So you may have seen my pulses about going to NYC this weekend. I’m so excited! I’m taking the train up tomorrow after work, which if you know me, you know that I’m ecstatic about taking the train. I love NYC and it’s probably been at least 6 years since I’ve been there. I’m excited to go. The Architect (being an architect and all) has to go up there for work for a few days. We’ll be staying in an area that I’ve never stayed in before (close-ish to Wall Street), which I’m excited about. I’ve always stayed close-ish to Times Square in the past.

The only thing that we really have planned is going to see Avenue Q (which I love the music from but have never seen).  We may get drink with a friend who moved up there within the past year. Other than that, we simply have intentions of wandering around.

When I was a teenager (not too, too long ago but oh how intentions change), I thought it would be awesome to graduate college and do the whole NYC thing for awhile. Once I got a little older, I realized that NYC just really isn’t my kind of city. DC fits me a little bit better. It doesn’t feel as big. We don’t have skyscrapers. Metro is easy to navigate. I’ve only ridden the subway once (I’ve visited NYC probably close to 7 or 8 times with my family but my parents were terrified of the subway so we took cabs everywhere, for serious) but it just seems a little harder to figure out that my beloved and broken Metro. I have to figure out how to get from Penn Station to the hotel near Wall Street… I’m not sure how much I’m really looking forward to that… eek! I was in high school the last time I rode the subway so it may seem a bit easier to figure out this time around.

NYC just seems vast and a little crazy. I like that I’m still able to find quiet in DC. NYC is still an amazing place to visit. I like all of the craziness and the noise for a little while. There’s many places that I’ve traveled where I’ve been like, “Oh, I could totally live here.” Italy, London, Boston and Denver (although I lived there when I was a wee one) come to mind. After a trip to NYC, I’m ready for quiet!

So you all may have heard about the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church being allowed to continue to hold their insidious protests at funerals (mostly at military funerals). The ruling was 8-1. Samuel Alito, arguably one of the most conservative justices on the Court, was the lone dissenter.

My heart most definitely breaks for the families that have or will have these people protest at their family members’ funerals (that cannot be easy) but I believe deeply in the right to protest. I do believe that that freedom to say what you want to say should be protected. And therefore I agree with the Supreme Court ruling.

I also reserve my right to freedom of speech to say that the protesters are a little cray-cray (okay, a lot cray-cray and maybe even batsh*t crazy). Isn’t it awesome how this ruling works both ways?

People have the right to say whatever they want to say even if we don’t like it. A good rule of thumb is that if you don’t like what someone has to say, there is absolutely nothing that prevents you from not listening. In the case of the families at the funerals where Westboro has protested, I totally understand how difficult it would be to “tune out” the protesters even if the protests are really only serving to make the protesters look dumb. I’m hopeful that the protesters will eventually give up their craziness but unfortunately, I don’t really see that happening.

What do you think about this ruling?

I was reading this blog elsewhere about this young woman who had just lost a friendship because she didn’t agree with her friend’s life choices. Basically she felt that her friend’s persona, morals and lifestyle were one way and was shocked when he chose to do something that she deemed to be against what she perceived his morals to be. Instead of talking to this friend, she wrote a Facebook note about it, which the friend could definitely see.

 Just a hint, criticizing your friends in a Facebook note usually doesn’t go over well.

I’ve ranted and raved about using Facebook as a vehicle to share important (okay, and not so important as well) news or thoughts before and this is definitely another situation that I’ll rant about. If this person thought that their friend was causing harm to his or her self  (morally or otherwise) by choosing whatever particular job path they had chosen, she probably should have thought about speaking to the person in… well… person.

 It’s easy to criticize or judge people from far away and the internet, even places like Facebook where you probably know most of the people on your friends list, offers a bit of a protective shield. It’s so not cool to criticize someone like that and to essentially open them up to public criticism like that.

Having different beliefs from one another is awesome. I always think that you can learn more about your own beliefs by listening to people who have different beliefs than you do. I’m not sure that I can really get on board with attacking someone’s personal choices like that. What gives us the right to?