Hillary's visiting Iowa this weekend. Obama's entered strong into the polls. It's just barely 2007 and here we are full swing into the titillation of 2008 election foreplay. When this train really gets rolling, we'll be knee deep in platform posturing, mudslinging and full throttle scandal-mongering. The media will be whipped up into such a frenzy that everything except the 98 car pile ups, mysterious pandemics and epic natural disasters will be pushed from front pages and lead newscast stories so we can get a peep at the most recent percentages and hear the latest sound-bites from the campaign trail.
I'm all about the democratic process. I love watching the debates and hearing policy proposals batted around, not to mention catching the occasional gaffe or slip up. I'm into it all. But it's six hundred and forty seven days away---that's 6-4-7. I don't even know when people started declaring their candidacy so early and I don't even want to bother googling to check it out, but sweet Lord in heaven, it all just feels like the Christmas decorations are already up and it's the first week of Summer.
Why the need to start it up so early? What's the motivation? The whole process takes so much time, energy, and money: all the campaigning and analysing and proclaiming and retorting and fundraising. To spread it out over nearly two years seems to me to be nothing short of insanity. Especially when you consider the fact that a good number of the contestants are supposed to be helping run the country while they're out there jockeying for position.
And so I have a modest proposal: a 9 month limit on the presidential campaign process. If you can't lay out your platform and distinguish yourself from the field in the time it takes to gestate a human life, then you really have no business running for office. Here's how it'd work: the primary campaign would begin in June 2007, followed by the primary election in January 2008---that's 6 months to narrow it down to the nominees. Then the candidates would have another 3 months beginning in August 2008 leading up to the general elections in November. No campaigning would be allowed outside of those boundaries, no sound-bites for the media, no commercials, nothing. Zip, zilch, NADA.
Sound good? It's settled then. Someone please notify the candidates.
Seriously, why not? I'm sure there are legions out there who'll tell me why not, so please do, I want to know. Why must we and they tangle up so much energy for so long? Do we really need 600 plus days to figure out who we want to continue screwing up our country for another 1,460? (That's 365 x 4, by the way). No, I'm not really that cynical.
I'm actually very excited about this election and I think the country's moving in a better direction than it was as we headed into the last two. I really don't see how we could get much worse, so I'm optimistic. I just don't want to think about it yet. But the 24-7 news is on at work 9-5 and it's hard not to get hooked. I guess I'll have to invest in a pair earplugs and some blinders. Or convince my boss to switch over to the food network for a change.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Signs of Evolution?
I was thinking about this the other day while watching some 24 hour news pundits going at it:
Do two guys butting heads in a heated argument = two bucks squaring off on a hillside?
Do words & talking points = foreheads & antlers?
Have we really come (not) so far?
I guess it really depends. Sometimes what we call a "struggle of ideas" is just a mask for a power struggle, based in the desire to beat the other guy. Because he's on the other side and we always fight to beat the guy on the other side. So much that's masquerading as debate in this country is mindless brawling. The pundits line up against each other like boxing kangaroos on the Jerry Springer show where the host is the referee, the manager in the corner, and the announcer rolled into one.
So often when we come to the the table of argument we don't have the intention of discovering truth---we want to prove our point. Or someone Else's point that we've made into our own. We've lost the ability to listen. we're ready to pounce. we're waiting to speak, and that's not the same as listening.
Because of the perceived need to keep up the pace, keep it engaging, we've become anti-pause, anti-reflection, anti-thoughtfulness. In order to sell more ad slots, we have to spin reality into something interesting enough to count as Reality. But the result is a sped up, selfish, rapid-fire style of miscommunication that teaches us to cut out the space where we used to actually figure things out and come to conclusions. That space where we say "hmmm, I haven't thought about it that way" or "I'm not sure if I agree with that, let me think about it for a minute." In this fast paced pop-media mindset, thoughtful consideration = indecisive waffling. It's seen as a weakness. In the space between the question and the answer, we're taught to insert our own answers if we don't get one right away. The pause somehow means hesitation, deception or insecurity, rather than a genuine need to find the right words.
We need to fight for that pause, we need to stake it out and start up a marketing campaign to set the record straight. Because without it, we're just bumping antlers.
Do two guys butting heads in a heated argument = two bucks squaring off on a hillside?
Do words & talking points = foreheads & antlers?
Have we really come (not) so far?
I guess it really depends. Sometimes what we call a "struggle of ideas" is just a mask for a power struggle, based in the desire to beat the other guy. Because he's on the other side and we always fight to beat the guy on the other side. So much that's masquerading as debate in this country is mindless brawling. The pundits line up against each other like boxing kangaroos on the Jerry Springer show where the host is the referee, the manager in the corner, and the announcer rolled into one.
So often when we come to the the table of argument we don't have the intention of discovering truth---we want to prove our point. Or someone Else's point that we've made into our own. We've lost the ability to listen. we're ready to pounce. we're waiting to speak, and that's not the same as listening.
Because of the perceived need to keep up the pace, keep it engaging, we've become anti-pause, anti-reflection, anti-thoughtfulness. In order to sell more ad slots, we have to spin reality into something interesting enough to count as Reality. But the result is a sped up, selfish, rapid-fire style of miscommunication that teaches us to cut out the space where we used to actually figure things out and come to conclusions. That space where we say "hmmm, I haven't thought about it that way" or "I'm not sure if I agree with that, let me think about it for a minute." In this fast paced pop-media mindset, thoughtful consideration = indecisive waffling. It's seen as a weakness. In the space between the question and the answer, we're taught to insert our own answers if we don't get one right away. The pause somehow means hesitation, deception or insecurity, rather than a genuine need to find the right words.
We need to fight for that pause, we need to stake it out and start up a marketing campaign to set the record straight. Because without it, we're just bumping antlers.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Resolution
I woke up yesterday morning at about 7:20am to the dulcet sounds of the garbage truck backing into our alley. A pile of trash bags had accumulated over the holidays because no one was around to put them out. And because my New Year's resolution is to stop procrastinating (I've been meaning to work on that for a while but I keep putting it off), I threw on a shirt and some shoes and darted outside with the vigor a man on a mission.
Here's how it works if you haven't put your trash out the night before and the truck's already come: after it passes, you put out your cans as they're getting the rest of the alley's garbage and then they grab yours on their way back out---I'd done it many times before. Piece of cake. So as the truck started to head back out, I locked the gate and went up the stairs to go inside when I heard a loud crunching sound. "Oh, crap."
Both of the trash cans were being dragged along and crushed between the side of the truck and a low wall along our back yard. Plastic wheels were popping off, hard rubber buckling, it was an awful sound---and he just kept going, dragging them along. As I'm standing there half awake, half dressed and taking this all in, one of the trash men yells: "You put them cans out there so we could run over 'em!!?? Huh??"
There was really nothing to say. And besides, I wasn't in the mood to shout over the trashcans, thrashing away in their death throes. But if I was in the mood, I might have said something like: "Yeah, I'm sorry, Mr. Trashman, how silly of me. By the way is your driver BLIND??" After the truck passed and was finished doing its damage, the guy picked up the Rubbermaid remains while shaking his head in my general direction and tossed them in with the rest of the garbage.
It's great to make New Year's resolutions. But if you make haste by trying to make up for lost time, then you might miss a detail or two. Like making sure the trash man SEES that you've sprung out of bed in hopes of making 2007 a year to get things done.
Here's how it works if you haven't put your trash out the night before and the truck's already come: after it passes, you put out your cans as they're getting the rest of the alley's garbage and then they grab yours on their way back out---I'd done it many times before. Piece of cake. So as the truck started to head back out, I locked the gate and went up the stairs to go inside when I heard a loud crunching sound. "Oh, crap."
Both of the trash cans were being dragged along and crushed between the side of the truck and a low wall along our back yard. Plastic wheels were popping off, hard rubber buckling, it was an awful sound---and he just kept going, dragging them along. As I'm standing there half awake, half dressed and taking this all in, one of the trash men yells: "You put them cans out there so we could run over 'em!!?? Huh??"
There was really nothing to say. And besides, I wasn't in the mood to shout over the trashcans, thrashing away in their death throes. But if I was in the mood, I might have said something like: "Yeah, I'm sorry, Mr. Trashman, how silly of me. By the way is your driver BLIND??" After the truck passed and was finished doing its damage, the guy picked up the Rubbermaid remains while shaking his head in my general direction and tossed them in with the rest of the garbage.
It's great to make New Year's resolutions. But if you make haste by trying to make up for lost time, then you might miss a detail or two. Like making sure the trash man SEES that you've sprung out of bed in hopes of making 2007 a year to get things done.
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