Every day when I scan the news sites, there seems like something else in the news that makes us as a country step back and say, “this is just terrible.”

Corrupt government, world wide violence, rainforests burning, hate and apparently now Ellen DeGeneres and George W. Bush sitting together.

I know. It’s reprehensible that one person would sit next to another. Shocking even when you consider they might believe in different things.

A picture of the two shows them laughing together and a video seems to corroborate the insidious circumstances that brought them together. It seems, as the evidence would suggest, that they were indeed having fun — at a Cowboys game, which actually seems worse than a Liberal and Conservative sitting next to one another … laughing.

DeGeneres, on her talk show, explained the idea of kindness and that we should all strive for it, which seems rather foreign these days and I admit to having my patience tried over these kinds of things. Friends have had to be patient and I commend them for it.

But even though people believe different things from what I believe, I’m not sure I would ever stop sitting next to somebody. I would even dare to laugh.

Take that establishment!

Still, I really wonder how we got to this point. Actually, I wonder a lot about a variety of things, including whether or not it’s good to be awakened with a cat’s claw in the small of my back.

It is not, in case you’re wondering.

Disagreement over policies and government has always been around, but now it’s flooding everything with venomous tones, and now apparently we have to worry about who we sit by and what kind of interaction we might have. 

It’s getting to the point that when I sit down I’ll have to ask the question, “Are we in any danger of laughing here? Because I don’t laugh with people I disagree with. There’s absolutely no room for laughing while in the middle of disagreement.”

Generally, when I see stories like this, I roll my eyes because the next questions I ask I feel shouldn’t have to be asked, but here we are.

Who cares? Follow up question. Why should we care?

Well, that’s a fairly complicated question, but luckily for you, I’m known for my insane wisdom on these types of things.

We shouldn’t care. I don’t care even a little bit, because at the end of the day, no matter what my political convictions, I don’t care if DeGeneres and Bush have fun together. In fact, I openly applaud their ability to enjoy each other’s company.

It’s their life and for once somebody from across political divides is having fun with somebody else. That’s a win these days.

As an example of further cooperation, Capitol Hill would be a lot more fun if those people quit screwing around and maybe played kickball.

What we need is more of things like this to prove that at least we can still get along with each other.

And if you find yourself really being bothered by a Conservative and Liberal watching a Dallas Cowboys game, then maybe a revisiting of priorities is in order.

It’s not like DeGeneres was laughing with John Wayne Gacy.

We’re spending too much time worrying about the insignificant. I think we can be better at this thing called life. Prince said it best:

“Dearly beloved, we have gathered here today 

To get through this thing called life

Electric word life it means forever and that’s a mighty long time

But I’m here to tell you there’s something else (Go crazy) “

Let’s be Prince. Let’s all be better. Let’s sit next to people with different ideas and laugh with them.