red onion

I have to laugh at myself about the Tauzin debacle, mentioned previously. If my spine is going to tingle for scandal, why not include the demos as well. They have their share of influence peddling. Terry McAuliffe and his stocks, Tom Daschle and his relatives working so close to him they can watch each other wrinkle. I don't know that I have the stamina for scandal though. It's ugly to look at all the time, and I have to vary my mirrors.

There used to be more coverage of scandal. The media used to jump on that shit. Now it smells it to see what political party it is from first. Sometimes it'll just hold its nose and turn away. There's something wrong with that picture, in the sense that as a journalist, you train yourself to dive into shit. At least, that is my ideal vision of what journalists are trained for.

But there needs be more analysis of the reasons for scandal, what the scandals represent and reflect of ourselves, our social structure. We need discussion of how we can make corrections in our social fabric, if necessary, in terms of tweaking our own conscience, and thereby the social structure. We must be careful and cautious that our actions are based on a belief in the well being of our fellow travelers. Am I babbling, a little. I guess I am also softening around the edges. It feels better to be softer and less hard and ideological.

We all get into ruts. Ruts of thinking, ruts of believing. We seldom look at alternative viewpoints that might be different from our own. We seldom attempt understanding. Understanding precludes all war.

I am simplifying. I am lessening.

With Tauzin, it is sad to see a man do a tap dance now to avoid looking at his position. He claims he never heard of Westar. And I never heard of ozone depletion and the horrors of factory faming. But I often deny my awareness of environmental issues. Until it gets really bad, aren't many of us a little too, placid. Or perhaps so angry we can't act. I guess those are my two favorite extremes. How about you?

It's funny how many of us simply aren't yet ready for real changes in our political structure, changes that would lessen the chances of influence peddling. Yet year after year we ask our elected officials to raise, I guess its now billions of dollars, in order to pay for time to try to get our attention. "Hey, over there, there's an election on," with 15 second sound bites because apparently that is the majority of our attention spans for really important issues. "I'll let him think for me," I actually had a friend say something like that. He referred to Bush, that he prefers to let them do the thinking on the war issue, because they know best. They have all that intelligence and stuff to base their decisions on.

I wonder is my friend is feeling a wee bit manipulated by now?

It is so easy to jump in the popular mix. We all want to be accepted and loved. I suppose we all misconstrue our own true needs, at any given time. It is easy to mix up what I need, with what I need to do to make you like me.

Self-defenition is the most important definition of all, eh?