lundi, février 27, 2006

Weekend Update

I saw “Doogal” this weekend with TinyE – frankly I’m a bit stunned that it started in France, then was done in Great Britain, and then was made for audiences here. I’m hard pressed to figure out why anyone would go to all the trouble. Last weekend we saw “Curious George” and though it limps a bit at the ¾ mark*, I much prefer it to “Doogal.” TinyE on the other hand…

Saturday night I was at a bar in St. Paul watching the Kansas v. Texas debacle. Oh well, we’ll get ‘em in the Big 12 tournament. It was like being in Kansas, except without the extreme hate and the extreme ignorance. There were over 100 people there – all decked out in Jayhawk gear.

Last, over the weekend I talked to a friend, who, for purposes of this post, I’ll call George. My friend is the most conservative person I know. He is Catholic (not that that makes him conservative), pro-life, favors big business, supported the war, he has the whole xenophobia thing going on, and he talks often about having gay culture “shoved down his throat” [I’ll pause while you…oh never mind]. When we talked this weekend he said a number of things that really surprised me and quite filled my heart with hope – perhaps (as Chris Martin says) everything’s not lost. He said:

“Okay, I’ll admit that Bush is not the best President ever. I’m actually kind of tired of him.”
“I’m tired of Cheney too.” (But he feels the Veep is getting a bum rap for peppering his pal).
“Okay, so looking back on it, maybe the war was a mistake.”

And yes, some of his beefs with the President have to do with him not being conservative enough – he’s obsessed with the borders (and we should do something to tighten things up a bit there), and government spending under Bush has him down, but…

For a guy who enthusiastically voted for Bush in ’00 and ’04, for a guy who listens to Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh religiously, for a guy who likes O’Reilly and Coulter and the National Review…these admissions are a sign that some tiny little bit of illuminating light is getting in there and it reaching people who I would have thought were unreachable.

*The Jack Johnson soundtrack is TinyE's fav right now - she especially like the cover of "Three is a Magic Number" with "reduce, reuse, recycle" as a mantra.