In other parts of a civilized country, you'd be sort of centrist, a libertarian with a bent towards Mother Nature. Around here, you get tagged, bagged, and labeled for having the effrontery to break the region's politically correct imposed silence, and for being a little out ahead of the pack.

So, for whatever reason, I wouldn't personally label you way left. You make a lot of sense.

...is a better descriptor

Tim,

I am in fact conservative in many ways - conserving resources (nature and money in particular). The point is I would prefer not to live with someone who is a right-to-lifer. I just had a gentleman try to convince me that I should take a lower-than-asked figure for the space because he was the "right" roommate. Then his reference told me that they are members of the Knights of Columbus. Not knowing much about them, I did some research. No wonder this guy who proudly told me that he was outraged about the way veterans of the war are being treated by the government upon their return from Iraq bristled when I said, they shouldn't have been there in the first place. He said, “I don't like to discuss politics” and then asked me about my religious affiliation - he assumed I was an atheist (“like most of the people he had met in Cleveland Heights”, he added). "Jeez", I said, "most of the people I have met in the Heights are Jewish." The Knights of Columbus thing was what he had not revealed.

I appreciate and am interested to learn about the ideas of others, but thought it best to reveal that after years of leftist indoctrination on my home court... well, I am staunchly behind a woman's right to choose, for example. How do I say it? My mother a longtime neonatal nurse in a military hospital who nursed many preemies (unwanted preemies) insisted that I join NARAL upon graduation from college.  My father was labeled a communist while he served the military in the 1950s. Civil rights and human rights were often topics of discussion during my rearing. I may be less informed, but I am informing myself with regularity and would hope to not be straddled with a flag waving fundamentalist right-to-lifer for even a few months - no matter how financially and environmentally conservative I may be.

I did have a lovely young man who is a med student at Case view the suite of rooms and say that he is very interested to live here. He then asked my forgiveness and said that he would understand if I could not wait to rent to him. He said he is in med school because he felt he would need a way to pay back the world for his desire to travel to Uganda. I could hear the strains of Paul Farmer in this young idealist. He said that med school is isolating for someone like him who grew up in a rural Ohio town where he knew everyone. He wanted to be connected to the larger community in Cleveland. I told him I had a community here and sent him a link to realneo. He said he was fascinated and thrilled to find a collection of thoughtful articulate people here in Northeast Ohio. I hope he makes it back from Uganda safe and sound and moves in here. I have still more rooms available, though, so I post this here while he volunteers in Uganda for the summer.

I thought long and hard before posting this on realneo, but then I realized that realneo is my community, and what better way for someone to get to know me, than to be introduced to me and my colleagues this way. So this is an attempt to use the social network to expand the community I hope to build right here in my home.

For many years I enjoyed conversations with a roommate who still feels like a part of the family. With many more rooms that I can occupy, it just seems fitting to have other footsteps on the stair treads again. Oh, and thanks for the compliment.