There are not two sides to every story

I sat stunned, numb, and disbelieving, watching rioters take over the Capitol building, ransack congressional offices, deface the beautiful Capitol building and chat with police, while sitting on the Capitol steps, as if they were on a Covid 19 outside gathering.

I saw a woman on a gurney, blood all over her face. A few hours later I heard that she had died.

I cried. What I was watching on TV wasn’t distant from me. I sensed that I was in the scene; being threatened, ducking behind a table for protection. I felt that I was being assaulted for no reason other than being on the “other side” of a story.

This story asks and then answers the question, who won the presidential election? The mob believed, unequivocally, that Donald Trump won because he said he did. While I am pleased that the winner is Joe Biden, the only important fact is that Joe Biden won the electoral college. The speechifying in Congress should not rest on opinion or clever semantics. It is not a matter of how one feels or particular political beliefs. There aren’t two sides to the election question. There is only data: 270+ electoral votes.

I was just six when I had my first inkling that some stories are just wrong, misinformed and mean-spirited. I was in the first grade in the early 1950’s, the heyday of the Red Scare. My parents were…