Skip to main content

18 Hours After, 68 Hours Before

Now that the epic wedding is over, it's time for me to think about voting on Monday.

For the record, I watched the wedding because I was awakened by the sounds of others watching the pre-show-show, and thought, I could lie here annoyed that I'm awake, or I could go watch it with them. I am content with my choice. Partially because it involved DELICIOUS CINNAMON RAISIN SCONES. (That was a shout-out to Nadine. Hence all the caps.) Anyway, it was lovely and nice, but I have to admit, I didn't feel the emotional intensity that some of my friends did. My favourite part was actually the sermon. Don't know who that vicar was, but he was surprisingly easy to listen to and more in line with my own theology than I expected. 

Anyway, I believe in voting. I already thought this, and then I received this email from my dad:
Surprise.  Email from Dad.  A question from Beth prompted me to encourage each of you to exercise your civic responsibility to vote in the upcoming federal election...mostly I want to share one good reason for voting - you have a Grampy that fought and suffered much so that you could have that precious privilege - don't let that sacrifice go to waste.

How can I not visit the polls after that?

Here are two other reasons I believe in voting:

1. When I think about Libya and Egypt and essentially the entire Middle East, and China - I think, How can I note vote!?!? I have ten thousand blessings in my life. One of which is the right to vote. As a woman, many of my peers around the world are denied this right, either by their country or the man in control of their life... As I vote, I feel a bit like I am rebelling on their behalf.

2. If I don't vote, I have no right to complain. Because I had a voice and chose not to use it. But if I vote... then I can voice my frustrations with the system. And frankly, I don't really expect much from our government. Which is probably not great, and perhaps I should be willing to be persuaded on the merits of our politicians' hard work.

Anyway, the point is, I think we all should vote.

Time to check out the St. Paul's candidates. Woo me, websites!
Labels:

Comments

  1. Russ10:23 PM

    Here's my two cents:

    Conservatives a clear choice in uncertain times http://ht.ly/4K8oX

    ReplyDelete
  2. vanman9111:11 AM

    Interesting article. Under our current system you have to decide which is more important to you - a good local representative or a good national leadership - and the only way of obtaining the latter is by voting for the local party candidate, whatever you might think of her personally.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thin
1 comment
Read more

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro
2 comments
Read more

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st
Post a Comment
Read more