red states...

i just got back from a visit with my aunt and her kids. it was actually a very nice visit and i'm glad to have had the chance to see them, even though i did get a pseudo lecture about the merits of bee venom and B-12 injections for multiple sclerosis treatment... my aunt means well. she means well. she means well. or at least that's what i kept telling myself as i sat and nodded and smiled and made noncommittal comments about looking into her suggestions.

but here's where things got funny, in the oh-my-where-did-i-come-from sense... my cousins--my aunt's kids--are all great kids; very bright, creative, sweet. they're also very sheltered and very catholic. VERY catholic. and the oldest of the brood was old enough to vote for the first time in the 2004 presidential election. he was very very proud to have cast his vote for george w. bush.

so, i'm sitting around the dining room table with my cousins, and for some reason we're talking about names that we like and don't like. and as the conversation moves along, we discuss how sometimes knowing someone with a certain name can cause you to like or dislike the name. and my one cousin says, "i met this man named alan and he was very nice and it made me like the name alan. i hadn't liked that name before because the only alan i knew of was alan colmes and i don't like him because he's a liberal."

friends, i have NO POKER FACE! i can only imagine how my expression must have been interpreted. i literally flinched and shuddered a bit. but regardless, i wasn't asked about it, which is very good, because i honestly don't know what i would have said. i can hold my tongue about a lot of things, but a generalized attack on all liberals? and a citing of alan colmes, that fox news patsy, as a legitimate liberal??? man oh man!