Column: Julie Seedorf, Something About Nothing

Do I vote yes? Do I vote no? Do I vote yes? Do I vote no?

I bet you think I am talking about the elections that are taking place this week. I am not. My brain has been frazzled enough thinking about the choices and the candidates. We have had enough media attention and enough information, right and wrong, to confuse the best of us. I decided to take a break from the election quandary and concentrate on another survey.

I visited yesorno.com and voted on various subjects. The subject of one question that I voted on was: vote yes if dogs are better or vote no if cats are better. After you vote, the website tells you what the outcome is so far on the voting. I voted yes for dogs although I like cats too. Dogs were winning the vote.

When I first found this website I thought it was kind of silly but once I started voting I was hooked. It is a little addictive. You can also add the polls to your website if you have one.

I also found a website to vote on bunnies. Vote yes if you have one, vote no if you don’t. I also voted on a website that was taking a poll on whether a neighborhood should give out Halloween candy to kids. It didn’t matter that I didn’t live in the neighborhood or in the state the poll was taken. I could still vote yes or no. On another site I got to vote yes or no to help a woman make a decision as to whether she should dye her eyebrows red.

I love coffee so I checked out a poll where people were voting yes or no as to whether coffee would kill you. The results weren’t in yet.

I had a fun time giggling as I typed in different words along with the words vote yes or no, to find the silly things I could vote yes or no on. It didn’t take much thought, it wasn’t too serious and I was amazed at the creativity of many people.

There is always a poll going on somewhere. How many times do we pick up the phone to find someone at the other end wanting us to take a survey or a poll on products, candidates, etc. There are many websites where you can sign up to take surveys constantly. They promise rewards or big bucks for taking their survey. I have done that on some legitimate sites and had fun testing products and earning a little cash. Our opinion counts.

The past few months we have been bombarded with opinions. We have been bombarded with facts. We have been bombarded with fictional facts. Because of the decisions that we are being asked to make on the political front it has divided friends, families, cities and the country. We can’t seem to agree to disagree because there is so much at stake.

It has been a tough week for our country because of Hurricane Sandy. For a time our differences have been set aside. The media blitz on the decisions we have to make have taken a backseat to what we have to do to help those that are devastated because of loss of homes, loss of businesses, loss of lives. Lives again were changed in minutes, and as a country we again put aside our differences and worked together to help those that are in this chaos.

Priorities changed in minutes. Those priorities changed because they were forced to change because of a need. Suddenly our differences didn’t seem as important as working together to make life better for those who had their lives ripped apart.

Veterans Day is this week too. It is another time to remember those that have had to put aside their differences for the good of our country, fighting, giving their lives so that we are free to vote yes or no. We are free to voice our opinion. These men and women have sacrificed a lot and so have their families.

Don’t we owe it to these veterans and to the people who are now suffering loss because of Hurricane Sandy to put aside the nastiness, the blame and the divisiveness and continue working together, finding a common ground to solve our problems? We seem to be able to do it in times of crisis. Will we ever learn that perhaps we should make it a way of life?

 

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.