The "C" Word

(No, not that one - this is a family blog. It does get a bit political below - consider yourself warned.)

To once again raise an angry hand against that expired equine, I dislike Change. By now, the myriad reasons as to why this is the case are well-documented, so I'll simply reiterate that I like my life the way I like my Chipotle vegetarian bowl - predictably the same each time I order it.

Yet, despite my attempts to keep Change at bay, it nevertheless continues to assault me at all turns.

The Change to the new school is going as we expected (hmm - predictable Change - an oxymoron?). The Boy shrugs off the newness and plays with someone new each day. We've already had a bus behavior lesson (again, as expected), but he seems to be slipping fairly effortlessly into the new routine.

The Girl has shed some tears - it is a big school and there are lots of well-established relationships. She feels very much like an outsider still. But I remind her (and myself - the ol' Mommy Heart takes a beating at such times) that her previous two Septembers have involved similar tears, and each time the situation has become friend-filled quite quickly. Still, a few prayers for some friends - particularly a lunch-eating companion - would be welcome.

"Change" seems to be the mot du jour in the media, around the water-cooler, and in the general conversation here, too. As you may have heard, your neighbours to the South are replacing their *ahem* "leader" in the next while.

(A disclaimer: I have strong leanings towards the political left and have long considered myself a Democrat-who-cannot-vote. I gravitate towards the "liberal" media and am drawn even more towards Mr. Obama. Consider my bias made known.)

And although I might reject Change on the level of my personal life, I embrace the need for Change for this nation. This is a tired, weary, bewildered nation desperately in need of a new direction inspired by new policies and, ultimately, new perspectives and new voices.

Which is why I cannot understand how McCain can lay claim to being an agent of that change. Having successfully silenced his predecessor this past week, he attempted to distance himself equally from the "business as usual" old guard with Washington in a stranglehold. Yet exactly how does one become a maverick overnight from within (and as both a product and perpetuator of) the same system he suddenly criticizes?

Palin certainly represents Change, but not, I fear, as anything more than for its own sake. I cannot predict how she would react if suddenly handed the reins of power - a not impossible situation, given the proximity of McCain to his final shuffle off this mortal coil - in what is arguably the most important position (or at least figurehead) in the world.

I do know that if your resume is short enough that you still need to include "PTA President" to round it out, you're probably not ready to lead the free world. I also know that if you are going to whore out your smiling, shiny family to the media as an attempt to demonstrate your readiness to lead a country because you managed to juggle full-time mommying with full-time work (um, welcome to my world?), then you cannot shriek "invasion of privacy" when that same media uncovers less savoury aspects beneath that veneer of perfection.

Whether Biden would do better is also uncertain, of course, but I don't know enough about him to be able to comment. I do know that he needs to stop using the word "literally" in his speeches.

And finally, Obama. Untried? Yes. A voice of experience? No. But a voice ringing true? Definitely. A voice ringing with promise? Absolutely.

Promise this country so desperately needs - war-weary, down-trodden, and ripped apart by the disunity that is the natural result of its Wild-West-World-Police-Every-Man-for-Himself-Exalt-the-Almighty-God-of-Competition-and-Materialism philosphy of late as it is?

Yes.

In other, more personally-impacting news (but another Change I am equally powerless to prevent), CBC Radio Two has betrayed me yet again by falling for the ol "Fresh + Modern = Lowest Common Denominator" formula. The programming is in shambles (yet, mysteriously, Tonic continues to make the cut), and Music and Company has been replaced by something resembling CHSM Saturday afternoons. I heart Tom Allen, but the music set on his morning show had me quietly wiping tears of bereavement at my desk on Tuesday. I cannot, simply cannot, listen to Holly Cole's cover of I Can See Clearly Now at 8:57 in the morning (perfectly suited for 8:57 PM as the song is), and the transition from that to Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man was as jarring as when CKB tried to learn how to drive standard on country roads in The-then-16-years-old-Husband's Honda Prelude.

They say that the more things change, the more things stay the same. They might, but all this craziness makes me feel Arnold-ish:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

(From On Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold, 1867)