“The proper response to suffering is empathy.” This is why I subscribe to the Bulwark, because it’s perfect. This is why my heart breaks for our nation, because not enough Americans believe this. I’m so glad to be on your team.
“The proper response to suffering is empathy.” This is why I subscribe to the Bulwark, because it’s perfect. This is why my heart breaks for our nation, because not enough Americans believe this. I’m so glad to be on your team.
My best friend of 35 years told me a story many, many years ago after we first met that I have never forgotten and retold to many others and is probably why she's been my bestie for so long. This was when we were both in our mid-20s and had just met working at the same manufacturing facility. She is originally from Nashville, and had gone home for the weekend to visit her parents. She told me about going downtown where her dad had a record store and there was this guy panhandling. He appeared to be drunk, but had a sign and his hat in his hands, asking for money. She told me she gave him $20. I said, weren't you afraid he was just going to go buy more liquor with it? She replied with a shrug, "if I'm going to try and help someone, who am I to decide what they need most?" She wasn't telling me this story to toot her own horn; it was an aside as part of a bigger story about something I've long ago forgotten. But that attitude, that I can either choose to give someone less fortunate something I have (empathize with their suffering) or decide not to give something to another human being in a bad situation because they might "waste" what I've given them, has stuck with me and shaped how I try to make decisions about giving
Way back PBS used to show an Annenberg Foundation show Ethics in America. I think it was in the first show that C. Everett Koop argued that same point. Choosing who is worth your charity (or mercy or grace) because of what you think they will do with it is the wrong way to think about those things. I sometimes wonder how we went from that point of discussion on TV to what passes for media today. Here's a link I found to the episodes. https://archive.org/details/ethics-in-america
I am about to re-brand myself as a "Bulwark Republican" in order to serve a different jurisdiction as a poll worker this upcoming election cycle. I think its unfortunate that we poll workers have to declare a party affiliation -- we don't have to be members. But I know from reading/agreeing/arguing with JVL, Sarah, and Tim ... I want to be THAT kind of GOP. I am NOT the crazy! :) This is where the hope lives, and now we go and do likewise.
I was a poll worker for 10 years. In IL there has to be poll workers from both parties. In my district I was the only Democratic poll worker so they gave a Democrat badge to one of the Republicans. They were all good honest people. Now I'd be afraid to be a poll worker because those MAGA are dangerous psychos. I can imagine them harassing voters.
I live in a heavily college-liberal city with an "overabundance" of lefty Dems. All Star Wars/Star Trek memes aside, I feel it is my duty to support the voting process in as much a non-partisan way that I can -- and I was "neo-con" back in the Reagan 80s (reading American SPECTATOR and horrifying my Womens Studies classmates by researching women's military history). My last day of work is this coming June 6 -- 80th anniversary of D-Day. Yes! It may be daunting and perilous to be a pollworker this November ... but so was 6/6/44. So! "Bulwark Republican." I know a WHOLE lot more about the GOP and its roots than most -- like, when US Grant fought the KKK with former CSA General James Longstreet. The current outbreak of Trump orcs have no idea whose boots they're sh!tting on. Imposters and crooks, the lot of them.
"Will be wild." YOU DON'T WANT TO MESS with the Blue-Haired Angry Ladies League. We're steely-eyed Poll Book scrutinizers in our 60s with nothing to lose. "This is the Way."
“The proper response to suffering is empathy.” This is why I subscribe to the Bulwark, because it’s perfect. This is why my heart breaks for our nation, because not enough Americans believe this. I’m so glad to be on your team.
My best friend of 35 years told me a story many, many years ago after we first met that I have never forgotten and retold to many others and is probably why she's been my bestie for so long. This was when we were both in our mid-20s and had just met working at the same manufacturing facility. She is originally from Nashville, and had gone home for the weekend to visit her parents. She told me about going downtown where her dad had a record store and there was this guy panhandling. He appeared to be drunk, but had a sign and his hat in his hands, asking for money. She told me she gave him $20. I said, weren't you afraid he was just going to go buy more liquor with it? She replied with a shrug, "if I'm going to try and help someone, who am I to decide what they need most?" She wasn't telling me this story to toot her own horn; it was an aside as part of a bigger story about something I've long ago forgotten. But that attitude, that I can either choose to give someone less fortunate something I have (empathize with their suffering) or decide not to give something to another human being in a bad situation because they might "waste" what I've given them, has stuck with me and shaped how I try to make decisions about giving
Way back PBS used to show an Annenberg Foundation show Ethics in America. I think it was in the first show that C. Everett Koop argued that same point. Choosing who is worth your charity (or mercy or grace) because of what you think they will do with it is the wrong way to think about those things. I sometimes wonder how we went from that point of discussion on TV to what passes for media today. Here's a link I found to the episodes. https://archive.org/details/ethics-in-america
This is such a deep point. Reminds me of Brideshead Revisited.
I am about to re-brand myself as a "Bulwark Republican" in order to serve a different jurisdiction as a poll worker this upcoming election cycle. I think its unfortunate that we poll workers have to declare a party affiliation -- we don't have to be members. But I know from reading/agreeing/arguing with JVL, Sarah, and Tim ... I want to be THAT kind of GOP. I am NOT the crazy! :) This is where the hope lives, and now we go and do likewise.
I was a poll worker for 10 years. In IL there has to be poll workers from both parties. In my district I was the only Democratic poll worker so they gave a Democrat badge to one of the Republicans. They were all good honest people. Now I'd be afraid to be a poll worker because those MAGA are dangerous psychos. I can imagine them harassing voters.
I live in a heavily college-liberal city with an "overabundance" of lefty Dems. All Star Wars/Star Trek memes aside, I feel it is my duty to support the voting process in as much a non-partisan way that I can -- and I was "neo-con" back in the Reagan 80s (reading American SPECTATOR and horrifying my Womens Studies classmates by researching women's military history). My last day of work is this coming June 6 -- 80th anniversary of D-Day. Yes! It may be daunting and perilous to be a pollworker this November ... but so was 6/6/44. So! "Bulwark Republican." I know a WHOLE lot more about the GOP and its roots than most -- like, when US Grant fought the KKK with former CSA General James Longstreet. The current outbreak of Trump orcs have no idea whose boots they're sh!tting on. Imposters and crooks, the lot of them.
It's going to be wild working the polls this year.
"Will be wild." YOU DON'T WANT TO MESS with the Blue-Haired Angry Ladies League. We're steely-eyed Poll Book scrutinizers in our 60s with nothing to lose. "This is the Way."
Nope. I love working the polls. It feels good and it is fun, but NC is going to nuts.
Yeah, I feel like the swingy states are where it's uh, gonna be swingin'
Right there with you. And thanks for volunteering for this work.
And glad to be with you, too.