Slight Discomfort Forecast More of Same

Yesterday was a long day for me. Election night was so exciting, except there weren’t Obama fans pouring out of the neighborhood into the streets to celebrate. I heard my daughter was feeling a little bereft of celebratory companions as well down in Melbourne, so I wasn’t alone in being alone. Actually, I was better off, I had Geno. Yesterday was little frightening. The underlying mood around here was one of something kind of between disappointment and anger. I made the mistake of thinking one person’s red, white and blue outfit was celebratory and said something to that effect. Let me tell you, If tone of voice could slap a person down, I would have been on the floor. “Ah…no.” the person said, “No, I am not celebrating…I’m patriotic, but I am not happy.” Pfoof. There went the air out of my sails. And the talk amongst the youth was not one of hope, but one of bets on how long before our new President-elect gets killed. Gruesome. Surely, there are some Obama supporters here somewhere, I know I saw yard signs in John Day, so I know there are some Obama supporters around, but they, like me, are keeping pretty quiet right now.

One of the things Obama talked about in his speech was healing divisions, and I agree, so I want to quickly add that most adults I came into contact with yesterday, about 1/4 of the town, were not displaying any kind of emotion regarding the election. Instead, they were focusing on a multitude of other important issues such as keeping kids in school, repairing and upgrading the school and supporting their students’ needs whether that was in athletics, technology or the library. And, just like Geno pointed out when I was ranting at the breakfast table about something sexist I heard last week, people here are just as complex as people on the west side. They are deeply compassionate and would stop to help their worst enemy stranded or hurt beside the road. They just have a different political and social view of the world. That doesn’t mean I agree with them, it just gives me the opportunity to gently provide a different viewpoint for them to consider.

I still believe that a lot of the attitudes around here are due to a very narrow information stream. Yes, I am still pissed off that no major newspapers are available within 100 miles. But I am even angrier about the cost of internet. It cost us three hundred dollars to get started. There is no dialup and there is no DSL. Poor people out here can’t just pop over to the library and certainly, the school is severely firewalled, so young people do not have the opportunity to expand their world view at all. There are no speakers, no music halls and no movie theatres. There is only satellite TV and I’m sorry, but I’m not going to explore that path. The really interesting thing is that the NPR news that comes out of eastern Washington is vastly different than NPR news that comes out of the valley. For those of you who’ve heard me rant about NPR, I now rest my case. I don’t trust their news as being unbiased anymore than I trust anyone else’s. They, like other news programs, are all about money. The key is to have multiple news paths that allow a person to consider all sides of a story or issue before coming to a conclusion.

But life is good and dare I say, hopeful. I must say that I truly appreciated McCain’s concession speech. It was extremely gracious and actually adds to my new little stock of hopefulness. As for his supporters that went so far as to boo our new president-elect, I draw the line.  The presidential election is not a sporting event where drunken, ill mannered individuals act like they have been stripped of their humanity. ( Or, perhaps they have and that’s the problem.) I have never been so ashamed of my countrypersons as that moment when I heard the booing. I also called them something I won’t repeat here, cause my mom reads this blog.