Pick a Little, Talk a Little

I had a BBQ Chicken Salad at Applebee’s today. Good stuff, but it’s the second time they forgot to put dressing on it. This time they left off the BBQ sauce also. Our waiter brought both when I informed him of the oversight. He also brought me two extra cornbread croutons. Those things are 90% of the reason I order the salad. So good!

The restaurant gods had their revenge for my complaining. I dripped dressing on my shirt. Of course, the one day I wear a white shirt, I drip dressing. I’m not usually a dressing dripper. Today, though, the dressing dripped. I think I just found a new band name. The Dressing Drippers or Dripped Dressing. I think I like them better that Purple Monkey Stain.

FA4C is playing at the Wesley Foundation on the campus of UNA tonight. We are leading worship for their Back-to-School kick-off. Everyone is welcome. We’ll start around 5:45. We’re playing 4-5 songs during the service, and then we’ll play 3-4 more after the worship service. Good times to be had by all!

The family and I went to the Town Hall meeting at Norton Auditorium last night. This was a meeting hosted by Representative Parker Griffith to talk about the pending Health Care legislation. I’m glad I went. I’m glad we took the kids. But this “meeting” was far from productive. We were an hour or so late getting there. We arrived just in time to hear a Union rep lambasting Griffith for his voting record. (He is a so-called “Blue Dog” Democrat and has pledged to vote against the Health Care bill.) The night went downhill from there.

By the way, incase you didn’t realize it; Griffith and the other “Blue Dog” Democrats are the saviors of the world. At least that was the sense I got from him.

The crowd was (as I expected) overwhelmingly against the proposed bill and decidedly Republican. It was also noticeably white. I saw a few African-Americans in attendance, but very few. Maybe 5 out of the 500 or so in attendance. The crowd was also noticeable middle to upper class. I don’t think anyone in that room was hurting for health insurance coverage.

What really disappointed me was the tone of the evening. There were 3 microphones where participants could voice concerns or questions, which Congressman Griffith would then address (or not as happened to a few nutcases). Maybe the beginning of the meeting was different. Maybe there was some incendiary moment that ignited the crowd, but all I saw were grown men and women acting like children. The moment anyone said something disagreeable members of the crowd would start shouting and booing. This was the case for both sides of the argument. It was like a schoolyard squabble. He who shouts the loudest wins.

Very few of the speeches (they were almost all speeches instead of questions) I heard dealt with healthcare. Or if they did I either couldn’t hear the health care related content for the shouting or I couldn’t follow the convoluted rhetoric that led to the medical matter. It was a lesson in futility.

The most sensible words I heard all night came from Congressman Griffith. His comment came in response to some particularly pointed comments from a self-described “very conservative” college student. The Congressman said, in a nutshell: We need to shut up, get beyond labels, quit the finger pointing, and work together to fix things. Well said.

Like I said, I’m glad we went. But the meeting solved nothing. There was way too much talking and not nearly enough listening. It merely served as an opportunity for each side to stand firm in their beliefs and draw the line in the sand between them even deeper.

A quick follow-up to yesterday’s post: If anyone has a teenage or pre-teen boy and you have had “the talk” can I get some pointers? I’m way over due on this and I’ve got to get it done. Or maybe one of you has one of those blue pamphlets. No, Emily I don’t want any of your STD books. I’ll save those for the girl.