I'm Back...from the Political Blackhole

We interrupt this political programming to say...the election is over, you may return to your life!

I don't know about you, but I have been consumed by the election information. I've read political commentary, reviewed polls and developed a close personal friendship with Anderson Cooper. Whether your candidate was elected or not, it sure has been interesting. Compelling, engrossing and addicting would be my personal adjectives. I've enjoyed and fretted over every minute of it! We couldn't really lose, could we? Either the first African-American president or the first female VP, which would signal progress toward a more fair and equitable future. This election, however, was even larger. We are facing the worst economic issues since the Great Depression. People are losing their jobs and their homes.

So I hope we will pull together regardless of whether or not our candidate won. We'll try to make good, responsible, personal choices, and we might even be ready to sacrifice for the good of everyone, because I have the sense that the ship carrying all of us is taking on water. When we help each other, we, in the end, help ourselves. I'm very hopeful that we will see positive change. I realize it will take a while... maybe years, but we live in an incredible country! A country of hope and renewal... one where dreams can come true.

So let's weather this storm together and know that good times will return and with them the hope of a good life for even more people worldwide.

Let the Buttons Do the Talking

As I've mentioned before, my mother was politically active. Some political punch exists in my husband's family as well. His aunt once served as the Chairman of the Kansas Republican party.

We've inherited some commemoration of these experiences - political buttons.

Here's a sampling of my Mom's buttons. She worked on many civic projects including raising money for the library, the school district and the city pool. She also was a democrat, a yellow dog democrat! I recently learned from my cousin, Shelley, that this is a real term, studied in college political science classes, and I assume a moniker of great honor within the Democratic Party. It means even if the dems were to put up a yellow dog as a candidate, my Mom would have voted for her!

Here's a look at the buttons collected by my mother and father-in-law.

I love that many different parties are represented here with buttons from Reagan to Carter to Perot. Even Rockefeller. I need a little help though. Who's Stassen and Bob Ray???

A true political button collector has the cool button from both parties. You might see Carter's face while reading Ford's name, but look from a different angle and see Ford's face while reading "Carter".

How about this cool Ford button? How could he not win with a button like this?

We have followed this election so closely for the last few months. It's hard to believe it is finally Election Day! We will know, I hope, who our next president will be before we go to sleep tonight. We are going to a Watch Event this evening... the kids, too. We've got them so excited (some might suspect brainwashed)! I hope you take the time to VOTE today, because...

Why All The Violence, Batman?

Raising boys sometimes means disappointing them. My boys will not be seeing the new Batman movie. My husband and I reached this decision by seeing the movie ourselves.



For my husband's birthday, he wanted to go out to dinner and a movie. We dined at Coco Bolo's in Manhattan, Kansas, the most enjoyable time of our evening. We then went to see "The Dark Knight". Why not? All of our boys have asked to see it and the movie has grossed a record-breaking $400 million dollars in just 18 days. Clearly masses of people are watching this movie. We also thought "Batman Begins", a prequel, was a compelling story and our boys have watched it.


I became rather uncomfortable early in the movie. I just could not get past the intense scenes of violence. The Joker, played by Heath Ledger, is particularly sinister with depraved, unpredictable cruelty. Also disturbing was the reaction of a young lady in her 20s sitting next to me in the theater. She frequently laughed, particularly at the dialogue and actions of The Joker. At the end, she jumped up and said, "I loved it"!


The movie was rated PG-13, which covers movies appropriate for children ages 13 through 17. At 17, a movie is branded R, which can be the kiss of death for box office revenue. It appears the Motion Picture Academy felt this movie skidded in at 16 years, 11 months and 30 days. Although an R-rating would have made our lives easier, since my 12 and 14 year-olds expected to be able to see this movie, we didn't hesitate to explain to our boys that they would not be seeing it any time soon. We explained that the dark, cruel nature of the movie was disturbing to us and we didn't want to share it with them.


Wrapping my mind around our society's apparent entertainment by senseless violence is very hard for me. One might say at least it's on the big screen and can be explained away as fiction. It seems to me that I have read a number of articles about desensitizing based on viewed images and copycat crimes based on movies. I'm just uneasy with the thought that we may be entering a historical time when the crowning jewel for movie makers, box office cash, is based on the level of creativity in shocking the audience with new forms of contrived violence. Isn't there enough horrible violence in the world already?


It's my sincerest hope that in our sophisticated world, we will transcend the fascination with guns and weaponry, the need to vanquish "the enemy" and the images of one human beating another to a pulp. A naive thought, maybe, but one I just can't give up on.