It All Started with the Preacher's Daughter...

"Jack," everyone asks, well, maybe somebody did, "whatever made you take this road to libertarian thinking when you were once such a cozy Stevensonian Democrat?"

Frankly, I was deceived. Here's how it all began:

As an acne-faced, adolescent wiener-head, as opposed to a grizzled, bitter and addled old codger weiner-head, the closest I got to girls in high school was the "book exchange" ploy. "I'll read yours if you'll read mine." It worked so infrequently I still use it to this day.

There was this smart, attractive girl, one grade ahead of me, who, like all smart attractive gals, took a shine to me probably because I was no threat to try to hold hands or anything. She's was very sweet, literally a preacher's daughter. Let's call her Martha.

So Martha and I did a book exchange. My standard bait was The Devil's Dictionary, which I had actually read. In return she gave me this monstrosity, written by a woman, no less, called The Fountainhead(the book title, not the woman). Now I had recently been Pearl Bucked, and was not looking forward to another encounter with a female author. But, those were the rules. I had to at least start the damned book. The rest is history, which I'll spare you unless you annoy me.

My point for telling this is, we never know where the next IT will come from. If we pre-judge the message by our perception of the source (like many folks do with Rand, Limbaugh and Beck), we could miss out on a lifetime opportunity to become a real pain in the ass.

Now lately, I've been hanging around FaceBook. What an education that has been! I had become so insular, I had no idea how preposterously ignorant, spiteful and bigoted against bigotry a section of the inhabitants around us has become. Woooweee!

Now along the way I've made some great new friends, re-newed some old acquaintances as well. But my 'real world' education is coming from the folks whose path has taken a more...um...different turn. I guess what I'm tryin' to say is that if you can stand the smell, the chamber pot offers a lot to learn. And probably could stand a little attention.