Musings of a Technonerd

The election draws near, and the bullshit is flying fast and thick around here. I've got my waders and noseclip on. The Rep. and Dem. parties are both flooding the airwaves with ads designed to make you think the "other" candidate is a flaming idiot and world's biggest asshat. The line of choice is that "XXX is "wrong" on issue Y, and "wrong" on issue Z, and is just "wrong" for us." Usually these ads are accompanied by an extremely unflattering photo of the "enemy" showing them frowning/smirking/leering at the camera. We get all upset at this sort of stuff. You hear complaints about negetive advertising all the time. It usually gets worse when one side percieves a loss coming. Most experts agree that the reason campaigns use these ads is because they work. This is nothing new, of course. It's been happening throughout America's existance. Campaigning for public office was considered so onerous in early America that in some of the first presidential elections, it was considered "beneath the dignity" of the candidate to do it themselves. That nasty job was usually left to the candidate's contemporaries and subordinates. It wasn't unusual to have a man's intellegence, heritage, and even matrimonial faithfullness called into question.

A new practice being used by parties on all sides is taping the opponents every public move, in the hope of capturing one of those "gotcha!" moments to use against them. Now, in the back of every compaign event, from dinners, speeches, appearances, even wistle stops, you'll see several people standing there with a video camera, recording every thing that happens. The good thing is that it's hard for a candidate to deny doing or saying something stupid. The bad thing is that to guard against such "dumbshit" moments, every move, every word, every facial expression is now scripted with the precision of a Hollywood movie. We're much less likely to see the "real" candidate now than ever before, and were much less likely to hear anything of substance, so as to guard against the candidate saying something stupid.

Noticed at lunch today: I drive into the parking lot get out of the car, go inside to a relatively open order area, place my order, get my food and go back outside to my car. I notice that 3, perhaps 4 cars have managed to move through the drive thru lane while I was inside, and the same cars I passed driving into the lot are still there, waiting to order. COME ON people. You could save a ton of time if you just get your fat ass out of the car, and do a little walking.

"Extry pickles please!"
Me