Could kindness and honesty win elections?

 There are 66 days between now and Election Day on November 8. I bet it’s going to seem a whole lot longer than that. Why do we allow politics to be so vile? Politicians and political parties ask us for our donations so they can lie and mislead and deceive and fail to respect the electorate.

On Twitter this morning, someone I follow (@rustystubbs) had a photo of a sign with 8 of Fred Rogers sayings. We decided they could become the planks in the platform of a new political party, the (Good) Neighbor party. The name came over Twitter from @rustystubbs at almost the same time my Better Half suggested it to me. Imagine how much nicer life could be if all our politicians belonged to a party of that name and campaigns were restricted to 30 days before an election.

Fred Rogers sayings sign

Please consider the preceding proposal and vote accordingly in 66 days.

The Bowl

Jane Hirshfield - 1953-

If meat is put into the bowl, meat is eaten.

If rice is put into the bowl, it may be cooked.

If a shoe is put into the bowl,
the leather is chewed and chewed over,
a sentence that cannot be taken in or forgotten.

A day, if a day could feel, must feel like a bowl.
Wars, loves, trucks, betrayals, kindness,
it eats them.

Then the next day comes, spotless and hungry.

The bowl cannot be thrown away.
It cannot be broken.

It is calm, uneclipsable, rindless,
and, big though it seems, fits exactly in two human hands.

Hands with ten fingers,
fifty-four bones,
capacities strange to us almost past measure.
Scented—as the curve of the bowl is—
with cardamom, star anise, long pepper, cinnamon, hyssop.

—2014

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.