" The Little Known Facts About Deafness Causing Blindness..."

With apologies to Monty Hall, let's make a deal.

Don't call me a liberal...

And I won't call you a conservative.

Or a redneck.

For that matter, I won't call you anything.

I'll make every good effort to actually listen to what you have to say on any particular issue and, should we disagree, continue making every good effort to find some way to work with you to find that place in the middle of it all where we can both be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

A lot of ink and airwaves have been used up in the past few days regarding Barack Obama's comments regarding the George Zimmerman trial.

Some reasonable voices are expressing the belief that it's inappropriate for a President of the United States to weigh in on any major issue focusing on only one race, group or demographic.

Other reasonable voices believe that a President should show moral leadership and to not speak out is to turn a deaf ear to a major issue of our times affecting all Americans.

As for my own opinion...

...that's a worm filled can to be opened at another time and place.

Today's two cents isn't about speaking out.

It's about learning to listen.

Fox News commentator Dana Perino was a guest on ABC's Sunday morning news show yesterday and, as video of the interview shows, questioned a seeming hypocrisy of Barack Obama's remarks on the Zimmerman/Martin case while there was no apparent mention made of a shooting case in Georgia where black teens killed a two year old during a robbery.

I became aware of the news show interview as the result of a Facebook posting from a radio station in Brunswick, Georgia where I was program director until early last year. The posting assumed that the shooting being mentioned by Perino was a horrific crime that occurred in Brunswick earlier this year. On the show, though, Perino said "shooting in Atlanta", so one of two things is apparent.

Either Perino wasn't referencing the Brunswick shooting and was, instead, talking about something that actually did occur in Atlanta.

Or she misspoke the facts and said Atlanta when it should have, correctly been Brunswick.

When an additional posting on Facebook called attention to the disparity, one Facebook poster replied that it didn't make any difference, that Perino's point was the same either way and, in the words of that FB poster, "where is the outrage about that shooting?"

Fair point.

Here's a thing, though.

As I am want to do, being the curious and admittedly impish character I tend to be, I wandered over to this particular Facebook poster's page to have a look see and put a face, and back story, on this outraged citizen if only because I like to know a little about those I'm talking with, even if the conversation is only the back and forth of posting banter on social media.

What I found disappointed me a little.

A couple of pleasant personal photos and a whole lot of banners, posters and slogans calling Obama not only to task for what appears to be his failure to do anything right, but, calling him the usual, and sad, assortment of names that those who won't feel life is worth living until January 21, 2017 fire off like so many practice rounds at a Saturday afternoon family gathering.

Free speech, God given rights, yada, yada, yada.

I know the argument.

And I agree with it.

In principle.

But it's been my personal experience that something inevitable happens in the human body when the name calling starts.

Whatever part of the brain that is occupied with processing all that lashing out is also the part of the brain that allows the ears to hear and the mind to consider.

And since it can only do one or the other, the result is obvious.

If the old election year bromide, "decisions are made by those who show up" is true, then I think it's not unreasonable to offer that it's equally true that "solutions are found by those who hear each other out."

And name calling not only takes up the energy required to listen, it muddies the water of understanding.

For example, don't call me a liberal.

Because I'm not.

I have liberal opinions about some things, conservative opinions about some things and a whole host of opinions about some things that likely fall any and every where in between.

So, throwing the L word at somebody is the after childhood equivalent of calling somebody a poopy head.

A little noise, just a hint of sour smell and not a whole lot of anything else accomplished for the effort.

So don't call me names.

And I won't call you names.

And we'll spend our time listening to one another, saving our passionate energies to work a little harder when we tire of the discussion, until we find the most equitable answer.

With apologies to Howie Mandell...

...deal? Or no deal?

Yeah.

That's what I thought.