“A person is not created either to subdue others, or to follow the orders of others. People are corrupted by both ways of behavior. In the first they assume too much importance, in the second, too little respect. In both ways there is very little dignity.” — Victor Considerant

Victor’s last name sounds a little suspicious. This quote was taken from A Calendar of Wisdom written and selected from the world’s sacred tests by Leo Tolstoy translated from Russian. Personally, I have never gotten very far in reading Tolstoy — too far before my time and too complex. Perhaps this Victor Considerant was the birthplace of considerate. I like the message regarding dignity.

In my early life I yearned tragically for a girl, a fourth grade girl, Judy H. I was also a fourth-grader at Shaw School. I’m not sure we ever really talked to one another. It was rumored that she had my name engraved on her ankle bracelet that girls wore. Of course, trying to lean down to read it would probably have been cause for suspension then by the principal, Miss Sorkel.

Two years later we were both running for the presidency of the student council at Banfield School. She was to portray George Washington and I Abe Lincoln. I think I still yearned for her, however; we hadn’t been in the same class rooms at Banfield. Judy was in Miss Roy’s class, and I was in Miss Frost’s class. I sensed a close election.

My sister served as my campaign manager. She was graduated from high school. She coached me. Back then it was almost unfair for Judy to have to portray a male in the election, but then like now, there had not been a female president. However, the prospect of having one is a consideration we face these days—not Hillary but another “shooter” who could serve as the next vice president.

I don’t remember what Judy said in her speech to the student body in the gymnasium at Banfield — she read first. I think we even had to dress the part. My sister helped with the winning line: “a student council of the students, by the students and for the students.” I think that line put me over the edge in the voting.

Years later in a conversation with Edith Morey, she remembered looking out the window on the playground during lunch hour, and I was observed lining up younger students, coaching them how to get behind me when the voting would take place in each room. That might have been the decided factor in my favor. Judy married a good friend. Now to touch on a potential female president in our mist that has lifted McCain’s hopes and brought new life to his aging soul; I’m hoping this won’t be the case.

I’m reading that Ms. Palin said when speaking to her national guardsmen about to be shipped off to Iraq: “Our national leaders are sending them out on a task from God.”

Another comment she made, according to the Star Tribune, is an assertion that a new natural gas pipeline in Alaska is high on God’s “to do” list.

When I was sitting up listening to a “parent” discussion at Uncle Joel’s in Glidden, Saskatchewan years ago the talk drifted to religion and my father commented: “I don’t care if you believe in a fence post as long as you believe in something.” That was the first quote I ever wrote down. And today there are a number of “religions” out there and some of them are warring. One has to wonder how much we make this happen.

I watched a discussion on C-SPAN the other day, recorded in a bookstore back in June discussing the war in Iraq as being based on oil and America’s need to have control of oil in the Middle East. There’s thought that America could establish a place in Saudi Arabia after Desert Storm and as you know Bin Laden closed that door. We left quietly.

Cheney quickly assembled his “oil” group in the Bush administration shortly after Bush’s victory and then the questionable Sept. 11 struck. In his acceptance speech Bush mentioned the “axis of evil” (North Korea, Iran and Iraq) knowing Iraq was the vulnerable one, the one that they could dominate.

I want to think if they would have perceived the lives lost and the Iraqi lives lost this would not have happened. Perhaps we have to learn to work harder with others, rather than destroying them.