Shorts
Here's a short little entry before I leave work. Last night at my book club, I took a measure of the room - politically. Here, for your edification, Dear Reader, is the breakdown. Now, bear in mind, we are a group of eight. Six of us were stay-at-home mothers for a number of years. The other two worked part-time and then full-time. Their children went to daycare and after school daycare. (Those are the consistently happy two members I was talking about in my previous entry. They are also almost a decade younger than our oldest member.) One of our members is still at home with children and has no intention of seeking paid employment.
So, politically - how do we look?
Five of us are NDP voters.
Three of us are Liberal voters.
As far as we know, we haven't had a single Conservative member. I thought we had, but it turns out she was an NDP voter, supporter, and member. She was kind of a hard-assed bitch, too. So I just assumed.
Anyway, our book club is what even the most objective observer would call - fairminded. It is also solidly middle-class with a lean to upper. One of our members, a Liberal, is close to being a millionaire, I would guess. The two youngest are the most vociferous NDP supporters. I am in the middle of the pack - smack in the middle. The other two are quiet about their membership in the NDP, but they are actual members. (I'm not actually a member.)
So four NDP actual members, one non-member, and three voting Liberals. The millionaire (almost) is a member of the Liberal party, the other two just vote Liberal.
Not a woman in that room can stand Stephen Harper or the New Conservative Government of Canada.
I don't know. Maybe it's the high level of collective education, the solid middle-class income, or maybe it's the fact that we know - actually know - what it's like to be married and have children, stay at home with them, go back to work, have a divorce or two, in this society that politicians talk about a lot but don't really know much about because they haven't really lived in it.
Not really.
So there you have it. I was surprised, by the way. I honestly was. Five NDPers? Anywhere in a room together that's not the actual NDP Caucus?
Whoo-ee!
