Hawthorn Hill: Woes lead to hopelessness

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November 12, 2009

Hawthorn Hill: Woes lead to hopelessness

Anonymous The Cooperstown Crier Thu Nov 12, 2009, 09:25 AM EST

Perhaps it is the dreariness of the day that causes me to have these feelings not so much of despair, but of hopelessness. I looked out my study window a few moments ago and saw that our six remaining chickens are having a great time pecking at the decaying pine logs stacked in a long row to the left of the hen house. They seem undaunted by the rain. I guess those old, soft logs provide them with a lot of supplemental protein. I never get so down that I wish to be a chicken, but I do feel once in a while as if I am pretty close to the barrel’s lonely bottom.

Sandy and I have just gotten over a several days illness, each of us having contracted a variation of whatever bug happened to be making the rounds. So I guess that has had something to do with they way I seem to be feeling about the state of affairs ``in these United States’’ these days. The situation up north has exasperated the hell out of me. I happen to believe that politics is indeed local — and that it should be left that way. Some outfit called ``The Club for Growth,’’ whatever that means, camped out in the 23rd district trying like hell to undermine the Republican candidate’s candidacy.

It looks like it backfired on them. And that is good.

Besides, all’s I can figure is that these blokes have either lost their jobs and have nothing better to do or some fat cat has subsidized their little vacation so that they need not make any effort at all at HOME to bring about the so-called growth they champion.

I did not realize that growth needed a club, but I guess that when one has nothing better to do joining a useless club and mucking up someone else’s pond is better than sitting at home ranting to oneself about the state of family values.

Funny, isn’t it, how difficult it is to attend to one’s own family when away from home butting into other families’ lives.

It may be curmudgeonly of me, but I received an email request from an organization I support to call five people in the 23rd district to encourage them to vote for one candidate in particular.

I declined the offer. Voting is a personal and private matter. It is up the voters of a particular district to select their representatives.

They do not need, nor should they be subject to, outside interference.

I suspect that there are quite a few people like me up north whose hackles stand on end when bugged by either a political operative or fundraiser, usually at the most inopportune times.

When it comes to voting, especially in local elections, an individual’s party affiliation matter little to me. I look for someone with character who has the intelligence and knowledge that a particular job requires. My operative assumption is that we all have more in common than we let on and that these silly labels all too often get in the way of our working together to get things done for the commonweal.

I admit to having socalled liberal tendencies, but since I define liberalism within the context of its longstanding history in this country, it’s perpetually misconstrued true character stands on its own merit and requires no defense.

I have only touched on a few of the rainy day woes on my mind today. We have our endlessly bitter and self-serving partisan bickering, two wars, flu worries, a struggling economy, joblessness — well, the list is endless. I laud former Senator Edward Brooke who, in essence, called for the bickering to stop and for us all to find ways to work together.

Ideology is fine so long as it is not so hidebound as to be blinded by its own insights.