The Cure

You gotta love a condition (the duct issue) wherein the cure is apparently lots of hot sex. I'll still mention it when I see the doc in two weeks, but it's much improved. Go figure.

So we're standing around the work table on Saturday, and Bossman announces that he'd vote for Obama. I about fell over. He thinks Obama is pretty sharp--though he doesn't think much of Hill. (She's not my favorite either, as a politician--as a person, I think she's extremely smart, and I would very much enjoy the opportunity to have dinner with her.) (That's one of the ways I think about public figures: is s/he someone with whom it might be entertaining to have dinner?) Anyway, Bossman noted that he hadn't really paid attention to politics until the last election. So maybe he's more educable than I thought, or farther to the left than he thought. It also leads me to believe that I have a greater effect on him than I thought, i.e., that his opinions aren't necessarily fixed.

It also leads me to believe that the Democrats could continue to make serious gains in the political world, if they could only learn to shape their message better. As the last election showed, a lot of people are really tired of this war; they regard it as misguided, at best, and I suspect they'd be even more enraged if the media were doing their job properly. Does anyone even remember WMDs? Which, you may recall, is why we invaded. And torture and the like? Do most Americans really want to line up on behalf of torture? I don't think so (though, I suppose, I could be wrong).

I think someone like Jimmy Carter could be very powerful right now (powerful in the sense of moving or inspirational)--if only s/he could get a hearing. Thanks in part to the cynicism that drives the right wing and the military industrial complex behind the right wing, and thanks in part to the jaded cynicism that the media bring to the table (along with a desparate desire to be thought Cool and a concomitant reluctance to point out the emperor's nakedness), and thanks to the fact that the media companies are, at this point, a part of the capitalist overlords rather than a separate force, we tend to regard genuine passion as an act or a performance. We end up hearing about what Hillary is wearing, or where Obama went to school, or what lawsuits Edwards has brought, rather than what they believe, what they want to do, or the principles by which they live and the principles by which they would govern. And don't even get me started on that faith shit. If you believe in a deity or deities, hey, great, I hope that works out for you. But don't you dare insist that the only way a person can be moral is by fear of retribution from a punishing deity in an afterlife.

Okay, I could rant some more, but I need to take a shower, go to the dentist, etc.