I do not, however, work during Steeler games. That remains an area too sacred to intrude upon. You may recall my tale of sneaking out of the emergency room where Mother had been taken with heart palpitations one Sunday to watch the Steeler-Vikings game, Greg covering for me and telling Mother I would be "right back". If I would pull that stunt, then I am certainly not going to let something like a job get in the way. But, other than that, life has devolved into one big Work Fest. It's just what the job requires at the moment, and I am grateful to have it, so I labor on. The only reason I am not working now is because I can't: I am having trouble logging in. So, while I wait to see if the system will reset itself and let me in, I decided to keep my mind off the deadlines that are rapidly slipping out of my grasp and write about something. However, life as it is currently has left me with a void of things to talk about. So, here's just some random thoughts about various things as the Presidential campaign begins to heat up.
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| From Glory!Blog |
The Mormon Card
Greg continues to dive pretty deeply into the social progressive pool. He's left me far, far behind. I have some theories about why, after a lot of years of being mildly liberal and mostly indifferent, he's sudden a total zealot, so I try to be patient. But, I am admittedly hypocritical in that I'm good at sharing my opinions, but I get a little testy when someone else's opinions are thrust onto me. So, while I hate to dampen his enthusiasm, I would just like him to go enthuse elsewhere sometimes. True believers can be exhausting. But anyway, as part and parcel to all of that, he was reading an op-ed piece about Mormons, which was meant to lay down the religion card against Mitt Romney. Greg and I both know several members of the Mormon faith and have for years, but I guess he's never really given much thought about what the particulars of the faith are. He asked me about some of the things he read. I knew them all (except for the one about the church posthumously baptizing Anne Frank; that was new). He seemed shocked. I reminded him that he and I were brought up to believe that Moses parted the Red Sea, a virgin conceived and gave birth, that Jesus turned water into wine and then topped that by rising from the dead (of course Mormons also believe these things). All things that, if they were being discussed outside of the guise of Christianity, would sound sort of nutty. Of course, as I'm debating this, I'm thinking to myself that I'm talking out of my butt because I am totally creeped out by Scientology and personally suspect anyone who believes it is completely nuts. Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, as many of you know. That only seems to prove my point. Yet, I had to admit to myself, that to be true to the point I was trying to make, (which is if it doesn't hurt you or infringe on your rights in anyway, what does it matter what someone believes), I would need to rethink that position and open my mind a bit.
However, I don't like that people of my general politician persuasion have chosen to play the Mormon card. I'm sure the Tea Party at some point would get all squeamish about it, but to have Democrats do it first bothers me. Aren't we supposed to be the party of tolerance? C'mon, boys and girls. take a look at the man's policies and whether or not you think he could run the country. How he worships, as long as he does not impinge how you worship, should not be a concern. Think about it: many of our ancestors came here to escape religious persecution. So honor your forefathers and cut it out, gosh darn it.
Sports and Politics
Part of the Koolaid Greg seems to be drinking currently is mixed by a group of television pundits who have nightly shows that are unabashedly one-sided. That's all fine, it's my side too after all. But, seriously, how many times a night do you need the exact same headlines spun the exact same way? I thought I would crawl straight out of my skin after four SOLID hours of hearing the same story about the latest Republican debate over and over and over again, with only the backdrop and the sound of the person doing the talking changing. They all use the same clips even. But, Greg's very studious about all of them, and for him, each one has something subtly new to add. I'll stay up in my office or use the upstairs TV when it gets to be too much. The one without HD, pause or rewind. I think that hurts his feelings sometimes, we spend a lot of time away from one another due to work. I'd prefer to be downstairs after hours anyway: hockey looks so much better in HD. Problem is it's an 82 game season. There are games three or four times a week, and that's if I only watch the Penguins. Greg got tired of hockey after the first week. We both try to compromise, but we've already both gotten a little testy already in this young season. Come April, who knows how contentious it will be unless we can figure something out. And this is with the benefit of DVR technology. I've wondered how my parent's generation did it. I guess they bowed to the head of the house. I can say there were a lot of Westerns on at night, while soap operas ruled the day. I got Saturday mornings and the one time a week Lassie Come Home was on. No discussions about it that I recall. I guess there was more order from the chaos that way, but less freewill for the homemaker. But, this is now, and now I've got control over the remote and the Pens are up 1 goal after two periods. So - boo-yah.
The moral to these stories is that neither side of the political fence holds a moral high ground, it would seem. That makes me sad. We are all Americans. We love our country. We try to be good people - how we go about that may be different, but does that really matter? I am beginning to despair the species. So, it is small wonder that I prefer watching young men smash one another against the boards in pursuit of a rapidly sliding disc of vulcanized rubber. It seems so pure and peaceful in comparison.
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