Hello from Maryland

Greetings from Maryland. I made good time driving out here on Saturday, 525 miles in 8 hours with only one pit stop. From MI, OH, PA and then into the Maryland the fall colors were spectacular! Too bad I can’t drive and take pictures at the same time. Poco doesn’t know how to operate the camera :-}

Remember the oldie song, “Everyday People” by Sly and the Family Stone? I was listening to a classic rock station as I started my trip and that was the first  song I heard.

There is a blue one who can’t accept
The green one for living with
a black ones tryin’ to be a skinny one

There is a new man
That doesn’t like the short man
For being such a rich one
That will not help the poor one

There is a yellow one that won’t
Accept the black one
That won’t accept the red one
That won’t accept the white one

When the song ended I thought to myself, things haven’t changed much since Sly sang those words and that was back in 1968! Forty years later and we still live in an America full of racism and intolerance as we’ve all seen during this Presidential campaign.  I’ve had people tell me they won’t vote for Obama because of his skin color, I’ve had emails from people who use his middle name like that’s suppose to scare me? Don’t vote for him because you don’t like his vision for our country, but not because of skin color or his middle name.

Yesterday morning we watched Meet the Press and listened to General Colin Powell as he endorsed Barack Obama. I was proud when I heard him say this:

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.”

Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian.

But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America.

Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?

Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

You are absolutely correct General Powell, that’s not the way we should be doing things in America and I thank you for saying so!