“They’re rioting in Africa

They’re starving in Spain

There’s hurricanes in Florida

And Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls

The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.

Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch

And I don’t like anybody very much.”

Maybe things don’t change as much as we think they do. Yes, the pandemic is unique and something of this magnitude hasn’t happened in 100 years, but all the protests and problems? Maybe we just forget and our memories of the past are always a little rosier than those in the present.

The “I don’t like anybody very much,” lyric seems to apply to my political views at this time. Our nation is so divided and it seems that we have an all or nothing attitude. Either the person is a Trump supporter and leans far, far to the right, touting the privilege of not wearing a mask during a pandemic, believes that police departments should be strengthened and thinks everyone who doesn’t agree with them is stupid or evil.

Or the person leans to the far, far left and thinks everything should be mandated for the common good, everyone should be subsidized, there should be no police force and everyone who doesn’t agree with them is stupid or evil.

And I am blown away with each side thinking that the other side is totally misinformed as they listen just to the news stations and radio personalities that espouse their ideas and label everything else as “fake news.” Is there fake news? Well, yes and no. Are news sources slanted? Yes, and they always have been and there are news sources and personalities that support one side to the exclusion of other. But if we, and I mean both right and left advocates, listen only to those news sources that reinforce ideas we already have, we’re never going to come together and get things done in this country. Maybe, just maybe, there are valid points on both sides of the argument. What a revolutionary idea!

Yep, I don’t like anybody very much.