I was born of and raised by ostriches. Then I married an ostrich, and gave birth to and raised more ostriches. Therefore it has been difficult to pull my head out of the sand and pay attention to what is happening in the world. I mean, after all, it was a pretty comfortable life.

I was poor (by today's standards) growing up. My parents bought their first house for $19,000 using his G.I. Bill benefit. He worked at an auto parts store, and my mom stayed at home and ignored us kids as much as possible. We mostly fended for ourselves, except when we were "really bad." Then Mom pulled out the "just wait until your dad gets home card." He'd come home from a hard day at work, receive his instructions to spank us, and he did, without question. Everyone in our small world was pretty much just like us. No one had much, but we didn't know there was any other way to live. Seriously, my first recollection of "rich" people was watching "Dallas" on t.v




Politics must have been discussed at least a little, because I knew who President Kennedy was, I knew that when he was killed it was an awful thing. It made my dad cry, which I had never seen before. I knew he had a pretty wife and two little kids. And I knew that them not having a daddy anymore made me very sad.

In 8th grade I had a debate class, and I was assigned to the "anti-Vietnam war" side of the debate. I had nothing to contribute. My family supported the war, and I had nothing to base any other feeling on. My teacher tried to tell me it didn't matter, just gather information for the side you were assigned and debate it. I think I decided then that politics pretty much sucks. I stuck my head back in.

Over the next 45 years I pulled it out every once in awhile. I volunteered for Bobby Kennedy briefly, went to a few candlelight vigils against the war (Okay, so maybe it wasn't such a good idea now that guys I knew were being drafted and a college deferment was the only thing keeping my boyfriend out.) 18 year olds didn't get the vote until I was 20, and I registered republican, just like my family and new husband.

But life was pretty good. There didn't seem to be much to complain about. Interest rates went crazy for awhile, there was gas rationing briefly...but life went on. We had everything we needed, and we were slowly getting ahead. It didn't seem to matter which party was in power.

When George senior was in office, I paid just enough attention to know that I didn't like repubs either and voted for Perot. That got the Clinton's in office. When HiIlary decided I should pay for health insurance for my employees I sent her a copy of my schedule C, showing a $10,000 dollar profit (and I didn't take a salary, that $10,000 was what I got -before taxes- for working 60-80 hours a week) and asked her where the hell money for health insurance premiums was supposed to come from??? HRC failed, and I was safe for awhile...head back in, but this time having learned the lesson that voting against repubs was a bad thing.

It took almost 7 years of bush2 and a speech from Obama to change that. If george the younger hadn't started feasting on ostriches, I'd probably still be a republican.

There are a lot of ostriches in America. In fact, I would venture to guess the majority of Americans are ostriches. They pull their heads out of the sand every once in awhile to make sure the outside world is still there, but then, once having ascertained  they are not in imminent danger (or maybe realize they are, but are so overwhelmed they don't know what to do about it?) stick them back in again.

The ones that are not ostriches (and I get to count myself in that camp now) are divided into the fringe left, the left, the center, the right, and the fringe right. The battle is for the center. The left of center won decisively last time, having induced a whole bunch of ostriches to come out and participate in a big way. But now the leaders of the left of center don't appear to have a clue how to unite long enough to accomplish anything much with its victory. The right of center is waging a fierce, dirty war to reclaim the center, and is within striking distance of doing it. If they can keep Obama from accomplishing anything, if they can get him mired down in Afghanistan, defeat him on health care reform and obstruct efforts to improve the economy, they will take over again.

It is hard to be an informed, participating voter. It takes time and work to sort through all the b.s. and come up with something close to the truth. Once you do it, you expect to be rewarded for your efforts. If you are not, it simply just makes more sense to go back to your life and forget about all the garbage that is politics.

If the left of center cannot deliver a better America for all of us, especially those who pulled their heads out and paid attention last time, and quickly, the right of center will regain power, and a whole group of newly participating Americans will tune out. Gazzillions  more ostriches will be one of the legacies of the Obama Presidency. This is not fair, but it IS reality. IMHO.