Politics of Yesterday...

Some people have noted my recent silence in the political arena here on my blog. Partly this is due to the prior incident with 'anonymous' and partly it is just a desire to talk about the color of my couch more than blue and red states.

I've certainly had many thoughts on the subject and being the political junky I am I find myself obsessively checking huffingtonpost, realclearpolitics, cnn, and foxnews on the internet on a regular rotating basis through-out the day (the fox news might surprise you but I think it's important to hear all sides) - if the tv is on it's on rotation between MSNBC, CNN & Fox News (though frankly, I am not much of a tv watcher during the day). So yeah, there are thoughts. But for now, I think I'll continue to keep them to myself . I had a great idea for a blog yesterday, but decided it was too "controversial". In a way it's sort of almost annoying - it's my blog, why shouldn't I say what I want? I often already feel marginalized in my community in ways that prevent me from saying what I really think in order to 'get along and play nice'. So shouldn't this be one place where I COULD say what I like?

I don't honestly know the answer to that. There were 20 or so comments regarding that infamous post, discussion elsewhere on the internet regarding it, and at least 6 private email discussions. Even just yesterday someone brought it up - someone who I did not know even knew my blog existed, let alone read it. So it has tentacles - the things I say here, they have reach and consequence in my real world and not just here on the blogosphere.

And I guess ultimately I care what people think. And I think it's easy to be misunderstood in this format and I really want people to know me as someone who would never say something if I thought it was going to somehow be offensive or make someone uncomfortable. At least I think that's who I am most of the time.

Once though I got in a fight with a girl at school about politics. I was in 4th grade. We were eating lunch in the classroom and someone brought up the election going on. A girl named Charlotte said "Celeste - I heard your parents are voting for CARTER!" and Celeste admitted this was true. Celeste's parents had a lot of money, they were local potato farmers with a huge operation and in Idaho - you don't get any richer than a big potato farmer, your dad might be a lawyer or a doctor but that potato farmer has got you beat in the wealth department. I was surprised too. I spoke up "Really Celeste? That seems weird! My mom says anybody who votes for Carter wants us to go to war - the democrats always get us in a war - why would your mom and dad want that?" Celeste indicated she thought that was patently ridiculous and that perhaps, I had no idea what I was talking about. I insisted that I thought I did. The end result of this circular argument was my tuna fish sandwich being thrown at Celeste and her bologna sandwich being thrown at me.

I'd like to think I learned something back there in the fourth grade about how to avoid these type of fights - though perhaps the lessons of the past couple of months teach us that I'm still not above throwing my tuna once in a while, and I'm not always so good at dodging bologna.