There are two phrases from my childhood floating around in my brain today ....
The first one is "If you don't vote, you can't complain..." My grandparents and parents have always touted the beauty of democracy - everyone gets a vote... so if you choose to abdicate your responsibility for choice, you abdicate the right to make comments so no matter how small the vote is... always take your opportunity to make your opinion heard (even if the person or idea you vote for doesn't win)
and the second one is "Never argue sex, politics or religion unless you know a person well enough to agree to disagree... and that they can too..." I am friends with people across the political and cultural spectrum and I respect everyone's right to their opinion on all subjects... because the wonderful amorphous world is full of colours, hues and textures that wouldn't make sense in black and white... I may not understand your perspective, but I do appreciate that it comes from deep rooted convictions and a belief in yourself and your compass, whether its religious, ideological or political...
I was sitting in the car the other day and heard just a snippet of a radio interview with an author of a book, neither of whose name was mentioned in the snippet - but it has me intrigued because she was talking about being immersed in a different culture and finding common ground and interests that did not rely solely on being like others around her... and now I'm filled with regret that I got neither from the discussion and am appealing to anyone who might have read the work in question to help me... and its what got me thinking about quote above... and now has me curious to know more
so if you have any clues to the puzzle, please help...
All I know is that the author is a woman, spent a year living in Bahrain or somewhere in the middle east and was a Christian woman who visited a mosque twice because she met a wonderful guide (I think named Katerina or Fatima) and she was being interviewed on what might have been a nationally syndicated radio program this past Sunday, or something local to Charlotte where I was visiting - I've tried googling parts of this but end up with too many choices...
Any help would be appreciated :)
