This isn't a very tricky web site. No endless webby bells and whistles, no tagclouds, no popups to elsewhere when you mouse over a link, none of the endless widgets that like the spider swallowed by the old lady "wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her." It's about as basic as I can stand -- write/read, read/write. But it does have one little bit of automated tomfoolery.
At the top of the page, the site presents a different random quotation from a large quotation file every time I post something new. It's an old trick, really very 20th century, Web 0.001, but I sort of like it because it works on randomness, and we need a bit of randomness in our otherwise all too predictable lives. This morning it presented me with the following:
"The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal." - H.L.MenckenAs seen here on numerous occasions, I have more than done my part in proving this axiom. But I am only a small, limited-edition of God's Smart Monkey. There are others that are the true Titans of Tedium and, surprise, they all seem to be running for President as if tomorrow were inauguration day.
Everyday in my work I am compelled, like some poor waif under the care of The Anti-Exorcist ("The power of Satan compels you!"), to track this pack of clowns in their endless slouching towards our National Election, and already I find that it sets my teeth on fire. When I look into our near future and find we shall have an endless river of "Vote for me" drool descending into the chin cups of these hyper-ambitious political psychopaths, it just makes we want to take a big, fat smoking brain dart between the eyes every single morning.
Then I'll have to fire up iTunes and place, on an infinite loop, Bob Dylan blasting out:
Sometimes it gets so hard to care,
It can't be this way ev'rywhere.
Starting today we have 641 days until the election. Our long national nightmare is just beginning.
Posted by Vanderleun at February 6, 2007 10:01 AM | TrackBackI like your image of the "Donkeyphant."
Donkeys and Elephants are no longer appropriate symbols for these two parties, but Baboons and Hyenas are.
Republicans are baboons because they are male dominated, and only a bunch of baboons would let their power slip away so easily.
Democrats are hyenas because -- like that unfortunate beast -- they are female-dominated, and have a penchant for stealing the fruits of other animals' labors.
Posted by: Roderick Reilly at February 6, 2007 1:40 PMit just makes we want to take a big, fat smoking brain dart between the eyes every single morning
I feel your pain!
If Hillary gets elected, she will be glad to oblige you on the brain dart. In fact, Hillarycare will be giving some variation to all those diagnosed as psychotic - oops - conservative. No charge to you, of course!
Posted by: askmom at February 6, 2007 9:49 PMTwo more reasons to prefer major league baseball to the perpetual campaign: 1) baseball is still played one season at a time; 2) the players have to have a certain minimal level of competence to reach the majors.
Posted by: Connecticut Yankee at February 7, 2007 4:27 PMBetween the educational and journalistic establishments we have reduced the office of the President of the United States of America to the relevance and depth of a D&D editions war. Which is to say, bugger all. Thus our keepers have made politics safe for office holders by rendering the merest urge towards participating in a presidential election about as appetizing as watching the city of Boston respond to an ad campaign.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg at February 10, 2007 5:06 AMThe perennial flaw of representative democracy; it's a popularity contest. This, combined with a poor and declining standard of education and the fact that politicians are human beings who want to keep their jobs, leads to perpetual campaigning and planning that never lasts past the next election; also to policies that, while popular, are downright harmful to the country.
Classic Greek democracy had it about right; democracy carried out directly by the electorate, and an electorate with minimum standards for entry. Heinlein's variant (democracy with the qualifier being having risked your life for your country) had its points too.
This isn't a swing at American politics; UK politics is arguably worse.
Posted by: Fletcher Christian at February 10, 2007 7:28 AMThey are all, in their own peculiar ways, candidates climbing off the short bus, special to the last man.
We get exactly what we tolerate and we've come to this. I share your disdain.
Posted by: Lana at February 10, 2007 9:35 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.