We made it through Halloween and the first snowfall of the season. Now we get Election Day.

You know what inspired us this week? The news that more than a dozen refugee families from war-torn areas of the globe will be coming to live in the Hudson Valley as part of an effort to address the worst refugee crisis since World War II, which is happening everywhere except here these days. Details were to be announced in Poughkeepsie this weekend but this much we can tell you: The effort's being supported by Vassar College, SUNY New Paltz, Dutchess Community College, Mount Saint Mary College, Bard College, Vassar Temple, Christ Episcopal Church, Masjid al-Noor Mosque, the Dutchess County Interfaith Council and the Greater Newburgh Interfaith Council, with more faith groups joining on as we went to press.

The new Mid Hudson Refugee Solidarity Alliance has been careful to note that all of those being brought to the area have been carefully vetted. They originate from war-torn areas in Afghanistan and the Middle East. The holiday season seems perfect to announce such big-heartedness. Especially during this time when meanness and violence have become so much the norm in large swaths of this wicked world.

Which brings me to this election, and the many ways in which it has effected everything from the ways we read and react to news, to the manner in which we converse with each other.

I'm thinking, in particular, about the ways in which our coverage of a few items in recent stories have provoked charges of bias. We went to a candidates event and reported what we saw, and were reprimanded for not asking more questions, why some were not in attendance. We stand reprimanded, especially given that this was not something we've ever had to do before. It used to be that simply describing what was seen was enough for most readers seeking to get a sense of what's been happening in one's community. But no longer, when a fully comprehensive sense of reportage is required by all that's not pure opinion.

We will work harder, in the future, to ask many questions whenever something seems one-sided in any way. We don't want to hurt anyone. We push to achieve something as close to truth as we can find, even when it means having to run slurs against ourselves as a means of "correcting the record."

Then there's the discomfort I've been feeling about those who talk about the world having become a disastrous place as a result of what I see as greater societal concerns. They talk about having ideas and rules and opinions about how one should act "thrust upon them," and lament lost worlds where they could be more individual, or more rural, or simply not bothered by what the world is becoming. But they do so by denigrating those of a liberal, less angry bent. And then talking about how the only way to stop such division is through one side's winning. And by winning, the idea seems to imply something definitive, that removes those who offend by seeking that different world in the first place.

I raised this with a friend, who then thanked me for being direct... while lamenting the division again. Albeit, this time, with a gentility that reminded both of us of shared values.

No one likes to be called things because of how they think, or wish they could be or act. Sure, some things need calling out, but not all differences. We do all want better lives. We do all care about our kids, our elders, our communities, and I still believe we also still care about these United States of America.

When we get through this election next week, then, how about promising ourselves something? How about stopping all the talk about locking others up who differ from us, building giant walls around ourselves and our beliefs, and focusing one more time on the individual beauties of where we live, and who we live alongside?

How about we all strive to simply make it to the next election and, in the interim, work to find things we can all do together to make our lives better, be it simply building or rebuilding roads and bridges. And loving ALL our kids once more.

Get out and vote... and see you on the other side of this divide!