A political Statement

I'm not going to waste my breath telling people to vote. If you don't want to vote, that's fine. Thank you for letting the rest of us decide the direction of this country for you. Hope you like what we do with it.

What I am going to do is answer a question. My dear friend satyrlovesong, who remains my friend despite a very odd history of mistaking each other's motives and me being an occasional putz, often asks "What are you doing to make the world a better place this week?"

Well, here's my answer: I voted.

Now, of course, I also teach. And that involves a lot of stuff you wouldn't expect, such as the moment when I stopped to pat the shoulder of a student who is having an incredibly bad week at home and asked if she needed anything. Or the moment when I smiled and shook the hand of a student who gives me a lot of grief, but who is trying desperately hard to turn his life around, and congratulated him on a C he worked so hard for it might as well be an A. (Taylor Mali has a poem called What Teachers Make (Link opens in new window) that mentions that. It is a powerful, powerful feeling).

But to vote... to help decide, no matter that I am one man, the direction my country will take in the next few years... that is also a powerful feeling. And you who believe that one voice means nothing, who believe the system is evil, who believe that it makes sense to live in a country that gives you that right and not grab onto it with both hands and work it as hard as you can... well, like I said: I hope you like what we do with the place while you're sitting there deriding us.

The lesson of Babylon 5, to get really geeky for a moment three and a half decades, is that one man's voice matters. I choose to believe that.

Because the other lesson is: Faith Manages.

I now return you to your regularly-scheduled curmudgeon of an English teacher.