The Activist

My Mom has never been one to sit on the sidelines and watch life go by. She doesn't watch things happen, she makes things happen. And while she has always been this way she has really lengthened her stride in the last few years when it comes to politics. She reads up on all of the issues and isn't afraid to put up a fight if she sees things happening that worry her or just don't seem right. She has her Congressman and Senators on speed dial and yes, they hear from her a lot. So when she heard her congressman Jim Matheson was still undecided on how he would vote on the health care bill this weekend Kristen K. swung into action. She tried to get as many people together as she could to march outside of his office to let him know how they felt. The opposing side caught wind of the demonstration and turned up, too. It was democracy at its finest and all of the news channels were there to cover it. Not only was my Mom interviewed, but my Dad was interviewed as well and appeared on a different channel. If you watched the news at all last night you might have seen one of them






So, I was already proud of my rebel rousing parents for making 2 different newscasts, but the coverage didn't stop there. I opened the Deseret News this morning and found my Mom had a staring role in the newspaper's write up on A6, "Hundreds engage in healthy debate at Matheson's Utah office"

(The article calls her by her last name which I have replaced with Kristen)
. . ."Kristen P., of Salt Lake City, began reading the bill after it became available on Thursday and became increasingly concerned. She said she had never been to a rally before, but this was important to her.
So (she) called her friends and agreed to meet outside Matheson's office in South Salt Lake Saturday to encourage Matheson to vote no. Shortly thereafter, Nikki Norton, state director of Organizing for America, heard about the planned rally and began gathering supporters of the bill to counter Kristen's group. . . .
. . .As the rally of support for the bill came to an end, the rally against the bill picked up with (Kristen's) group of friends growing to match those on the supporting side still in attendance. The two groups faced each other and chanted their respective slogans of support and dislike.
"If there's one bad part of this bill, then it's a bad bill," Kristen said. "I'm not against health care reform, I just think we need to start fresh with health care."
Kristen said she appreciated the freedom that each group had to gather and express themselves, and she wants to preserve that right.
"I feel like the bill is laying down a foundation to take those freedoms away." Kristen said. . ."

My Mom, the activist.