I was hopeful when I started to read the John DiIullio article, posted about below, but was disappointed by its general confusion. I have searched and thought and pondered and there is just more of the same out there today, isn't there? More stupid lies from Tony Snow. More dodging responsibility on the part of the Administration vis-a-vis the Kansas National Guard units and help for tornado victims. More lying by Alberto Gonzalez exposed. More. More. More. The press is ridiculously intellectually dishonest, but we bloggers are worse because we don't mimic them by not printing bad words. The Democrats have no chance against the Republicans in next year's presidential race, except, of course, in poll after poll that shows not a single Republican within shouting distance of one of the leading Democratic contenders (so much for the intellectual honesty of the mainstream press).
I guess I am just saddened that we seem to beat our heads against the wall of all the insanity out there, and nothing seems to come of it. The press is still stupid and dishonest. Bush and Cheney, still, are not only in office, but not pushed by the press to defend what is clearly indefensible. Alberto Gonzalez is still in office and still not under indictment. Elliot Abrams still occupies an office of responsibility somewhere in the government (kept hidden; apparently for the press out of sight is out of mind).
Today is our fourteenth wedding anniversary. Saturday, May 8, 1993 was beautiful. My mother still raves about the azaleas in bloom in the yards in our neighborhood. We were married in Oxnam Chapel at Wesley Theological Seminary. The chapel is named for Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, who moved Westminster Theological Seminary from the wilds of north-central Maryland to Washington, DC, and whose ashes are encased in a stone beneath the altar. The Rev. Kyung-Lim Shin Lee officiated. Family and friends from all over congregated at one-thirty, and we retired to Emabassy Suites for a night away. I felt like such a VIP; the waiter at the hotel restaurant found out it was our wedding night, and we didn't have to pay for dinner.
We have made it fourteen years for one simple reason - we work at it. Marriage isn't a relationship. It's a job that takes effort, compromise, the occasional eruption of anger and frustration, and the always-wonderful discovery that, even after fourteen years, your partner can still surprise. I am the luckiest person I know because I have spent a third of my life with my best friend, and together we have managed to agree that we are better together than we ever might have been apart or separate. Unlike my frustrations with the news of the day, and the continual nonsense parade, I find solace in the fact that today Lisa and I celebrate, and I mean celebrate, the first fourteen years of the rest of our lives.
To us.
This was almost our wedding song, but I couldn't remember the name of the damn group. because I am, at heart, a sentimental, romantic idiot (all three adjectives being important to remember), I love this no matter how cheesy, predictable, and thick with sap it is. Also, I can't remember the song we did pick, and this one is so much better.
UPDATE: OK, our wedding song was "Forever and a Day" by Gene Cotton. Another candidate for our wedding song was "True Companion" by Marc Cohn, but Lisa didn't like the reference to "With wild abandon/I'll make love to you/Like a true companion". Her grandmother, widow of a Missouri Synod Lutheran Pastor was present, and Lisa wondered about her reaction to that particular line. Why her, of all our guests might have been a focus of concern is a bit beyond me still, but there you have it.
Virtual Tin Cup
