Sunday, January 15, 2006

A pen moving across a page often leaves inkblots; two people reading the same words will take different meanings, just as they might interpret the same inkblot differently depending upon their viewpoint.

I'm a solid-blue thinker from a solidly-red state, yet I prefer mixing the inks to make purple whenever possible, so that doesn't really make me "liberal" or "conservative." I didn't want this war, and yet I have a son who is a Marine, recently deployed for his second combat tour in Iraq. You know what that means? It means I don't have to choose between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs USMC Gen. Peter Pace, or peace activist Michael Moore--I admire them both.

I live in the country in far west Texas, but I grew up in a metropolitan area and have a daughter and a literary agent in New York City. I read the New York Times and the Washington Post and Time and Newsweek, but we also subscribe to The Livestock Weekly and hang out with ranchers and stockmen and farmers, so I see and hear both sides of just about every issue. I know that every inkblot is different, and that more often than not, black and white mixed together makes all kinds of shades of gray, and there is plenty of room in this great country for all of us. Political opponents are just that--opponents--they're not enemies. I can disagree with my neighbors and still love them and enjoy their company, and all the screaming and name-calling we hear in the name of "debate" only saddens me. What I long to see in our government--over anything else--is the return of common sense, common cause, and common justice.