Running for Office or Running from the Office ...whichever.

So I am letting the cat more or less out of the bag, not that it was truly in...anyway. I will be running for village council. Assuming someone chooses to nominate me, of course. ;) What difference do I think I'll make? I truly have no idea. I am a busy person who already sits on a number of boards and manages a small fuel agency so I am not entirely sure how I am going to fit this in. I do have a fairly flexible schedule and with my children off to college and the city, I will need a new focus other than work, one that encompasses more than a monthly/bi-monthly meeting and that serves the public interest. I would like to feel that I might make a difference.  I would, at least, like to try. I hope to initiate and/or influence actions that may lead to greater accountability. I am honest to a fault and think that transparency particularly inside agencies that serve the public interest is of utmost importance. I think I can ask important questions such as when the village comes up with a design for, say, an airport terminal, I would like to know...

-how we arrived at this particular design
-what other design options were investigated
-what has the success rate for said designer/engineer's other projects been
-why do we continue to use someone who has a questionable track record
-how much time (cost to VOM in wages) has been spent thus far (4 years worth??)
-how might this compare to going elsewhere for design options.

I am sure I can think of a few, possibly more important,questions.

I like to think that I might  also have some ideas to offer in the way of economic development and sustainability. Those two need to go together, sustainability is often the missing piece. This is the question we must ask regarding the development of a much needed recreational center.  Yes we need one, most definitely we want one...is it sustainable? How can we make one that is sustainable? How do we sustain a facility when we do not have the necessary population base? What other options are there to fill the need for recreational facilities? How do we get the necessary population base? We need economic development to create sustainable jobs that will encourage people to stay and encourage people to move here or move back here. Without the foundation to support a facility we can not reasonably expect to build one. Not case closed, but rather, a clear idea of where we need to start, what we need to do first.

I know the issues are many, so are the ideas and the questions. I am not suggesting I have the answers but I want to have the conversations and I think, for various reasons (apathy, feeling of being powerless, etc.), the motivation to have these conversations has been minimal. We need to ask questions, inquire, insist on accountability and transparency, show up to public meetings, make our voices heard. So here is me, I want to be your voice, ask your questions, and represent you in the council chambers.

I Have Issues...

At the moment I have issues with the notion that prayers brought little Keinan home. Don't get me wrong, I am happy for him and his family that he is home, as it is not usual for a child who is abducted to  be returned home safe and sound. And, yes, I can see the rarity of return being used as an argument that he is home due to answered prayers. However, if praying to god is what brought him home... why Keinan? Why not the hundreds of other missing children? Were the prayers of their family and friends somehow not good enough? Were they worshipping in the wrong way? Perhaps there was a major sporting event happening at the time that god had to concentrate on? While I do believe in the power of positive thinking, which admittedly can involve prayer and meditation, isn't it more logical to acknowledge that the use of social media, such as Facebook, Amber Alert and the mainstream media pressured whomever had him to bring him home? How grateful we all are that he is home and safe, but lets give credit where credit is due. Let's give credit to the many folks who passed on the Amber Alert via Facebook and other social networks, radio and tv. It is our progressive social media which has the power to send the face of anyone over the World Wide Web not some unknown diety who has difficulty prioritizing that brought Keinan home. Aren't you grateful we no longer have to rely on milk cartons to spread the word of a missing child?

Distracted All Right....

At any given time during the day I am thinking of work, what will be for supper, my husband's (and therefore, mine) diet, running for village council, the current state of the economy, when my next board meeting is, how my daughters are doing, where they are at the moment, what is my husband doing right now, why they want to build a gawdawful airport terminal reminicent of the gawdawful information center, how the living area in my new long house will look (assuming it is built), when can I get to any number of books I have half read, why must people pray for every little thing when there are millions of people who don't even get a meal a day, when can I go to Mexico, is global warming anthropogenic or cyclical, how much I want to bead, weave, draw, etc. and the list goes on. Oh my...that's just a glimpse.
It does, however explain how I started a blog post about Easy Rider the movie and the fear of freedom rampant in our society and ended up writing this one. I am not sure what this means in the overall big picture when I just end up with the question of how am I ever going to get done all the things I want to do. Read all the books I want to finish reading, finish half finished renos and projects I need to finish, make all the awesome things I want to make and still have time to change the world. But...hey! I'm a great starter!
I started this morning with the goal of getting some paperwork done and instead worked on the laundry, browsed the web, and wrote this blog. This blog counts as paperwork...right??

From Pro-life to Wearing Your Own Shoes

New name for my blog as mostly I think it is going to be a record of my thoughts on everything. For example, at the moment I am no longer thinking about family that no longer speaks to me, (okay I am but it is in the back of my mind) but rather I find myself thinking about why I feel the way I do about certain things and how I came to feel that way.

I used to be pro-life, pro-capital punishment and anti-assisted suicide as part of my religious beliefs, I am now pro-choice everything and was in fact, pro-choice during my second foray into the trappings of the Jehovah's Witnesses. They did not know that, of course. (There are a number of things they did not know and which they would have used to remove me from their ranks much sooner had they known.) I think personal experience is what leads people to change their minds about these types of things. It is fine to be anti-abortion right up until you are placed in a situation in which you have to choose between your own life and that of an unborn pea in your uterus. It is fine to be anti-assisted suicide for the terminally ill right up until you or someone you love is terminally ill. It is fine to be pro-death penalty until you glean an understanding as to how a person's childhood environment frames their future actions and how easy it is to send innocent people to prison because of legal technicalities, human error and investigative bias. It is often easier to hold tight to an ideal than it is to research and explore both sides of the question AND the reasons you hold that ideal in the first place. Exploring the reasons why you feel a certain way is a first step to growing self-awareness. Once I started down that road there was no turning back. No going back into the isolated shell of my childhood religion. No fitting into any mould. I was the proverbial square peg and in fact, always had been. I never seemed to fit in anywhere ...we'll get to that later.

I am of the opinion that as long as one maintains isolation from the rest of the world, regardless as to the form of that isolation, they lack the ability to see beyond their very own horizons. While this is necessary to an extent to maintain a semblance of sanity, it renders one powerless to understand and properly empathize with others situations. I can think back to a bible study and prayer circle (not JW) I was engaged in at one point, after an act of disloyalty had been admitted to, and how insulted I was that one of the persons in the circle kept referring to my actions as "appalling" as if she had never heard of such actions prior to mine. Well, yes, the actions were wrong, but it was not as if I consciously said to myself..."self, today we must embark on an act of disloyalty. I must hunt down the first husband that is not mine to ..." etc. Surely you can see where I am going with that... No that is not how these things happen. First you wind up in an abusive marriage with someone who thinks it perfectly acceptable to bring home girlfriends of their choosing and inform their wife that they are going to have a mistress and you should be happy about it. (How we got there must be explored in order to avoid that in the future.) Or your husband works long hours at the office with the beautiful secretary ... whatever the situation is, it is never what someone from the outside looking in thinks it is and it is never as simple as one thinks. Because they NEVER have the full story no matter how much they may think they do. My point is it is pretty easy to sit back and pass judgement on others and determine how they should be acting, doing or not doing when you are not them. Trying to live up to the expectations of others when you are unable for whatever reason is a fruitless effort primarily because THEY have no idea what it is like to be in your shoes and you do not have to nor have the ability to fit comfortably into theirs. Why try? Just wear your own damn shoes... and make them as pretty as you are able for your own sake not the sake of others.

Why a blog?

Sooo. I have decided to do a blog in order to keep my rantings and ramblings off my facebook, at least somewhat anyway. And to keep my athiest, anti-religion, anti-god, anti-Christian comments, debates, etc. from offending. I also do so with the hope that it will provide the opportunity for others, such as my family members who have no real idea who or why I am the way I am, to get to know me. To know why I am the way I am ...said Sam I am... ooops I digress. I would like them to know, in case they are interested, why I believe what I do, or don't. Why I have made the choices I have and to put to rest the notions that they have about me...or confirm them. Whichever.

I want to tell my side. I have never truly been offered this opportunity, except in a committee meeting, perhaps. Actually, no, not even there. No one has really wanted to know why, or how but would prefer, at least it appears to me, to want to continue believing the falsehoods and fallacies presented by others. By men who have no clue yet make the rules for an immense amount of people who then poison and damage unwittingly those they should love the most. Sidetracked ...oops. I did call it rambling, right?

Anyway, I think this blog may be just as much about me telling my side to others as it will be clarifying it for myself. Stay tuned for my life story, if you're interested.