14 Days of Media Speculation about Hypothetical Outcomes
Voted Early for Obama. Nels Ackermann (running for Congress in this district) and John Polles (running for State Representative) both came to our house a few days ago to talk to our brothers. Ackermann was a distinguished Purdue grad, president of Farmhouse and the FFA here and his nephew was a Purdue DU; Polles was a DU at Cal Poly (I believe, can’t remember exact name of school). As house photographer, I have some pictures from the event that will be up on our website once I find out how to update it. Both seem to have good interests at heart and impressive political/educational/military careers.
Colin Powell’s endorsement speech of Obama was simply beautiful. It’s a simple and straightforward, yet eloquent testament to the political sphere. I’ve watched it several times, and each time it reminds me why I’m voting Obama. I’d watch the video on Youtube if you haven’t seen it yet. Efforts by some conservatives to discount his endorsement as simply being of race are disgusting and juvenile. Powell is one of the most accomplished, respected, and authoritative figure of US politics over the last decade. His race should be an afterthought, not the prefix to his title.
McCain’s choice of Palin (if he was the one to choose her in the first place, which I highly doubt) continues to prove a further nail in the coffin. One issue in particular that bothers me: Her implications that because she has a disabled child, she somehow is an expert on the topic and fully understands the needs of parents of disabled children. Disabilities, even within the same group (such as Autism) come in all forms, shapes, sizes and depths. John McCain recently noted that he knew no one better to support such families than Palin, oftentimes seemingly grouping Autism and Downs Syndrome as one in the same. He has obviously never met my mom, nor anyone else familiar and educated with these issues. This is pandering at its finest. Palin has little to no grasp on the actual issues, has further ostracized the moderate conservatives, has offended almost the entire female demographic who had supported Hillary, and continues to bring important topics down to a childish level without a real understanding on the underlying concepts.
Listen, Palin / Republicans – I am Not Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer, Joe the Unlicensed Plumber, etc. I am more than my career, more than my salary, more than my economic status, and more than my job title. I do not appreciate efforts to reduce the sum of my being as a single word description. I am just as Pro-America as anyone from any small town, and I’d say that to suggest otherwise is decidedly unpatriotic. There is NO “Real” America. You are inciting division at a time for unity, spreading fear at a time for hope, and resorting to name-calling and guilt-by-association. Dissent is not disloyalty, and we can continue to disagree without being disagreeable. You are exploiting the base instincts and primal fears of your supporters rather than striving to elevate the level of political discourse. Your style of character assassination is a step back for all of us, and regardless of the outcome of this election, we will all have suffered for bearing witness to it.
commentia
A large portion of my day is spent online, and I spend quite a lot of time on the internet reading various news stories about current events, technology, the environment, politics, etc. Google News, Fark, CNN, etc – I scan News Aggregators for most of the time I’m in labs pretending to work.
But even more than I read the news stories themselves (I’ll usually just skim through), I read the comments at the bottom of the page that everyday people all across the world have posted. It’s usually an exercise in masochism, trying to parse through horrible grammar, inconsistent capitalization, misspellings, and the bewildering need to segment every other word or sentence with four or five commas.
And, as such, I’ve started to notice a clear trend in the comments of news stories – either Obama supporters are becoming a lot more vocal, or there are just a lot more Obama supporters out there. I’m hopeful that it’s the latter. Back during the primaries, you’d have pretty even numbers of commenters attacking Obama because they were pro-McCain, attacking Obama because they were pro-Hillary, praising Ron Paul, or supporting Obama. Those percentages have shifted now – you have a few sparse comments along the lines of “we don’t know enough about Obama” or “REZKOREZKOAYERSAYERSWRIGHTWRIGHT”, maybe one or two “I could never support someone who publicly mistreated Hillary so horribly”, and the Ron Paul supporters have all but given up the fight.
Which leaves the rest as either Obama supporters or disenfranchised former Republican supporters who have finally started to take note of McCain’s dispicable campaigning and insulting choice of VP. Now, I’m not saying the grammar or syntax of these comments is any better, but I’ve noticed an unmistakable shift in opinion – which seems to be reflected in the national polls. I realize the demographic of people who sit at home and post angry capslock comments on news sites doesn’t accurately reflect the majority of Americans – but I’m hopeful that the change I’ve seen reflects the sentiments of a lot of them.
Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?
If only these were the ones printed in the papers every day, they would be infinitely more worth reading.
