A Christmas card

Your sentiments can be purchased from Hallmark

for $4.99 or more, 

or from another card company

for as little as 99 cents.

You can be politically correct with some people
and wish them a happy holiday,

or be forward with others

and repeat the merry Christmas mantra.

You can pay good money for the presents 

on the wish lists of family and friends,

and hope the gifts you receive are those 

on the list you thought hard about.

Is it the season 

to pick the right cards,

say the proper greetings,

to give and get the desired gifts?

Is it that time 

to make it to church,

recall fond childhood memories,

to get together with family and friends?

Is it another Christmas to celebrate 

the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem,

while trying to put aside for a while

the conflict that continues around the Holy Land?

It's Christmas around the world,

that special time of the year 

when Christians can celebrate the gift

that God gave to all who believe in salvation.

It can be all that,

or maybe little of it.

It's what you choose,

or what's expected from others.

Your sentiments can be purchased from Hallmark

for $4.99 or more, 

or from another card company

for as little as 99 cents.

Or...

In awe of big brother

My brother and his wife, both newly retired albeit at a younger than normal age, recently completed a journey that most people a third of their age would find too challenging: they walked nearly 500 miles from St. Jean Pied-du-Port in western France across northeastern Spain over a span of 35 days. That's right, they walked, carrying nothing more than a backpack with all their essentials, for five weeks.

For sure, it wasn't easy. My brother Lou began the journey with pain in his right heel. He then caught a cold. Early in the walk, he also injured an ankle and rib. After a few weeks, blisters in his feet, he found himself feeling so foul that Andrea, his wife of 35 years, suggested they consider abandoning the second half of the walk. 

Lou and Andrea had planned their "Camino de Santiago" adventure for nearly two years, and trained for it on paths around North Carolina, where they've lived for 30 years. Lou's been a lifelong walker, starting in his native New York City and then while living in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and going on to serve in the U.S. Army. Even as he became diabetic and needed frequent insulin injections to regulate his blood sugar, he picked up his pace enough to run four full marathons, including the New York City Marathon in 1991. 

Andrea has also enjoyed walking and hiking her entire life. In fact, her and Lou's paths first crossed while hiking in the Grand Canyon. Three years later, they married. After he retired from teaching and she from nursing, it was only appropriate they begin their "golden years" with the kind of walk that rarely makes it beyond the bucket lists of most hikers. 

Even with his ailments, Lou was determined to complete the walk with Andrea. Fortunately, after nearly calling it quits, he began to feel better and stayed the course.  The two of them walked triumphantly, if not a bit wearily, into Santiago de Compostela a few weeks later, and ended their stay in Spain by spending several days in both Madrid and Barcelona.

I've always been in awe of my big brother.  Lou's successful completion of his long walk with Andrea this autumn reminds me how special a person he is and how much this little brother has to look up to.

Voter apathy: a matter of communication?

Voter turnout in the New Jersey county in which I live was an all-time low this past Tuesday.  According to the Asbury Park Press, less than 21 percent of eligible voters in Monmouth County cast ballots in this week’s elections.

“Tuesday’s turnout numbers are even more dismal if you factor in the number of eligible voters who aren’t registered.  Nationally, that’s about one in three,” stated an APP editorial today. “That means about 15 percent of eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot on Tuesday.”

Granted, there were no state-wide offices or referendums on the ballot. Still, at a time when overall taxes in New Jersey are the second highest in the country, according to a nationwide survey and analysis published in the APP on October 30, and the state’s economic recovery seems to lag behind much of the country, why did so few voters bother to cast a ballot?

When New Jersey did have a state-wide office at stake in 2014, it ranked 40th in voter turnout on Election Day, with only 32.5 percent of registered voters casting ballots, according to a study released in March by Nonprofit VOTE, and reported in NJ.com. (The national rate was 37 percent.)

In years past, some experts have pointed out that being located between the New York and Philadelphia media markets has made it difficult for New Jersey residents to get news about elections in the state, thereby leading to voter apathy. I don’t buy that argument.

With the growth of social media and other on-line information sources in recent years, it’s easier than ever to quickly get news about almost anything and anybody. For those who don’t like to get their information from digital sources, there are still plenty of newspapers and radio stations around.  And, to the annoyance of many of us, telephones and postal mail are still used by candidates to disseminate their messages.  And, therein, may lie the cause of the problem.

Voter apathy in New Jersey is likely caused by the quality, not quantity, of communication about candidates and issues.  Even though some experts may claim negative advertising actually helps candidates beat their opponents, I believe what it does more than anything else is just turn people off to the whole election process itself.

Most communication around elections merely succeeds in belittling those in government or their opponents, reinforcing their general image as narcissistic liars or worse.  And, why would the average voter want much to do with that?  By the time a person reaches voting age in New Jersey and elsewhere in the country, they’ve learned to shut out political messages and not trust what candidates are saying.  This is largely true whether the communication is being received via social media, another on-line source, or more traditional mediums like television.

Obviously, the election process in New Jersey and across the U.S. needs some serious fixing if it is going to work the way it was intended: to represent the will of the majority of the people.  A good start is for candidates to improve the quality of their communication to the public. They should keep their messages simple, state them in positive terms, and demonstrate where they can make a difference.

Perhaps communication channels, especially those that profit from politicians, should be emboldened to only accept Election Day messages that help fix the problem, rather than make it worse.  Maybe, just maybe, some positive communication actions can help reverse the trend of voter apathy in the years ahead.