100 monkeys typing.

Making light of anyone who is ill or disabled is wrong. Period. I can only wish Elizabeth a complete recovery. And the true compassionate will keep her in their prayers.

Here is something that truly baffles me. Why are Republicans such sore winners? Why are they so angry at us when they WON? THEIR. MAN. WON. I don’t get it. In my daily online reading I visit several liberal-and-proud-of-it-thank-you-very-much blogs and the accompanying comments. There is inevitably at least one (and usually more) Republican individual(s) cursing us all and telling us all we lost and why that is and how wrong we are, how stupid we are, how misguided we are, (or worse) and nanner, nanner, nanner, etc. etc. ad nauseam. WHY? I don’t go to any conservative-and-proud-of-it-thank-you-very-much blogs and post comments. I have no desire to. I DO visit websites (for example The Family Research council) that have an opposing view from mine. It IS important to gather that information to gain a Big Picture understanding. But why are these individuals haunting the most liberal blogs to gloat instead of celebrating their victory together? They should be hanging out together doing a virtual Snoopy dance. One would think anyway. You WON! Leave us alone. Go party together elsewhere. I don’t get it.

Another thing that not only baffles but upsets me. I literally lose sleep over this. The debate over who won, who lost, the merits of this candidate over that candidate, how their campaigns succeeded or failed – all of these things are politics-as-usual and granted very fascinating to me and scores of others. But politics, policy, government control – those are just words. This is all just talk. And these discussions would be fun and invigorating if it were not for the scores of men, women and children dying THIS VERY MINUTE in an unjust war. THAT, is why any debate over gays or guns or war hero/no war hero or conservative/liberal media is UTTERLY INSIGNIFICANT. Discussion of what any individual sitting safely at home deep in the heart of Texas or Middle America or WHEREVER gained or lost is disgusting when you contemplate REALITY. People are being killed. People’s LIVES are being lost for Chrissakes. Where is the outrage over “collateral damage” that we saw after the Oklahoma City bombing? (You may recall that was how Timothy McVay described the children in the day care center who died or were injured in the bombing.) Why aren’t we shedding tears over the dead and maimed children of Iraq? The dead American soldiers – many of them still children themselves? Why must we quibble over the minutiae of campaign strategies when it amounts to zero to any parent/spouse/child who is greeted at the airport by a flag draped coffin or a child/spouse/parent either maimed or so emotionally damaged by the horrors of war that they will never truly recover? How could anyone who purports to follow the teachings of Jesus sleep at night knowing that the killing continues and that this president was in office when we went to war, this president lied about the reasons for going to war and that this president let partisan politics and sheer GREED trump the good of the people. (Okay, I honestly don’t think it was Bush. I think those decisions are made by Cheney but that’s another post for another time.) But that Americans could overlook these facts while their fellow Americans are dying – it’s unfathomable. Really. It is. And I’ve been up since 3am thinking about it.

My heart aches for our country. We enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those are good things. But we take it to the extreme when we allow those principles to degenerate into such callous selfishness. When me and mine is more important that you and yours it’s a very bad thing. When fear of anyone who is different – their race, their religion (or lack thereof), their dress, their culture – allows us to turn a blind eye to their suffering then we are approaching very dangerous territory. History has a way of repeating itself and we all know where this kind of fear leads. We’re treading in very dangerous waters.