The Journal Times Online - Racine, Wisconsin

Nobody had ever accused me of bloviating, until last week. Nobody had ever called me a #####bag either, until last week. I’ve marked last week on my calendar as an exceptional one.

Growing up, my mother’s sage advice, when I was confronted by bullies and name-callers, came in three simple words, “Just ignore them.”

What it lacked in practical, hands-on problem solving, it made up for in brevity. I’m sure my mother wanted to get me back out the door in a hurry and with my fists unclenched.

My mother, God rest her soul, died 20 years ago this October.

She never got to see what became of her misguided son, but I’m sure she’d be proud — proud that I’ve become a responsible citizen and as proud as any mother could be that her son decided to become a reporter (but I better check that out).

I think I know what she’d tell me if she heard I’d been called, in essence, a bloviating #####bag.

Had she lived I’m sure that, like my father, she wouldn’t be sitting in front of a computer checking up on me, to make sure that nobody called me names.

So it goes.

That’s what we do when we don’t agree, though. Call each other names, right?

In this cut-and-paste culture of ours, when what counts as political awareness is access to a computer and a firm grasp of the most basic online search tools, our discourse often degenerates into name calling when we struggle to get our point across.

After he became a U.S. citizen, my dad cast his first vote for Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, the year Eisenhower won his second term. My dad hasn’t missed an election since. My dad has voted reliably Republican ever since, with the exception of his vote for Ross Perot.

With a humble awareness of his own mortality, my dad, now 82, wondered aloud the other night if this might not be the last presidential election in which he casts a vote.

I asked my dad what he thought about the name-calling and mud-slinging that passes for American political discourse. To paraphrase him, it’s disgusting.

I don’t recall my mother being very vocal about her political beliefs, but I’m pretty sure I know what she’d say, “Just ignore them.”