it's not what it looks like
The other day I went to meet a friend for breakfast. As I was walking across the road I looked up and thought, What the heck, he looks like the Unabomber! As I approached he said, "How d'you like my costume - can you tell who I am?" I'd forgotten that it was Halloween. There were a few people dressed up in town, a lot who weren't, and then quite a few that I wasn't sure about. Around here sometimes it's hard to tell.
For my part I went dressed up as a mall-goer. Ok I didn't actually dress up, but I did go to the mall to pick up a few things after breakfast. The very idea of me being in a shopping mall lends itself to Halloweeny weirdness, no less because I was actually shopping for girl stuff. But the best costumes I saw were on a pair of fellas subtly dressed as mall photographers. They had a couple of cameras set up in front of a silly spooky background, with signs all around inviting people to have their pictures taken. But they weren't fooling anybody - at least not me. The one guy was big with white hair, a perfectly groomed white beard and a jolly round belly. His helper was kind of a little guy with red hair and a red beard. They may have put a lot of effort into their plain-clothes disguise, but it was pretty clear that I was looking at Santa and one of his elves. Nice try, guys.
Even the bus was dressed up. There was caution tape wrapped around the poles at the entrance like some kind of hazard scene, and the driver was handing everyone candy as they entered. From my seat I noticed a big foil eyeball balloon behind the driver that kept swiveling 'round and leering at everyone through the glass partition.
But anyway, Halloween's like sooooo four days ago. Today's the real doom-and-gloom event, Election Day. All these people walking around with "I Voted" stickers proudly stuck on their lapels, last-minute desperados waving signs for one party or the other outside of our shop all dang day long notwithstanding the sometimes pouring rain, or taking advantage of the last few days to sport those buttons and stickers with their favorite candidate's name: 'McPaaaaalin'.... 'O-baaaaaa-ma'. Is it too harsh to suggest sheep here? (I'm happy to be an Epsilon, the Alphas have such horrid uniforms.) I'm not sure how people can so vehemently support either one of the parties when they're practically the same and totally contrived. It's like they flip a coin to decide who will take which side on what issue with no rhyme or reason. There's no 'good' party or 'bad' party. They're all schmucks!
Seriously some things just don't make sense. Why do people either value adult life or unborn life? Isn't there anyone against war and abortion? Doesn't anyone want to save the babies and the whales? Why should we have to choose between one life and another? How about environmental policies? Why do the people who claim to believe in a Creator seem to think that they can do whatever they want to His creation, and yet those who insist that the world is a purposeless product of random chance also believe that we should protect it at all costs? If you were friends with a great artist who chose to put his masterpiece in your house, wouldn't you do everything in your power to preserve it? But if there was a fluke waterspot on your wall that just happened to look interesting, would you really hang onto it? Or why do the people who vocally tout brotherly love simultaneously rant that their hard-earned and supposedly well-deserved dollars shouldn't be spent on the 'undeserving' in our midst... yet those who claim that there's no such thing as right and wrong, those who become furious at the thought of anyone meddling in anyone else's life, also believe that we should have systems in place to help take care of those less fortunate? When did capitalism become the manifest destiny of the world? When did 'every man for himself' become one of the ten commandments, or when did 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' get reinstated? And while I'm at it, why did this country's founders fight so hard to separate themselves from England, yet its citizens are now diabolically devoted to enforcing English as the only language? Everything is a contradiction - doesn't anyone stand for just-plain good or just-plain bad?!
And should I even get started on our very un-democratic two-party system? You know there's no hope of anyone coming into office that's not a member of one of the two at-heart virtually identical parties. How is this even a choice? 'You can choose Candidate A or Candidate B. Now go, vote, citizens!' Oh yeah, just don't pay attention to the thought that in the big election your vote doesn't actually count. Sure it may persuade some electorates to do what the masses want, and it rallies everyone's fervor for their country while they watch the farcically premature 'results' sweep across the nation, but it's not real!!!!!!!!!! The Electoral College doesn't vote till December, and (or so word has it) while the members are pledged to vote for certain candidates, there's no law that prevents them from changing their minds? Does this mean that we could go on believing for two months that we have such-and-such new president, only to find in January when the real results are released that it's actually his opponent??? The commentaries offer some assurance that it's very uncommon and unlikely that the government goes against the will of the people, as if this makes it ok. (It's only happened 3 times?) And if for some reason there's not a true majority vote for one candidate or another, no worries, the House will just decide for you! Yikes.
I'm not saying that it's a totally hopeless system or without its merits or reasons, just that if you're going to go touting yourself as the most free, most democratic, of-for-and-by-the-people land on this whole ball of dirt, God's gift to the human race because of your highly enlightened total superiority to everything that breathes, maybe it's time question the veracity of those claims.
And lest I sound like a total cynic, I do still believe there's hope for the local election. So long as the majority of people in your region agree with you, and the authorities don't overturn the decision after the people have spoken, you can still make a difference locally. Hey, you take what you can get.
Well I'm off to watch more election results. All the networks declared the winning governor based on a 4% margin and less than half of the votes counted. Is this a joke? In the meantime while mail-in ballots continue to make their way to wherever they get counted, we've been assigned a new president.
Happy election day. Oh wait, that's not till December.
For my part I went dressed up as a mall-goer. Ok I didn't actually dress up, but I did go to the mall to pick up a few things after breakfast. The very idea of me being in a shopping mall lends itself to Halloweeny weirdness, no less because I was actually shopping for girl stuff. But the best costumes I saw were on a pair of fellas subtly dressed as mall photographers. They had a couple of cameras set up in front of a silly spooky background, with signs all around inviting people to have their pictures taken. But they weren't fooling anybody - at least not me. The one guy was big with white hair, a perfectly groomed white beard and a jolly round belly. His helper was kind of a little guy with red hair and a red beard. They may have put a lot of effort into their plain-clothes disguise, but it was pretty clear that I was looking at Santa and one of his elves. Nice try, guys.
Even the bus was dressed up. There was caution tape wrapped around the poles at the entrance like some kind of hazard scene, and the driver was handing everyone candy as they entered. From my seat I noticed a big foil eyeball balloon behind the driver that kept swiveling 'round and leering at everyone through the glass partition.
But anyway, Halloween's like sooooo four days ago. Today's the real doom-and-gloom event, Election Day. All these people walking around with "I Voted" stickers proudly stuck on their lapels, last-minute desperados waving signs for one party or the other outside of our shop all dang day long notwithstanding the sometimes pouring rain, or taking advantage of the last few days to sport those buttons and stickers with their favorite candidate's name: 'McPaaaaalin'.... 'O-baaaaaa-ma'. Is it too harsh to suggest sheep here? (I'm happy to be an Epsilon, the Alphas have such horrid uniforms.) I'm not sure how people can so vehemently support either one of the parties when they're practically the same and totally contrived. It's like they flip a coin to decide who will take which side on what issue with no rhyme or reason. There's no 'good' party or 'bad' party. They're all schmucks!
Seriously some things just don't make sense. Why do people either value adult life or unborn life? Isn't there anyone against war and abortion? Doesn't anyone want to save the babies and the whales? Why should we have to choose between one life and another? How about environmental policies? Why do the people who claim to believe in a Creator seem to think that they can do whatever they want to His creation, and yet those who insist that the world is a purposeless product of random chance also believe that we should protect it at all costs? If you were friends with a great artist who chose to put his masterpiece in your house, wouldn't you do everything in your power to preserve it? But if there was a fluke waterspot on your wall that just happened to look interesting, would you really hang onto it? Or why do the people who vocally tout brotherly love simultaneously rant that their hard-earned and supposedly well-deserved dollars shouldn't be spent on the 'undeserving' in our midst... yet those who claim that there's no such thing as right and wrong, those who become furious at the thought of anyone meddling in anyone else's life, also believe that we should have systems in place to help take care of those less fortunate? When did capitalism become the manifest destiny of the world? When did 'every man for himself' become one of the ten commandments, or when did 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' get reinstated? And while I'm at it, why did this country's founders fight so hard to separate themselves from England, yet its citizens are now diabolically devoted to enforcing English as the only language? Everything is a contradiction - doesn't anyone stand for just-plain good or just-plain bad?!
And should I even get started on our very un-democratic two-party system? You know there's no hope of anyone coming into office that's not a member of one of the two at-heart virtually identical parties. How is this even a choice? 'You can choose Candidate A or Candidate B. Now go, vote, citizens!' Oh yeah, just don't pay attention to the thought that in the big election your vote doesn't actually count. Sure it may persuade some electorates to do what the masses want, and it rallies everyone's fervor for their country while they watch the farcically premature 'results' sweep across the nation, but it's not real!!!!!!!!!! The Electoral College doesn't vote till December, and (or so word has it) while the members are pledged to vote for certain candidates, there's no law that prevents them from changing their minds? Does this mean that we could go on believing for two months that we have such-and-such new president, only to find in January when the real results are released that it's actually his opponent??? The commentaries offer some assurance that it's very uncommon and unlikely that the government goes against the will of the people, as if this makes it ok. (It's only happened 3 times?) And if for some reason there's not a true majority vote for one candidate or another, no worries, the House will just decide for you! Yikes.
I'm not saying that it's a totally hopeless system or without its merits or reasons, just that if you're going to go touting yourself as the most free, most democratic, of-for-and-by-the-people land on this whole ball of dirt, God's gift to the human race because of your highly enlightened total superiority to everything that breathes, maybe it's time question the veracity of those claims.
And lest I sound like a total cynic, I do still believe there's hope for the local election. So long as the majority of people in your region agree with you, and the authorities don't overturn the decision after the people have spoken, you can still make a difference locally. Hey, you take what you can get.
Well I'm off to watch more election results. All the networks declared the winning governor based on a 4% margin and less than half of the votes counted. Is this a joke? In the meantime while mail-in ballots continue to make their way to wherever they get counted, we've been assigned a new president.
Happy election day. Oh wait, that's not till December.
posted by mitch at 12:49 AM
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