New Neighbors

I've added some new links to my blog roll, mostly because I navigate to my regular blogs through my own blog and I had grown weary of having to go look these 3 up from my "Favorites". I'm lazy like that.

I've been reading The Complaint Department for a couple months now. Here's what I like about Jlow. Her blog is funny, a bit sardonic even. She intelligent. She's married to a world-famous sheriff. She's cute as a button. Here's something else I like about her: she's a Republican. Not the vicious Ann Coulter type, not the black-and-white-my-country-right-or-wrong type. Just the old-fashioned small government/low taxes type. You know, the kind that seems to be so rare these days. Her blog isn’t all that political, either, this just happens to be a piece of the whole picture that is Jlow. And I find it refreshing.

We all know the trouble with labels. It's been too much a part of the problem in this country lately. We smoosh people into little pigeon holes and then it is much easier to dismiss them, hate them even. I'm as guilty of that as anyone, although I try not to be because I know how it feels. I have a brother-in-law who has always made assumptions about my views. Having grown weary of it, I recently challenged him to ask me what I believed about any given issue. He threw about a half dozen things at me, from gun control to abortion to capital punishment. And he ended up looking at me with a dropped jaw. In every case I did not say what he fully expected me to say. On some issues, I took a far more conservative position that his own. (He considers himself an "independent leaning libertarian"). The point was made: because a person largely votes Democrat and holds "liberal" views on some issues doesn't mean you can safely peg them.

If we were more invested in listening to each other and engaging one another in conversation there would be a lot less friction in the world. But that takes time and most people can't be bothered. The black and white comfort of labels is much easier.If it’s true that we’re judged by the company we keep then I hope what my blog roll says is that I try to keep an open mind. Everyone over there doesn't necessarily always hold the same views I do or conduct their lives according to the same precepts but I like reading them because it’s important to me that I not just curl up the comfort of my own opinions, assuming blithely that everyone thinks like I do. Because they don't always.

Plus, nearly everyone over there on the blog roll makes me laugh every day. Jlow makes me laugh. That’s super important. So stop by and say “hey” and tell her I sent you.

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Two other blogs of note, Gina over at Eclectic Defined and Greeny at You Get What You Need. I found Gina through Charlie, which should be recommendation enough. But she’s also one of the nicest people ever. Among other things, she has offered to be my back-up computer geek because she’s totally into that techy stuff. That amuses me because she is an attractive, blond California girl (who doesn't live in California). There I go again, making assumptions and labeling people. Gina’s adorable and she wants me to send her figs.

Greeny is adorable, too. She doesn’t post as often as I’d like but when she does it is usually more than worth the reading. Plus she’s always questing for the ultimate cocktail…a worthy goal in my estimation.