Smack-talk or Just Plain Meanness?

Electing a president in our country every four years invigorates and energizes the voters. This particular time around I am basically tired--not because of the candidates and their running mates but because of how long they have been campaigning! It feels as though 2,497 people have been asking for my vote for the past six years.

One convention down and one to go, thank the Lord!

But something happened today to raise my ire. That is what I wish to share with you.

All of you know I consider myself a republican and I am in fact registered as such in my county. This is not a call for you to vote McCain. Those who know me also know I respect the right of everyone to support and vote for their candidate.

My concern today was comments made by radio personalities and the DMC response to McCain's choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The DMC's initial response as read on television referred to Gov. Palin as "the mayor of a city of only 9,000 people." What? This is the Governor of Alaska, not a mayor!

Proper etiquette says we are to use a person's most recent title when speaking of/to them. I don't care why the mayor title was used instead of the governor title. Sen. Obama is not Mr. Obama to me--he is a senator and should be so addressed. Likewise, Gov. Palin is a governor at this point in time, not a mayor.

On a national talk radio station taking calls from all over the country today, announcers were laughing at the fact Gov. Palin "just had a baby in April. She should be home taking care of that baby, not campaigning." That is realllllly setting women in their place! (The announcers were male and female.)

If someone talks like this in trying to convince me to vote for the other person, you just lost my respect. Bring your selected facts and your reasons for support--but be willing to let me stand by my selected facts and reasons for my choice. You won't hear me disrespecting your candidate; don't do the same to mine. That's all I'm asking.

Half the people in the country disagree with me. That doesn't bother me. The other candidate also has half the country's displeasure. What makes the difference is the number of people who take the time to vote.

My mother has voted only once in her life. (She never wanted to be called for jury duty.) What got her to register and vote was the fact she talked smack until she was challenged by C, "You don't vote, you don't talk about it to me. I won't listen to you." Mom definitely wanted to have her say, so she voted!

I find it sad that of the eligible people in our country to vote so few do so. When a country finally gets around to letting their people vote, the television news shows us voters lined up for miles! How I wish that would happen here in the USA.

Reading AND Golf?

Reading is a love of mine. I like escaping into the pages and burying myself in the story/plot the author has penned. At one time I can be reading four or even five books. Like right now. I am trudging through Inventing English by Seth Lerer on the history of the English language, a great love of mine.

Bill Belleville of Sanford, Fla. has written the book River of Lakes about the St. John's River running from south Florida to Jacksonville. Growing up in central Florida, this draws my interest. Both these books are nonfiction.

A biography of John Adams by David McCullough (thank you Ann) I have been nursing for two years now. Took me so long to get through Ben Franklin by Walter Isaacson. I can't read enough about the people of our revolutionary period.

For fiction I have finally been able to start Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants. And with it I am enjoying a historical fiction/biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine by E.L. Konigsburg, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. Konigsburg has written several award winning young adult lit books.

With that said, I just finished Carl Hiaasen's nonfiction and latest issue The Downhill Lie. Yes, it is a golf saga, but uniquely written from a journal he kept over 18+ months. At 19 or 20 years of age, Carl gave up golf and didn't pick up the clubs again for 32 years. Having swung a few clubs myself, having a father, brother, husband and son that all played the game, I found "...a hacker's return to a ruinous sport" (subtitle) delightful.

"Ever wonder how to retrieve a sunken golf cart from a snake-infested lake?" And "...the third most distressing thing we witness on the course is a mangy seagull stripping a fish from the talons of a bald eagle--our majestic national bird, being mugged by the avian equivalent of a garbage rat."

Full belly laughs, chuckles and chortles come with every page turning. I even got the innuendos. I felt his pain.

Will those costly lessons shave a few strokes off the score? And how many special putters or drivers are needed to carry in your bag on the course? What about karma? Can expensive pills improve one's game? Tried any lucky hats, watches, amulet, shirts lately?

But the story Carl weaves is more than just golf. It is also about relationships, about father-son-son and husband/father-wife-son and mother-son.

What a wonderful escapade I've been on the past few days with Carl. My appetite is whetted, so I've picked up Skinny Dip, one of Carl's adult fiction books. One of these days soon I'll have to crack it's cover and delve in to more humor set in my Florida. Will my eyes hold on for a few more years? Here's hoping.


P.S. As I write this, Book TV has Joseph Wheelan, author of Mr. Adam's Last Crusade, talking about his new book. Guess I'll have to add it to my list.

Cleaning out the mail

The other day I had so many emails in my inbox I had to start deleting/saving items. Some things I needed to keep because--well, just because.

But what were all those emails about? I was able to break them down into a starting sort of five categories: notes/letters/"check out this link;" notifications; subscriptions (news, politics, etc./businesses); The "Guess what?/Did you know?/This is funny!/Isn't this terrible?!; and the guilt-list of petitions/pass-alongs. I'm sure by the time I finish this entry several more possible categories will come to mind.

I love the notes/letters group. Friends and family touching base and letting me know what is happening in their lives. There are many that have pictures attached. Personal files for a division of these emails help me keep the ones with information I need (or think I need). It is hard to delete any that have photos if I don't download them to my gallery.

Next in the list are notifications. Since I notify my high school classmates of information about fellow EHSers and their families and upcoming events, I look forward to receiving these mailings myself. One of the churches I have been visiting has me on the mailing list for the prayer chain. In comes the request; up goes the lifting. These, too, are treasured.

What about the subscriptions? Well, most of them I put myself on. No one to blame but moi. The catalogue sites selling things I'm hesitant to drop because I just might need them one day. However, many of those I have never placed an order with. And JoAnn's fabrics sends coupons I just might use one of these days. And I need all the ammunition I can get from the GOP in this election year!

Now I get to the emails that sometimes rub me the wrong way--the Guess What? etc. set. The funny ones I check out and delete on the spot. I do enjoy a good laugh the same as everyone else. And I have received awesome photos in this category, especially the ones of earth from the shuttle showing the night/day over north Africa and Europe and , recently, a link to a WWII European theater map with active info.

Also in this division are the "Isn't this terrible?!" spammings. If the sender had taken a moment to check snopes.com (urban legend), they would have chucked it. Most of these are false. If I have time to check them out, I do so and forward (reply all) the link to show the error. Not too many of these items get passed along from me to others these days.

Bottom of the list and at number five is petitions and pass-alongs (great things will happen; bad luck will strike you; "If you believe in God..."). First off, snopes.com reinforces the notion that petitions being signed online are never effective--can't be. So why send them at all? Dump them now and stop the bleeding.

As for guilt laid out on those who don't forward a particular email--just forget it. If you just think about it: Who's going to know? I am more offended by the cutline than the email's original message.

There are also the "erase my answer and put your answer in" and pass along. If I have time and the list is not too long, I MIGHT do it for you, but I will rarely pass it along to others. Guess I'm getting too tired. Besides, no one responded to the last on I forwarded (lol).

A couple of years ago I passed along an email spam I agreed with. I was selective with my chosen recipients. One of them wrote back and said, "You don't need to pass along your agenda to me" (more or less). It caused me to take a second look at what I was sending to whom.

There is a journalistic reminder that "if in doubt, take it out" applies in editing articles. In this instance when editing emails, I would say "hit the delete key."