Well, the toe *was* better.... until I had to drive around dropping kids off. (Oh, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
geekchick ? My theories about Spongebob Squarepants -- or, more accurately, the people responsible for SBSQ -- were confirmed, as well : > )
Part of the problem with LJ is the temptation to drop my two cents into situations where I feel strongly but where I do not know all the facts and know only one of the parties involved. Refraining from being judgmental when a person I don't know says something that on its face I find immature, cruel, or unreasonable is very difficult, even though my "wise mind" (as my DBT teacher would call it) says that I have no business saying anything.
I've been thinking about my strengths: I am smart, forgiving (most of the time), have a good sense of humor (most of the time), and caring. I also know more useless knowledge than most people I know. (Trivial Pursuit, anyone?) I think I need to concentrate on my strengths and not one my weaknesses more.
Current goal: having successfully had letters printed by the Mercury News, I'm aiming to get a letter to the editor printed by a magazine : > Actually, that's only my goal because I wrote a letter to the editor of The Economist, decrying a piece in which they claimed that Elizabeth Dole, in running for the U.S. Senate, was "copying her husband." As Elizabeth Dole is one of the very few people in the Republican Party I have any respect for (I say this as a registered Republican -- long story about that, please don't hate me), I felt compelled to write. Of course, after I sent in my letter, I reread the piece and decided it was tongue-in-cheek. Oh, that dry British sense of humour!
It started in law school. In advanced Criminal Procedure, many of the cases we studied were death penalty cases (I did a lengthy paper on issues of standing in the assertion of constitutional claims in capital cases -- it was more interesting than it sounds, really!) Although I was at that time a death penalty suppporter, I became concerned about the inequities in the system -- the fact of the matter is, if you are wealthy, you are less likely to get the death penalty (note O.J.: the prosecutors didn't even seek the death penalty where, had the defendant been just some guy off the street who was accused of viciously killing two people after lying in wait, they would not have hesitated to do so).
Since that time, I have come to a spiritual rejection of state sponsored execution: we are not God, we have no right to take life in that manner.
Fast forward to 2000. The state of death penalty jurisprudence in the state of Texas was (still is) appalling. People were sent to death row whose attorney had slept through -- or been drunk through -- their trials. Or where the only real evidence was the word of a codefendant who had cut a deal. Or where there were credible claims of innocence barred from being raised by the draconian Texas appellate laws. It was only a matter of time before a genuinely innocent person was executed, if it had not happened already. (Virginia, BTW, is just as bad.)
Normally, who the Republican Party nominates is nothing I would be involved in -- I'm a Democrat by inclination and philosophy. GWB had done some objectionable things (remember his speech to Bob Jones U?), but I still had no inclination to do anything.
Then he came out with a statement saying that there were no problems with the Texas death penalty system. It forced me to this conclusion: either the man lacked the intellectual and moral intelligence to see what the problems were (in which case he was an idiot and I was afraid to have him as President) or he didn't care (in which case he was an amoral politician willing to win election at the cost of people's lives, making him no better than some of those whose death warrants he signed). I decided I had a moral obligation to do whatever I could within the confines of legality and morality to STOP THIS MAN. Because of the way the California primary was structured, the CA Republican Party only counted those votes cast by *registered* Republicans in determining the votes at the convention. So I registered as a Republican, and voted against George W. Bush. Fat lot of good it did -- there may be a lesson in this for me.
I keep forgetting to reregister. Which leads to some interesting junk mail: I got a flyer from the NRA urging me to speak out against gun control the same day as I got my materials about the Million Mom March in Oakland last year, for example : > I have also gotten solicitations to join AARP.
As to whether GWB is an idiot or merely immoral, I can't say. I lean towards thinking the former.
I've decided that this week I'm not going to try to accomplish anything. I had a rough summer, and spent most of my vacation trying to make sure other people had fun... Of course, the fact that I am not very mobile helps.... After all, with a broken toe, I can't exactly stand and fold the vast mountain of laundry sitting in the garage, now can I? : > And cooking dinner is right out...
geekchick ? My theories about Spongebob Squarepants -- or, more accurately, the people responsible for SBSQ -- were confirmed, as well : > ) Part of the problem with LJ is the temptation to drop my two cents into situations where I feel strongly but where I do not know all the facts and know only one of the parties involved. Refraining from being judgmental when a person I don't know says something that on its face I find immature, cruel, or unreasonable is very difficult, even though my "wise mind" (as my DBT teacher would call it) says that I have no business saying anything.
I've been thinking about my strengths: I am smart, forgiving (most of the time), have a good sense of humor (most of the time), and caring. I also know more useless knowledge than most people I know. (Trivial Pursuit, anyone?) I think I need to concentrate on my strengths and not one my weaknesses more.
Current goal: having successfully had letters printed by the Mercury News, I'm aiming to get a letter to the editor printed by a magazine : > Actually, that's only my goal because I wrote a letter to the editor of The Economist, decrying a piece in which they claimed that Elizabeth Dole, in running for the U.S. Senate, was "copying her husband." As Elizabeth Dole is one of the very few people in the Republican Party I have any respect for (I say this as a registered Republican -- long story about that, please don't hate me), I felt compelled to write. Of course, after I sent in my letter, I reread the piece and decided it was tongue-in-cheek. Oh, that dry British sense of humour!
It started in law school. In advanced Criminal Procedure, many of the cases we studied were death penalty cases (I did a lengthy paper on issues of standing in the assertion of constitutional claims in capital cases -- it was more interesting than it sounds, really!) Although I was at that time a death penalty suppporter, I became concerned about the inequities in the system -- the fact of the matter is, if you are wealthy, you are less likely to get the death penalty (note O.J.: the prosecutors didn't even seek the death penalty where, had the defendant been just some guy off the street who was accused of viciously killing two people after lying in wait, they would not have hesitated to do so).
Since that time, I have come to a spiritual rejection of state sponsored execution: we are not God, we have no right to take life in that manner.
Fast forward to 2000. The state of death penalty jurisprudence in the state of Texas was (still is) appalling. People were sent to death row whose attorney had slept through -- or been drunk through -- their trials. Or where the only real evidence was the word of a codefendant who had cut a deal. Or where there were credible claims of innocence barred from being raised by the draconian Texas appellate laws. It was only a matter of time before a genuinely innocent person was executed, if it had not happened already. (Virginia, BTW, is just as bad.)
Normally, who the Republican Party nominates is nothing I would be involved in -- I'm a Democrat by inclination and philosophy. GWB had done some objectionable things (remember his speech to Bob Jones U?), but I still had no inclination to do anything.
Then he came out with a statement saying that there were no problems with the Texas death penalty system. It forced me to this conclusion: either the man lacked the intellectual and moral intelligence to see what the problems were (in which case he was an idiot and I was afraid to have him as President) or he didn't care (in which case he was an amoral politician willing to win election at the cost of people's lives, making him no better than some of those whose death warrants he signed). I decided I had a moral obligation to do whatever I could within the confines of legality and morality to STOP THIS MAN. Because of the way the California primary was structured, the CA Republican Party only counted those votes cast by *registered* Republicans in determining the votes at the convention. So I registered as a Republican, and voted against George W. Bush. Fat lot of good it did -- there may be a lesson in this for me.
I keep forgetting to reregister. Which leads to some interesting junk mail: I got a flyer from the NRA urging me to speak out against gun control the same day as I got my materials about the Million Mom March in Oakland last year, for example : > I have also gotten solicitations to join AARP.
As to whether GWB is an idiot or merely immoral, I can't say. I lean towards thinking the former.
I've decided that this week I'm not going to try to accomplish anything. I had a rough summer, and spent most of my vacation trying to make sure other people had fun... Of course, the fact that I am not very mobile helps.... After all, with a broken toe, I can't exactly stand and fold the vast mountain of laundry sitting in the garage, now can I? : > And cooking dinner is right out...
