The Agony of Early Voting, The Joy of Mail-In Voting

The first time I voted early here in Florida was in 2008.  It was a Saturday, and I drove downtown to the county clerk's office where the early votes were being taken.  I'd never done it before, but the job I had at the time frequently required me to start early and stay late.  I figured I wouldn't have time to vote on election day.  So I'd just roll in, fill out the ballot, and run on home. 

Then I got there and saw a line of people so long I would have thought it was for a Justin Bieber concert.  Except that the people in the line were all over 18, which is atypical of a Bieber concert.  Also, Justin Bieber was only 14 back then, and apparently was only annoying other Canadians.  A few quick inquiries told me that the wait would be hours.  But it was this or not vote.

I took a deep breath and got in line.  I always have bad luck when I wait in line at a government building (DMV, tax assessor, whatever), because I'm always in line with weirdos.  I know normal people have to go to these offices (presumably, everyone does), but they never go at the same time I do.  Every time I go, the line is full of creepy-looking, heavy-breathing, basement-dwelling guys. So not only am I waiting an hour or so to get a license or pay taxes, but a bunch of would-be child molesters are breathing down my neck the entire time. It's unpleasant.

However, this particular line was not a bunch of freaks. Several women who worked at the nearby hospital were in line behind me.  Immediately ahead of me was a guy who worked at a local internet company.  Ahead of him was a local state representative, who had come out to vote with the rest of us schmucks.  These were all normal people. I was somewhat amazed.

I noticed several of the candidates working the line, trying to drum up last minute votes. Most of these were candidates for offices that nobody pays attention to. But a few were running to be judges and aldermen. I found this strangely heartening. We may have to march into town halls or courtrooms and bow and scrape and say "your honor" or whatever once they're elected, but for now these would-be pols had to work the line and beg for votes from the hoi polloi.  This actually reinforced my belief in democracy.

It didn't last long.  Once I got past the politicians, I noticed the freak show.  Every activist in town was passing out flyers and other assorted swag to the unsuspecting voters.  There are laws against campaigning near a polling place, but the law in Florida says no campaigning within one hundred feet.  This line was way longer than one hundred feet, and the activists were staying well away from the entrance.

One guy was there from the local Democratic party.  He handed me a slip of paper and said "Here's your Democratic slate.  When you go in there, you don't even have to think, just pick the candidates we've listed here.".  I took the thing to shut him up, but couldn't help but be a bit stunned that a party representative was encouraging me not to think.

An elderly lady came up next and glared at me with rheumy eyes and shoved a slip of paper at me with one quavering hand.  She said something to me in a wheezy voice, but I couldn't make it out.  Having always been taught to respect my elders (even the ones that look like they could be zombies), I just nodded politely and took the slip.  It was pro-life leaflet saying something about the abortion "holacust.".  Republicans, and particularly pro-lifers, spend a lot of time trying to shake the belief that they are ignorant, inbred, crazy people.  It's a belief I've always found unfair. She wasn't helping their cause.

I dealt with dozens of similar nutjobs that day. When I finally got to the front of the line (six hours later), I saw a little form that came with the ballot that gave me the option of having my ballot mailed to me next year.  "Hell, yes," I thought.  Anything to avoid this nightmare again.  Since that fateful day, my ballot has been delivered to my mailbox.  I also discovered that day why I always bumped into creeps and weirdos at the DMV and the tax assessor's office.  Normal people do this stuff over the phone or online or through the mail.  Now I get my ballot through the mail too, and the number of oddballs that I bump into has decreased dramatically.

Of course, I completely forgot to vote in 2009.  My ballot was just collecting dust on my coffee table for months.  One could argue that this reduces turnout. Still, after watching all of the bitching and moaning about early election nonsense in Florida for the 2012 election, I see the value of mailed ballots.  No more long waits is just the least of it.

Two years ago, I bought a house in a somewhat nicer area than I had been living in.  The market was at rock bottom, so I could afford it.  And unlike my previous neighborhood, politicians and party volunteers routinely knock on doors in election season.  Every now and then I'll actually talk to one, when I'm in a good mood.  I'm rarely in a good mood.  Now that the ballot is mailable, if some campaign douche comes by I can laugh in his face and tell him I already voted.  Of course, that's a blatant lie.  I wait until the last minute to deliver my ballot.  But it is effective at getting people to go away.

The other huge advantage is that I get to troll the putzes waiting in line.  I could just mail the ballot in and not hand deliver it.  But that takes away half of the fun.  Tonight, I'll go to the poll at the busiest time, when the dinosaurs are waiting in line to vote in an actual polling booth.  I'll see hundreds of people who came there straight from work.  They'll wait in line for hours while their kids are at home not getting supper because their parents had a democratic urge.  And I'll saunter by those long lines, occasionally looking askance at these geniuses doing it the old-fashioned way.  I'll relish the hate-filled looks of the masses trapped in that seemingly endless queue.  If someone asks me what I think I'm doing, I'll smile sweetly and say "My ballot's right here, suckas!"  Then I'll drop my ballot in the slot and bail the hell out.

Of course, the biggest advantage to mail-in ballots would be noise reduction.  I've noticed, as always, a frenetic last-ditch effort by both campaigns to snag last minute converts.  Pundits jump in front of every camera they can.  Television ads jam the airwaves.  Tweets clog cyberspace.  As the desperation increases, the ridiculousness increases.  Crazy predictions, outlandish analysis, and absurd claims bombard us at every turn. 

If we all mailed in our votes at least a week in advance, we could seriously reduce the crazy levels.  I'm generally supportive of encouraging people to shut up, and this would be an effective way to do that.  Not that I'm opposed to people speaking their minds.  I just prefer that they say something useful.  Most last minute pundit spew is mindless blather, and therefore shut-up-worthy.  I prefer to hear thoughtful analysis.  Or at least mindless blather with an underlying meaning, which is what I do on this blog.  Mail-in voting shuts up the chattering class early and prevents the circus that is early voting lines. 

I don't know if other states mail out ballots, but if they did we could reduce the noise level significantly.  We could tell the door-to-door campaigners to take a hike.  We could render last minute misadventures in punditry obsolete.  I would have to give up voter line trolling if everyone mailed it in.  But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the betterment of America.  Besides, I can find other ways to be a dick.  Mail-in voting: for a better, quieter, less annoying election.

Shut Up About Your Mother

As election season thankfully draws to a close, I suddenly feel the urge to rant about one of my pet peeves of campaigning politicians.  Everyone from national candidates to some jackass running for city council of Southwest Podunk seems to feel the need to say various nice things about the women in their lives.  I couldn't possibly care less.  Don't get me wrong, though.  My distaste for hearing anecdotes about wives and mothers and what-not shouldn't be misinterpreted as misogyny.  I just think it's a colossal waste of time.

For starters, let's think about politicians lavishing praise on their wives.  Both presidential candidates spent far too much time telling us how great their wives are.  This was received with uproarious applause at both conventions.  Why?  It's not terribly unusual for guy like his wife.  A guy who doesn't like his wife is usually a douchebag.  Of course, this isn't always true.  A guy could be married to a woman who likes cats.  Or tofu.  Or Justin Bieber.  But for the most part, any guy who is willing to move in with a woman, share the sheets, give up all decisions on interior decorating, make an effort to put the toilet seat down, and put an unnecessarily expensive ring on her finger, is probably at least reasonably fond of her.

One of the only things more obvious than a guy who loves his wife is a guy who loves his mother.  So why are we inundated with endless little stories about how wonderful a politician's mother was?  Men who don't like their wives may be douchebags, but men who don't like their mothers are usually sociopaths.  Well, unless their mothers beat them.  Still, if a man's mother beat him, that's probably what made him a sociopath.  Of course we like our mothers.  They fed us, clothed us, changed our diapers, and wiped our asses.  And if she breast-fed us, she's also the first girl we got to second base with.

There's one other little politician's story that's even dumber.  A few have mentioned how great their grandmothers were.  Of course, your grandmother was great.  The only difference between one grandmother and another is the little pet name we have for her.  But it doesn't matter if she's a Gamma, a Nana, a Mam-ma, or a Mi-Ma, she's the one who gives us free stuff.  How the hell could we not like that gal?  Any guy who doesn't like receiving gifts lacks even the faintest glimmer of self-interest.  Usually, the only people who don't have self-interest are dead people.  There aren't any corpses running for office.  Harry Reid wasn't running this time.

What the hell are these pols trying to tell me?  If you tell me that you like your wife, your mother, and your grandmother, all you're telling me is that you're not a douchebag, not a sociopath, and have at least a minimal amount of self-interest.  This doesn't qualify someone to be president or mayor or dogcatcher.  This means they have the minimum qualifications for being human.  So knock it off with your charming little stories, candidates.  I'm not impressed.  If you want me to vote for you, tell me something you don't have in common with most of the world's men.

Clorox - a Uniter, Not a Divider

Brandindex.com recently released a story on the brands preferred by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. You can read it here. But if you're too lazy for that, just look at this chart.  If you're too blind to read the chart, follow the damn link.

 

First I was struck by the utterly unsurprising stuff.  For example, Republicans like Fox News.  In a related story, the sky is blue and the sun rises in the east.  Republicans like the History channel too. The party that's considered more traditional would naturally be more inclined to pay attention to history. Also, the History Channel consists primarily of footage of American soldiers shooting Nazis and Commies and Terrorists and Talibans. Which is something Republicans are naturally inclined to enjoy.

In other non-surprising developments, Republicans like Chick-Fil-a.  They rallied around it during the protests a while back when the Chick-Fil-A boss voiced an opinion opposed to gay marriage.  Republicans claim it's to support the first amendment.  Democrats say it's homophobia.  I'm not getting into that, because I already blogged about that on July 26th and I don't like repeating myself. 

Democrats like Google.  Not surprising.  Google has some left-wing cred, primarily because many of it's management types contributed to Obama's reelection campaign.  Democrats also like PBS.  They claim it's because they like Big Bird and Kermit the Frog and offering educational tools that are available to all, including low income kids.  Republicans will say it's government quasi-communism and public broadcasting should go away.  I say do what you will with Big Bird and Kermit, but don't touch Oscar the Grouch because he's awesome.

Then I noticed a few things that surprised me.  The Democrats like Levi's, but not so much with the Republicans.  I thought the Republicans owned the rough and tumble cowboy image.  Apparently, they like cowboys, but refuse to dress like them.  Republicans also appear to like the Discovery Channel more than Democrats.  It's a little confusing, since Democrats have frequently made attempts to paint Republicans as anti-science.  Having said that, I know that the best show on the Discovery Channel is Mythbusters, which consists primarily of two guys blowing stuff up.  So maybe Republicans are just tuning in for the explosions.  I know I do.

Republicans don't appear to like Amazon the way Democrats and Independents do.  They liked Amazon's former CEO (not that it was enough to get her elected), but apparently not Amazon.  I don't get it.  I use Amazon for one reason.  I don't like to DRIVE THROUGH TONS OF TRAFFIC AND DODGE NINE MILLION STUPID, DUMBASS KIDS IN THE MALL WHEN I GO CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!  Given that Republicans have a reputation (deserved or otherwise) of being older and crankier than Democrats, I would think they'd be with me on this.

But then I noticed the unifying brands.  Craftsman and Cheerios are pretty classic American brands, so it's not a surprise that all three groups would rate them highly.  But all three groups also rated Clorox highly.  Clorox?  Sure it's useful and it's been around forever, but it's not something we'd consider exciting.  It's a fairly simple chemical we use to perform relatively mundane tasks.  How does this rate so highly?  It took me awhile, but I finally figured it out.  Clorox, in all it's simplicity, helps us perform one of the most valuable tasks there is.  And that is...removing fecal matter from men's underwear.

These offensive little stains, commonly known as skidmarks, are recognized as the primary drawback of men wearing tightey-whiteys.  Granted, women have their own form of tightey-whiteys, but they are not as well known for their tendency to collect fecal matter.  Although they have been linked to an increasing number of camel-toe incidents.  Skidmarks in men's underwear can cause all sorts of mayhem.  Most notably, their presence can be sort of a deal-breaker in the bedroom.  So, in part, we owe continued procreation, a necessary part of the survival of humanity, to Clorox. 

That's the revelation.  Clorox is one of the foundations of our society, and indeed all humanity.  We couldn't exist without it.  Two of our most necessary biological functions are procreation and defecation.  And without Clorox, the latter would prevent the former.  Unless men could find women who like shit stains.  They exist, but I think they're all German.  Sexual relations with them typically involves a safeword, so it's not for everyone.

My eyes have been opened.  Clorox is the secret to human existence, and a solution to many of our society's ills.  I think Clorox can produce a better America.  For example, members of all three parties have shown an increasing distaste for bullshit.  Just go watch a political attack ad.  Or a political convention.  Or a Justin Bieber video.  It's everywhere.  So I propose new and improved, bullshit-strength Clorox.  Old Clorox paved the way for human expansion, and a new form of Clorox can help us achieve our destiny, by making us less stupid and asinine.  Bullshit-strength Clorox.  For a better future.

Infidelity - the Secret to Punditry

The other day, I was reading a little piece on Mediaite.com about how Mark Sanford, former South Carolina, was apparently being a racist. He said that President Obama would be "throwing spears" at the debate, presumably to make up for his poor performance in the first debate. Normally, I'm a bit suspicious of accusations of racism based on code words, but I know that "spear thrower" is a somewhat denigrating phrase used to describe black people.  On the other hand, Mark Sanford's mistress was Argentinian, so he can't be that racist.

Then it hit me.  What the hell is a man who fooled around on his wife doing as a pundit?  Presumably, pundits are people who's word means something.  The're not just experts, people have to have reason to believe them, to take their word for things.  How is it that people think I'll take the word of a man who can't be trusted by his wife?

But then I remembered that there's nothing new about this.  Newt Gingrich works as a pundit for Fox News, and he's renowned for marital excess, even while impeaching other guys for marital excess.  Elliot Spitzer was a high-class John for high-class hookers.  He still managed to secure a show on CNN, which is now cancelled, and a show on Current TV, which is not cancelled, but nobody watches it because it's on Current TV.

This is a terrible injustice.  We are a) trusting the political word of untrustworthy men and b) treating women unfairly.  Woman politicians can't get away with this.  First of all, I went looking.  Woman politicians don't cheat that often.  What's more, they can get into huge trouble just for being accused of cheating.  Both Sarah Palin (ok, not exactly a politician) and Governor Nikki Haley were accused of infidelity.  The accusations were just that, accusations.  No proof was ever presented.  But they had to do all sorts of damage control.  Cheating isn't a resume builder for woman politicians, only men.

Why is this?  Well, the demographic that drives advertising dollars (and therefore news media) is men between 25 to 54.  And no matter how modernized we men are, we still have a little residual oinkity-oinkishness.  I'm one of those medern guys, I know what I'm talking about.  We can forgive men who cheat.  Apparently, powerful men fooling around enhances their power.  Thank you, Kennedy brothers.  This apparently makes them strong alpha male types, not man-sluts as they should be.  Certain exceptions apply.  Oinkiness only allows for heterosexual affairs.  Also, the affairs must be sexual, not cybersexual.  Gay infidelity (Larry Craig, Jim McGreevey) or bizarro Twitter affairs (Anthony Weiner), don't affirm alpha male status, so no jobs for those guys.

But there's a way to reconcile oinkishness with opportunities for female philandering.  All a woman politician needs to do is have a lesbian affair.  As long as they're both hot.  Like I said, oink.  Our oinkiness won't allow for non-hot women pundits anyway.  Lesbian philandering will give female politicans increased opportunities in female punditry.  Well, right after they retire in disgrace.

Lesbians can break down the barriers for other women.  And nothing would produce better ratings than a Republican lesbian arguing with Elliot Spitzer or a Democratic lesbian arguing with Mark Sanford.  Or perhaps a Republican lesbian debating a Democratic lesbian.  I'm sure that scene has been seen before on TV, but it was probably in a porn movie.  If it was on Fox or MSNBC, advertising dollars would go through the roof.  The economy would rebound overnight.

I realize, it might be simpler to demand that cheating politicians stay out of the public eye.  But then we would miss out on the economic benefits of seeing hot, arguing lesbians on basic cable.  So instead, lesbians must break ground for other women.  Only girl-girl love can close the infidelity gap.  Several female politicians must come out as lesbians, cheat on their husbands, then enter into a illustrious punditry career.  Once a few hot lesbian chicks do it, the oinking crowd will get used to the idea.  At that point, anyone will be able to fool around and still get a pundit job.  Then we will finally have infidelity justice for all. 

Why New Media Doesn't Suck as Badly as Old Media Thinks

I read a column by Dan K. Thomasson earlier this week entitled "All the News Fit to Tweet?".  Although I frequently read his work, and usually like it, I could see where he was going with this right off the bat.  This was going to a be a "shut up, stupid internet" column.  I've seen this before.  It wasn't too long ago that Juan Williams, another reporter who I have great respect for (why do people say that just before they're about to take a swipe at you?), snarkily implied that Michelle Malkin  (whose work I also frequently enjoy reading) was just a blogger, not a real reporter.  The tone of Dan Thomasson's article is similar to this.

Now I want to be clear that I'm not trashing the whole column.  Most of the column is dedicated to mourning the loss of four great journalists who died over the past year or so.  They were David Broder, Jim McCartney, Bill Raspberry, and Jim Naughton.  We lost some greats, and his column is primarily an homage to them.  But his column also implies that the next crop of reporters is incapable of taking over where they left off.  I don't buy it. 

Here's where he went wrong in the column, I think:

It is hard to imagine how reporting on public affairs has been enhanced by the art of blogging or tweeting without the benefit of measured thought or the vetting of facts. But that is the future, God help us, of a profession once proudly dedicated to the proposition that the best defense of liberty is an informed populace. All the news that's fit to tweet – you have to be kidding.

The first sentence seems provably false.  Bloggers made their way into the media spotlight by ... vetting facts.  That's blogger patient zero - the fact checker.  Bloggers are not necessarily reporters by trade.  This frequently is a benefit.  For example, a reporter may misspeak about a matter of law, medicine, or finance.  When that happens, a blogging lawyer, physician, or financier can correct them.  After all, these professionals are experts in their fields.  The reporter isn't necessarily.  Bloggers can actually add something that regular reporters can't, because they may have greater knowledge on certain subjects.  And people like this are quite capable of "measured thought."

Bloggers like this may not be typical.  I understand that the blogosphere may be primarily a cacophony of uninformed voices.  I don't know this for certain, but I've seen some ignorant blog posts.  Even if dumb bloggers aren't typical, they're common enough.  But I don't see it as a problem, merely a stage of evolution.  This is because I know how the print press got started in this country. 

There was a time where the print press was just any random jackass with a printing press.  This goes back to colonial times.  These early journalists came in all forms: biased and unbiased, liberal and conservative, smart and stupid, sane and crazy.  Some of the early papers were not news so much as propaganda.  Like many blogs, these early newspapers frequently lacked credibility.  But from that early chaos, a few great ones emerged.

These days, a blog can be started by any random jackass with bandwidth.  Also known as...any random jackass.  Everyone has access to bandwidth.  Seriously, I've seen homeless people in internet cafes.  Although they could have just been hipsters.  It's hard to spot the difference.  Anyone can start a blog, and there are plenty out there.  Blogging is still in its infancy, and has the potential to develop into something that can enhance mass media.  In some ways it already has, but the jury's still out.

Tweeting is a different animal.  Many tweets are just sound bites, and they can exacerbate the sound bite culture of the media.  Sound bites were a problem long before tweeting, and we don't want to make it worse.  Other tweets are just mini-rants.  Bill Maher once referred to tweets as "brain-farts", and I think these are the tweets he was talking about.  Tweets aren't long enough to capture big ideas and they're far too short to be considered "measured thought." 

Fortunately, most bloggers and online reporters that I see tweeting don't use them in either of these ways.  Most of the tweets I see are from columnists and news websites with the title of a new piece and a link to follow to the site.  This is just the e-commerce equivalent of a newspaper boy standing on a corner yelling "Extra! Extra!  Read all about it!"  There's nothing offensive about that kind of tweet.  It's just the 21st century incarnation of a practice that's as old as the business.

Occasional condescension from newspaper reporters is unavoidable.  When television journalism first came out, newspaper reporters didn't consider it real reporting.  Now that internet journalism exists, both print and television reporters occasionally turn up their noses.  This isn't unique to journalism.  When movies first came out, theater actors thought it was crap.  Movie actors frequently think themselves better than television actors.  But these are just stages of evolution for the acting profession.  So too are newspapers, television, and the Internet stages of evolution for media.

So relax, Dan-o.  I know that there is a fear that internet reporters don't necessarily do the same type of in depth reporting that newspapers do.  Maybe they don't.  At least not yet.  But as long as there is a demand for that type of reporting, bloggers will adapt to meet that demand.  I miss the likes of David Broder, Jim McCartney, Bill Raspberry, and Jim Naughton as well.  But the new crop of reporters, even if most of them are bloggers, will fill their shoes.  It may be messy and ugly for a while.  Evolution is like that.  But eventually, I believe, it will mature into something that can inform the public as well as any newspaper.

Wanted, Stupidectomy

Being independent means I am frequently a bit ambivalent about the outcome of election season.  It's kind of like watching a Superbowl where I'm not a huge fan of either team.  It's not important to me who wins, I just want the game to be good.  My life will not be noticeably affected by a win for either team, but I figure that a game that is a hard fought cliffhanger is better than a blowout.  If both sides put up a good fight, it's good for the fans and for the league.  People will remember the game and be excited about next season.

Elections work the same way.  I've lived during Republican and Democratic administrations at national, state, and local levels.  I lived through good times and bad times, and whether or not times were good in my life didn't seem to have much to do with who was running the country.  It was not important to me that one party or the other be in charge.  As long as both sides sent their best, I could be confident that the business of government would be handled.  How good my life was (and is) has more to do with me than with them.  But this only works if the best candidates are running.

Enter Todd Akin, and his screwy junk science theories.  He said, with a straight face, that women have some sort of natural defense that prevents pregnancy when they are raped.  Damn.  Dee-amn.  How does a guy who hasn't lived in a cave for decades come up with that?  I'm aware that there are partisan bubbles, but Akins inhabiting a bubble doesn't explain things.  The evidence of that is that all Republicans of any significance, even those who are confirmed bubble-dwellers, have called for him to step down.  But he didn't.

It's not the first time a politician refused, at least initially, to bow out after a major screw-up.  Anthony Weiner got busted sending dirty tweets to assorted women to whom he wasn't married.  He denied it initially.  When the truth was known, he refused to resign despite urgings of party leaders.  It wasn't until after weeks of wrangling that he eventually decided to call it quits.  And he should have.  This sort of thing robs politicians of their credibility.  Besides, I like it when politicians are occasionally forced out of office.  It reminds other politicians just how expendable they are, which can help keep them honest.

But this is nothing compared to Akins' misdeed.  Anthony Weiner is guilty of being horny.  This is an affliction that men are frequently affected by.  Check that.  This is an affliction that all men are affected by, unless they're dead.  Or eunuchs.  Akins' is guilty of mind-blowing stupidity, a far more serious condition.  Horny politicians can still do a good job (I'm sure we can all think of at least one that did), but stupid politicians are a problem.

Earlier today, a friend of mine argued that he may not actually be stupid.  He just believed some quack scientist with a loony theory.  Okay, maybe.  But that just means he's gullible, not necessarily stupid.  Gullible politicians aren't a good thing either.  I imagine there are a few people in Washington who might love to take advantage of a gullible politician.  Washington is full of quasi-conmen who would consider him an excellent mark.  Let's not give them the chance.

Stupid or gullible, he's not fit for service.  He doesn't really have many supporters in this, but there are a few who point to a long record of service.  Why should we throw that away?  Because politicians must realize that they're expendable, even ones with long records of service.  He's shown himself to be stupid, or at least gullible.  We can find someone better.

When second-rate players play in the Superbowl, the result is one side blowing away the other.  It makes the game less worthwhile.  It can damage the entire league.  Viewers lose interest.  Akins is a third-rate benchwarmer who's been moved to the starting lineup.  Let's not do this to ourselves.  I can live with either Republican or Democrat.  Neither is better to my mind; they just have differing strengths and weaknesses.  What I can't live with is stupid politicians.  If either side provides cover for their chumps, we have second-rate politicians.  Republicans have asked Akins to bow out and take one for the party.  He should take one for the whole country.  We're all better off without him, even if his pulling out means the other party wins.

I've learned one lesson from this.  The Republican voters of Missouri haven't deserted Akins.  They should.  Every time a politician does something this stupid, I'll be a deserter.  In every election for the rest of my life I'll automatically vote against any candidate who displays this level of ignorance, even if I was initially a supporter.  A smart politician can be dealt with when elected.  If the ideas of the smart politician are distasteful to me, I can work against that.  I don't necessarily have to wait for an election.  But a dumb politician can drag down the system.  I call this policy "Stupidectomy".  If I can eliminate the stupid from the political mix, the quality of both parties will improve.  Then we're all better off, no matter who wins.  Because the game will have been a battle of the best there is.  We might not always get our preferred candidate, but we'll never get a lousy one.

Americanized, F-ck Yeah!

I was at a lunch with some former co-workers the other day.  One of them, a Vietnamese guy I worked with a couple of years ago, wanted to go to a new Vietnamese restaurant.  I normally don’t have a problem experimenting with various cuisines, and I know from experience that virtually every item on a Vietnamese menu, when pronounced correctly, sounds like an English word or phrase for a dirty sex act.  So even when the food is nasty, it’s entertaining.  For example, every decent sized town in North America seems to have at least one restaurant names Pho Quyen.  Guess what that sounds like?

The food at this restaurant was decent, but not so great that I’ll hurry back.  But my little Vietnamese buddy couldn’t help but snark about how “Americanized” it was.  Of course it was Americanized.  My dad was drafted during the Vietnam war, and he’s told me about how authentic Vietnamese tastes and, more importantly, smells.  Nobody would buy that here.  Sorry.

It’s not just the Vietnamese guy.  A Mexican friend of mine once complained that Taco Bell wasn’t truly Mexican.  Damn right.  It’s Texican, pendejo.  He also rolled his eyes when I once pushed the lime down into a bottle of Corona.  He then treated me to a lengthy lecture about how Mexicans put limes in the top of their beers to keep flies away.  Apparently, we’re not supposed to put the lime in the beer.  I told him that I was just doing it American style.  Strangely, I haven’t heard from him recently.  I wonder why that is?

“Americanized” is commonly used as code for “cheapened”.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  This is one of my many pet peeves.  People from all over the world come here and bring their cuisine with them.  It’s only a matter of time until American foodies (like me) try their food and tell our friends.  Then Americans with a little cooking skill (not like me) combine it with other things.  You see these restaurants all over; they’re called “fusion” restaurants.  I generally avoid these, though.  These are usually overpriced yuppie hangouts where you pay twice the price for half the normal portion.  But if the price is so damned high, I’m not sure how “Americanization” can be likened to “cheapening”.

There are many non-overpriced examples of this.  My high school French teacher used to make snide remarks about “Croissandwiches.”  She wasn’t French, but she managed to affect that stereotypical snootiness that the French are renowned for.  She would haughtily say that the French would never do this; this was strictly an American (Read: cheap, redneck, or low-brow) way of doing things.  Hell yes, it’s an American way of doing things.

Here’s how it works.  One day, some French person makes a croissant for an American.  The American thinks “Isn’t this just adorable!  But it needs protein.  I’ll slap an egg and some cheese and bacon or sausage on this sucker.”  Suddenly, it’s a French breakfast pastry with a full English breakfast crammed inside that you can eat while keeping one hand on the wheel!  A monument to the melting pot; fine foreign cuisine meets American ingenuity.  How can this be cheap?  If it was cheap, hipster café type places (Panera Bread, Atlanta Bread Company, etc.) wouldn’t have adapted it from Burger King.  They may give it stuffier names (like “breakfast soufflé”), but it’s the same thing.  And yet, this is still considered an American bastardization of European cuisine, and is therefore inferior.  Sigh. 

Fine.  Here’s the ultimate example of American fusion: Southern food.  I’m more than happy to experiment with various types of food, but I still like to indulge in the cuisine I grew up with.  Like fried things and dead pigs.  But it’s not limited to that.  Southern food includes things like grits and cornbread and barbecue (originally Native American), chitlins (originally English), tripe (French and Italian), fried chicken (Scottish), and okra and black-eyed peas (brought from Africa).  This is just a sampling; I could go on all day.  This most noteworthy and uniquely American form of cuisine is the combination of dozens (if not hundreds) of ingredients and cooking styles from dozens (if not hundreds) of cultures.

Only in America is this possible.  I see tourists from all over marvel at this thing we’ve created.  It’s one of the things that makes the South special.  Admittedly, it’s also the reason the South is the fattest part of the country, which is why I’ll occasionally eat stuff like Vietnamese food.  But let’s stop pretending Americanized food is cheap.  We haven’t taken away value; we’ve added value.  So f-ck yeah, it’s Americanized.  Eat it, b-tches.

Noise Pollution from Manufactured Outrage

Yet again, I am amazed by the marvelous, extraordinary, collective dumbassitude of both sides of the political debate.  In the past week, both candidates have been slammed for committing terrible gaffes.  One small problem.  There were no gaffes.  Both made bland, reasonable statements.  Then nutty reporters and political operatives (frequently the same people) turned them into earth shattering scandals.

First, the president stated that nobody is successful on their own.  “Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business you didn’t build that.”  Meaning, you didn’t build the roads and bridges.  No business exists in a vacuum.  Nobody makes it entirely on their own.  No kidding.  All true.  So true it’s boring and obvious. 

He was (yet again) accused of socialism.  This is not a socialist remark.  It’s purely capitalist.  It’s Adam Smith capitalist.  Division of labor.  Because someone else does things like generate power, provide water, collect garbage, deliver mail, and build roads and bridges, you have more time to do what you do best.  That's old school, retro, roots capitalism.

The right seized on the “If you’ve got a business you didn’t build that,” part, and ignored the rest.  Fox and Friends even went so far as to play the lead up to the quote, then edit out the part that puts everything in context, and then play the “gaffe” line.  Nice edit, geniuses.  Do you know what happens when reporters do a hatchet job like that?  Let me refresh your memory.

Not too terribly long ago, someone at NBC chopped up a piece of a phone call between George Zimmerman and a 911 operator.  In the full call, the 911 operator asks for the race of the man Zimmerman is following.  NBC edited that part out, making it sound like Zimmerman mentioned that the Trayvon Martin was black without any prompting.  This made him look like a racist.  When the edit came to light, people at NBC got fired over it.  Who are you firing, Fox and Friends?

And now, on to a similar non-gaffe by Mitt Romney. Apparently, he insulted the London Olympics. One minor problem. He did not even remotely say anything offensive.  Here are his exact words.

Brian Williams: In the short time you’ve been here in London, do they look ready to your experienced eye? 

Mitt Romney: You know it’s hard to know just how well it will turn out, there are a few things that were disconcerting, stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.

So far, he mentioned that he can’t see the future (like about seven billion other people) and that not having security and customs people show up to work so that they can help protect the athletes is “disconcerting” and “not encouraging”.  Okay, maybe the Brits don’t feel great about that, but that’s because they screwed that part up.  That’s valid criticism.  They don’t get to blame Mitt Romney because they dropped the ball.  Words like “Disconcerting” and “not encouraging” are actually fairly mild language for a couple of impressive breakdowns. But he continues:

Mitt Romney: Because in the games…there are three parts that make games successful. Number One, of course, are the athletes, that’s what overwhelmingly the games are about.

This is a boring statement of the obvious. But I guess Obama gets in trouble for those too.  Next, he says:

Mitt Romney: Number Two are the volunteers, and they’ll have great volunteers here.

Actually, sort of a compliment. I know compliments make Irish people uncomfortable, but not English, Scots, and Welsh. Sorry, you can’t take offense at that. But he’s not quite done:

Mitt Romney: But number three are the people of the … of the country do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment, that’s something which we only find out once the actually games begin.

In other words, the games only work if the people make it happen.  Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.  Another bland and obvious statement.  The only thing bad you can say about that is it’s a little noncommittal.

Apparently, that last bit was very quickly interpreted by everyone involved as a presumption that the United Kingdom is incapable of pulling off the Olympics.  I actually find this a bit heartening.  It is trendy for people to claim that Americans are dumb.  I’m glad to see that the British are just as capable of stupidity.

This election is increasingly abhorrent.  We focus on gaffes when they happen, and invent them when they don’t.  I guess I won’t hear anything on the news that’s actually relevant.  You know, the kind of stuff that I could make a decision with.  I guess I’ll just get drunk on election day and pull levers at random.  Drunken voting can’t be much worse than uninformed voting, and the press and pundits seem committed to ensuring that I am not at all informed on anything that’s actually useful.

No Free Speech on the Freedom Trail

According to the mayor of Boston, Chick-Fil-A can’t open stores there because they’re run by Christians who think homosexuality is a sin.  This is because the owners of the chain made their opinions clear in an interview.  Please stop acting shocked that some Christians don’t approve of homosexuality.  This isn’t new.  You don’t have to like it.  I realize that gay is fashionable (forgive me if that seems a tad redundant) and that politicians like to score points by siding with gay rights activists.  But that doesn’t excuse abuse of power.

Personally, I don’t agree with the opinions of the Chick-Fil-A owners.  I have friends who are both gay and gay married.  I don’t see why so many people have a problem with it.  But that’s not the point.  Everyone gets to have their opinions.  I know that strictly speaking the first amendment only applies to the federal government, but the spirit of the first amendment is about creating a free market of competing ideas.  The ones that suck will eventually go out of style; we don’t need government intervention.  The mayor isn’t in the business of enforcing the U.S. Constitution, but he should at least pretend to know why it exists.

But I’m not sure very many people truly understand how the first amendment is meant to be applied.  It lets us speak out against people who annoy us.  We can change their minds; we don’t have to hurt them or intimidate them.  When we do speak out these days, we’re more likely to troll the offenders on the internet than to say something intelligent.  That’s free speech, but it’s juvenile, weaksauce free speech that just makes the country dumber.  We also frequently intimidate their sponsors or business partners in an attempt to shut them down.  That’s just cheap backstabbing.  We refuse to take the ideas we don’t like head on.  Decent people should try to avoid being stupid and gutless.

This is a disturbing trend in America these days.  How many people have we seen crushed in this way?  Major media figures who have lost jobs because they annoyed the wrong people include (in no particular order): Helen Thomas, Juan Williams, Bill Maher, Don Imus, and Pat Buchanan.  And Rush Limbaugh just barely dodged that bullet.  Some of them said things that I thought weren’t a big deal.  Others said things I thought were kind of stupid.  Still others said things I found truly offensive.  But I didn’t start crying and screaming at their bosses to fire them.

I remember something from when the Supreme Court recently overturned the Stolen Honor law.  The opinion (totally paraphrasing, don’t expect me to memorize this crap) said that when confronted with speech we don’t like, the solution is “counterspeech”.  That’s something we all need to think about.

If you don’t like Chick-Fil-A, tell them you won’t frequent their store.  Tell your friends not to eat there.  Pass out flyers.  Or whatever.  Counterspeech.  That’s how adults solve problems.  Don’t get some government guy to shut them down or prevent them from opening.  Don’t try to intimidate them out of business.  Just make it clear that they won’t get your money.  If Chick-Fil-A believes they won’t find enough customers in Boston, they won’t go there.

Any son of the South (like me), knows that you can’t get proper fried chicken if it doesn’t pass through Christian hands.  In the same way, proper bagels must pass through Jewish hands, and proper hummus must pass through Muslim hands.  Otherwise, you’re just getting a cheap knockoff.  Next time you have truly good fried chicken, odds are that the person who made it isn’t a fan of gay marriage.  If that bothers you, just don’t eat fried chicken.  Or just don’t eat the good stuff.