Joy in the morning....

Anyone who knows me, at all, knows how passionately I love my dogs.  They are my family, a lifeline in a crazy world, and I would do anything for them.  They are both almost 14 now, so getting on in years, and have definitely aged.  Their coats are still smooth and there is still a spring in their step, but they are graying around their faces, their hearing isn't as acute, their vision is obviously fading and their muzzles are becoming grizzled.  They have health issues, but they still enjoy their lives, although it is a slower, quieter version.  Which is to say, they are much like me.

On life and death....

Sixteen years ago today, I nearly died.  Because we live in a random universe, and bodies are imperfect, and sometimes, for no reason at all, they go wrong, I ended up in a hospital fighting for my life, battling an infection that had exploded unseen until it was far too late.

The wrong side of history.... If we live that long....

This country was once a beacon of hope to the disenfranchised. It provided a safety net to displaced people around the world. It looked past the exterior and understood that people are not the sum total of their governments, and accepted those who were at risk because they didn't fit the mold of the totalitarian places from which they came.

On this day, of all days, when we are supposed to remember the losses of The Holocaust, when we are reminded of what we must never accept again, we, the United States of America, have shut our doors to the very people most at risk on this planet. It is shameful, and I feel ashamed. It is wrong. It is horrifying. It is immoral. We have given up who were trying to be for the last 250 years in order to be something so much less than we should be.

The terrorists have won. And make no mistake about it, they are celebrating this day. Because it will light the fire of extremism in places where the flames were not even flickering, and will fan the inferno further where we were already struggling for control.

All things considered...

Just something to consider. If your news source just keeps validating everything you already thought, if it is telling you exactly what you want to hear all the time, if it isn't regularly challenging you to think in different ways or to question your own conclusions, maybe your source is flawed. Because where else in your life is everything exactly the way you think it is, all the time?

To vote or not to vote? What exactly is the question?

After this grueling election season, a lot of people are expressing surprise that so few of their fellow Americans chose to exercise their right to vote.  (According to reports I have seen, voting was at a 20 year low in a presidential election, which is bad, even for the United States, which typically has a low turnout, anyway.)  I have seen a lot of disparaging remarks about not voting, and I think they have missed the point. We also have a right not to vote, and it can be a choice of honor, a choice of exasperation, a choice of civil disobedience, a choice of protest.