It appears that I haven't written in this blog since September. There have been several times that I've considered pulling it out of mothballs, but it took my wife's prompting to examine why I haven't done much writing.
First, it is worth pointing out that I don't lack for opinions that I want to share. Any person who has been near me in the past few weeks knows exactly how I feel about what's been going on in Arizona and I haven't been holding back on my other opinions either. I still hate most of the music the kids these days listen to and I still think that 90% of the movies coming out are terrible and I still hate it when people are in positions of power without having the knowledge or training for those positions and I still wish I'd gone to school to be an audiologist so that I could get rich on the ears of millions of today's iPodded teens.
I think my problem is twofold.
The first part of it is a really good thing. I've discovered a number of excellent blogs that say much of what I'd like to say. The Mudflats, Blog For Arizona, and a pile of others that I follow publicly are extremely well-written and update frequently on national and Arizona politics. How can I possibly step in and fight the Goldwater Institute better than David Safier or Sarah Palin better than Jeanne Devon, or even the Prescott Daily Courier better than Steven Ayres?
My second problem is far worse. Quite simply, I'm demoralized. I was having a great time paying attention to the good work being done by people like Kyrsten Sinema and Dan Patterson on behalf of Arizona's taxpayers, but paying attention to what they were up to meant that I was guaranteed to also see what Jack Harper, Russell Pearce, and Judy Burges were up to. Of the three, Pearce is the only one with international notoriety right now (thank you, Rachel Maddow), but the rest of the AZ Senate and House have been up to some downright stupid (...or evil) work as well. Stealing the money that the state parks have earned and shutting down the parks, holding $1 Billion in funding for education, health care, and public safety hostage to force a sales tax increase, cutting several million dollars worth of children's health insurance thereby losing $7 Billion in Federal matching money in order to appease an ideological base, and numerous examples of state officials meddling in education are only starting points. Beyond that, the state legislature has voted to (unconstitutionally) ignore the will of Arizona's voters several times, has voted to (unconstitutionally) violate the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, and has voted to waste my money in numerous ways, all while cutting funding in the worst places possible.
It feels good to get all of those gripes out, but that doesn't change the fact that it's hard work to sit down and talk in detail about any of those problems. As someone who writes about what's on his mind, I really have a hard time putting these thoughts on virtual paper. It's not that my feelings are difficult to express. If anything, my feelings are exceptionally easy to express. There are numerous four-letter words (and varying declensions and conjugations thereof) that express my emotions quite clearly. The bigger issue is how difficult it really is to share the ideas behind those emotions because I get so frustrated that I just want to walk away in the middle of writing.
On a more positive note, I plan to write at least once a week again on this page, and look for things that are less oriented towards politics as soon as later today.
1 comment:
I know what you mean. I have spent most of my life in Arizona, but mostly in Tucson which seems a bastion of common sense and decency compared to Maricopa County. If find it amusing (but frustrating) that those who are ON the border view things so differently than people here in MC who are further away. So much hardness of heart! And so much fear-mongering from the legislators... and don't get me started on Sheriff Joe.
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