All good things come to an end and npJane had to leave what seemed like a promising Beach Day this morning. And it was actually a decent beach day for a while. The MOE-skee-TOES weren’t intolerable and it was warm and sunny. Until it wasn’t. Well, it’s still sunny but the wind came up and the temperature dropped mid-afternoon. I guess npJ took our loverly weather south with her.

I have found a political show that I can actually listen to – Left, Right, and Center. I think that’s the name. It’s on NPR. I don’t really know anything about this show like how they select the hosts and contributors or whatever but I have listened to two shows now. It is on the NPR channel I listen to here in the yooperland but not on The Planet Ann Arbor (and yes I know I could stream it).

What do I like about it? People on all sides of our uber-divided political landscape seem to be able to discuss things in a calm, I’m even gonna say friendly manner. There’s no yelling and screaming and I don’t detect any name-calling, Biden, Trump or whoever. There is laughter! I was struck today by how the right- and left-wing people AGREED that paying a lot of attention to political polls so soon after Trump’s convictions was probably not constructive. Let it sit for a bit! Said the right-wing gal and the left-wing guy agreed. And so do I.

I contrast this to the grammar/spelling-mistake-laden memes posted by facebook “friends” of mine like “Mushie”. I don’t actually know Mushie in person but he friended me many years ago. Why did I accept? It was a familiar name and he went to high school with some of my slightly older cousins. We only occasionally interact but these days I don’t often interact even with people I actually know on Facebook.

So a recent Mushie Meme had to do with “kids these days”. You’ve seen stuff like this. The “kids” these days are lazy and don’t want to work and don’t contribute anything to society. I’m not sure where this stuff comes from. Since time began there are *some* “young folks” (and older folks) who do not want to work and don’t contribute anything. But I don’t see that it’s a large percentage and nothing has changed recently that I can point to. The younger generations of my family are certainly successful, thoughtful members of society. As near as I can figure out (from facebook posts) *Mushie’s* kids (and grandkids) are pretty successful too.

Again, I dunno where this stuff comes from. It would be nice if every one of our citizens was a productive member of our society. I also know that for a lot of people there are many barriers and roadblocks to becoming successful. Persistent poverty, lack of access to a good education, generational trauma, mental health issues. I could go on. Some people can rise above this stuff Horatio Alger style. Others cannot. Why not help them if we can?

Back to Mushie just for closure. I think he is actually a really really nice person, whatever his politics are. Every FB interaction I have ever had with him has been friendly, and once when somebody I didn’t know trolled me, he came quickly to my defense. He remembers my family with great fondness and that seems to extend to me even though we have never met. BTW, I was trolled during a thread he posted about TICKS, not polly-ticks. Jeebus.

People are complicated.

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