Green

I realized this morning that I have a growing envy for the bloggers whose opinions matter to the rest of the world. I don’t necessarily mean the political ones or the investigative reportish ones or the celebrity stalker blogs either. I just mean the ordinary lovely people who are so well read that I can’t really get my own day started unless I see what they have published to the world. I know that I am not the only one because their comments are filled with people telling them funny things or letting them know that they are not alone.

It’s a foolish jealousy, I know. I have no real reason to think their lives have a greater amount of awesome, in fact, most of them are struggling with the daily garbage just the same as you and me. It’s just that for some reason, I need to hear about their garbage and know that I am not alone. I can read their words and look at their pictures and my world feels a little more complete. The words and thoughts of people I have never and most likely will never meet (unless I go to blogHer next year, which is a secret desire that I cannot put down and which is clearly now no longer a secret) make my day. If one of them is suffering I suffer a bit too. If one of them is telling jokes, than I am laughing too. I think this may be how people used to feel about columns in the newspaper or particular news anchors back before the interwebs came and changed our world. The only difference is that these people are Everyman and before we could only hear from the Elite. Now that Everyman has her voice, the Elite have almost been drowned into obscurity.

We tried to watch Katie Couric the other night and there is just something there that forces me to change the channel. I don’t know why I dislike her show so much. I really didn’t mind her on the Today Show, her completely liberal leanings not withstanding. As a news anchor she is not at her best and I can’t look at the spectacle. [You should know that I can’t watch any of the other nightly news programs either because they absolutely enrage me and that CNN has also made me want to yank out my teeth one by one from time to time, but that I don’t L-O-V-E Fox News either. I think I just prefer to read the news than to hear the spin. It’s more palatable in print (and by print I, of course, mean published online because I’m not a fan of the newspaper). I didn’t want you to think I was picking on Katie]. The only other place I get my news is from talk radio, which is more interesting, though usually very partisan. I like the talk and the banter and the ability to say what you are thinking to thousands of people if you’ll just be brave and call in. I like it when the people have a voice. I also like NPR (which my father refers to as National Socialist Radio, as a term of endearment really because he probably listens to it more than I do).

I do my radio listening in the car and have about thirty minutes every morning to listen and up to an hour or so in the afternoon. A couple of days ago I listened to NPR do a segment on the partial birth abortion proceedings from the Supreme Court. NPR’s commentary was clearly in favor of D & X procedures and they were playing clips of audio from the trial. I listened as one Justice corrected the man testifying with the comment “Fetus. You mean the fetus, not child”. Antonin Scalia chimmed in with “Well, technically since it’s 2/3 out of the woman, it’s both a fetus and a child.” His words were comical, but the point was not. I found it very difficult to listen to these people debate this issue. It sounded futuristic and the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I couldn’t fathom how I live in a place among people who think that this procedure is right or good simply because doctor’s do not like to probe into the womb unnecessarily during a D & C, that botched D & Cs become D & Xs because the body didn’t fully tear apart. It was a terrible thing to listen to and even worse to imagine. I was really thrown by the whole thing and haven’t been able to shake it.

Yesterday I listened to Newt Gingrich on the Sean Hannity show talk about the elections. He apparently predicted this exact outcome to Hannity while at a tennis event about four months ago. It was interesting to hear them talk – Hannity being ultra-conservative and Gingrich much more tempered. Gingrich brought up the fact that most of the Dems who were voted in on Tuesday ran on essentially Conservative platforms and that the country spoke loud and clear about the ridiculous spending and seeming lack of progress in national security issues. He stated that the best thing for the Republicans to do is to join forces with those “Blue Dogs” of Conservativism and get Conservative legislation passed together but, of course, that will mean that those Conservative Dems will have to remain Conservative now that they are in power. It was interesting to think about Conservative bi-partisan work. I hope that’s a real possibility.

I hope our future is a return to Conservative spending, smaller government, strong national security and a strong foreign policy. I hope my kids won’t think that life is cheap or that debt is good. I hope the people they listen to and the people they read will be a community of honesty and civility. I hope that they will find their voice and that it will be listened to.