What’s up (or down) with gas prices? Curiouser and curiouser that the laws of supply and demand are working in conjunction with an American midterm election and an American vacation season (up in summer 2006) and an American disaster (up in response to Hurricane Rita). I’m just saying ….

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said this: “Liberal – noun – someone who’s mind is so open their brains have fallen out.” I thought it was funny that this was on the back of a Subaru Outback which is a car that I associate with more liberal thinking folks for some reason. But then I thought that I’d like to get a bumper sticker that says, “Conservative – noun – someone who’s mind is so closed their brains have begun to rot for lack of sunlight.” I know that sounds sort of juvenile and unkind. Perhaps it is. But I want to do it because I want to bring to light just how juvenile and lacking in grace the political discourse in our country has become. It needs to be pointed out that it is not disgraceful to be a liberal. In point of fact, we need equal amounts of conservatives and liberals to run this country in a manner which is beneficial to everyone. But I have never one time, not once in my whole 40+ years of existence heard a liberal put down a conservative for their conservativeness. Liberals may challenge conservative ideas, but they do not make fun of conservatives for their very existence. On the other hand, when lacking substance, conservatives see no problem with attacking liberals for who they are and putting them down just for being. If we are indeed a democracy, that’s a huge problem.

I saw another bumper sticker several days ago that said something to the effect of: “4,000 babies a day are sacrificed to the god of convenience.” Well, then, that’s the other problem with our general discourse now. Everyone has the answer to questions that aren’t being asked. I thought it awfully kind of this person to let us know who the gods of this age are. I was equally glad that this person is so sure that s/he knows who is worshipping there and how. I wondered if this person had ever been in the position of having to choose. Whether s/he (and for some reason I think this person who is so sure must be a “he”) could ever understand that for most mothers who have been in that position, convenience is the very last thing they are thinking about. They are wondering how both they and their baby will eat. Live. Sleep in dry, clean beds. Some of them are worrying about whether or not the mother or the baby will be subjected to terrifying abuse. But I guess that all of those questions do properly fall under the heading of convenience. I wonder what falls under the heading of necessity?

I don’t usually pay much attention to CNN or CNN.com. Any accusations of news snobbery would be accurate. However, if I wouldn’t be able to use the articles as sources in an academic work, then I figure they’re not much use to me for edification anyway.

I recently changed some settings on my browser homepage and set it to Google personalized. So I get CNN headlines off to one side. I read them to see what passes for news in the US of A and then ignore them. But today one caught my eye and then I couldn’t let go of it, so I read it. Here was the headline: Dobbs: Middle class needs to fight back now

What? Someone else besides evangelicals talking about class warfare. Well, it was probably a Republican trying to drum up more fear. I’m tired of fear stalking our highways and byways. It’s become this administration’s (and Congress’) stock in trade. Everyone is making a buck on it. But that’s another post for another time. This article piqued my interest and I read it. You should read it too. It’s an editorial by Lou Dobbs and he is advocating that we all register as independents during this election cycle. It’s quite good. But these paragraphs really caught my eye:

Yet in my entire career, I’ve literally never heard anyone in Congress argue that lobbyists are bad for America. In 1968 there were only 63 lobbyists in Washington. Today, there are more than 34,000, and lobbyists now outnumber our elected representatives and their staffs by a 2-to-1 margin.

According to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, from 1998 through 2004, lobbyists spent nearly $12 billion to not only influence legislation, but in many cases to write the language of the laws and regulations.

Individual firms, corporations and national organizations spent a record $2.14 billion on lobbying members of Congress and 220 other federal agencies in 2004, according to PoliticalMoneyLine. That’s nearly $6 million a day spent to influence our leaders. We really do have the best government money can buy.

I haven’t checked out his numbers. I’m sure it would be easy to, but I’m lazy. Even if they’re only slightly wrong, they are shocking. They mean that the legislative branch of our government is not in our hands. This branch of the government is supposed to be representing us. The “We, the people …” remember …

Given those numbers, I’m not sure that Congress (Democrat or Republican) can legitimately claim to be representing anyone other than the lobbyists who are writing the legislation and spending the big money greasing the skids.

On the other hand, when I look at how bloated and out of control our whole government is, just how would we go about cleaning it up, redeeming it, and beginning again? Anyone have any good ideas out there?

It’s that season of the year when lawn signs are sprouting as surely as flowers in the spring; elections are just around the corner. And so today we bring you a Civic Duty Friday Five.

1) How old were you when you voted for the first time?

I was 19 … and it was 1980.  I had to vote using an absentee ballot because I was away at college.  It felt very important.

2) What was the contest at the top of the ballot?
It was the presidential election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan with John Anderson running as an independent.  I voted for Anderson because Carter wasn’t cut out for the presidency (or so I thought at the time) and I thought Regan was going to bring doom upon us.  I wish I’d voted for Carter.

3) Can you walk to your polling place?

Yes, I can and I do.  It’s fun.  The only thing I don’t like is the gauntlet of “volunteers” who try to influence my vote as I walk in.  That bothers me.

4) Have you ever run for public office?

Nope.  Probably never will.  My father did, tho.  He was chairman of the schoolboard for my highschool when I was in it.  That sure left a sour taste in my mouth.  Recently my mother ran for the town selectboard of my hometown.  We moved there when I was 6 (in 1967).  It’s a small town in Vermont.  She ran against a man who’s family has been there for several generations.  This is not an exaggeration … one of his slogans was that my mother was a newcomer to town … this after she’s lived there for 38 years!!!

5) Have you run for office in a club or school or on a board?

Yes.  I’ve run for vice president of my quilt guild and won.  That meant that I served as vice president for a year, then as president the following year.  I think I also ran for a position on the board of directors in a fife and drum corps that LightHusband and I used to belong to.  That was fun.

I am disgusted.  Appalled.  Sick to my stomach.  After years of hearing the rants against Democrats.  The years of hearing about liberals bringing this country to ruin.  Clinton was the ammoral outrage.  The lightening rod for all that was wrong in our world.

Now we discover that Representative Foley is not just having sex on the side.  He is a pedophile.  A homosexual pedophile.  He uses his position of power to engage in sexual acts with minor boys.  Representative Foley is a Republican.   The party that claims to have the last say on family values.  I know Republicans who express shock when they discover a person who loves their children is a Democrat or a liberal.  Really.   I have had people express shock and dismay when they discovered that I am a Democrat.  How can that be?  I seem soooo nice and balanced.  Not at all satanic and evil.  Funny how that works.

I don’t particularly care what Representative Foley does in his free time.  It is, after all, his free time.  He is an adult.  If he is indeed a homosexual, I’m sorry he feels the need to cover it up so completely.  Perhaps if he told himself and everyone else the truth about who he is, he wouldn’t be in this place right now.  Honesty really is the best policy.  Perhaps if we all starting telling the truth to ourselves about who people are in terms of their sexuality, we would be able to protect our children from these predators more easily.  There might be fewer of them and there would be fewer dark corners for them to hide in.  There is nothing frightening or evil about a person’s sexuality.  It just is.  All we are required to do is love them, just as we love alcoholics, gluttons, thieves, rock stars, athletes, and doctors.

The hue and cry over Representative Foley’s reprehensible acts of pederasty have left me somewhat unimpressed.  I well remember the thunderous imprecations from the pulpits of Christendom over President Clinton’s immoral turpitude with Monica Lewinsky.  Ten years later, when actual crimes have been committed, the thunder is but a tinny roll on a cheap dime store drum calling for mercy and grace.  This from the same pulpits which demand and still demand President Clinton’s head on a platter.

I can think of several ancient cliches which fit this situation … about shoes fitting, lying in beds of one’s own making and the like.  But I think the cliche which Republicans and Christian Republicans ought to explore is:  What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.  Morality is morality no matter which political party one is in.  Whatever yardstick one uses one must use that yardstick for all parties regardless.  If we are not willing to do that, then God help us.