Crenellated Flotsam

It’s no surprise that I get lots of political e-mail: I sometimes visit the Internet.

I get it from all sides and persuasions and one of the things I learn from all this correspondence is that, although the mail is addressed to me, I’m probably not the intended recipient. If it’s to get me all fired up, I’m afraid it’s not working as intended. Pretty much all the issues that get people enraged leave me bored. I don’t know what it is exactly that’ wrong with me but where most people seem to live comfortably on the boundaries, it’s rare that I get out of the middle.

On any 1-10 scale it seems most people rate things either one or two or nine or ten as far as importance goes. I live pretty much in the four to six world, which isn’t anywhere near as dramatic. Whenever I take one of those surveys that range from strongly agree to strongly disagree, almost all my responses are in the center of the column.

Really, I think these one to ten scales are excessive. If I separate things, I usually need only five categories (bad, poor, average, good, and great).

Anyway, today was election day here in California, so I voted.

When they’re not busy making me feel inadequate as a human being because I rarely share their passion, these e-mails remind me of some of my elitist tendencies. I read the them and then wonder about the wisdom of giving whoever first wrote them a vote equal to mine.

I was no history major, mind you, but there’s an awful lot of outrage nowadays about politicians being, well, political. I think as long as humans have been around, people have been political and using arguments to convince people about the wisdom of following their suggested course of action. People who are politicians are incredibly skilled at manipulation, and instead of being outraged when it’s used against some position I hold, I often nod in appreciation at the good play.

I mean, I guess what I’m saying is, none of this stuff is new.

Maybe most people don’t get HBO and weren’t able to watch their series Rome. Julius Caesar, it turns out, was pretty good at politics, giving his enemies high ranks that required them to get the hell out of Rome and as far away from power as possible. That’s a pretty good move, I have to say.

Years ago in California, some guys bought up a bunch of arid land in the San Fernando Valley and then got the people of Los Angeles to pay to have an aqueduct built to bring water to Los Angeles. What they did to make it all legal and right, was bring the water to their crappy land in the valley and then made the valley part of Los Angeles.

Say what you will, that’s a pretty inspired maneuver. Brilliant, even.

Instead of celebrating politics, we’ve gotten to the point of just yelling at and about each other. That’s sad, embarrassing, and just far too dramatic for me. I sometimes can watch a Keith Olbermann or Ann Coulter for entertainment value, but I can’t help wondering how many people just suck up what they say. I wish they could all see it as the sort of deluge of cheap shots, truth stretching, and exaggeration that I do, but I know better than to believe that. People want to hear things that reinforce their viewpoint, and now that it’s grown to encompass calling the other side names, making fun of them, and diminishing them in every way possible, no one’s enjoying good political moves any more.

I like to argue positions or at least discuss them. I don’t have all, or even many, of the answers, but I think most things are a lot more complicated than most of us like to think. It’s wheels in wheels, I tell ya, and the only thing that’s changed in my life is how acceptable it’s become to be outraged.

I don’t remember much from the history classes I took in school, which were only those I needed to get a degree in another field, but I don’t think that has anything to do with my point.

Every day, from every side, I hear people in America talking about our Founding Fathers, a group of people with whom I’m admittedly ignorant. Yeah, I know some of their names, but I don’t know very much else about them.

Anyway, to make some point, partisans usually call on one or more of these Fathers to reinforce their position. Whether it’s arguing for small government or nationwide health care, these historical people are brought up to prove whatever’s being argued.

Like I said, I can’t claim to understand if the viewpoint of the long dead person is true or not, but I don’t think it matters one way or the other. Not only does it seem that to every Founding Father there’s an equal but opposite Founding Father, but I’m not convinced what someone said 250 years ago even makes a lot of sense any more.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think those guys did a great thing in setting up this country. Our constitution is a remarkable document and not just because it’s almost completely silent when it comes to policy. It’s a great frame for running a country, and I think it’s done a pretty good job of holding up.

What concerns me is this idea that what Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, or whoever believed in 1770 is what they would think today. I’m thinking these people, as much as anyone, would be as influenced as much by their environment as they would be by any internal tendencies.

I didn’t take many psychology or sociology classes, either, but I have a hunch that we’re shaped as much by where and how we’re brought up as we are by anything. Kids learn from their parents, and either carry those same things on or rebel against them and take the other side. We all grow through adolescence and the self-obsessed twenties, and some of us stop along the way and others continue to grow throughout our lives and find their positions changing.

My point is, not everyone is static and I’m not even sure that we can say with any certainty that how anyone turned out was ever fixed. A kid raised in Portland in the 1960s might have an entirely different set of political or cultural beliefs had she been raised in Salinas or Houston.

The people who grew up in New York in 1827, I’m thinking, might not even recognize themselves in the mirror if, instead, they were raised even ten or fifty years later. I just think where and how we develop is a huge factor in determining who we are.

If that’s true, a contemporary George Washington might not believe what the one from history did. If we permit people to change, if we brought him back to life, there’s every reason to believe he might even change his mind about whatever it is he’s most known for thinking.

I guess this is all just to say that I have no idea what lesson I’m supposed to take from arguments based on these old guys.

Someone, although I couldn’t tell you who, once famously said something profound about democracy being a bad form of government, but better than the rest. The more I see of this election process, the more wisdom I see in that, especially the “bad form” part.

It’s obvious whoever said that had a much broader range of experience than I’ve had. Other than electing government representatives who ignore me except when they’re courting my vote, I’m not sure I’ve seen very much democracy in action at all. Growing up I didn’t have much say in how my family was run, and no job I’ve ever held or heard of is in any way democratic. It’s always been more feudal, I think the term would be, than anything else, with rulers just telling me what to do.

After I moved out of my parents house and was living on my own, my home life was democratic, but only in the sense that there was only one vote on anything and that one my vote was mine. When I was in relationships, of course, there was still only one vote, but it was no longer mine. The women always have the trump card, all the power, and I have no argument with that.

Anyway, whoever said that famous quote about democracy must never have seen McCain and Palin’s supporters. There are lots of them, maybe a majority, but very few of these people show me much of anything that would lead me to believe that they should have a say in how anything important is decided. The world, now, and maybe for quite some time, has been too complicated for me to figure out, and I think I’m one of the bright ones. With so much going on, and so little of it black and white or easily reducible, common people just don’t stand a chance.

And, yet, we give them all votes.

In spite of their having invented democracy, or so I’ve heard, it’s just a shame that Plato’s elites never took hold. People who run things and make decisions should have skill sets that go beyond coaxing the electorate to think they’re the ones who can best represent them. Palin has a great stage presence and can give a whopper of a speech, but I don’t trust her judgment on anything I feel is important. Obama, also, gives great speeches, but at least he seems to have thought about what he’s saying instead of just telling us what we want to hear.

All I’m saying is that I’m not sure I wouldn’t be equally miserable living under some sort of meritocracy. I don’t think only white landowners should vote, but I also don’t think all these yahoos yelling USA! or scowling whenever the terms Bush, socialist, elitist, or liberal is tossed at them from instinctive reactions are the ones I want setting my future, either.

I’m not sure if another revolution will ever come, but I doubt I’ll be alive when it happens. In my life, sadly, only other stuff happens.

Things this political season have changed so much that I think it’s safe to say they’re exactly the same.

I’m not sure what it says about humanity, but one thing I’ve learned as we approach this election is that no matter what gets brought up by either side, no matter what incident gets mentioned by the press, no matter how any event or issue is spun by those running the campaigns, people immediately fall straight into line. It doesn’t matter if it’s Governor Sarah Palin appearing on Saturday Night Live or anything else, those in her party will proclaim it a success and those on the other side will call it lame.

I don’t even have to look at the source anymore. If someone discovers that Obama wrote a blurb for Ayers’ book, the right will see this as further evidence of something or other and the left will say “so what.”

I suspect the only reason these things get mentioned at all, anything from McCain’s association with Liddy to Obama’s 57 state comment, is to get each side’s supporters off their asses and into the voting booths. With the dismal turnout that we in America usually show, I think either side can win if they just get over three-fourths of their supporters out. Karl Rove was famous for this, not only in trying to get all the Republicans to vote, but for trying to depress the Democrats enough that they’d choose to sit home and cry rather than vote for Gore or Kerry.

No, I’m talking about voter suppression at the polls, or the sometimes questionable purging of registered voters, merely attempts to keep people at home. President Clinton, now, may be trying to do that by his repeated assertions that the election is in the bag for Obama, that it’s going to be a wipeout. His message strikes me as being close to “this thing is won, don’t bother showing up,” a message that would help his wife while also being one he can point to as showing his support for the Democrats.

Anyway, one thing I’m sure of is that whatever gets released will be pointed at by one side as being important while simultaneously subject to innocent explanations by the other. Anything may get “your” side out, get them riled up enough to vote, but very little of it adds anything to political discourse.

Then, again, if someone can proclaim “Country First!” while selecting a uniquely inept person to be his running mate, pretty much everything is possible.

Like a lot of people, I watched the presidential debates the other night. Unlike most of them, including the politicians, I spent a little time thinking about personal hygiene. Or, freshness.

If I were to be in one of these nationally televised debates and setting myself up to be judged by tens of millions of people who would decide my fate, before I went on onstage I think I’d want to take a shower. Not necessarily to get clean, but it might be refreshing and relaxing.

As soon as I thought that, I pictured myself telling my advisors and staff about it, that I needed to take a break and take a shower. This is something I can do now, without mentioning it to a soul, so right off the bat, that would be different. It would also be different that anyone would be interested in my wanting to take a shower.

That interest, among a ton of other, more important things, is what distinguishes me from these politicians. I thought about it some and realized that I can’t fathom what it would be like to have thousands of people wanting some of my time. Right now hardly anyone does, but if I were running for president, a team of secretaries couldn’t keep up with the demands on my time. Other politicians, media people, people wanting favors or thrusting wads of cash into my hand in hopes of future ones, tons of people wanting a piece of me, a chance to talk or listen to me, all of them would be asking for my attention.

I don’t think I could handle it.

Boy, these conventions are sure something!

Only not so much the one that’s going on now.

Last week I was going through a tissue or three each night because of the emotions raised in me by the speakers and directors of the videos. This week … not so much. Last week Joe Biden made me think and laugh and Obama made me hope, but this week all I keep hearing is how some nameless opposition is no good at all. “Vote for us or else” is not a campaign slogan that has much traction with me.

Then, last night, I got to see the media fall all over themselves congratulating someone for talking successfully to a very supportive crowd. I admit she did a decent job of delivering a prepared speech, but I can’t help feeling that reciting something after practicing on it for a few days doesn’t mean a great to me. I expect more of our leaders than that, something I had to do in Junior High.

I guess most of America can relate to her, and there’s no small number of political scientists who say that’s a good thing. I can’t say that I do and, more, I can’t say that I’d vote for anyone because I did. I want my president, whoever he or she is, to be like some sort of super-adult from my childhood, and it’s hard for me to do that when I can see the strings, mirrors, and through the smoke. I know a lot of people will like Sarah Palin because she has breasts, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it’s not like I’m ever going to get much pleasure from them.

Many of the same people who piled on Hillary are now saying I can’t judge Sarah. It’s true that no one questions any men about how they can work and raise a family, but it’s also true that it’s a reality that in our current culture, men and women have different roles. I’m not sure that I, even as a guy, would leave a newborn baby who needed me to pursue my career goals, but I’m not saying that makes Sarah a bad parent. It just gives me pause.

I have no interest in her pregnant daughter, either, other than in her name. I would never name one of my kids after some NASCAR track, but, then again, I’d be unlikely to name her siblings Willow, Trig, Track, or Piper, either: it would make it too difficult for them to buy souvenir license plates at the county fair and kids don’t need to overcome every possible challenge and disappointment just to grow up secure.

Not that I know anything about kids.

It may be a good thing that the Palins can get out of Wasilla, a city that evidently has one meth lab for every 225 residents, a number I admit staggered me. Granted, there’s little to do in Alaska except come up with names for snow and, presumably, exercise your genitals, but that can’t be wholesome environment.

Still, she gave a good speech to people who wanted to hear her say bad things about Obama, but it didn’t make me change my mind.

It’s been one whole day now that people in California have been able to apply for same-sex marriage licenses and we, surprisingly, haven’t been struck yet with any calamities from the almighty.

Maybe She approves.

Although I’ve never dabbled on the other side of the fence myself, except, maybe, sort of, I’m hoping that the gays I’ve known take advantage of this. Not that I want them to later experience the crushing bitterness of divorce or anything just to be equal, but, really, what the people down the street or across town do in their homes really doesn’t interest me that much. Nor do I think that two guys or two women marrying each other will change how we think of marriage in the slightest.

It’s two people who love each other, being together for more than tax reasons.

I was touched to read that George Takei was the first one in line to get a marriage license in West Hollywood. That’s so cool, and I’m very happy for him. He may have never thought it would happen in his lifetime (he’s 71, according to the article), and now he can live his dream.

He probably doesn’t remember me, even though we met. And by “met” I mean that we were eating in the same deli in Burbank in the late 1980s and were seated right next to each other at the counter. He may have asked me to pass him some mustard in that beautiful deep voice of his, and I’m sure I obliged once I noticed who he was.

I nodded at him to show that I recognized him, and he sorta smiled back. I like to think he was happy I didn’t call him Sulu or make a fuss, but now I’m wondering if he wasn’t disappointed I didn’t make a pass at him. Back then I was desirable.

There’s a lot of arguing that goes on about the proper role of government, which just makes sense because there isn’t a “right” answer, only opinions. Those who say government should do a lot of regulating assume the government knows best and those who say it should stay out of our lives as much as possible put, I think, too much credit on the humans it is meant to govern. Still, hardly anyone argues that the proper role of our government is to confuse us.

Yeah, that cute little car is mine, but that’s not the point.

It used to be that streets didn’t have these obnoxious lumps in them, and maybe they’re just a southern California thing. There purpose, I think, is to slow traffic down, which reduces the slaughter and mayhem on our neighborhood streets. It also saves gas, so that’s a good thing.

Years ago, when I first started seeing these, they were painted with diagonal stripes, which surely caught your eye. Then, a few years later, some more enlightened legislature decided that they might be catching drivers unaware so they added yellow street signs alerting us to the (speed) bumps in the road. Some time after the latest episode of slurrying the streets to make them look, if not function, any better, an even more informed legislature must have decided that while marking the bumps, themselves, with diagonal lines, that cost more than just writing on the street.

Why they chose to call them “humps,” I cannot explain. It may have to do with us human’s fondness for that which is new, or maybe the world “bump” was too difficult for many of our drivers to grasp. We’d gotten used to speed bumps, so maybe the thinking was to call them something different in the guise of updating or enhancing them, or maybe it was just to draw attention to them as being something new.

Either way, I think it’s silly.

I have no idea how many fatal accidents there ever were on that street, but since it’s the next block over, I’d think I would have heard the sirens or known about it. The number of lives saved, of course, approaches the infinite, in spite of the damage to done to all the cars that are now lower to the ground to save on gas mileage.

In any case, I guess I should write someone in government a strongly worded letter about this nonsense. If we can reach a consensus, an agreement, on the burgeoning hump-bump debate, there may yet be hope for the more serious issues.

I say, let’s start with something small.

As some point in the distant past I heard someone ask me if I’d rather be right than happy. I’m not sure how I answered, but the true answer would be “right.”

I can’t just “get along.” When something bugs me, it bugs me, and I have no idea how to stop letting that happen.

Like at least some other people, this year I learned about superdelegates. Now, I can understand some of the reasoning behind the Democratic Party having them, but a lot of people seem to be very upset with the whole idea. “Democracy!” they shout, and while there’s a lot to be said in favor of that, a political party, I think, can select its nominee any way they want.

Still, I can sort of see why you might want superdelegates. I guess they’re necessary if you need a majority and not just a plurality to select your candidate, but I also like how they add the human factor into the nominating process. It can be like having a human monitoring a computer or piece of machinery. Without the superdelegates, the process could be entirely automated, and I’m not so sure that’s always a good thing.

If Barack Obama, who was leading last time I looked, cracks and does something stupid, it’s good to have the superdelegates being able to pick someone else. I don’t think they should overturn the will of the people on a whim, but if video surfaces of him gnawing on the bones of babies while seated on an American Flag while dressed in only a garter belt and high heels with a butt plug shoved up his ass, I think it would be reasonable to allow the superdelegates to overturn his nomination.

But that’s not what bugs me about superdelegates.

It’s the way they’re referred to by many in the media, as if they were a bulk item. One of my favorite cartoons shows a guy in line at a grocery store correcting the “Ten items or less” sign to read “fewer,” and the caption reads “Everybody’s an editor.”

Okay, not really all that funny, but it tickles my editorial soul. There is a difference between less and fewer, and it bugs me when people use the wrong term. One, fewer, is used to refer to countable items, even if it’s a large number the stars in the sky. Less is used to talk about conceptual items, or those who we consider bulk items. There is less sugar on fewer donuts, fewer dollars means less money. It’s not really that hard I don’t think, but it does require a bit of thinking and evidently that amount of thinking is more than most people care to exert.

It’s correct to say Obama or Hillary will need more delegates to win the nomination. But I wince whenever I hear someone refer to the superdelegates in bulk terms, although a specific instance of that escapes me now. Maybe I’ll edit one in next time I hear it. If I watch any cable news program, I’m sure it will take fewer than five minutes.

[Edit: Okay, the biggest offense (from a usage standpoint) about these superdelegates is how often some knucklehead will talk about the amount of delegates needed. That's just plain wrong, and I'd be insulted if I were a superdelegate and was being referred to as if I was some sort of bulk commodity. Delegates do NOT come in amounts, they come in numbers! ]

My point is, if I wasn’t so insistent on being right all the time, I could more thoroughly enjoy this race.

On the other hand, there’s this, which is pretty cool and depressing, and this, which is equally depressing but is a little movie.

Einstein wrote somewhat famously about relativity in his work in physics, but his theory gets more use, I think, in everyday politics. Many of these politicians, it turns out, are lawyers, and if there’s one group other than editors who’ve learned to be exacting in their use of language, it’s lawyers.
They try hard to speak at great length and say very little, and when you think about what they’re saying, you might find they imply more than they state. The more they do this, the more successful they are as politicians.

English is pretty old language, I think, and was more suited to talking about groups of things back when it was invented. It’s brimming with vague words to talk about numbers, ones we use every day somewhat casually.

We talk about a couple of things, everyone knows we’re talking about two. A few is three or four, and several seems to me to be talking about no more than five to seven. After that, I think we pretty much run out of words except for dozens, hundreds, grosses, and others that don’t get frequent use. We do have plenty of other vague words to describe numbers of things, not the least of which is plenty, itself. Except for some and many. We use those a lot, and politicians are very fond of them and use them all the time. Some is a great word. It logically means “more than one,” and is used to describe, literally, any number of things, especially when we don’t want to be specific.

When I say, “I have some problems,” unless you press me for details, you have no idea how many problems I have. If I say I have a handful, you get an idea, more than you would have if I said lots. Lots, like some, is relative.

President Bush occasionally tries to show his awareness of opposition by saying that “some on the other side” or “some people” disagree with him. The thing is, he’s right, but he isn’t saying anything. Some can mean four people, and in that context it would only make sense if he was talking about a local Lions club, not the 300 million American people.

“Many people support my proposal,” is equally true. It sounds great, almost as if nearly a majority of people are on his side, but it would be a true statement if only a dozen did.

We have unspecified words to indicate one more than half, a majority, but in the case of the US there’s a wide gap between dozens and 150,000,001 that none of our words specifically indicate. When our tribes numbered no more than twenty, some people agreeing could mean you had less than half, less than the number that might be indicated by many.

Whenever I hear any politician use these terms in their speeches or debates, I cringe, even more so when they use them as if I know what they mean. There should be no “many” in politics, not unless I know for a fact that they’re talking about more than six people in their inner party.
It sounds good, but means nothing. Maybe that says more about a politician than I care to consider.