Saturday, October 13, 2012

Presidential Debates--Mr. America Contest


Well, we’ve had two beauty contests in the last week. We crowned Romney Queen for a Day in the first debate...perhaps. Joe Biden wears the crown and carries the flowers for first runner-up. Who knows? My concern, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican...is that we need to look behind the makeup of both Presidential candidates and their sidekicks and look at who they really are—as much as we can determine—and stand by our man(s) since there are no women in this race.  

I keep remembering those wonderful lines from the play, Inherit the Wind. One of the characters muses: 

“That was the name of my first long shot. Golden Dancer. She was in the big side window of the general store in Wakeman, Ohio. I used to stand out in the street and say to myself, ‘If I had Golden Dancer I’d have everything in the world that I wanted.’ I was seven years old, and a very fine judge of rocking horses. Golden Dancer had a bright red mane, blue eyes, and she was gold all over, with purple spots. When the sun hit her stirrups, she was a dazzling sight to see. But she was a week’s wages for my father. Sop Golden Dancer and I always had a plate glass window between us. But—let’s see, it wasn’t Christmas; must’ve been my birthday—I woke up in the morning and there was Golden Dancer at the foot of my bed! Ma had skimped on the groceries, and my father’d worked nights for a month. I jumped into the saddle and started to rock—and it broke! It split in two! The wood was rotten, the whole thing was put together with spit and sealing wax! All shine, and no substance! Bert! Whenever you see something bright, shining, perfect-seeming—all gold, with purple spots—look behind the paint! And if it’s a lie show it up for what it really is!” (Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee)
 

 One of my sources for real news is the Associated Baptist Press. They recently had two great articles about this political campaign. Ken Camp writes about what it means to be a faithful citizen and still be a Christian. Which is a pretty good topic for believers to consider. We can believe strongly in separation of church and state and still be engaged in the political process. And should. 

Another article in that same ABP Press is by David Gushee, wise teacher at Mercer University (Ga.) who writes on his observations on the debates. Interesting what was discussed in both debates and what was completely left out. Where was the discussion about immigration? Who even mentioned why don’t we pay down our debt before we start another war? Is this war-talk crazy or what?  

Having just gotten back from a trip out West where we went through those new-fangled Body scanners and were patted down pretty seriously on several occasions—I wondered are we overreacting to an event that happened 11 years ago—and I wonder who is getting rich over all these machines that are in every airport in the country, it seems. . They must cost a fortune. I understand the Department of Homeland Security is the biggest Department in our Government. There are mroe than 230,000 working for them now. Nobody mentions this subject in the debates. 

I keep telling myself we’ve been down this political road before. And we have seen ugliness and lies and over-reaction and fear and exaggeration many times. We will get through this in a few weeks. I just hope whoever is elected can help us in this very troubled time. And—God bless America. She surely needs it if anybody does.

 

 

 

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment