Yet Another "Random Reflections" Thing

by Adam Kotsko

  • I have been growing increasingly frustrated with the actions of our government, as one can see by running a quick search for "George" on the Hate List. Although we're all familiar with the caricature of Al Gore writing a strongly worded letter to Osama bin Laden on November 23, I think we can reasonably assume that he would have taken some kind of action: that is, he would have probably done the appropriate and necessary things to defend our nation without demanding that everyone agree with his policies, without asking people to give up civil liberties, without creating a "Homeland Security" cabinent position, without keeping a maniacal attorney general on the government payroll, etc., etc.
  • This brings me to the issue of "keeping one's hands clean" in politics. Al Gore made a decision to do that in Florida, just let the system take care of the problem, all that. What he should have done is engaged in the kind of cheap shots that the Republicans have been using for at least the last decade: Bush wants to disenfranchise black, poor voters (which is effectively what he did); Bush apparently believes himself infallible even though he cannot always form simple sentences; Bush does not know what the hell he is doing; it makes no sense to elect an incompetent president just because his father is going to help him pick out a really good (unelected) cabinent.
  • In addition, Democrats should have protested mightily when Bush started pushing through his "scary right-wing" agenda, because not only did Al Gore win the popular vote, but his votes combined with Ralph Nader's votes say that, in general, the American people support left-wing (or at least non-right-wing) policies. And after September 11, they should have pointed out that Bush's reluctance to actually give NYC the money he promised them shows that Republicans favor government spending only when it is directed toward killing foreigners, not toward helping people. And they should definitely be pointing out that we really shouldn't just randomly decide to take out Saddam Hussein unless we're prepared for not just World War III, but World Wars IV and V as well.
  • This is the end of my political rambling: I think that the least effective anti-drug campaign ever is currently underway. When I see those commercials about how my friends are out having fun, seeing Spiderman opening night or something, while I'm sitting in my room staring at the wallpaper, because my parents caught me smoking pot, I don't think, "Shoot, I should stop smoking pot." I think, "I should learn how to hide my pot habit more effectively." Because what kind of fun do you think your friends are having if you have recently been caught smoking pot? It's probably not a "True Love Waits" rally.
  • I find it amusing that Radiohead has a song called "True Love Waits" that has such an ambiguous "message" that some humorless evangelical who thinks that Ned Flanders is The Simpsons' way of complimenting the evangelical movement could probably think that Radiohead is supporting their cause.
  • But true love does actually wait. No question about that.
  • One album you need to listen to is Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia by Dandy Warhols. It has virtually every kind of rock song available, and the singer is Courtney Taylor-Taylor, who is a man. Perhaps "the" man.
  • I have a gift certificate for Barnes and Noble, and for the first time in my life I don't already have a list of five different things I want to use it for. I think this is a symptom of the fact that I am just now starting to realize all the many advantages and freedoms attendant upon being a middle-class white American male with virtually no college debt and, of course, limitless potential for great things. If I wanted to, I could work at a temp agency three days a week and still have enough to make rent in this boring midwestern town. No matter how much or how little ambition I have, I will almost certainly always live in a pretty nice apartment at least and will not be singled out by police officers. Because I wear glasses and am not morbidly obese, I will also be able to pass as intelligent, but not in an anti-social way.
  • Last night I sat in on a grad class at Olivet, a full three days after I graduated. Our esteemed professor gave a lecture on modernism, and during the break, I declared, "I am the modern subject." People thought I was kidding.
  • In a previous commentary, I promised that all satirical remarks would be properly labelled to prevent misunderstanding. I am coming to realize that that is impossible. I am never "just kidding," and I am never "completely serious." I could whip out a healthy batch of postmodernism to prove to you that it would be impossible for me to do otherwise, but I think you guys are just going to have to live with it.
  • This is probably not surprising, but I have started another list. This time it's for the same ostensible reason I started the previous list: to avoid the "I think I read somewhere" problem. I'm sure it will soon develop into a sickness and keep me from reading certain things just because I don't feel as though they would count as a full book, because -- the list!
  • I will be substituting the next two days in the Kankakee schools. They will be providing me with a free lunch. I'm sure this will be good for me.
  • I bought a book by Hemmingway at Barnes and Noble, because it seemed like something that I maybe should read but wouldn't be agonizing (as opposed to The Critique of Pure Reason), and I am reminded of some book on literary theory that asked, "What does it mean to say that Hemmingway has a 'manly' style?" (That's pretty much word for word, but since I didn't read it in a list-worthy book, I can't give you the source.) The argument was that adjectives like that are always vague and "subjective," so maybe our time would be better spent elsewhere, but I think it would be fun to assign random adjectives to people's style and see how long people would buy it: "I've always found Updike's style a bit too sycophantic for my sake," for instance. I'm sure there's someone who would say, "You know, I've never thought of it that way, but now that you say it, he really is quite sychophantic." Then I would get mad at that person. The sycophantic thing was my idea.
  • Acknowledgements: Those last two sentences were in the style of Jack Handey, although not as funny as his best work. Several of the sentences interspersed throughout were in the style of Dave Eggers, in the middle of whose A Heartbreaking Work of Shattering Genius I currently am (e.g. "...because -- the list!"). Other stylistic influences include John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Slavoj Zizek, and all other authors I have read whose last names start with any of the last few letters of the alphabet.
  • Was I joking just then? Even I don't know.

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