I gave Frog the Dog a multi-paragraph lecture the other night about barking at squirrels; pulling my spread back and sleeping on my pillow with my shoe in her mouth while I’m at work; and getting so jumping-bean whacko at thunder and lightning you’d think she was birthing triplets.
“Knock it off,” I told her. “Nobody’s after us.”
She never lost eye contact with me. That was kind of a high, so I kept after her. “And stop howling at those obnoxious night lights across the road.”
Frog the Dog kept watching me. I thought she was thinking that I should listen to her side of the story.
“I live here, too,” her eyes seemed to say. “I keep watch over you, Ocho, the house, the yard, Fedex, and the night critters. I take your shoe because it smells. Like you. People call or text their friends, but I’m a dog so I go to sleep with your shoe and wait for you to come home. Chill.”
And it made me wonder – if an insecure, immature, disobedient dog with different colored eyes can easily explain fairness to me, why can’t Democrats and Republicans and Independents and Truth Socialists and other humans get along? All it takes is listening to the other side.
Let’s take Joe Biden, for instance. He’s our president today. Donald Trump was our president between 2017 and 2021. Those two men were expected, instructed, by our Constitution to be the Chief of State. That means they must pay ceremonial homage to outstanding citizens. The Chief of State is also expected to host lavish dinners for foreign friends.
The president, while in office, is also expected to be Commander in Chief, making sure we have enough ably trained military personnel to protect and defend our country.
Another presidential title is Chief Executive, which means enforcing laws passed by Congress and telling federal officials and agencies what to do.
Two guys with experience in the same job. Seems they might want to talk to each other about it.
There are more titles and responsibilities and job descriptions, so let’s just say that the president is important.
But not as important as the voters.
Voters are us, the ones who go to the polls and push a button for a name. Or a party. Or a policy or a dream.
Or maybe voters push a button because someone bought them a couple shots of tequila and swayed them. Maybe because their mother and father expected it of them. Maybe because it came from the pulpit.
Wouldn’t those be examples of voter fraud?
Others vote because they want to take a definite, and secret, stand. Or maybe they want a brighter future for themselves, and if it works out, for their kids, too.
This election year could be referred to as The Year The People Took Back Their Lives By Believing That We Don’t Work For the Government or the Supreme Court, They Work For Us.
Instead, we pay them to make us crazy.
I often think of my friend Jeanette Brown who died a couple or three years ago. She always refused to drive or vote. She said it was because she had the right to not vote. But she was totally into politics, she kept an eye on the news and had a well thought out opinion on all of it. She believed that we shouldn’t even have to vote, any of us. Governance should be personal and for the greater good. But until we listen, we will continue to use money, threats, chaos and blaming to diminish our own lives.
Froggie the Doggie has stopped sleeping on my bed unless, you know, storm. And Jeanette has stopped talking to me, you know, death. But both of them opened my eyes to compromise.
Frog stays on the porch while I’m at work, enough young women in Kansas registered to vote and defeated a state amendment designed to make their bodies someone else’s business, and come to find out, Jeanette was a fully licensed closet driver. Will wonders never cease?
Frog is my teacher and my hurdle, just like Jeanette still is.
Hey, what if we put Biden and Trump on the same ticket? Surely they’d talk.