The Roots of Activism

Greetings, everyone. Birmingham today is overcast and threatening rain. As we are in the middle of a tremendously pervasive drought, anything that falls from the sky in the form of precipitation would be a Godsend. Our neighbor to the east, Atlanta, is even considering rationing water if conditions do not improve drastically. The potable water situation here is not nearly as dire, though it could become much worse. A report that came out a couple months back informed us all that it could be next SPRING before we see any kind of relief.

I did appreciate a much less humid summer than normal and I did appreciate far less mosquitoes than is typical, but nonetheless I'm concerned. This is not good.

I will now decline the opportunity to segue into a discussion about global warming. Whether it be global warming or changing weather patterns, I do know this. Even in my own relatively brief lifespan, I have seen temperatures stay warmer later and become warmer earlier. Though it never snowed here with any sort of frequency, I fully expect I've seen the last of it here. This is a most depressing thought for snow lovers like myself.

Allow me to change the subject, if you will.

An Australian friend read yesterday's post and commented that after reading it, she could understand now why I was possessed with such strong political opinions. My reply was that I always had strong political opinions, but personal situations like those further solidified them. In truth, I grew up in a typically boisterous, opinionated, loud family. We didn't keep our feelings or impressions of any issue to ourselves. Politics and other such serious matters were routine dinner conversation, and emulating my father, we all developed our own personal soapbox issues. Some families talked about the Fall NBC lineup and we talked about communism and current events.

I have a bit of a different viewpoint than many liberal bloggers. I was not raised in a patently liberal, NPR tote bag, Whole Foods family. I can't claim to be the latest in a long line of like-minded thinkers. My mother is a liberal Democrat in her own way, a bit of a radical feminist in her own way, but views are severely tempered by a strong conservative streak. My grumbly Libertarian father could easily be considered an activist in his own way, though he would take great pains to never characterize himself as such. He's a study in contradictions: a member of the local board of Planned Parenthood before I was born and an active defender of Richard Nixon. Even back in the days when Hippies reigned supreme, he defiantly kept his hair short, worked straight jobs, and took a skeptical, Frank Zappa a la We're in It For the Money approach that never hastened to call bullshit on the excesses of Flower Power and Free Love.

A question to all of you out there-- what forces in your own life gave rise to your desire, almost compulsion, to state your opinion openly and with much gravitas? What in your formative years created this sense of you which cries out for justice and change? If you have children, do you consciously try to impart this same sense of urgency amongst your progeny? Why or why not? Discuss.