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Since I’m from South Carolina, it stands to reason that I would have an opinion of the whole Governor Sandford thing. Once again, our state has made less-than-flattering national news headlines that our friends up north find hilarious. Except this time, it’s not some redneck standing outside the Piggly Wiggly announcing on national television the latest improvements to his trailer that he hopes to make with his newly-won lottery money, or some redneck calling Barack Obama the “n word” during a random televised street poll on Election Day. It’s the redneck that nearly every adult I know voted to put in our state’s Governor’s Mansion down in Columbia. And guess what got him on the news?

Yup, our governor has now joined the legion of Cheating SOB Politicians. From Thomas Jefferson’s “baby momma drama” (1802) to the allegations of Grover Cleveland being a “nonconsecutive two-timing” kind of guy in more than just his presidential terms (1884) to Bill Clinton being Monica’s harmonica (1998), our presidents and other political leaders have a pretty long rap sheet of sex scandals.

But does Governor Sandford’s affair constitute relevant news, or just too much information?

When you were in sixth grade, you probably had that awkward semester in your science class. You know what I’m talking about. Mrs. Cooper’s fabulous pencil-going-into-the-pencil-sharpener demonstration of where babies come from. And if you’re like me, you were gobsmacked with the realization, “Oh my GOD, my PARENTS did that!” And that was a pretty horrifying thought, wasn’t it? In fact, even now –at nearly eighteen years old and by no means a virgin—I still cringe at the thought of my parents “getting their groove on”.

So why in the name of God would we want to know about our Governor doing it?

In my opinion, this whole scandal is a big load of TMI, or in other words, Too Much Information. I mean, the fact that the governor kind of disappeared for a week without telling anyone, that’s kind of relevant. And if during that disappearance, he had been, say, selling nuclear secrets to North Korea, I would want to know about that. I want to know what he’s doing with my dad’s tax dollars, what he plans to do to improve my public high school’s embarrassing dropout rate, and where he stands on gay marriage and the Blue laws. But I really don’t want to know if he’s been doing the dirty, and with whom, and I certainly don't want to read online excerpts from his not-exactly-family-friendly emails with her.

I’m not saying he was right to do it; I’m just saying it’s none of our business. But I also think, and I say this with all the respect and Carolina pride in the world, that he needs to shut the heck up about it.

Okay, so when you screw up, you want to admit you screwed up, and apologize. I get that. And I totally respect that he didn’t say under oath “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” or otherwise try and deceive the public about it. I'm all for fessing up to your mistake and apologizing.

But good lord, Governor Sandford, how many times do you have to say it? Every single day he’s on the front cover of my local newspaper issuing some statement about the situation. He has committed marital and political suicide.

My advice to him is to, in the eloquent words of the rapper Lil Wayne, "take them shoes off yo teeth, and quit runnin yo mouth."

A very good next step for him would be to be very quiet until he gets his crap together and figures out where to go from here. He really needs to use his head (the one on his shoulders) and think long and hard (pardon the pun) about the direction his life is going, and how to best rectify his mistake.

So what do you think? Leave a comment on the blog if you have an opinion.

Sources:
[link]
[link]


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PREFACE: I'm physically handicapped. My best friend Andielle is fully blind. We're both rising Juniors in high school and we were visiting a local church while she was spending a weekend at my house.

Pastor (after we had introduced ourselves): "So what brings you two to First Baptist?"

Andi: "Well... the Bible says it's your duty to minister to the blind and the cripple...
so... *evil grin* we're heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!"

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A note on love, from someone far more poetic than myself.
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"Love comes to us with no forewarning, and once given to us it can never be taken away. We must remember that. It can never be lost. Love is not measurable. It cannot be counted in years, minutes or seconds, kilos or grams. It cannot be quantified in any way. Nor can it be compared, one with the other. It simply is. The briefest brush with real love can sustain you for a lifetime. We must remember that."


Astrid and Veronika, Linda Olsson

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Since it seems that my journals get exponentially more views than my deviations, I've decided to feature my latest deviation here, so you all might actually read it.
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In the beginning, there was the Word
A voice throughout the darkness heard
And all our beings had always been
Which neither began nor ever will end

And you and I were of one mold
Two spirits with a single soul
Sharing in our Home above
A mirror of the Father’s love

And the great Voice spoke, saying “Let there be light”
He called it Day, and the darkness Night
When the darkness distressed you, I shielded your face
Kept you safe through the night in a loving embrace

Morning came, and God made the sky
To split the sea from Heaven on high
I marveled at the spacious blue
Though it was dwarfed by my love for you

And we talked about someday, when we’d live on the land
How we’d hike through the mountains and lie on the sand
And walk by the rivers, and swim in the sea
And we sat and we planned our eternity

And on the third day He made the trees
From magnificent oaks to ordinary weeds
I watched the flowers grow and bloom
Yet I saw nothing as lovely as you

Then God set the sun to give light to the day
And the stars and the moon lit the night the same way
And I promised you someday you’d sleep in my arms
Beneath constellations of beautiful stars

In days to come, creatures roamed the land
And humans were made to rule over them
They were banished from Eden because of their sin
Neither they nor their children could go back again

But we didn’t worry as we watched from above
We wouldn’t need a garden to worship and love
We knew that our Eden was more than a place
That we’d each see it reflected in the other’s sweet face

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My dear Marybeth
My angel, my beloved friend
The poetry inside my veins
I love you.

My friend Marybeth and I love each other tremendously.
We've never figured out how, or when, or where we met.

So I wrote her this poem, to explain it.
To tell her how we met.
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if you like it, here: [link]

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Dear Anna,

2008 was the best year of your life so far. You got out of a bad group, started a new school, made some great friends, met a soulmate, and fixed a lot of the problems that were making your life unbearable. Let's make 2009 rock even harder!

1.) Work more on the novel and less on poetry Poetry is good, but unproductive. Write at least a chapter a week. And for God's sake, not just the Katie/Jenn scenes. Yes, I realize that writing Katie/Jenn scenes is like crack to you, but in reality, Jenn doesn't even meet Katie until the middle of the book, and Katie isn't an important character until even later. There are other scenes that need to be written. Write them.

2.) Walk that damn dog. Seriously, Anna. Get up off your butt and walk her.

3.) Keep a blog faithfully It's something you've always wanted to do, so do it!

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