soon we'll pull the lever, and all hell will break loose

Recently, in a rare and feeble act of legislative initiative, Massachusetts shifted its presidential primary to "Super-Duper Tuesday", in the hopes that we would have a little more say in the nominating process. In a small attempt at civic duty (standing in line at City Hall to update my voter registration comes next week, I swear...), I caught big pieces of the last two candidate debates, the Republican Youtube... thing and the Democrats' far more useful NPR debate.

This isn't a political blog, so I'll be relatively brief in this matter- I was impressed in general with the Democratic debate. Maybe because it was on radio, it was thoughtful, interesting, and remarkably devoid of grandstanding. I came away feeling like there were several people I could vote for there. (Dodd, Biden, Obama, and Kucinich. I like Richardson, but if he ran the country like he's run his campaign, we're doomed. And I don't trust Clinton or Edwards at all, and Gravel is, well, not all there)

As for the Gory Old Party, this post at Salon speaks far better than I could. Are the Republicans that small, and that scared, that that lot of twits is the best we can do? That Mike Huckabee, a small-minded, small time revivalist preacher, comes across as the only human being in the lot? I am reminded of the idea put forward by Marianne Williamson, that we can live from fear, or we can live from love. Neither is perfect, but where would you rather go? I'd rather live from love, and pray every day that our country can choose a route where that becomes possible.

I leave you for now (blogging is resuming, at last) with a famous quote from Ms. Williamson herself:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”