No one who lives in the U.S. can be unaware of our current toxic political climate. It’s gotten to the point where people can be attacked for the hat they wear, or an argument can occur between strangers over a candidate’s plan for health care. Know what it is? It’s ridiculous, is what it is. When did we stop being a country where people could disagree without fear of fistfights? When did people stop mattering less than being “right?”
I admit, I’ve gotten to the age where I don’t care as much what other folks think of me. But even I wouldn’t go outside the house wearing a red ballcap—even if it was just a red ball cap and carried no message. Discuss politics? I wouldn’t mention it to a stranger. In the past, politics might bring on a few sneers or a dismissal, or a spirited discussion. Today, a disagreement over our government can land you in the hospital.
However…when it comes to family, I share my thoughts.
My parents were always a little more conservative than my grandparents. 
Mom and Dad usually voted for the candidate who supported the military more. My grandmother was a die-hard Democrat, a union steward in the plant where she worked, and had strong opinions she would voice anywhere about who should be running things. Contrary to most of my contemporaries who grew up during the Vietnam War, I leaned more toward my parents’ views than the revolutionaries’. Now, my mom leans more toward her mother—less conservative and more progressive. Do we battle it out during phone calls? Yes. Do we still love each other? YES! We’re family and we love each other despite any comments about the elections.
I wish everyone were more that way. Share your opinions, go home as friends. As it is, I discuss politics with my family, but not with friends. I value my friendships much more than I value making a point over something I have little control over anyway.
Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.
Dee
Burning Bridges by Anne Krist: old letters put the lie to Sara’s life. Now, mending her past mistakes while crossing burning bridges will be the hardest thing she’s ever done.
One Woman Only
Only a Good Man Will Do
Naval Maneuvers
Powered by Linky Tools
Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…
Cece Whittaker is a Christian Romance writer who lives at the southern New Jersey coast. She has created the 
How Charity Sunday works: for every comment made on this blog post, I will donate money to the charity named. The same promise is made for every blog site listed in the group–click the Linky Links link at the bottom of this post to see the list of participants and read/comment on any of them to see a donation go to that blogger’s charity. We’re all different! Thanks for your help and your participation!
To set the stage, I attended Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia (now University of Mary Washington), in Fredericksburg, Virginia. At that time, sooooo many years ago, the University of Virginia was all male. The exception were those women who had majors that had to finish in Charlottesville, like nursing majors. If you were a woman and wanted to attend UVA, you went to the girls’ branch, Mary Washington. All female, when I attended, we were just a couple of years way from having to wear a skirt or dress when leaving the dorm and being forbidden from getting into a car with a male without a chaperone.
on the hall. Her roommate had immediately christened her Caddy, based on her initials, and that’s what we all called her. She was tall and kind of willowy where I was stubby and not willowy at all. She had naturally curly auburn hair (that took forever to dry) and a fair Irish complexion. We hit it off right away, partially, I’m sure, because she didn’t go home very often and neither did I. She had (still has) a wickedly sharp sense of humor, an amazing intellect, and one of the kindest hearts I’ve ever known. She’s very loyal to her friends but she’s not a pushover. She loves her family fiercely, and she’s a damn hard worker.
I really don’t know any writing programs, so I suspect I don’t use them. Or maybe this means writing tips and suggestions? Those I use—on and off.
nothing works for me except what I use—which is nothing like a plotting program! Sometimes I start a book with only a kernel of an idea, and that’s kind of too little to use in a plotting program.
Writer, photographer, social critical artist, musician, and occasional actress, J. Arlene Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived in a Hungarian mud house, a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave-dwelling, on a Dutch canal, and in a haunted house on the English moors. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village of no interest and, much to local dismay, protects all creatures, especially spiders and snakes. She particularly enjoys incorporating into short stories, mysteries, narrative non-fiction, and romances, her experiences in out-of-the-way communities, and her conversations with strange characters.