There are times I wish I could come on here and rant about some political issue. But lately I am so glad that political discussion is not allowed on here. I am so sick of the political bickering and downright nasty comments, references, skewed news articles that I am being subject to on Facebook by “friends” and comments on news articles.
I need a place where I do not have to deal with that stuff. Are any of you experiencing the same thing?
And please do not turn this discussion political. That is the LAST thing I want it to become. So maybe say something good that is happening in the country, your state, city or town, community, street or even household that isn’t controversial or political.
Mine is “soup to go.” Currently working with a group of men and woman at my church who make fresh homemade healthy soup every Tuesday to be given away on Wednesday to anyone who wants it for free. It is often accompanied with bread and fresh fruit as we are able. This soup is offered all of January, February and part of March.
I’m not on Facebook, so I’m glad I don’t have to view that. We do, however, get hoards of nasty political emails that have gotten progressively nastier after time has gone on. It blows me away that people feel comfortable to forward that stuff to us, and actually I want to read them the riot act…but I decide to just delete. It doesn’t help that I feel there’s a lot of bat… crazy going on, particularly after this weekend. What to do? Maybe just ignore it all. When I think about it, I feel like I’m sinking into the abyss.
I have no idea where to go. Except for to attempt to ignore it all.
From time to time over the years someone has mysteriously shoveled my sidewalks after snowstorms. As soon as I would think I knew who had done it, they would move and yet the secret snow shoveling would occasionally happen. I don’t know any of my neighbors very well and there is a lot of turnover.
This has been a great help to me as I am alone most of the time, work full time, and have a driveway to shovel as well as paths for my small dog to navigate the back yard. I always felt bad that I had no one to thank.
This year has been a big snow year and the snow shoveling has occurred much more regularly. I heard a thump on my front stoop on Christmas Eve, went to investigate, and there was my newest neighbor shoveling my stoop! And she was about my age - no spring chicken!
She said that where they moved from, if someone was out shoveling they always shoveled out the neighbors while they were at it. I was so happy to be able to thank her face to face, although obviously other people have done it from time to time over the years.
And I didn’t explain to her, but there’s no way I can reciprocate. As it is, I have to do my shoveling in short spurts. There’s no way I could shovel more. In fact this year, if they weren’t helping me, it wouldn’t be getting done. It seems the days of kids coming around offering to shovel for money are behind us, not that I have extra money, but I would pay if I had to, to keep my sidewalk clear.
Our sweet neighbor across the street has always helped me, especially when H us away and I’m in distress (he doesn’t see me as a good handiperson). I’m grateful, especially when things would break when H was 1000s of miles away traveling for work and I just couldn’t improvise a solution until he returned.
He also would roll out the trash and put it back for years for our neighbor who lived all alone until she died at age 93.
The neighbors nearly always have someone at their home and have had a key to our front door for about 20 years now.
There is a reddit called uplifting news that I go to occasionally.
I also go to the Carter Center website and see what amazing things they are doing and it makes me feel better
A friend shared a pic of an elderly man in the grocery store line ahead of her and the few items he was buying. She apparently had a conversation with him and asked if she could take his picture. This is what her post said:
“If you need your faith in humanity restored look no further than this man. His wife has the flu. She sent him to the store for crackers. He added a dozen roses, a teddy bear, and a card to the list.”
There he was. In line. Quite elderly. With crackers, roses, a small teddy bear and a romantic card.
I admit it, I am a Facebook junky…and it has definitely been less than fun over the last several days. Some good news in my life is that despite being recently diagnosed with malignant melanoma , it appears that it was caught in the earliest stage. I had surgery the other day to remove the surrounding area of the mole that was taken out in the dermatologist’s office. After weeks of waiting for pathology results from original procedure, we are heaving a sigh of relief
I don’t know how to put this into words, but I’ve always hated pigeon-holing. The media has been painting with a broad brush, giving the impression that all individuals from certain racial and ethnic groups all feel the same way. It feels like stereotyping and it’s polarizing.
I liked that I recently ran into two diiferent people that were each from a different racial or ethnic group from me and they started talking and voiced completely opinions completely contrary stereotype that the media would put on them. And they were both hopeful for the future. It was so refreshing.
For whatever reason, they both bonded with me in a way that had nothing to do with politics, just shared experiences and concerns about getting by in this world. We could just be ourselves sans politics.
What I’ve been missing is the sense that we are all people, facing the same human struggles, that compassion, and an appreciation that we all have to work together and help each other. It’s been depressing. But just connecting with real people has given me hope, too.
it is no different than the atmosphere on college campuses today. even my girlfriend who is apolitical (not uninformed just apolitical) yesterday was watching the news and said “enough …every last thing about the new president and his family can not be negative .”
I think we’re – on the whole – a lot nicer than you’d be led to believe by watching the news. There are a great many acts of kindness every day. If you’re not seeing any take place, be the example.
There are nonprofits operating at local, state, national and international levels – they’re always asking for help. Certainly at the local level, you could lend some of your time.
Or, as others have mentioned, you could do random things for your neighbors, like extending your shoveling efforts to cover their sidewalk or driveway too, cutting the lawn of an elderly person, etc.
The other night we had strong winds and the next day was trash pickup day, so we all had our trash and recycling bins out.
Well we heard a crash from outside – lo and behold, our bins had been knocked over by the wind. I went outside to pick them up and noticed our neighbor’s had also been tipped over. No big deal – I picked theirs up too. This happened two or three more times that night, and i picked up all the bins each time. Some of their recycling fell out of the recycling bin – loose cans, bottles, etc. – so i picked it up. I’m not sure they know; don’t care. When things need to be done, and if you’re in a position to do it – as Nike said, just do it. It will be repaid.
I wonder how much of this can be traced back to revoking the Fairness Doctrine back in the 80s. Before that, if a TV or radio station had an editorial message, they had to provide equal time to someone who wanted to speak on the opposite side of the same issue. It led to some interesting not-ready-for-primetime people being on TV!
But now we have hours of essentially editorial content on TV and radio. Has it polarized us? Are people working to further polarize us to get better ratings?
If so, it’s working but it’s not good.
I belong to a FB group that is a cloud appreciation society. When in doubt look up. Clouds are there, clouds don’t care, and they are one of many reminders of the beauty and wonder of the natural world that we don’t let ourselves enjoy enough.
I am also tired of negative news, and I’d hope that networks would choose to change on their own. But I don’t think the Fed gov’t can’t force it, in light of the First Amendment. Ratings could change it.
I think most news are accurate. The bias comes in when they decide which accurate news to put on the front page. I am mainly tired of triviality of most news. My facebook page was not so bad.
I’m glad that most of the political post are not allowed on CC. Although they do slip in and irritate me. FB is awful right now. I even had to unfriend one person because it was way out of line. I want to know what is going on in my friends lives but not shared junk from some thousands of others…
