I wrong? But I cannot not take the bait--even though I did not ask for this fight, and never initiate political conversations with my family because I always end up feeling beat up.

I suggested that if the 15-16 who died were civilians, then it is not a time for ribbing, but for mourning. And I also submitted that it's ridiculous to suggest that Democrats are more vicious, stupid and arrogant than Republicans, just because of their party affiliation. Both groups are comprised of sinners, and neither side can claim moral superiority.

I'd like him to be more supportive of our new president and not, like the mascot of the Right, Rush Limbaugh, hope that he fails. But barring that, couldn't we just agree to disagree, with civility, and not make everything a black and white moral issue? Apparently not. He firmly stands by his assertion that the Dems are hateful and vicious, and he said, "You'd really have to reach to find anything close" on the Republican side. How can you even have a civil, constructive conversation with someone who makes party affiliation a moral issue?

Don't get me wrong. I do believe in black and white moral issues. I do believe there are absolutes. But even in absolutes, there can be civility and courtesy. There can be benefit of the doubt, and peacemaking. Maybe we all need a primer on what civility looks like in operational terms:

• avoid broad-brush, inflammatory statements
• use clear, specific and representative examples
• don't assume that you know what your opponent believes or agrees with. Instead, ask, and listen.
• be aware of how you are coming across. If you become aware that you have offended, take responsibility, and rephrase. Why? Because the relationship, or the person, is more valuable than the point you are making.
  
• Show restraint, respect, and consideration in your words and actions.
  

I want to be a peacemaker. I want more people to strive to be peacemakers in the little things as well as in the big things. We can do this, friends. Try it today: when you encounter a situation in which someone is doing or saying something that offends you, or that you think is wrong, inaccurate, or inappropriate, try to respond in a civil, peace-making way. Let me know how it goes.

Now I gotta go scream at my kids because they're making too much noise and tearing through the house.

(In)Civility in Public Discourse

I have been an official Obama supporter since October 1, 2007. Some right-leaning friends still feel an urgent need to aggressively attempt to convert me from Obama to McCain. In the last month or two, their arguments have included the following:

• Obama is evil. Obama is a socialist. Obama will raise taxes. Obama is a friend of terrorists. Obama will spend your tax dollars on abortions. Obama and the Democrats got us into this economic crisis. We don't really know who Obama is or what he stands for. Obama never talks specifically about what he would do as president.
• Obama lacks experience. He's unqualified to be president. What has he accomplished? What has Joe Biden accomplished? Joe Biden is a liar. I don't trust Obama because of the people he associates with and the people who were his mentors. "Ayers" yada yada, "Wright" yada yada, "Rezko" yada yada.
• He won't end the war in Iraq, he'll just move it Afghanistan. The war will never end. Read your Bible.
• I don't like his wife. She's just an angry black woman. Obama is a Muslim. He'll get assassinated the first time he goes to a Middle East country because they consider him to be an infidel. How could he have gone to that church for 20 years? That shows bad judgment, or else he agrees with everything Wright said. Obama "had sex with his best friend and promotes kids to experiment." (I don't even know what this means.)
  

I read articles from across the political spectrum. I try to keep myself informed. I like talking about politics--but I don't like feeling attacked. Do you notice that many of the arguments above are discussion-stoppers? Are flat-out hysterical, or exaggerated, or twisted, or unprovable? They're not, for the most part, rational arguments in a point-counterpoint. They're not legitimate concerns of a fair-minded opponent.

What I want to know is, why can't we just disagree about this? I have asked this very question, and one friend replied, "We can agree to disagree. I'm just sending you the facts that Obama isn't." I asked her to stop.

Is it just me, or are people angrier about the election this year than they usually are? I have seen lots of anger from the right--both in person and in the media--but I realize that conservatives claim to see just as much or more anger coming from Democrats. (Some minimize the anger from the right as "a few over-the-line catcalls." Uh-huh.)

The Washington Post reported on the "pandemonium" that broke out in Prince George's County, Maryland when a local hotel put up a McCain/Palin sign. The conservative NewsBusters headlined this story as "Angry Democrats Threaten Boycott of Maryland Hotel With McCain Sign", and used phrases such as "angry," "enraged," "strong-arm tactic," and "vilification" to describe the response of the county's Obama-supporting residents--but if you read the Post story, you don't encounter any of those extreme expressions. In trying to vilify Obama supporters, NB instead discredited itself with hyperbole.

Whatever--it is nasty on both sides. Civility is a lost art. The best we can do is a thin--and I do mean skeletal--veneer of decorum at a public debate.

But wait: I love this measured opinion piece from the Washington Post coming out in support of Obama. There's nothing mean or disrespectful in it about McCain, and the analysis of Obama's qualifications is balanced and not exaggerated. I haven't checked--is there a similar piece taking the opposite position? I'll post the link in an update if you have one.

This is how the candidates should talk to one another, and about one another; this is how we should talk to one another: with fairness, integrity, and civility.

End of sermon.