Author Archive

What a year it’s been in American politics.  No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you have to admit one thing.  It hasn’t been boring.

It’s hard to remember a time when so many citizens have been galvanized into action.  People, seemingly in record numbers, are sitting up and taking notice of what Washington is doing.  This is confirmed by the raucous town hall meetings and the tea parties held across the country from a couple or so summers ago.

This phenomenon, known as the Tea Party movement, is, of course, a throwback to the original Boston Tea Party wherein disgruntled settlers protested government tyranny by dumping tea into Boston Harbor.  It was a symbol of rebellion, a shouted, “Enough,” by the colonists.

While I haven’t personally attended a tea party, I believe I may have staged a couple of real informal ones in my youth.  Who, after all, hasn’t protested heavy-handed parental interference in the form of curfews and chores?  I clearly remember arguing with my mother about how many nights out were required for my busy social calendar.  Somehow, our numbers never matched.

She learned what a log cabin tea party looked like, and I learned what a log cabin tea party shutdown looked like.

Now I’m the mom.  I don’t have a log cabin on 1.5 acres, but I have an old farmhouse on 3 acres, which gives plenty of room for our local ‘colonists’ to revolt.  And revolt they do.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’m seeing a trend here.  They’re all doing it, and if I want to hop in while there’s still time, I’d better get crackin’.

It’s the presidential campaign.  Still a year out, it’s dominating the news.  Everyone’s writing about it, including the candidates themselves.  And that’s what I’m talking about.

It was during the last election cycle in 2008.  Feeling the weight of civic duty and with a deep, abiding love for God, country, Mom, apple pie, cross country, and Starbucks mochas in my heart, I did the only responsible thing I knew to do.

“I think a mother of boys could straighten out this mess,” the initial press release stated.  “And that’s why I’m running for office.  You know, the oval one with that cool desk and the spectacular drapes that didn’t come from J. C. Penney?”  And with that announcement, the official “Mom for President” campaign was underway.

In the weeks that followed, I laid out my platform.  I’d be tough on crime (just ask the local pantry pirates).  I could empty the prisons (think “really huge gardens with endless weeding beneath the summer sun in polyester jumpsuits”).  I’d secure the borders (ask the bullies who mess with the cubs), and I’d balance the budget.

The fact that I got seven votes, not counting the two voters in our little district, had nothing to do with my message.  After watching the current crop of candidates, I know now what I did wrong – I didn’t write a memoir, and that was my fatal mistake.

Read the rest of this entry »

“It’s like Woodstock.”  That’s what Mr. Schrock said as we watched the news the other night, noting what’s been taking place in the Big Apple.  Watching the “Occupy Wall Street” protest has been – well, instructive, to say the least.

For nearly four weeks now, they’ve been gathering in parks and streets, stretched out in sleeping bags, marching with signs, tooting horns, and banging drums.  They’re American citizens, this ragtag mob, and as such, are perfectly within their rights to assemble and to speak their minds.

The problem so far has been figuring out what, exactly, is on their minds.  ”Community awareness,” one woolly-headed fellow said, gazing at the camera.  ”Global warming,” someone else offered.  ”Corporate greed!”  ”Social inequality!”  ”Economic inequality!”  Huh?  What?

I couldn’t help but note, as the images streamed in, that in their zeal to stomp out corporate greed, they were dealing a blow to the businesses along the avenue; businesses, mind you, that create jobs and hire people.  Wall Street, it seemed, wasn’t suffering at all.  The “Mom and Pop’s” were.

“If Wall Street goes down,” my financial advisor husband observed, “then so will a whole lot of other people.”  Yes.  There’s that.

“What are they expecting?” said one presidential candidate, “That the Wall Street folks are going to rush out and write them checks?”  Not likely.

Reports coming in have been disturbing.  No one’s showering there.  There’s gratuitous sex in the streets, police cars are being soiled (think ‘human waste’), and drugs are being sold openly.  Which is probably why the synapses of many being interviewed don’t seem be firing too briskly.  Wait.  Maybe it’s the humidity.

Anyway, it’s shameful, that’s what.  This kind of behavior would’ve gotten us paddled as kids.  My mother would never have tolerated such shenanigans.  It would have earned us a serious ear lobe twist with a “Shdop sell aw-gashick,” which is Pennsylvania Dutch for, “Stop these goings-on!”  Or something like that.

This would’ve been followed by orders to “clean that up” and “shick dich kshat awh (act properly)” and “get back to work.”

Hey, maybe I should send my mom to Wall Street.  I’ll bet she could clean it right up, restoring law and order and helping folks down there to find a purpose.

It worked for us.

What is up with Washington?  For all the talk of reconciliation and bipartisanship we’ve heard, there’s sure not much to be had.

Up on the Hill, we’ve got blue dogs, old dogs, new dogs, and, in my opinion, a few dirty dogs, and they’re all fighting.  Like cats and – you know.

It’s enough to make the average citizen throw up his or her hands and shout as one with Dr. Seuss, “Go, dogs, go!”  This is exactly why much is being made of the upcoming elections, which is when said average citizens will get their chance to put some teeth to the woof and help those dogs go.

Author Robert Fulghum says that all he needed to know, he learned in kindergarten.  I would submit to you that all our elected officials need to know, they could learn in elementary school; more specifically, in Mrs. Beehler’s fifth-grade class at Wakarusa Elementary.  That’s where our third son and 23 of his classmates are learning some very valuable lessons about life, responsibility, and running a business, lessons that many in Congress seem to have missed.

Here’s what they’re doing.  Read the rest of this entry »

News of the brewing scandals brings to mind the Weiner debacle back in June.  This column was written then, but the message it contains is still relevant.  No one is bigger than the rules.  No one.

What a dog and pony show that was.  After days of obfuscating, prevaricating, and squirming around like a worm on a hook, Congressman Weiner (D-NY) said what he should’ve said all along:  “It was me, I did it, and it was a very bad thing.”

Before he was finally pinned and out of options, though, he fought like a cornered raccoon, holding testy, combative news conferences and interviews.  Using phrases like “I can definitively say” and “I cannot say with certitude,” he really said nothing at all, and the press simply cranked up the wattage of the spotlight he was standing in.

Now the sordid truth is out, and I, for one, can say with certitude that some lessons are far better learned at the age of 6 than at 46.  Further, I can definitively say that the Good Lord meant it when He said, “Be sure that your sin will find you out.”

Mark Twain said it plain.  “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  Exactly.  Read the rest of this entry »

Note:   This column was originally published in The Goshen News on 02/09/09 when the first stimulus bill was being debated.  With yet another “job creation bill” being proposed, this smallish American mother shares her economically stimulating ideas with a new audience and a new Congress.

All those zeroes.  It’s more than the finite mind can comprehend.  Yes, I’m talking about the stimulus package that is being debated right now on the Hill.

In an effort to break it down into terms that I can understand, I dug out my calculator the other day and started running the numbers.  When something went kaboom and it caught fire, I knew we were in deep weeds.

Whatever happened to a million bucks being a big deal, anyway?  That’s chump change now, judging by the ease with which they’re throwing billions around like so much confetti.  It’s breathtaking.

Now, I don’t have an Ivy League degree.  I’m no pointy-headed economics professor who spends her days in an ivory tower, formulating business models for Fortune 500 companies.  I’ve never won a Nobel Prize, peace or otherwise, although I think I deserve at least an honorable mention for that “peace” one.

What I am is a simple American mom who helps to run a household on a budget, paying bills on time and feeding a regiment on a shoestring.  This certainly doesn’t qualify me to advise those Harvard grads in the halls of power as to the best way to spend our money and create jobs. Read the rest of this entry »