What's Going On

Here and beyond, a lot is going on at the moment.

We have been particularly busy here at the Banner Graphic so far this week. Along with two photo-ops, I will be covering my third evening meeting in a row, with a little bit of stress trying to keep up with the timeline and still write a decent story.

It's been raining for the past few hours at this point, and the weather is expected to turn much colder in the next few days. Winter is indeed coming, and I finally got tired of sweating in October on Monday. I'm ready to start wearing my wool coat like the politician or local celebrity that I really am not, nor want to be.

It also hasn't helped that I haven't gotten much sleep recently. I'll take the blame for that, though. Drinking coffee before bed has become a very bad habit I need to break. (But it's so good!).

On a broader scale, you can tell by rants and fake news stories on Facebook that the midterm elections are upon us. Being especially evident in the past few weeks, hotheads continue to prevail. The discord surrounding the confirmation of newly minted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has rallied the absolute worst on both sides.

I continue to see that the most woesome on the left of the isle can't get over that he is now a Justice, and can also see that they will have a tough race ahead of them. The most heinous on the right of the isle continue to joke about women who bring forth allegations of sexual assault, and think that it is all part of a Democrat conspiracy.

Now, the midterms have both sides resolving to tell more platitudes, though some seem much more genuine than others.

I have made it a point to not be political on this blog. I have avoided getting myself into the partisan face-slapping and focused on what is important to people here, as well as what is just interesting. As much as I have become a general reporter, I also tell stories that relate to the culture of Putnam County.

My stories on the Indiana Film Race and a man with a worldwide YouTube show eating the Ten Stack Challenge twice at Charlie's are probable examples of this, I think. But I am still learning how to approach different angles. Sometimes, I just get lucky.

I am by no means a culture critic. What I do is tell and look at stories as I see and think about their potential. I look at politics in a similar way. I see both sides, but I question those who don't critically think about what is happening or why. I do question those who share photoshopped memes with fallacious quotes.

Being skeptical, as I am, can mean that a person will be happier, because he is delighted by the good things that do happen. An optimist could be not as cheerful, because he mourns the presence of all of the evil in the world. But, as with anything else so absolute, there are exceptions to this.

Even though I know it won't happen anytime soon, I still hope that there can be some semblance of understanding between people.

With that, I'll now go back to what I do better, and let Marvin Gaye express those hopes in a better way. Even if his greatest song is set in the context of the countercultural drama of the early 1970s, it's still relevant.