Which side of history this Christmas?

Things stay the same.  Things change.
The Governor has an open house at the Capitol and a tree lighting.  But, not exactly the same this year.  Gone are the open house festivities with local authors, local vendors.  The tree lighting was waiting, the choir was nice, seeing the families was nice and especially the little kids perched on mom and dad's shoulders so they could see.  With 3 kids and only 2 parents, I was tempted to pick up one of the kids without shoulders to rest on, but resisted that temptation..

The droning of boring speeches.  Hmm.  And I wonder, earlier in the day I heard on cspan the historic moments when Palestine was voted in to the UN with non-voting member state status.  Wow!  And the U.S., again, on the wrong side of history.  Reminded me of Kyoto.

Are we on the wrong side of history?  And as Lindsay Graham said later on, well now that gives Palestine the right to file charges in the International Criminal Court.  Yes well don't the Palestinian people deserve to be free?

Chinese names, Dr Who style (thank you Economist)

Calling Dr Who fans:  the Economist annual "The World in 2013" just hit my mailbox.  And in tribute to the Good Doctor, predicts the world, looking  back from 2063.  Yes Jennifer we should chose our Chinese names now, while the good ones are still to be had.

Ideology: the Loser in this Election

Everything has its time.
Grover Norquist sounds intelligent, but his "pledge" has had its time.
Unions still represent a collective voice, but perhaps they need to be a little less entrenched, a little more awake to the fiscal realities they have helped create.
Maybe even those oil companies, risking their stockholder's profits on tar sands oil, and fracking, and hiding money for those lawsuits down the road - not just from Americans with pollutants in their drinking water, but from banana harvesters and workers in Nigeria.

I do not want my government forcing Catholic charities to buy birth control for their employees.  If their employees want birth control let them buy it on their own.
I do not want union dues taken out of my salary anymore as a "fair share".  If I want to join the union, let me sign up and be union proud and pay my dues out of free choice.

Yep, everyone will be glad when this election cycle is over.  I am a bit nervous.  In Oregon we may end up with another 30:30 15:15 split Legislature.  Which means nothing will get done (boring to watch, and our PERS-induced problems do not just magically 'poof' go away when the stock market recovers, if it recovers).

Nationally, fascinating races - cspan plays many debates.  It is ideology that will be the loser when it comes to passing legislation.  No one side has a corner on The Truth.  If you force everyone on my block to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs, maybe our energy bill will go down, but the mercury that seeps through the landfill cause everyone doesn't know what to do with the spent bulbs will pollute our water.

Likewise if you force every citizen to "make a choice" on health care, or retirement investment, some of us will chose badly, and suffer for it.

Balance.  All voices.  Let 2013 see the end of ideology.  If not, we have no one but the voters (ourselves) to blame.