BoSox and the Election ...

Just a question . . . could the BoSox win possibly influence the election?

DVDs: I miss VHS

Anybody else miss VHS when it comes to the relationship one must have with the high-maintenance DVD? Used to be, you just put the tape in and hit start. Rewind it if the jerk before you didn't do it ... but there, it's playing ... fast forward if you like ... But now, with DVDs, say I LIKE the idea of coming into the film late, missing the picture of Columbia on the mountaintop or the helicopter ride around the 20th Century Fox sign or the kid fishing from the moon, maybe I even like to come in after the action has started ... but no, I put the disk in, and wait a fantastically long time to be priviledged with a menu from which I can select "play," before I can walk away from the television. Does it have to BE watched to operate? I need less demanding appliances!

Perhaps the spectrum of knowledge is a mobius strip; once you know everything, you come right back around to ignorance again. Okay, let me say the ignorant thing, that I've always vehemently challenged before:

What's the point in voting?

Is it all going to come down to Florida again? Now that there will be paper-free ballots ... there's "fixing the system" and "fixing" the system ... The Electoral College versus the popular vote ... We're quite capable of counting the actual (popular) vote in this age of technological wonders ... Isn't the Electoral College just a bureaucratic waste?

And I used to say, It's not that anyone who didn't vote should be denied the right to speak; in fact, their pennance should be TO SPEAK, to write a letter to the editor, to participate in the process before the next election.

Well, I suppose I still believe that.

My Odd Cheney Vision ...

I imagined Cheney, safe at the kitchen table after the Vice Presidential Debate, safety scissors in hand, cutting out the heads of Osama and Saddam and pasting them, with white paste, over the heads of the king and the queen of the prom.

There! That matter is solved! There IS a connection!

But he DID NOT HAVE SEX, I mean, DID NOT MEET AND SHAKE HANDS WITH THAT MAN, JOHN EDWARDS!

... Before the first presidential debate ...

It's less than six hours until the presidential debate and suddenly I feel I need to get this urgent message to John Kerry. Could you please pass it along?John, I know you're a brilliant person, but keep in mind not everybody else is. You need to point out that changing one's mind is a thinking person's prerogative. "Flip-flopping" is cognitive locomotion. Revising opinions, adding caveats, reflecting on new information brings us ever closer to precise correctness, a truth. As one receives new information, one evaluates one's currently-held positions, and changes. Change is growth. Change is scary. Change is what we need.

You need to stop playing the straight man who is taken in by "When did you stop beating your wife"-type questions. You are being mocked and bullied by these questions and you're not addressing it head-on. You think everyone sees through that. Guess what? They don't. It's become a joke to hear you say neither yes nor no to a supposed yes/no question. You're getting laughs, um, you make us laugh, um, people are laughing at you when you say neither yes nor no. But, guess what: I'd rather you didn't give in to the one-word answer.

However, could you please preface your answer with a critique or rephrasing of the question? If an answer is really dependent on a clarification, or if you really have to give it in two, or several, parts, people respect that. Here's what you know that you need to tell everyone else: Running the country now, especially at this time, is not simple. There are no simple answers, so your answer should and will be "involved." And for Pete's sake, play to win tonight.