School is Back in Session

Yes, yes, I’m back again. Let’s be honest. I always say I’m not going anywhere, and then I leave you, my faithful readers, to a life with no direction. I’d like to say this is the last time I leave, but I can’t make that promise. You want the truth? Really? The fact is I’ve found something better. That’s right; it’s called a real job. Actually, it’s almost a real job, but it’s something that I can live comfortably off of, and who needs anything else? So I’ve resigned myself to living a wasteful life. Like Bob Dylan, I’m deserting my followers, and opting for a life of peace and quiet away from all the craziness. But like Mr. Dylan, I haven’t been able to stay away long.
Sure, it’s true. I’ve left my lowly position in the mailroom for a more glamorous, rewarding life as a staff assistant. I don’t just deliver papers anymore, I make photocopies of them, put tabs on them, and sometimes they even let me read them. But those are only in times of great desperation. So, you can see why I have no need for my millions of adoring fans, and vast sums of money coming in from advertising revenue. I have a rewarding career (for about a year) working for a noble cause (construction contracting) in a noble field (corporate law). Life is but a dream.

But no matter how sweet my little life gets, something keeps drawing me back here, and it’s so fundamental and so obvious that I sometimes look right through it. There is nothing more rewarding keeping you, the voter, abreast on the great issues of the day. It is that for which I was born, and it is for that purpose to which I will put my abilities. But I can’t help you until you learn a little something about where I’ve been.
It’s been an exciting summer, that’s for sure. Actually, that’s not true at all. It was in fact a relatively boring summer. Sure there were some scandals here and there. More recently, North Korea tested a nuclear missile in possibly the biggest cry for attention the world has seen. They wanted to knock us off track, but they were not to prevail. They just don’t get it. We’re not going to give a fuck what the Asians do as long as they don’t have something we want. But in reality, it was a pretty scary moment. Talking heads dared to bring up the possibility of World War III, while Bush feigned interest in between campaigning and ridding the United States of habeus corpus. Our disdain for all words Latin knows no limits.
But otherwise, it’s hard to find anything of note that happened in the past three months worth note. True, there’s this Foley guy who was an adamant voice against homosexual rights, confusing it with pedophilia. He, of course turned out to be a pedophile himself. Who could have seen that coming?
It was also the end of a golden era of Hollywood megastars who thought they ran the world, or at least a world. Mel Gibson got caught making some unseemly comments after throwing down a few too many, and Tom Cruise was released from his contract with Paramount theatres after his erratic behavior started to confuse even Sumner Redstone, the man who owns cable television. In a particularly scathing press release, Redstone cited Cruise’s bad publicity as of late as being the reason for his dismissal. It’s a rare glimpse of truth from a group of people who are as petulantly noncommittal as politicians. The thing separating Cruise from Gibson and Foley in this case is that he didn’t feel the need to “check into rehab.” The sad thing is that he probably needs it more than the other two combined. I don’t know what they give you in the church of Scientology, but when it causes you to become violent towards Oprah, the most lovable person in the world, there has to be something wrong with it.

And that’s everything that happened last summer. As for me, I went to Kansas City for a week and saw how the other half lives. It’s not bad. They really eat well. I also spent a lot of time exercising. If the previous summer was the summer of lying in the sun and drinking myself to sleep in the warm air, this was the summer of biking, playing tennis, and even lifting weights every chance I got. I really miss the drinking myself to sleep part. I think I’ll have to go with that next summer. But that’s all that really happened. I think we’re pretty much up to speed.

And it seems that I’m back not a moment too soon. Midterms are two weeks away, and I’m just as jazzed as I was two years ago. And if my mild hopes of winning last year resulted in failure, my strong assurances of victory this year will surely yield some mild results. We may even win enough to take back the House, provided we don’t screw up in the next two weeks, and that is one monster “if.” Republicans can’t figure out what’s going on right now, and neither can I for that matter. The fact is that it’s time for the chickens to come home to roost (one of my “farm terms” I picked up in Kansas) and Republicans have to pay for all the shit they’ve done the past six years. It’s quite a large bill too. But if you are an elephant, you have to be happy with the way things have gone. The conservative agenda has left a burn on this country that won’t heal for a long time. The Atlantic Monthly thinks that it will take at least thirty years, not as long as Nixon (which we are still apparently paying for. Jesus that guy was a dick) made us pay, but a long time nonetheless.
But what has me and so many others baffled is that we don’t even know who we’re voting for. I mean, I know the name of my guy, but that’s only because he’s been with us for eight years now. I have no idea where he, or the party for that matter, stands on many issues. Howard Dean was on CNN this morning, and he gave three typically Democratic responses to such a question: Better health-care, ethics investigations, and raising the minimum wage. And that’s great, but weren’t we going to do that six years ago (except the ethics investigations to which they were more likely the subjects)? I guess you have to give them credit for sticking to their guns. Or maybe they’re just that bad at what they do; they can’t even come up with a clear plan, the same problem that’s plagued them for so long.

So there are thirteen days left, and we will have to see what happens. Will Nancy Pelosi become the second most powerful politician in the country? Will Dennis Hastert even have a job after the Senate Ethics Committee meets? Will anything change should the Democratic Party win one or both chambers in congress? Tune in, and maybe I’ll have enough motivation to keep you up to date. Goodnight.