My Twitter Universe

I am living in a Twitter-verse, or something like that. I have a group I belong to, known by the hashtag #modsquad. Yeah, I'm living in a Twitter-verse that is happily mine. I am a moderate thinker. You all know that (well, you should if you have paid attention to my blog title).

We are all avid followers, apparently, of one Joe Scarborough. Some of my modsquad compatriots are definitely not in his political party. That makes me happy. It makes me happy that I belong to a group who wants the world to be a more moderate place.

There's a place for railing against our government. That is part of our right as Americans, to rail against our government, to make our choices and our decisions and let everyone know about it.

It's also our responsibility, or so I believe, that a level of civility is necessary. It's not saying that you can't yell when you disagree, it's saying that we need to remember that yelling fire in a theater is wrong, and yelling 'liar' in the house chamber is, while not equivalent, wrong too. It was tweets about things like that that drew the attention of my moderately thinking Twitter followers (I believe).

I am thrilled to be a part of my Twitter-verse.

Health Care.

Right now, the two words makes people alternately scream or shudder.

And according to CQ Politics, 79% of average Americans (that would be a percentage of the 1001 people who were questioned in a poll) want to have Democrats and Republicans agree on a health care reform bill.¹ HR 3200 (alternatively known as America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009) doesn't seem to have any Republicans in the same room.

I have problems with both sides right now. The far left of center folks like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are talking about the public option like if HR 3200 (or another bill) doesn't have it, they won't back down and won't vote for it.² I don't want to push the blame entirely on the Democrats. The Republicans have been either quiet or agreeing with the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. And Limbaugh and Palin have been drinking the same Kool-AidTM.³ It's a sad world they're living in, breathing in lies and breathing out hate.

As a side note: I have read the section that Limbaugh refers to in this article.³ Sec. 1233 of the Bill is what refers to the so-called end of life care.⁴ Read it yourself and see if you can find anything that makes you see Death Panels. If you want, you can go read Sarah Palin's facebook and see it for yourself.⁵ If there were people who could come to the middle it would be better.

Better? We could look back to the years of Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan... Sometimes you can be pragmatic and not get 'exactly' what you want, but get nearly what you want. So many things have happened in this country through compromise. As we sit back tonight and listen (or not) to Barack Obama's speech on health care (sorry, I'll not be watching but I'll read the text after), I can only hope (and we know how dismal that hope is...) that he will introduce Dr. Bill Frist and Dr. Howard Dean as his two advisors on health care and that he will delay the bill until the two doctors agree that the bill is a good thing for America.

Like I said, that won't happen. But one could hope...

1. http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/polltracker/2009/09/health-poll.html
2. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112656344
3. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_081309/content/01125108.guest.html
4. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:H.R.3200:
5. http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin

9/9/09

Inane blog post:

I love numbers. I love playing with numbers. I love the patterns that appear in numbers and today is one of those days that is just downright cool.

Next year, the day after my birthday, will be 10/10/10.

Just pointing it out.

Embarking on a New Blog

I've been writing on facebook and on Twitter and I had a few people ask me if I had a blog. I have ranted and raved, on and off, for the last two years (!) about my thoughts on sports and sports news.

A while ago, I started playing around with facebook. I noticed all the inane status messages and didn't want to be 'those people'. I (guilty as charged) may have contributed a few myself. I come from a background of writing in an 'online diary' under the guise of an anonymous name for almost 10 years. I still keep that online diary, and unless you know about it already, don't ask me about it. I was accustomed to 'putting myself out there'. Facebook gave me an interesting conundrum: how do I 'put myself out there' without sounding trite and predictable. So, I started putting my thoughts about 'being human' out there.

Then I wandered over to Twitter. I found another mystery. Why does The_Real_Shaq (capital letters removed to prevent shouting) have more followers than The White House? That's not really a mystery, but it's a question I wanted to ask. The mystery for me was how to be even 'more pithy' (all apologies to the people who cringe when they are reminded of Bill O'Reilly).

Somehow, I found a group of people on Twitter following JoeNBC and the next thing you know, I felt the closest to home that I have felt since I started getting readers on that online journaling site. But unlike there, I didn't feel like I needed to watch my words and thoughts. In fact, a little like facebook, I felt encouraged. But unlike facebook, I felt like I had people who wanted to 'hear more'.

So, after a few more days, I decided to start a second blog.

Here I am. Here will be my thoughts on a lot of things: healthcare reform, the death penalty, abortion, American life and life around the world, freedom, the pursuit (or the lack thereof) of happiness and so much more. Yes, I know. Some of these are 'hot button' issues. Some of them I have no opinion or very little opinion on. But I always end up seeing the middle on a lot of issues... I also think that the Silent Majority isn't what we think it is, it's the moderates who really are tired of having those on the left and right pushing thoughts into our head.

The simple purpose of this blog is to find the center. It's not a bad place. Join me...