A lot of people I love dearly don’t share my political beliefs. I’m OK with that, mostly. There are some topics I just don’t discuss with them, though, because I feel very strongly about them and I don’t like arguing with the people I love and, frankly, I don’t want to know how they really and truly feel about some things because I don’t want it to affect my opinion of them.

I realize that’s rather cowardly of me.

I’m not planning to change my cowardly personal policy. But I am going to post some seriously liberal links today.

1. Fluid Pudding was one of the first blogs I started reading, way back in the early 2000s. I still read her because she’s funny and true and her orange is my orange, which will make sense once you’ve read “Hippopotamus pencil pouches and two packages of disappearing purple glue for a dollar. That’s how we roll.“
   

   I’m not saying that my orange is Orange or that my green is Green. …This is what I know: If I see you standing out in the rain, I will offer you an umbrella. I don’t care if you’re rich or poor or black or white or straight or gay or old or young. I used to have three umbrellas in my car. I’m now down to one. (I have several public bus stops near my house. Sometimes it rains.)

2. There’s been a lot of discussion about chicken on my Facebook and Twitter feeds this week. I wouldn’t normally be bothered by that, because I like chicken and I eat it frequently. But this political action via fast food thing? It’s just silly. Except that it isn’t, as illustrated this post from Owldolatrous (try to ignore the title; it does the rest of the post a disservice):
   

   … How would you feel if KFC came out tomorrow and said they were spending money against equality for Asian Americans, or African Americans, or religious people? … How would you feel if, after their announcement, there was a big increase in KFC sales and I was all over Facebook supporting KFC. …

   You can stop now because it’s ludicrous. It would never happen. … I mean the part about me supporting them. Let me tell you something, and you can damn well believe it: I’d sign on for the boycott IMMEDIATELY.

   Why? Well, because I believe in equality for all people, that’s why. But also, personally, from the bottom of my heart: because you are my friend, and I don’t willingly support people who harm you for just being you. How could I? How could I, really? But, more importantly for our purposes, how could you?

And that’s all I’m going to say about the politics of chicken. The next link is also about politics but not at all about chicken.

3. Glennon at Momastery has infinitely more patience than I do. She tells the story of an interaction with an angry man on a plane in “Progress,” and it is just awesome.
   

   He said, “Oh, a writer. I tried that road once. I tried to do nothing, because my doctor and wife told me I was going to die if I didn’t slow down. So I stopped working and sat on the couch all day. But how much Jerry Springer can you watch, right?”

4. And finally, Don’t “Just Wait” at Story Warren just kind of grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me and made me want to be a better mom.
   

   Imagine how it would feel for your daughter to be brushed off, hurried along to bed, or chore time, or school until – after she has found friends who listen, learned to do without your deep interest in her – you realize she is growing up and suddenly want to talk with her. Imagine how you would feel in her place. Would you want to open up, to trust someone like you?