I'm not a Christian Scientist though I enjoy reading the Christian Science Monitor. A front page article highlighting the differences between presidential candidates sent me running to the keyboard to tap out a Letter to the Editor. Lo and behold, the Monitor printed it on February 23:

Dear editor:

In response to the Feb. 16 article, "In 2008 race, many 'firsts' are possible": What roles will gender, age, and the religion of candidates play? The best we can hope for in the coming presidential elections is that none of these labels will play a role in our decisionmaking.

The process of putting people into neat little compartments on the basis of any label such as race, religion, or gender is, as self-help speaker and author Wayne Dyer writes, "as nonspiritual and dehumanizing an experience as I can imagine. Yet it is done all the time."

We respond to marketing surveys that categorize us according to buying patterns. And when we fill out government census reports, Mr. Dyer points out, funding is allotted on the basis of these distinctions. No wonder fear and prejudices continue: As Dyer writes, "[W]e tend to identify one another on the basis of what we can see with our eyes, rather than feel with our hearts."

Mahatma Gandhi reportedly believed that our greatest strength lies not in how much we differ from one another but in how much we are the same. Perhaps we need a newspaper article that focuses on the similarities between candidates, not their differences.
Marion Owen
Kodiak, Alaska

So, dear reader, am I swimming upstream?