I have mostly stopped posting news articles about the daily atrocious behavior of this administration to my Facebook timeline. Some of you who agree with my views may have the impression that I have given up or I'm not angry. Oh...I'm angry. I'm angry a whole lot of things: gun laws (as in we do not have any and the human population has shown that they're too stupid to own a gun), tax reform that's going to make it even harder for young adults to pay for college and graduate school, the constant threat of so many people losing their health care, outrage at the men accused of sexual harassment and the lack of outrage over a president that sexually harasses and is generally horrible to women, the Russians, the science denial and now...the elephants. All of it makes my belly burn with rage. I think it's the hypocrisy of everything that frustrates me the most, particularly with the sexual harassment cases. One of the worst men notorious for sexual harassment and the general awfulness in how he treats women is currently sitting in the white house as acting president. 

Women voted for that man. I can't see the logic in it and it hurts my brain to try to figure it out.

This country is pretty ugly right now. We were watching Sarah Silverman's I love you America on Hulu recently. She was talking about all the sexual harassment cases to come out and how we need this to happen even though it is painful and ugly. She said it was like excising a tumor. I felt that her words applied to everything happening in America right now. We are in the process of excising so many different kinds of tumors and it is ugly and it is messy. I know from personal experience because one of my research jobs involved removing tumors from mice so we could study them. It was the worst part of that job and that job, in itself, was awful. America has some pretty ugly awful tumors that have been festering for some time like sexual harassment and racism and just general hate for the sake of hate. These tumors are not easy to remove because they have become twisted into the infrastructure of America with filopodia reaching deep. We have to be prepared that excising these kinds of tumors is going to be difficult and painful and we might not even get all of it in this go around.

Through all of it, I have been wondering what roll I play in the ugliness of today's America. The Cabbage loves watching that show called Brain Games and we watch episodes while eating dinner some times. On one episode, a man dressed up in a suit and tie and hung out at a mall with camera man and mic. He told people he was with the National Geographic News and then he would ask a question like "The congress just passed a bill that would limit people in the poverty level to one child. What do you think about this?" None of the people he talked to questioned the source of information or whether or not this was even true information. They went right on in to outrage mode. I looked over at Michael and said "the first thing I would have asked for before answering any of his questions was for sources." This is how rumors and hearsay become 'news', but because the man is wearing a suit and tie and says he's from the National Geographic News, people felt they could trust what he was saying. Then it dawned on me what it was that I could possibly do to help with removing America's tumors.

My job is to question everything and encourage others to question everything. I can post factual news stories, but it doesn't do any good if the people who needs to read them are not reading them. And those people do not trust my news source. So I need to encourage them to question everything they hear or read. Look it up! Do your research! Don't rely on Facebook feeds for your news. Don't take my word for it or your BFF's word for it. YOU do the research. My second job is to be compassionate to others even if that other person makes it so hard to be compassionate to. I think that's the hardest job, but the one that will pay off the most. It is my hope that compassion and kindness becomes more contagious than hating people because of their skin color, religion, or sexual orientation. It is my hope that this compassion and kindness leads to empathy and respect.

Most of all, I want this country to heal.