There Is Still Hope

The Oklahoma legislature has had nothing but bad press lately, including Kevin Calvey saying he'd "light himself on fire."  I don't care who you are...that's some crazy, funny stuff.  Then, there was a follow up report that tried to cover the insanity in the effort to explain it away, and it was a colossal failure.  I mean, come on. When a legislator who is also a National Guard member talks about lighting himself on fire, people have to pay attention.  To Calvey's credit, he is a man who is willing to let it all hang out where his faith is concerned.  Good for him.  But the people elected him to legislate, not preach.

And of course, there were the God Squad bills that were supposed to "protect families," and "religious freedom."  Some were so ludicrous, so unconstitutional that all I could do was shake my head and giggle at the silliness.  And yet, again, Oklahoma was thrust into the national spotlight.  Yay, us!

There has been a bill that made it through the House and the Senate that was pretty good, however.  The bill to ban texting and driving is a good bill and there's not a lot of doubt that the Governor will support it.  Normally, I would raise hell over a duplicitous bill because we have the "distracted driving" laws, but those laws are terribly hard to prove in court. This bill, however, has teeth and will be much more enforceable, and thereby more effective.  Kudos to the House and Senate for passing this bill.

Kind of gives you a glimmer of hope, doesn't it?  Of course, there's the deficit we have to deal with here in Oklahoma, but that can wait, right?

I suppose that every election cycle, we see the process as presenting hope and an opportunity to create change and make a better life for ourselves and our communities.  The candidates get all excited about their position papers, they begin to believe their own boiler plate press releases and then, the promises come.  Promises, of course that never come true.  But we see it as hope and without hope, there's really no point in living, is there?

As long as we in this country make a conscious decision to to maintain open dialog, there is still hope.  As long as there are people willing to hold politicians accountable, there is hope.  As long as we have each other, there is hope.  As long as we embrace our sense of humor, there is hope.

I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

Gorilla