A thought

You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.
-Dag Hammarskjöld

Grateful

To live in a beautiful small town surrounded by helpful and friendly neighbors.
To have the spirit to stay involved in my community
To have work that suits my passions
To have the chance to correct my faults
For life
For friends
For small joys
For sorrows
For family
Thanks.

I do not belong to any organized party...

I am a Democrat. I am a liberal democrat. The kind that thinks sovereignty lies with the people. The type that believes people can work together for their mutual betterment. The sort that believes that to preserve my liberty, I must work to assure yours, and you must work to assure mine. The species that holds that that work requires a conversation. The ilk that believes that conversation requires listening. The faction that credits ordinary humans with the intelligence to form contracts and laws enforced mutually out of that conversation, by an agreed upon government, whose authority derives from themselves. I am a liberal democrat. I oppose the accretion of power by unelected and unaccountable groups, political or economic. I do not believe in kings and queens, either elected or self appointed. I believe in us.

I am a liberal democrat. I believe in a $48,000 appropriation from town funds to a library clerk Public Library before even discussing a $48,000 dollar appropriation to a businessman's club.

I am a liberal democrat. I believe in affording every individual their personal dignity in address and person, even LGBT creeps like me.

I am a liberal democrat. I believe that whispering campaigns conducted in the press through innuendo and false indignation are unseemly.

I want people in government who know they have a job to do that is not tied to shiny toys, but to things of substance to a community. Some of those people are unenrolled in any political party. Others are Republicans. Others are Democrats. Since I am a liberal democrat, and a lifelong Democrat, I'm going to work hard to see that people who, in my opinion, have demonstrated that they share my view of liberal democracy, are elected to office. This year, those people are Marie Gunning for Council at Large, Joe Migliaccio for District Three Council, and Eric Pandora for District Two Council.

edited for clarity 11/4/2011