I try to do my best to stay abreast of what’s going on in the news, especially in the political arena. When I have the privilege of casting a vote for the leaders of our country, I want it to be a well-thought out vote for the candidate that I feel will do the best for the job they are being elected for. I believe that it is the responsibility of every citizen to cast an intelligent vote at the ballot box. To skip voting or to just randomly color in dots, hang chads, pull levers or whatever is irresponsible.
That being said, I must admit that watching the news is getting more and more difficult for me these days. One person commented on a tech board yesterday that they “cut the cable”, meaning that they disconnected themselves from cable television, opting to download media to their computers and the like instead. One of the reasons for their decision was the fact that watching the news made them feel homicidal. I have to admit that I grinned when reading that remark, because while I’m not at that limit, I certainly can sympathize with the feelings in that general area.
Every time I see presidential candidates make promises that they can do better and make our country a better place by doing a laundry list of ridiculous notions it makes me want to kick in the television screen.
Our TV is much too nice for that sort of abuse (the kick OR the babel from the candidates).
I end up yelling back, or at the very least, asking the question, “Is this the best you got?” I know my grammar is bad when I ask this but I don’t care.
I’m beginning to see a blurring of the line between reality show-like contests and presidential campaigns. Let’s see who can be the most outrageous by eating the biggest fried corn dog. Before you know it they’ll be eating live bugs with a cow’s blood chaser. Let’s see who can make the most absurd proclamation (i.e., “I’ll have gas to below $2 per gallon in three months!”). Let’s see who can steal the spotlight but trouncing around the country in a big bus but proclaim that they don’t really want to run for the presidency, they just want the attention. And let’s see who can spend the most money that we don’t have and hope that some of that money goes somewhere and sticks to something so that millions of people can find jobs.
It’s sad to me that elections have gone in this direction, but when you have to compete with the likes of American Idol and Big Brother, I guess politics have to be made extreme, wild and sexy to get the attention of the ever dwindling collective IQ of the American public.
The founding fathers have to be spinning in overdrive in their graves.
– I am crossing my fingers and praying to the digital mecca that this has been a successful instance of using BlogPress from my iPad
