Annie Knits

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

More rant inside that has got to come out or I'll bust.  Or my friends will stop hanging around with me because they've had to listen to the same thing over and over.  

As to my post earlier this week about my daughter's school, I posted a comment in response to the local blogger's guest post about preserving the 128 year old building on the campus.  In a nutshell, I commented that we have to make sure the school stays open (phase one of the capital campaign) before we can have any kind of conversation about the extent to which we can preserve the campus buildings (phase two of the capital campaign). I'm going to make an addition here because I haven't been clear.  Phase two of this project consists of constructing a fine arts facility, the fine and performing arts being a strength of this school, and renovations of the gymnasium.  I'd like to frame the conversation this way rather than letting someone else frame it as a demolition.  

The guest poster's wife (a neighbor, btw) responded (publicly, in the blog's comments, using her name) thusly:

Perhaps the girls' educational needs would be better served if the millions of dollars necessary for demolishment (yes, demolishing the buildings costs a great deal of money, too, estimated at approximately 8 million dollars) were allocated to endowing scholarships and recruiting qualified teachers. Moreover, that money could be put toward renovating the historic buildings so they better suit the school's needs (yes, this can be done, and it *has* been done at other schools with more enlightened views regarding historic preservation). If the school administrators continue to maintain that they do not want to use the historic structures on their campus, they could easily sublet these buildings for another use, a possibility that they do not seem willing to entertain. 

It's not an either/or proposition. You're setting up a false dichotomy: either preserve the buildings or offer a high-quality education to the girls. This strikes me as disingenuous at best. 

I would be willing to do what I could to help the school, but only provided they take demolition off the table. However, they refuse to do so, which makes the "maybe Phase 2 won't even happen" scenario highly suspect to me. I can understand why they don't want this controversy to detract from their fundraising efforts, but surely you can understand why people who care about historic preservation might not want to donate money to an institution with the knowledge that it might someday go toward destroying the most historic structures in the Tower Grove East neighborhood.

 

I'm going to respond point by point here, on my blog, because doing it on the original one would be a total threadjack and not appropriate.  

I'm doing it here because if I don't, I'll have to keep saying it to everyone I meet (friends, colleagues, knitting students, random barristas)...

1.  "Perhaps the girls' educational needs would be better served if the millions of dollars necessary for demolishment (yes, demolishing the buildings costs a great deal of money, too, estimated at approximately 8 million dollars) were allocated to endowing scholarships and recruiting qualified teachers."          

 I have it on good authority (the VP of a large local contracting firm and the architect to which I'm married) that  the "demolishment" of this building would cost between $320,000 and $470,000 depending on asbestos abatement.  For God's sake, it's not Pruitt-Igoe!  (Thanks, Bridgett.)  

Also, every teacher in that building has a state teaching certificate and many of them are super excellent teachers -- I have some expertise in this field.  This is a particularly nasty swipe as many of them spend long hours and tons of effort and expertise making sure that these girls have a most excellent high school experience.  The current fundraising effort, which you are blackballing, addresses this item exactly.  Pay them a living wage, get more kids in the school.  Check.  We've got that covered.  

2.  "Moreover, that money could be put toward renovating the historic buildings so they better suit the school's needs (yes, this can be done, and it *has* been done at other schools with more enlightened views regarding historic preservation)."

Ouch.  "More enlightened."  Renovation of the historic buildings.  Here are the uses to which this building is currently being put to use:  an older adult day care center (hmm, sponsored by the religious order and serving poor, local, special needs adults); administrative offices; fellowship rooms; art and music rooms; auction headquarters; the Sanguis Christi retreat center (gosh, haven't seen any neighborhood organizations organizing retreats here to support this entity.)  I'd say that they are utilizing the space, but I've been in this building and, as it was built with just a few classrooms on the first floor but primarily as a convent, it's pretty broken up inside.  

Condos would be cost prohibitive as the rooms are about 6 by 12 and, via three large hallways, it's connected directly to the school building.  Who'd want a condo the back of which would face a high school parking lot?  What else you got?

3.  "If the school administrators continue to maintain that they do not want to use the historic structures on their campus, they could easily sublet these buildings for another use, a possibility that they do not seem willing to entertain. "

"Easily sublet."  Buildings that are directly connected to an all girls high school?  To which the community demands entrance be carefully controlled?  Ok.  Give me some options keeping in mind the constraints of the configuration of the building and the surrounding traffic patterns...  I'm waiting.  

4.  "It's not an either/or proposition. You're setting up a false dichotomy: either preserve the buildings or offer a high-quality education to the girls. This strikes me as disingenuous at best."

It is an either/or proposition, but not the one you'd like to discuss.  Keep the school open or close it.  Support the school or don't.  It's easy to be a proponent of an old building.  Of course we love old buildings -- we live in the city, fer pete's sake.  The difficult conversation is the one that concerns an aging religious population and the education of urban students in a modern city.  That conversation is fraught with latent prejudices and confounding numbers.  No dichotomies there, false or no, but many facets and nuances.

As for that last bit, see the title of this post.

5. " I would be willing to do what I could to help the school, but only provided they take demolition off the table. However, they refuse to do so, which makes the "maybe Phase 2 won't even happen" scenario highly suspect to me."

Would you?  Because I go to all the school functions:  basketball games; drama productions; concerts; the auction and trivia nights.  And I've never seen you at a one of them.  And you live one block from the front doors.  

Take demolition off the table?  What table?  The negotiating table?  What negotiating table?  This is private property.  The owners of which have been excellent neighbors and stewards of our city and it's children for 128 years.  And I know these women.  They don't lie.  Phase two won't happen if phase one isn't successful.  How's that for binary?  You shove a spoke in the this fundraising effort, which is for an educational endowment (definition:  lawful entity) which will go to getting low income and middle income students in the door, and the school fails?  You've got 4 acres of empty buildings at the end of your block.  

6.   "I can understand why they don't want this controversy to detract from their fundraising efforts, but surely you can understand why people who care about historic preservation might not want to donate money to an institution with the knowledge that it might someday go toward destroying the most historic structures in the Tower Grove East neighborhood."

I'm not going to do dueling city resident with you.  Well, maybe I am.  We've lived here for 22 years.  We've renovated two homes, one as old as SEA (1897) and one not so old.  We work in the city.  We shop in the city.  When possible, our kids attend schools in the city.  We worship in the city.  We are preservationists.  The disinformation in this last bit makes me quite angry.  Read the proposal.  Endowment.  Lawful entity.  Only for education and renovation.  Not fungible.  

Whew.  I feel better.  Carry on.

File This One Under ...

It's about damn time!

A)  The City of St. Louis delivered my recycling dumpster this morning.  Yay me.  Now they'll collect garbage once a week, recycling once a week, and yard waste once a week.  I used to pay a local recycling company to collect my recyclables, but when my recycling day (Monday) coincided with so many holidays one year that my collections were reduced by 15% and they basically told me tough toe-nails, I quit paying them to abuse me.  Since then, my recycling has been haphazard, as in when I wanted to schlep it to the city recycling center nearby.  Not any more.  

B) Baby's birthday sweater is nearly finished.  Most of one sleeve to go and then piecing.  Today?  Maybe.  It's his actual birthday after all.  On my monitor, this yarn looks pinkish and I can't seem to get that straightened out.  It's more maroon, or claret.  I have to say that making the push to finish this sweater in this yarn has given me a repetitive stress injury to the tendon in my elbow.  Inflexible yarn plus heavy cabling equals elbow problems.  Good to know.  Ice helps and I'll be just fine.  On the bright side, my chiropractor is enjoying treating what he says is his first "knitting injury".  He's a barrel of monkeys...

Too Dumb to Live!

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A) Today's joke:  How many preservationists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  Ten, one to screw in the new light bulb and nine to admire the old one... WHICH DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE!

There is an internet hoopla into which I've injected my opinion.  Surprise.  The local all-girls high school from which my daughter is soon to graduate (God willing) is gearing up to make some changes.  This institution (along with a few of its buildings) is more than 125 years old and has been educating young South St. Louis women for that long.  It was begun by an order of nuns, several of whom I count as close friends, and is their mission.  Sadly, the order is an aging one, as are many religious orders, and maintaining the school and it's physical plant has begun to be a drain on their resources.

For the last several years, stake holders at the school have spent time developing a plan to keep the school thriving ... or even open.  The plan has two phases.  The first phase is to raise several millions of dollars to fund a tuition endowment (to help low income girls attend and keep the school a viable option for our urban poor) and fund renovations to the 1957 building.  Good.  

The second phase is where the problems lie.  In that plan, the stake holders have explored tearing down one of the older buildings to make room for a performing arts center (music and theater being strengths of the school).  Let the hoopla begin.

A local blogger (whom neighbors are quoting as if he's a journalist with journalistic ethics and a journalist's passing nod to unbiased reporting) got wind of the plans and has blogged about the gloom and doom of the second phase of this plan.  He can't have actually read the whole plan because it's clear that the possible demolition of the venerable 128 year old school building is years off if it even happens.  He blogged about it anyway, though, and he's got local panties in a twist, that's for sure.  Mine included, I suppose.  

I've left comments to both of his posts, which neighbors are referring to as "articles" when they forward the links around, reminding the melee that what they're discussing so urgently and stridently is PHASE TWO of the MULTI MILLION DOLLAR PLAN which is likely at least 8 or 10 years away and could we please discuss whether or not the school WILL STAY OPEN!  

Christ in pancakes, I'm ready to kill someone.

So help me, if this tempest in a teacup impacts one bit the efforts we're making to raise money TO EDUCATE CHILDREN ... well, I don't know what I'll do.  

Anyway, hubster wants me to calm down and stay out of it.  

Hey, at least I didn't leave the preservationist joke in the comments of the blog.  Internet benevolence points to me.

An aside:  Ravelry Rubberneckers?  This post looks and sounds like Ranch Dressing.  I'm officially crazy.

Marriage Weekend

Hubster and I are of an age.  Our friends are having round-number anniversary parties and their kids are getting married.  We had one of each this weekend and both were really a lot of fun.

First there was a mass and 30th anniversary party for neighbors/carpool friends Saturday evening.  Their friends and family gathered from across the country to celebrate with them.  

The couple renewed their vows at the mass, which made me cry.  The music was excellent, I have to say, even though the parish is one that's adjacent to ours and we are kind of competitive with their choir.  

Their friends and family toasted and roasted them afterwards in the church basement, which made me laugh.  The food was excellent as the caterer is a local favorite and member of their parish.  We got to chat with neighbors we don't see often enough and with folks we didn't know we had in common with this couple.  St. Louis is a darned small big town is all I have to say.

The husband made a toast to his wife which was very funny.  One of the sayings he attributed to a former boss of his that he thought was perfect for this occasion and he shared it as one of his secrets to a long, successful marriage: "We all know that I wear the pants in this family," he said, "And we all know that she picks them out..."  So funny. 

Then, this morning, we attended one of the 69,000 10/10/2010 weddings purported to be taking place across the country today.  I didn't know there was such a thing until someone told me that they'd heard of the phenomenon in a report on NPR.  

The ceremony took place in one of the rehabbed warehouse restaurants that dot the near South Side.  The pastor was a woman who'd known the bride (our ace-in-the-hole babysitter until she had the temerity to leave St. Louis and go to Yale!) since she was a young girl, so the ceremony was personal and sentimental and heartfelt.  

When the father of the groom got up to read some of his own poetry during the ceremony, I cringed (my experience with amateur poetry in church have not been good ones).  But, in fact, it was a lovely piece my favorite line of which was something about tolerance and passion living together in the same place, in his loved one, and how hard that was to imagine but how delightful it was to experience.

The bride's father, an old neighbor and friend of ours, also dropped a pearl of wisdom in his father-of-the-bride speech.  He told the assembled family and friends that he knew the secret of a long standing marriage and that it was that each partner felt as if he or she was the lucky one... 

What a nice weekend to spend with my beloved, don't you think?

Oh, and there was spinning.  Of course.  We couldn't make googly eyes at eachother all weekend long, could we?

Deborah and I carded these Jazz Turtle Creations locks into a bat.  I spun it into 130 yards of yummy, smooshy, 3-ply wool on Friday evening.  

Today I spun up some of the new Frabjous Fiber roving we got in at the shop last week.  Here is one of two 80-yard 3 ply skeins.  It's merino and firestar in the Caravan colorway.  I think I'm happier with my spinning when I work a Navajo ply on the singles than when I make 2 ply yarn.  Just a growing preference.  

I'm casting on a holiday cowl of some kind with this yarn this evening.  Or for mittens out of the first yarn.  When it happens, I know which.  Yum.

Not Apple Pie...

Because, hello?!  Apples aren't really in season yet.  Blackberries are, though.  And Tammie and Fiona and Chris have a blackberry monster in their yard and they're compelled to share ; )  Lucky me.

 

We're spending the afternoon with in-laws and watching fireworks tonight.  How about you?

 

I'm slacking off and using store bought crust and a crumble top.  It won't matter, though.  They won't last long.

And even though it's a holiday, I've had something of a teal dear (tldr:  too long didn't read) post brewing.  Bear with me or not, as you see fit.  It's tangential as far as the holiday is concerned and occurred to me as a kind of salve to a niggling issue I face more often than I'd like.

For me, being Roman Catholic is kind of like being an American.  

For instance, if you're born and raised here in the U.S. of A. you have a certain world view and a set of experiences, whether you like it or not.  You have a certain set of expectations as far as your person, your family, your property, and your rights are concerned.  You have a degree of common education and experience with your contrymen.   Thats' not to say that experiences aren't individual.  They are, but for good or bad, you'd be hard pressed to, say, go live in France and just be French all of a sudden.  Or China for that matter.  Oh, you could learn the language and see the commonalities of human experience.  You could get used to and even love the food and the culture, but at heart, your expectations and your essence would be that of a United States citizen I think.  You'd always be an American abroad.

Catholicism works the same way for me.  I'm what they call a cradle Catholic and I'd be hardpressed to be anything else.  Raised in this Church, I have a certain world view and it's set.  I can go to another denomination's service and enjoy it, but the Mass is home.  And when we had other leadership in our Church here in St. Louis, I got asked by my non-Catholic friends how on earth I could still be one... how could a thinking person practice his or her religion under that leadership?  Hmmm...  I didn't stop being an American under the last president either.  I am what I am.

The United States is something of an international force.  For the good of us all or to our detriment, much of the world views us with some mixture of distain, anger, awe, envy, love, or  aprobation.   We step into cases of disaster and lend aid in some cases, and cause the need for it in others.  A great deal of popular culture around the world is derivative of ours.  The thing is?  For many Americans, at least, that is of no consequence.  We don't much care that kids in Russia wear t-shirts touting our fast food and our cartoons.  

I think that the Catholic Church behaves in much the same way, internationally and even throughout history.  We have a past that is both full of glory and steeped in ignominy.  That said, our history has formed our present.  This charitable organization now feeds, houses, and schools more people across the planet than any other single organization.  And like it or not, Protestantism is derivative -- if only in that it comes into being in part in response to the Roman church.  And I think that modern Catholics in general are willing to let that be the water under the bridge that it s.  

My local parish, just like my neighborhood, is where I choose to be.  It's home.  Nationally and internationally, there may be things about both my religion and my nationality with which I find fault.  Some mildy, some vehemently.  Does that make me any less an American?  Any less a Roman Catholic? I think not.

All this said, I wish a happy 4th to you and yours.   Be safe and eat pie...  ; )

Variations on a Theme

I love my church.  I've blogged about this before, but I have to say it again today.  

Each year, the St. Louis PrideFest Parade stages itself in front of our church front steps.  In fact, this gentleman greeted me after mass.  He was charming.  And orange... ; )

 

I asked him if it would be ok with him if I put the picture on my blog.  He told me, "Honey, any publicity is good publicity."  

The St. Louis parade has grown to be one of the largest in the Midwest, if not in the country, and the South Grand area expects tens of thousands of parade and festival goers each year.  It's a great shot in the arm for our businesses.

But that's not why I'm writing about this parade today.  I'm writing because, as I said in the first sentence, I love my church.  I looked around during mass this morning and saw several PrideFest t-shirts.  Now I know that the prevailing wisdom is that Catholicism and the gay and lesbian community do not mix.  It's a testament to our place of worship that at St. Pius the two mix very well.  I could enumerate the folks in leadership positions on our  Parish Council, the folks who volunteer at our fundraisers and who proclaim from our ambo, but that would be a lot like saying, "Some of my best friends are..."  And that's not how I mean this at all.

   

I sense no irony or cognitive dissonance in the fact that this parade begins on our parish steps on a Sunday morning just as mass lets out.  I suppose it bothers some... on both sides.  The enmity engendered by the small minded and the elite is great.  I know, though, that in my little church, Catholic people worship together.  Regardless of ... oh, whatever.

The fact that it's the best parade in St. Louis, and that it takes place within walking distance of my house, and the fact that its participants throw the best swag from their floats is not influencing my opinion either.  Ahem.

 

Here are some of my parish friends with their newish little one, Jeremiah.  It's Jeremiah's first Pride Parade.  I remember Dear Son's first -- his sister was 4 and she oooed and ahhhhed over the "princesses" riding in the convertibles.  (Off color joke coming up -- I lay it at Husband's feet -- don't read it if you're sensitive that way.  We told her they weren't just princesses but that they were queens.  Even better.)  Over the years, my little ones have taken home shirts, leis, beads, balloons, frisbees, floaties, more beads, flash lights, ... you name it.  All bedecked with rainbows.

 

This set of puppets was produced by on of the city's magnet schools.  

Which begs the question.  A question Husband put to me this afternoon when I started this entry.  Is the parade necessary any more?  Is it relevant?  We've come a long way baby.  His point was to wonder aloud whether we need to discuss sexual orientation any more?  Do we need to have a parade about it?  

I'm writing this entry because I think that the parade is necessary and relevant.  While I care not one whit what happens in someone's bedroom as long as they're consenting adults, I do care that there are many who would like to legislate just that.  And while they're rabid over keeping government out of boardrooms, they're just as rabid about letting it into bedrooms.  

Bridgett blogged this issue this week for very different reasons.  I voiced a kind of 'out there' opinion in her comments, but it's relevant to my thinking here.  

The Gospels' primary point as I think on it is two fold:  Put God above all things and love each other as you love yourself.  We do it here.  And that makes me proud.

Are You Weeds or Wheat?

Father John nailed his sermon again this past Sunday, and it's the topic today, but first, family updates:

• Dear Son is home from Boy Scout camp, safe and sound.  He has a rather large blister on his foot -- so large in fact that his patrol called it his personal flotation device.  He also came home wearing the same underwear that I send him off in six days prior.  He says he even swam in them... under his suit of course.  The soap and the travel toothpaste came home pristine and unopened.
• Dear Daughter took the pristine soap and travel toothpaste when she left for her big adventure yesterday at 6:30 a.m.  She's on her way to a Marine Biology/Ecology class in Key Largo, Florida,  for which she'll receive a quarter science credit through her high school.  I asked her to text me when she got to each new state.  She rolled her eyes, but agreed as I was adamant.  (It's a long drive with a young teacher and I'm a little put over the edge.)  I dropped her off, got home, poured a cup of coffee and got a text message... "Illinois"  was the only word.  Very funny -- you could walk to Illinois from our house in less than an hour....
• I'm not participating in the Tour de Fleece, but since I've got a sleeve and a half of Filey to do before I start the Sooper Sekrit holiday sweater(yes, this year's holiday!) and a newly announced wedding afghan and blue socks to knit, of course I'm spinning my brains out.  What else?  I followed Kim's lead and got some thread to ply with a pretty fragile merino/tencel blend I spun from roving purchased at Rhinebeck.  Dusk is the name of the colorway, and it's from the Sheep Shed @ Mountainview Farm.  The thread is an iridescent pale blue/gray.  But there wasn't enough of it so I made "art yarn".  Of which I'm inordinately fond.

But enough meandering. 

You know the parable.  It's from Matthew's Gospel, and begins at 13:24 I believe.  The farmer plants wheat, but an enemy sows weeds among it.  The servants want to pull the weeds, but the farmer tells them to let it all grow to harvest so they don't damage the wheat whilst uprooting the weeds.  He has them harvest and keep the wheat and burn the weeds.  And then there's the part about some pretty bad stuff happening to people who act like weeds. 

But the point here is that it's not the wheat's business what happens to the weeds.  In fact, it's the reaper's job to even tell the weeds from the wheat, not the wheat's job.  And what happens to the weeds?  Well, that's not the wheat's business either -- the wheat, if it is indeed wheat -- will be happy and safe in the barn when the nastiness goes down.  So the parable goes anyway. 

Father John brought this point forward (at least that's what I took away from the piece... sorry, Father, you can talk, but we've got to do the listening, I guess...) and it hits home with me.  Humans seem to be by nature judgmental.  We want our ducks in a row.  Seriously.  Many of us want things to be black and white, good and bad, and we want to know the score.  I think we're being told here that we don't get to know it.  That it's none of our business.  That we are to grow and be and our weed or wheat-ness will be decided.  Oh, there are rules, to be sure, and we're to follow them, but we're not the judges. 

And it's just that judgmental propensity in organized religion, in politics, in our culture at large that makes me so crazy.  Live right, people.  Whether the guy next to you is gay, a democrat, pro-choice, anti-war, vegan, a CSA member, a recycler...  Those things aren't your business.  You do what you think is right and stop wasting your time condemning others.  And there is nothing in this parable, word for word from the Bible,BTW, about the wheat having to somehow save the weeds.  Somehow change the weediness of the weeds.  There is an endgame afoot here, and we're not privy.  That's all.

There are of course holes in this rhetoric of mine.  I know.  But I like this idea.  That we are to do what we believe, to live and let live, to get along, and a greater being than ourselves will sort it out when we're done.  It's the epitome of free will, I think.  So I guess I mean that we get to choose to be wheat or weeds, but we don't get to choose for others according to our own intentions.  The farmer is letting us all grow 'til we're grown...

So, this is me, picking and choosing what part of the Bible to which I'll attend.  I know.  I guess I'm just not that into Leviticus.

And a Good Spring(ish) Morning to You, Too!

This morning, it is a beautiful, clear 44 degrees.  Cold, yes, but the birds are singing and and the jonquils have begun to bloom and it'll warm up enough to open windows today I think. 

We had a lovely Easter.  Kids in Easter togs hunting eggs in a snow squall...  Oh, it was like 35 degrees so nothing stuck, but it snowed to beat the band several times during the day.

We all attended the Easter Vigil at our church this year.  I go every year as I sing, but this year both kiddos served the mass and husband read one of the many readings.  It was an absolutely gorgeous service.  Seven readings, progressing through the Bible, proclaimed in complete darkness.   Dear Son was afraid he'd fall asleep during this part (he'd been told horror stories by his loving sister) but he was chosen by Father John to be the one to bring him the book between each reading -- Father says something after each piece -- so there was little chance of snoozing.  Son did count the other server (not his sister!) picking his nose 4 times.  Lovely.  Glad it was dark. 

The only criticism I have of the service really is a new addition.  We baptized the new members of the church as we always do at this service.   This year, someone got a kind of pool, you know, black plastic like in yard Koi ponds?  And surrounded it with cement bricks and flowers and filled it with water and  had the new members actually get in and Father poured water over them.  All well and good.  But then they had to go change clothes.  Like for 20 minutes.  Which I totally get -- I mean we've been blessing these folks and building this up so much that of course they wanted to look nice for the rest of the evening.  Which takes awhile, what with hair and maybe makeup and all... So we had an intermission.  Lost all momentum for me.  I believe this is kind of a movement in the Catholic Church, though -- the immersion during baptism.  I've been in several newer churches that have large pools with steps built into them for exactly this purpose.  And I guess it's pretty biblical, if you really think about it.    I think I'm just old school.  And it was 11:30 p.m.

There has been some knitting on the baby cardigan.  We have a front and we have a pocket.  So cute.

See how the cable splits for the pocket?  Love these details.

Construction wise, we've got more color on the walls and a new front door.  I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

Monte matches the new color scheme.  I guess he can stay.

Flooding wise, thanks for all of your inquiries.  We are far, far away from any trouble.  There's a "Heights" in the name of my neighborhood for a reason -- we are up hill from nearly everything in St. Louis.  The folks who are suffering though?  They are suffering greatly.  Personally?  I wish cities wouldn't allow building in flood plains.  And this spring water has topped most of the 100 year flood plains anyway -- so.   Tough going all over. 

Finally, I do have a rant brewing.  It has to do with the Senator Obama race speech thing from last week.  It's along the lines of a previous rant wherein I wonder why it is that some of us can't be in the same room with folks with which we disagree.  This time, there's consternation over the Senator's continuing association with his  preacher.  Who said some pretty ugly things.  Well.  That's on him.  Gosh, if I had to be held to everything anyone's every said in my earshot... well, I guess I couldn't be President either.  Sheesh, people!  You know?  We can love people and disagree with them.   We can respect people and not take to heart every word they utter.  We can have opinions that don't necessarily jive with every opinion of everyone else in the room.  We can HEAR words and then take positions concerning them drawn from our own experiences, our own faith, and our own consciences!  Dangit!  If we don't do this, I'd put forth that therein lies the wrong doing!  If we surround ourselves with yes men and only those with whom we absolutely and totally agree?  WE END UP IN A WAR STARTED BECAUSE OF FALSEHOOD AND INNUENDO! 

Ahem.  Whew.  Well.  Rant over, I guess.