Out of the Mouths, Politics 2016 Edition (and a Cancer™ Update)

So last night, Lizzy and I finished The Silver Chair, which was always my favorite of the Narnia books. It's a more straightforward Hero's Quest story than many of the others.

At the very end of the story, as Eustace and Jill come back to their school, Experiment House, in our world, the Headmistress of the school spots Aslan ("a Lion the size of a small elephant") and the broken wall through which they went to Narnia and people with swords and the like.

She freaks out and calls the police, and when they investigate everything looks normal, but there's an inquiry into the running of the school and the Head gets fired. I can't find the exact quote about this, but it runs something like, "And the Head's friends found out she was no good as a Head and made her an Inspector who could interfere with other Heads. And then they found she was no good at that, either, so they sent her to Parliament, where she could be with the others like her."

And then Lizzy, all eight years of her, asked, "What's a Parliament? Is it like an insane asylum?"

After I stopped laughing, I told her that Parliament in England is similar to the Senate and the House of Representatives in the US; they help run the government.

So, really? Very little difference.

I was reminded of this again today, because, well, I'm feeling political, and my facebook and G+ streams are full of memes from both sides. This crop of candidates is too damn scary to ignore and hope it goes away.

So let me break it down, because if my second-grader can grok it, so can anyone else.

1. Atheists are not out to get you; most of them don't care what you do as long as you don't try to make everyone do it.
2. Nor are Muslims; very, very few are actually part of terrorist groups, and they just want to be treated like everyone else.
3. Nor are gay people. There is no over-arching gay agenda; they just want to be treated like everyone else (see a pattern here?).
4. Dark-skinned people - even those wearing hoodies - are very seldom bad guys. They just want to be treated like... say it with me... everybody else.
5. Conversely, the vast majority of police officers are not corrupt child-killers.
6. Pro-choice people are not out to get abortions at the drop of a hat; it's a last resort when all else has failed..
7. Most Christians are decent human beings: not everyone is Westboro Baptist.
8. Socialism does not equal free hand-outs.
9. People on government assistance are nowhere near the biggest waste of our tax dollars.
10. Marijuana - at least in adults - causes considerably less harm than alcohol.
11. Wicca does not equal Satanism.
12. It's even possible that not all politicians are not self-serving narcissists; there have to be a few.

That last is a little bit tongue in cheek, but not totally.

And of course there are outliers in all of these categories. There are the ISILs and the Westboro Baptists and the occasional welfare scammer. I'm sure that out there somewhere there is a woman who does use abortion as a form of birth control (or is forced to do so by her pimp, maybe) and there is probably a idiot smoking weed while driving a motorcycle (without a helmet) and texting while he does it.

Dude, #itcanwait

But these people are the few, the far-between.

And the very, very LOUD.

Which is why they get the press.

So stop it. 

Be nice to people. All people. It's really not that hard.

Now...

For those of you on tenterhooks after my last post, wherein Laston started a new chemo cocktail?

Fear not. He's doing really well on it; his stomach is less upset, his nose is not running, his eyes are not twitching, and he has some actual energy.

Me? I have a Weight Watchers app, and a Fitbit synced to it, and a gazillion fresh fruits and veggies available. And because I am as big as I am, I have a lot of SmartPoints™ to work with in a day.