Friday's Odds and Ends

In a recent letter to the editor in The Dallas Morning News the writer commented that the members of the Tea Party cannot be racist because many of the members are the same people who marched with Martin Luther King. Wait a minute. That would make them as old as I am-- I marched - but I am a good 20 years older than the mean age of the Tea Party members. Hmmmm. Guess I'm not the only one challenged by math.

Five couples at a Dallas-area assisted living celebrated Golden Anniversaries in a shared ceremony to renew vows after 50 years of commitment. Sweet.

Normally I enjoy the comic strip, Blondie, but a recent one had a message I questioned. In the first panel Blondie is crying and Dagwood wants to make her feel better. He tells her to go shopping and not to worry about how much she spends. The next  panel has her calling from the mall to tell him how much better she feels. So going shopping is the answer to having the blues? And we should spend however much it takes to make us feel better? No wonder people have humongous credit-card debt.

And I couldn't let Hayward get away without a comment. It's official. He will be leaving BP in October with a $1 million bonus, plus $900,000 per year retirement. Oh, poor man. He now has to move on to a lucrative job with a company in Russia.  Meanwhile, businesses along the Gulf are dying.

Our Right to Protest

The furor over the Tea Parties held across the country to protest health care reform and other issues of significant importance has died down just a bit recently, but there are still commentators who question whether the parties do any good.

Colleen McCain Nelson who is on the editorial board at The Dallas Morning News had this to say:

"I can't argue that free speech is bad for America -- even when I disagree with what folks are saying. But I'm not certain what the tea parties are accomplishing - beyond assembling an angry mob."

Another pundit wondered if the movement is helpful or harmful.

Personally, I like the idea of the tea parties. In fact, I was suggesting we do something like the Boston Tea Party long before the current craze, but instead of dumping tea in the Boston Harbor, I suggested dumping all the politicians into the water and getting new ones.

But I digress.

I think the current move to take more control over government is a good one, and we have to keep in mind that people are sometimes going to be emotional and strident about issues that touch them personally.

What about the mob that threw the tea in Boston Harbor in 1773? Do you think they were polite and orderly? There had to be a lot of shouting and name-calling going on there.

Yes, it would be nice if people could always behave civilly in these Tea Parties. Civility is something we are sorely lacking in public today, but we have to keep in mind that emotions often override reason, and people react before they have had a chance to stop and think.

I don't know if the Tea Parties have influenced any decisions coming out of Washington, but one good thing is that people are stepping forward and doing more than complaining about what is going on with government. Also, I think the movement has increased voter participation and that is a good thing.

What do you think? Are the meetings creating more harm than good?