Life Of Jason

We’re sitting in the living room having just watched Robbie Maddison set a new world record on his motorcycle and my six year old son Dale is hanging on. When he came to spend this Christmas week with me he announced that he was going to stay up with me on New Year’s Eve so he could see 2008. At 11, he called his Grandma and Papa Jim who live on the east coast to wish them a Happy New Year. Then he’s been asking me about every two minutes how much longer it’s going to be. He almost feel asleep at 11:20 but Daddy woke him up.

The little guy’s fighting so hard to stay awake to make it. I’m pulling for him. If he falls asleep, I’m not going to wake him but if I can catch him on the way down to sleep I’ll give him a nudge.

As promised, attached are PDF files of the original Skatepark agreement and the proposed agreement. I received these a few minutes ago from the city’s information office.

As some of you may have seen, a person with a Skatepark e-mail address chastized me in the comments of the last council meeting stating “Jason– You didn’t do your homework too well. The people running the skatepark didn’t let the lease run out. There was a clause in the original lease that it WILL be extended upon the agreement of the Park board and R12 School district. The agreement was reached in October, and changed later this month. The extension was exercised on October 12, 5 days before the contract was up. It was hand delivered and signed for the same day at the Park Board office. The Park Board refused the extension, stating a new contract was required because of liability issues, although the original lease and new one had the same liability insurance requirements.” (Bold type added by me to point out that last section.) I apologized for saying they let the lease run out…instead, the park board exercised their legal right not to renew it. So, really, nothing was wrong in this situation. They signed the renewal and the Park Board said no. No fault anywhere…except that “SSG Bowl Dude” claimed the original lease and the new one had the same liability insurance requirements.

If that was true, then the Park Board would have some explaining to do.

As it turns out, the statement from SSG Bowl Dude is not accurate. There are differences between the liability insurance requirements including an aggregate coverage increase of over $300,000 and listing the Park Board, Springfield R-12 School District and the city & county as additional insureds.

Another difference between the documents is a section in the new agreement banning advertising of alcohol, cigarettes and promotion of similar items. Basically, they would have to obey the same regulations as everyone else connected to the Park Board.  (Edit: Jim Lee at Bus-Plunge pointed out that some may this line implies those kinds of products are promoted now at the Skatepark and they are not.  I wasn’t trying to imply that…just that the new agreement would specifically forbid them where right now the SSA is doing that voluntarily.)

Also, the new agreement would put one Park Board staff member at the Skatepark “for supervisory purposes, who shall work under the management of the Skatepark Founder but but shall remain under the full supervision of and obligation to the PARK BOARD and shall be a city Employee subject to all rules, regulations and general guidelines as all other Park Board and city employees. This PARK BOARD employee may have additional Park’s responsibilities at other locations throughout the Park System.”

Also, “SKATEPARK policies, rules and guidelines shall be jointly approved by the SKATEPARK and the Director of Parks, or their designee, on an annual basis.”

I don’t see anywhere that this document is the hostile takeover that we see being advanced in the media by some Skatepark members and patrons. Sure, the Park Board has some more supervisory power and the right to give the thumbs up or down for businesses on that property or products advertised there. That’s not a hostile takeover or the city ruining the park. The agreement even allows the SSA to sell billboard advertising on the fences at the park for additional revenue.

I don’t see the “sky is falling” on the Skatepark because of this new lease. The SSA would still run the show and operate the facility. They might lose a little bit of their autonomy but in the end they don’t own the land and they are leasing it from a city entity (which represents all taxpayers) that has the right to put restrictions into place the same as any other landlord. I could see the SSA’s outcry if the Park Board was indeed taking things over but that’s just not the case here.

Here’s the PDFs for you to see for yourself. The insurance agreements are in section 10.

skateparkoriginallease.pdf

skate-park-proposed-lease-111507.pdf

I’m discovering something interesting about moving and it was faster than I thought it would be.

Even though I’m still in Springfield, it’s like I’m in a whole new town.

I went to my old apartment today to turn the keys into the landlord and it hit me how different my house is from my apartment. In my apartment, if I wanted something to eat, I had Tortilla’s Mexican Restaurant or Indigo Joe’s or Wendy’s or Longhorn Grill or Pizza Stop or Arby’s or Subway or China King within ten minutes’ walking distance. If I wanted to get out of the house to work I could go to Cassils Coffee Cafe a few minutes down Republic Road and have a nice hot chocolate and work via the free Wi-Fi. It was often busy but never too loud to work (except maybe when the Skinny Improv was there.) There was a Price Cutter just a ten minute walk from the apartment. I didn’t have to drive practically anywhere to get things that I needed or to just get out of the apartment.

Now, I find myself in a residential area where even though I’ve driven through here I have no idea where almost anything is downtown that might fit what I’m looking to find. For example, can I find a coffee house with free Wi-Fi that makes decent hot chocolate? (Don’t drink coffee, never have…) I’m about a mile from the square so I’m assuming there is somewhere in walking distance that would fit the bill. Since I’m within a mile of the Moxie (I think) then it would probably make sense to go check them out but I don’t know how hard it is to get tickets to shows there. I know they’re the hot thing downtown so are they often sold out? I love being within walking distance of the Skinny and have more of an opportunity to see Springfield’s top comedic actor, Jeff Houghton. I’m actually closer to where The 2nd Stage is supposed to be. (Are they really opening back up and if so, when?)

I know there are a ton of downtown restaurants to choose from although since I think DiGiancinto’s is so far ahead of everyone else I’ll probably limit my downtown dining to an occasional visit to Jimmy John’s. I do need to try and find a good Chinese place in my area.

I was happy to discover Downtown Market within a ten minute walk of my house. I always prefer shopping at a local grocer versus Wal*Mart or Price Cutter. (Edit:  I’ve found out that Price Cutter is “locally owned.”  I meant someone who’s an independent grocer when I said “local” when this was originally posted.)  That’s a big plus of the new house versus the apartment. However, since I try to eat a mostly organic diet, is there a good store for organic food downtown? I guess I can always drive to Mama Jean’s on Campbell.

Then there’s the whole working out issue. I know the YMCA is downtown but I’m not really looking to “bulk up” as much as continue to get fit via walking and occasionally riding my bike. Are there decent parks where you can walk without being hassled? I used to walk around my apartment complex and the strip mall where Indigo Joe’s is located but I don’t know how safe it is to walk in this neighborhood. I can say that in the few days I’ve been here that at least 75% of the cars on our street think the speed limit is more like a guideline. (Does KSPR still do their Speed Zone segment? And no, it’s not just because I’d want to spend time hanging out with Emily Rittman. Although, Em, if you and the hubby want to come over and have dinner sometime my fiancee makes some really mean pasta. I’ve already broken bread with Ron and you could have a leg up on Joe and Christine.) I don’t want to pay $50 bucks or more for a gym membership just to use a treadmill.

Maybe I can stalk Matt at Go Magazine and force him to spill some beans on places I might dig. If you’re a downtown denizen and could recommend some places to check out, post them in the comment section. Otherwise I guess it’s just time to play hit and miss until I find something enjoyable downtown. (Does Well Fed Head have a reading room?)

Are you a Christian who is just having trouble reading the Bible?  Someone who no matter how hard you try you just can’t get the gist of all the “thou”s and “thee”s?

Well, our friends at I Can Has Cheeseburger have come to your rescue.  Check out the Bible LOL Cat Translation.

What do two Springfield area bloggers do when they have a Saturday night to hang out?

Fix a toilet, of course!

Thanks to Chris Brewer of The World According To Chris Brewer (gee…what a coincidence) for his help manning the wrenches with me.  With all the surprise repairs over the last two days, I’m wondering if home ownership is all it’s cracked up to be!

A few updates that came in while my internet was down due to the move.  (Thank you Mediacom for getting me up and running so quickly when AT&T couldn’t get the job done.)

First, Pythian Castle.  Earlier this week I was told we’d have the city answer by Friday.  On Friday, Brenda Cirtin (Springfield City Clerk) sent me a very friendly e-mail explaining that due to people being out of the office for the holidays they weren’t able to get everything back from the necessary people.  She said they hope to have a response available by Wednesday.  When we get that response it will be posted here so you can look at Pythian Castle’s claims versus the city response.

Now, on to the Skatepark.

I had put in a request to the city for a response to what the Springfield Skatepark Association claimed was happening in the situation and I also followed up on a comment that was made by someone connected to the SSA:  “The Park Board refused the extension, stating a new contract was required because of liability issues, although the original lease and new one had the same liability insurance requirements.”  I e-mailed Jodie Adams at the Park Board to see if what was being claimed by this anonymous person from the Skatepark was true.  I knew there was another side to this story than what we’ve seen in the press and public because the city as of yet really has not shown their case.  (BTW, the e-mail address from the comment was from the Skatepark’s account so that is why I say the person must be connected in some way to the Skatepark.)  Jodie apparently forwarded the e-mail to the city’s public information office.

The response from the public information office was “You are correct, there is another side to this story. However, while the Springfield Skatepark Association has attempted to try this case in the media, we felt it was not appropriate to air all issues surrounding this matter in an attempt to keep lines of communication open between the parties. We have another round of mediation scheduled for January 8 and we are hopeful this matter can still settle. We want to work with these guys if at all possible. But we don’t feel its appropriate to air any details on the matter until we make this further attempt at mediation. After the January 8 meeting we should be in a position to discuss it more fully.”

They are going to provide me PDFs of the original agreement and the proposed agreement that our commenter from the Skatepark referenced in his comment so that you can see them and make up your own mind about it.

I had asked this person with the Skatepark “Will you agree the city and the Park Board has the right to do what they’re doing?”  As of today, I had no response from “SSP Bowl Dude.”  I have, however, received more nasty anonymous messages and have seen comments left in other places personally insulting me because of my comments on the Skatepark.  Of course, none of these people has the courage to leave their real names which makes kind of wonder if the “family atmosphere” that so many are trying to promote as being common at the Skatepark is really a family atmosphere like the Corleone family reunion.

“SSG Bowl Dude” said “Before you make any judgments about skateboarders, you need to come and visit the park and see what it is all about.”  Well, my opinion (not judgment) on skateboarders was that they were probably being really misrepresented as a whole but I’m guessing he just didn’t see that part of the blog entry. :)  After the nasty messages I’ve received I decided to take “SSG” up on his offer and go see the Skatepark.  However, I didn’t bother to contact him and tell him I was coming.  If the Skatepark was truly a friendly, family atmosphere, I should just walk in and feel welcome, right?  Also, if I said I was coming, they could always have it set up with certain people there to make a good impression.  (Not saying they would, but they COULD.)

So I went in this morning around 10:30.  Half a dozen cars in the lot and a few brave kids outside in the cold along with one adult who looked like he was happy to sacrifice warmth for the kids.  I walked in the door and looked to the left to see some ramps through the chain link fence.  To my right was a “pro shop” with boards and other kinds of gear.  Straight ahead was the main desk where behind the counter sat a guy reading a magazine and an older gentleman was talking to a younger gentleman.   None of them bothered to say “Hi” or “Can I help you?” or even acknowledge I was standing there so I decided to pop into the “pro shop” area.

I spent a few minutes looking around at the gear and waiting for someone on the staff to come in and check on the person standing around the thousands of dollars of merchandise.  No one came in during the five minutes or so I spent looking through the gear.  I did see this hanging up in there:

Now, my first thought was unless they have a job and pay taxes in Springfield it’s not really THEIR park but rather the taxpayer’s park but I can appreciate their trying to have the people who are customers of the park be involved in things.  Then I had a more sinister thought…who runs the pro shop and is financially on the hook for all the gear that was surrounding me?   If it’s the Springfield Skatepark Association then I wondered if they were really concerned about the kids or concerned about their pocketbook.  I went to the counter by the cash register and waited for someone from the staff to come in so I could ask them.   No one came in.

So I walked out into the little hall area to find the bulletin board by the front door.  True to what I had been told, there wasn’t anything posted there telling the Skatepark patrons what to say to the council members or people who ask about the situation.  It was just a list of council members and city staff members with contact information.   Now, it doesn’t mean things weren’t said in person to the kids but it would seem logical if the adults were coaching the kids that something in writing would be around somewhere.  It’s easier to give the benefit of the doubt that the SSA adult leaders weren’t coaching the kids on what to say.

I waited for a few minutes before I made my way back into the pro shop.  (Where, standing in the doorway, I took this picture

I milled around in the pro shop a little more knowing that at least the older man behind the counter had seen me standing at the bulletin board and then go into the pro shop.  Again, no staff showed up to ask if I needed help with anything.  The guy reading the magazine at the counter never missed a page.  (I can give the benefit of the doubt to the older guy because he seemed to be training the younger kid but still you have to wonder why SOMEONE on the staff wasn’t assigned to keep an eye on the pro shop.)

So I just zipped up my jacket and walked out of the pro shop and back outside.  Total time was about fifteen minutes and none of the “family” at the Skatepark even said hello or nodded an acknowledgement.

Now, I admit I could have gone up to the desk and said something to the staff but after not receiving a greeting of any kind from the staff upon entering (and seeing one guy just keep reading his magazine) I became curious to see how long it would be before someone at least greeted me.   I wanted to see what would happen if they thought someone wasn’t watching them and it was just another person around the park.

So now I’m really curious to see the lease and proposal in regards to the claim made in the comments on the previous post.   I’m scheduled to get those on Monday and I’ll post them as soon as I get them.   I’m also interested to find out who owns that pro shop and who stands to lose money should there be a management reorganization (and if you’re a SSA member and know that info, please post it in the comments.)

The park itself looked clean and well maintained.  The cliques of kids there seemed to be enjoying themselves.   It certainly didn’t look like the stereotypical skater hangouts you’d see in TV and movies.  I don’t think Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera would likely be doing some of their more racy stunts there.  If someone went their with their children I could see where it would be likely they would feel like it’s a place families can go.  My only problem with using that as a selling point is that you can also make that statement about dozens of other city related entities where you can have a family experience that don’t have groups of citizens claiming ownership over it.

I sympathize to a degree with the SSA for building it up only to be in a place where it might not continue to run exactly how they want it to run.  I can understand loyalty from some of the kids toward the people who built the park to where it is today.  Still, after going in today and experiencing what I did, I’m still not convinced that the city is in the wrong.   If the Park Board takes over, all the ramps would still be there.  Families could still go there and have a great time together.   The pro shop?  That we don’t know…would it be the same owners or new ownership?  However, I don’t think that question should make us say the Park Board is in the wrong.

Now, if the documents come back Monday and they say what “SSG Bowl Dude” says they’re going to say (that they’re the same in terms of liability) then there will be a big question out there for city staff to answer.  (And we will ask for that answer should that be the case.)   Otherwise, unless there’s a new agreement in place January 8 at the city council meeting we need to hear the city’s side of the story.

Well, I’ve moved into my new house. (Well, it was built in 1920 but it’s new to me.) I have 1900 square feet of finished space and here’s my belongings loaded to move:

Methinks I’m going to have to get some more stuff because there’s a lot of empty space in this new house. Then again, once I get married this summer and my fiancee and her daughter move in I’ll bet a LOT of that space is going to fill up quickly.

It looks like that contrary to an earlier post I’ll be getting Mediacom cable because of our great friends at AT&T. I work from home over the internet so it’s vital that I have DSL or some other kind of permanent, high speed connection. I called weeks ago to AT&T and said that I was moving December 28 and that it was critical to have my phone and DSL in place. I was assured that the phone and DSL would be hooked up at my location downtown and ready to go. I said thank you very much and prepared other things for my move.

Well, moving day, the phone and DSL at my apartment was cut off early in the morning as it should have been shut off. No problem with them disconnecting service.

I get into the new house around 2pm with the trailer and an armload of DiGiacinto’s cheesesteaks. (Have to eat a ceremonial first meal in the new house and there’s nothing in Springfield that would be greater than cheesesteaks from DiGiacinto’s.) We get in all the furniture and boxes and sit down to enjoy our sandwiches when I said to my fiancee that I should hook up the phone and make sure it’s working properly as promised. I dig through boxes until I find the phone and plug it in…to hear silence. Every jack in the house. Silence.

So I call AT&T who says they activated the line and everything is working properly so if there’s a problem it’s inside my house. When I questioned further the rather rude customer service rep told me I could go outside to the box and plug directly into that to see that the phone line was active and working properly. So I go outside in the cold temps to open up the box only to find that all the wires inside the box are cut. Obviously AT&T never sent someone out to the house (that had been vacant for over a year) to see that the box was working properly. However, I had some experience running phone cables in my early radio days so I was able to re-wire the box and get a dial tone.

I get inside and call my cell phone to see that it’s working properly and the caller ID was a number different than the number I was given by AT&T.

I call their office and they say that if I’m calling them on that phone there’s no problem with the service. Then I tell them to look at the caller ID on the I’m calling from and that it’s not the same as the number on my account. Then they start asking security questions because they’re afraid I’m trying to mess with someone else’s service. Finally after about ten minutes they finally concede that the problem is their fault and that they’ve crossed lines somewhere and that someone else’s phone is going into my house.

I’m not going to go into what happened when we got a phone call that night from the person who owns the phone line. They were…less than friendly to us. Let’s leave it at that. After all, if there’s one thing that someone going through a move and all the attending items that go with it wants it’s having someone else’s phone line running into their house.

So I call back to AT&T about getting this issue resolved and spoke to a woman who was very friendly and sympathetic. She apologized over and over for their mistake but said the earliest they might be able to fix it was Tuesday. I told her about my job and how I had to have the internet connection and she said that because of weather problems in our area that all the technicians were backed up with service orders and even though it was their mistake they couldn’t repair the problem any faster.

My fiancee said that Mediacom had internet and phone with their cable and we could get them all for $99 a month for a year. My plan was to get settled and then get cable or satellite TV a few months down the road (since I could see the Daytona 500, the Super Bowl, Life an KSPR News at 5:30 over regular TV.) However, the kids don’t have cable at their mother’s house and they love Nickelodeon & Cartoon Network so I know they would be happy to be able to see it at Daddy’s house.

“As if you could live without ESPN,” my fiancee said.

Well, I still wasn’t convinced to make the move because I’d heard that cable internet service fluctuates so much during the day that you could lose 80-90% of promised speed during peak times. After being assured that at most it would be 50% (still making it twice as fast as the DSL from AT&T) I asked how quickly they could get the service installed. January 9. When I said that wouldn’t work and thanked them for their time the customer service rep asked me why not and I told her about my work situation and how internet was critical to my job.

“OK…give me a minute,” Lara the friendly customer service rep said.

After about two minutes she comes back on the line.

“I can have someone there tomorrow,” she replied.

I signed up for it.

So AT&T lost a customer and Mediacom gained a customer that they likely wouldn’t have otherwise. To be honest, after the hassle of dealing with AT&T, the customer service rep at Mediacom and her kind, helpful attitude really helped seal the deal.

It’s now time to unpack and actually force myself not to keep everything in one room since my place isn’t just one 400 square foot room anymore!

I do want to give some very public thanks to some people who went above and beyond the call of duty to help me get into this house. First, to God for making this house come together and provide blessings along the way. I want to thank Tim Prater of Empire Bank who not only found grant money for us to get this home but also discovered a missing credit that lead to our getting money back from closing. If you are planning to do any real estate transactions you cannot go wrong with Tim.

Well, time to unpack and to fix some of the little things that slid through the disclosures (like the downstairs toilet always running.)

If I don’t make another post before 2008, I hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year!

I’m closing on my house tomorrow (much to the relief of Ralph Manley, much to the horror of Denny Whayne) and I’m amazed at how little “stuff” I have to pack for moving.  I’m able to pack up my entire apartment in less than ten average size cardboard boxes generously given to me by Downtown Market.  (They’re close to my new home so I decided to check them out a week ago and they were more than eager to get rid of the boxes.)  That’s actually less than the number of boxes I had when I moved from my first apartment in town to this apartment.

It’s kind of interesting to see the small number of boxes which includes the box for the TV my parents bought me for Christmas.  When I moved to Springfield, I had a trailer full of stuff as well as a truck and car.  When I moved from one apartment to another (which was after my fire where I lost a lot of stuff) I still had two full vanloads of boxes.   Now, it’ll probably be down to two trips in my fiancee’s SUV to move everything (if she lets me use it.)

I know that the “American Dream” is supposed to be about collecting “stuff” but I just really don’t get it anymore.  I don’t have much in terms of “stuff” but I’m happy with my life and I’m happy with the things God has provided for me.  In fact, I’d say I’m happier now than I’ve been at any point in my life overall (save the lone exception that my kids aren’t living with me.  I’d have a lot more “stuff” in that case!)

Now, hopefully CU will make sure the utilities are turned on tomorrow like I was promised and I won’t have to spend my first night in the new house without being able to flush the toilets!  The kids aren’t going to be happy that I’m not getting cable (and with Mediacom’s prices, can you blame me?)   but they’ll just have to get used to not seeing Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends on Cartoon Network every day.

Well, enough procrastination from packing by blogging.  Does anyone have a truck I can borrow?

We all know Pixar from their movies like Cars, Toy Story and The Incredibles.  What most folks don’t know if they haven’t seen their big movies is that they make brilliant short films that can be just as entertaining as the long movies.

I bought the kids this for Christmas:

I think I’ve enjoyed it more than the kids have enjoyed it.  If you have a chance to rent this…do.  The humor and sometimes ethikos really make for a worthwhile family experience.

And the look on the faces of the birds in “For The Birds” just before the big bird’s last toe comes off the phone line is priceless.  As is the look on the big alien’s face in “Lifted.”

I don’t recommend a whole lot of DVDs for you to add to the collection but this is a really good one that would be great especially for folks with kids.

What would you think if you went to a website and saw that someone had posted a negative comment about Hispanics in response to a post referring to violence done by Hispanics with no information about their ethnic background and then saw that the owner of the blog posted “Since we had some dumbass comment about Hispanics, here’s what the blacks were up to this morning…” would you say the blog owner is showing intolerance toward blacks by assuming the post had to be made by a black person?

What if the comment was about Buddhists and the blog owner’s response was “Since we had some dumbass comment about Buddhists, here’s what the Jews were up to this morning…”?  Would you think this person had some kind of intolerance toward Jews because they assumed the post had to be made by a Jew?

Would you just sit by and let them be so openly intolerant or challenge them on their fallacy?

I had that happen today in regards to a very left wing blog site who responded to someone making a comment about Islam by posting “Since we had some dumbass comment about Islam, here’s what the Christians were up to this morning” followed by a derogatory story involving some Christians.  (The original post that drew the response was blaming Islamic extremists for the horrific, cowardly assassination of Benazir Bhutto.)

What was the comment that set off the anti-Christian comments?  “Gotta love Islam…the “religion of peace.”"  That’s it.  Nothing to identify the author beyond a name.  You can’t tell if they were being serious or being snarky.  No way to tell if the author was linking it to the same feelings toward extremists that the main blog’s writer posted when she called them “Islamist-extremist bastards” or being sarcastic by using that reference like Sean Hannity would in discussing the matter.  Certainly no way to know the personal faith of the person who posted it.  They could very well be Christian…but the blog owner had no way to know that before their response.

The blog owner’s response?  Attack Christians.

It’s not that what they posted was anything that unusual.  There are more than enough dumb things done by Christians to be put out for people to see.  However, this wasn’t posted because they wanted to just point that out alone…it was posted because the blog owner either A) wanted to attack the presumed Christian faith of the comment maker or B) has a general hatred for Christians.   It wasn’t that they responded by saying to this original comment that you know full well the actions of extremists don’t represent the whole of Islam or simply that you have mad men or women in all faiths. They made an assumption about someone’s faith without foreknowledge and tried to ridicule that faith.  If someone hadn’t made a negative comment about Islam in a thread that talked of “Islamist-extremist bastards” killing a world political leader the thread wouldn’t have been posted.  That is what takes it to a level that appears to show intolerance toward Christians.

What really makes it funny is that this site posts this photo……and the blog’s owner posted that she is intolerant of all religions.  Kind of goes against the spirit of co-existence if you’re intolerant toward religion, wouldn’t you say?  (By the way, the blog owner’s response to my challenging them was to ban me from their site…not exactly co-existing either.)

Now, you’re probably wondering why I’d bother to bring it up.   Over the last month we’ve seen the posts on the “war on Christmas” and the requisite responses that no such thing is happening and it’s Christians making things up.  I’ve been in debates where I’ve been told that intolerance toward Christians is perfectly acceptable because the majority of the country is Christian…but that there’s really no intolerance toward Christians anyway.  I have one friend who often says “well, Christians in the US aren’t persecuted nearly as much as other places around the world so they should just shut up until they’re persecuted some more.”

I also have some liberal friends who often wonder how a Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh or other right-wing talk show hosts can get such traction with the average American on many issues related to politics and why the “religious right” can have such a pull on elections.   It’s because of the comments of people like on this blog I read today.  When you get someone who expounds hard liberal politics who openly admits intolerance toward religions (and targets Christianity) it provides easy fodder for those who follow the political plans of Karl Rove to say “Look at what the liberals REALLY believe!  They hate Christians!  They mock your faith!  They want to destroy you!”

It doesn’t matter that it’s not true for the overwhelming majority of liberals.  You just need to hold one up and expose them to get a lot of political capital.   It doesn’t matter that many of these talk hosts practice intolerance of other groups or people…they just point out the intolerance of someone toward the Christian faith and they’re golden.

Intolerance toward Christians is no different than intolerance toward Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, Women or Martians.  It should be held up for condemnation just as you would someone who is sitting around saying all Muslims have bomb vests just waiting in the closet for use in our elementary schools.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not always easy to see intolerance unless someone’s channeling their inner Archie Bunker.  Many times people want to take a disagreement on something and try to pin intolerance because the term “intolerance” has become a sort of socio-political nuclear bomb.  Just drop it on someone and you’ll have people automatically believe it regardless of whether or not it’s true.  It muddies the water so that when someone is being subtly intolerant it’s hard to pin them down on it.

To me, it comes down to the motivation as to why you’re posting something or saying something.  If the point is aimed only to try and degrade a group of people then it’s probably that you have a level of intolerance toward that group of people.  (Note:  disagreement with their actions is not degrading them…it’s when you mock them or try to hold them up for embarrassment or scorn solely because of their faith/skin color/etc. that it becomes intolerance.)   Your definition may be different but I’ll bet we can almost all agree that intolerance of people is not going to make our country any stronger or solve any of the problems that are facing our society.

Both sides of the political debate…from the Sean Hannity side to the moveon.org side…need to take the steps to quell intolerance within our own ranks if we hope to elevate political debate.  As long as someone can look across the political fence and see someone being openly intolerant it’s going to be harder to get across the message that everyone has something to bring to the table for consideration.  (While, of course, remembering that just because you consider it doesn’t mean they’re right!  But those who consider just listening to someone who might disagree with them as a waste of time is a subject for another blog…)