Words of self-effaced wisdom from Penn Jillette
While I don't agree with a lot of his politics (he's a way beyond reason libertarian, far more than I can take) I couldn't agree more with the sentiment. I'm tired of participating in a broken system and rewarding the same mediocrity and corruption.
Well, the brave new world I predicted would never come has in fact arrived. There is a new Hockey Night In Canada theme song. Canadian visitors to the CBC website chose their favorite from several entries and chose "Canadian Gold" by Albertan Elementary School teacher Colin Oberst.
Its pretty good. I like it. Had I never heard the previous one, had there not been decades of tradition associated with it, and were the previous one not so beloved as to be declared the "Second Canadian National Anthem" I might not have noticed the change. But I still miss the original. The new one is good but its hard to understand the change and most importantly, you can't sing "Punching Beavers in the Face" to the final tag.
Personally I like this alternative entry, including graphics:
This won't be as long an entry as it deserves to be, but I'm really tired of hearing Bill Ayers called a terrorist every few minutes without the slightest bit of consideration.
Its true that Ayers participated in the planning and execution of many bombings, most famously the Haymarket Riot Police Memorial (twice), the New York Police Headquarters, the US Capitol Building, and the Pentagon. And I also won't deny that his actions as a member and leader of the group were highly irresponsible and dangerous. But the group went very far out of its way to avoid harming civilians, and never targeted public places for the purposes of instilling fear. The best judgment is probably the maligned Bush phrase "enemy combatant" as the group had declared war on the US government and targeted mainly government institutions in response to actions in the Vietnam war and the culture wars occurring during this time.
Again, I'm not saying I support Ayers or the Weathermen's mission. But calling him a terrorist goes well beyond the meaning that word has today. By the same standards Sam Adams and Patrick Henry from the US, Nelson Mandela from South Africa, and several other celebrated leaders are terrorists.
Of course, this discussion is entirely too nuanced for our political scene, where we argue about lipstick jokes. But you know, in a perfect world people would attempt to be more appropriate with their language.
Notes: Out of time, you can go to wikipedia for yourself this time.
Noticed today that commenting hasn't worked for a month or so, due to some fixes I tried to add. Works again, so if you were unable to comment before, you can now. Though you could have told me, eh?
Hopefully I'll have recaptcha up and running soon so I can avoid the 30 spam comments a day problem I was facing when I broke it the first time.
So this post starts with the reading of this article from Rolling Stone about John McCain. You are left after reading with a picture of a truly disgusting human being, the sort of person you would not want as a friend, the sort of person whom would make you reconsider friendship with anyone who would want him as a friend. While the article is undeniably partisan and biased, I don't think any of it is particularly untrue (in fact most of it has been a part of the public record for decades). I can admit that I have been somewhat taken by the McCain narrative over the years, and would have been tempted to vote for him in 2000 had he actually been the nominee. The fact that most of this narrative is an invention isn't terribly surprising to me.
In fact, I'm not convinced that Barack Obama is a "good person" either. I'm not really convinced that any of our Presidents have been or even should be good people. I loved the complaints in 2000 that Ralph Nader was only running for his "ego". Of course he's running for his ego! Everyone is! In order for you to get to the point where you can say with a straight face, "I think I should be the leader of the largest country in the world and de facto leader of the free world" you have to be a raging egomaniac. And in order to have gotten the political positions and favors necessary for anyone else to want to put you there you will have had to do a great many things that make you seriously unlikeable. In truth, Nader was running despite having very little chance of winning just to try to influence the debate away from the corporatism of both parties, which seems the least ego-driven of the candidates, especially as he didn't change his views or plans just to suit his own "Likability".
Truly I'm not looking for a President that I like. I'm looking for one who will represent me, will more often than not make the right choice for the country rather than for their own careers, and who have the political skills to get things done. And I haven't seen a candidate like that in a long time and I just can't support voting for someone who continues to support the same lowest common denominator crap that has dominated this country for the last 30 years (or more). I will not vote for evil, even if it is the lesser one. And for all the poetic talk of change I haven't seen anything from either of these candidates that makes me believe they will offer anything more than cosmetically superficially different.
If you'd have told me 10 years ago I'd be considering voting for Bob Barr, I'd have punched you in the mouth. But here we are. The choices get worse, the political courage gets more and more rare, and the country slips further. Just bring on the Visigoths and lets move on to whatever is next.
Notes:
The Rolling Stone article is long, but worth reading for an incredible portrait of someone so unlikeable who has managed to be very popular in the Senate. It really makes me wonder how much worse every one else must be.
Please don't tell me about how bad or good McCain or Obama are, or ask me to defend them. This is not a partisan post, I assure you I'm equally disgusted by both of them.
First, not sure if the talk I've been hearing is true, but if in fact both candidates got all the debate questions in advance, then why are we bothering? I know its *all* political theatre, but it usually has the decency of being improvised political theatre.
Anyway, just sharing an article, not putting up my own commentary. But I love this article and find it shares a lot of my conflicting viewpoints. Just to say, though: How far outside the mainstream am I that it takes a lesbian sexologist to talk about the things I'm thinking?
UPDATE:
Will Wilkinson gets all LOLveeps on teh debait (one more reason you should read Will's blog)
