CSotD: Monday Follies
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We'll start the new week with a Juxtaposition about the start of the actual choosing, and the ephemeral nature of caring about Iowa or New Hampshire, though we ought not to forget that Iowa has ethanol and large pork factories, so it won't slip off the radar entirely.
New Hampshire, by contrast, is generally taken for … no, I can't do it … but, anyway, we're not expecting a lot of payback for hosting the first actual vote.
Iowa holds caucuses, which are more akin to a town meeting than a standard election, and the system raises an immediate question of why Iowa holds their caucuses on a weekday, since, like town meetings, they are bound by specific hours.
Some towns in New England hold Town Meeting during the week, but, in the Olden Days, schools and businesses closed on Town Meeting Day, and we certainly can't have that anymore, so most places have them on weekends to allow people to be there. But I guess weekday evenings are okay.
The more important distinction is this: Many towns have cancelled Town Meeting because people complained that they couldn't be there and that you get more votes if you set up polling places and let people vote throughout the day. The counter argument being that balloting allows people to vote on issues they have not heard discussed.
Well, you may not have heard a lot about why the town wants to spend $15,000 resurfacing a particular stretch of road, but those of us in the target states have sure as hell heard everything we want to hear about why nobody wants affordable healthcare and how people who try to escape ISIS should not be allowed here because they are ISIS and, on the other side, that the only way to really change things is to elect someone who won't rock the boat by demanding change.
And we haven't heard anything from Martin O'Malley, but here's a picture of him greeting a caucus goer, who is being very polite but already knows his fate, as do we all.
Point being that, while I prefer Town Meeting for local matters because I've seen the highway superintendant get up and answer questions about why we need to resurface that stretch of road, in the case of presidential politics, I'm all in favor of not only the increased turnout of a day-long voting, but the advantages of what we refer to in New England as an "Australian ballot," which everyone else just calls a secret ballot.
Some of us have bumperstickers and yard signs, but others may not want to declare their preferences in front of all their neighbors or even their spouse. Fair enough.
Anyway, here we go, and if Iowa and New Hampshire don't represent the demographic makeup of these United States, at least we can represent a chance to do a little weeding and maybe get the field down to a manageable level.
And, in a related gag …
The Flying McCoys touch on a drawback of trying to exchange information on social media.
Sorry, Moses: Maybe you'd have better luck if you put them into a graphic with some puppies, some junk food, a fairy, a unicorn, a sunset or perhaps a sick child.
The timing on this gag was exquisite. I had a rough, or at least revealing, weekend on Facebook.
I already knew that only a very small percentage of people actually read what is linked there, but yesterday someone posted an outrageous headline that, if you followed the link, turned out to be a variation on rick-rolling, so that there was nothing to comment on beyond "Ha ha. Got me."
But it touched off a debate on the purportedly outrageous article from people who hadn't bothered to click.
In another posting, someone suggested that people who don't support Hillary are misogynists, and I responded that it was actually because she was born in Illinois. Whooosh! Touched off a discussion of why everybody hates people from Illinois, which I didn't even know they did. And still don't believe they do.
And, finally, someone shared something and then pointed out that she had learned it was phony, to which I suggested perhaps then she might delete it, to which she responded that I was an asshole, to which I responded that the problem is, since people don't read the comments, leaving bogus things up simply perpetuates misinformation, noting that newspapers have learned not to repeat an error in corrections, since it reinforces rather than rectifying the mistake.
At which point she unfriended me. A small loss for me, but she's still out there.
Anyway, Moses, I wouldn't bother trying to promote the entire 10 Commandments on Facebook, because even getting them down to two didn't work.
It got a ton of "likes," but, obviously, nobody clicked through.
Speaking of not getting it
I'm speechless. Fortunately, Heidi MacDonald is not, starting with "Angoulême Festival manages to get even worse … " and "Angoulême has really jumped the shark this year" and "a humiliating stunt worthy of high school bullies."
Has Zero Mostel been selling shares of the profits in this thing?
And, finally … well, for him anyway …
Another bit of synchronicity, as today's Cornered fits a piece I saw yesterday about the ridiculous pressures on young journalists as the profession both implodes and explodes simultaneously.
The headline, "The next generation of journalism students has no idea what they’re getting into," immediately made me think (yes, before I clicked on it and read it), "Well, it hardly matters because, as soon as they build up a little seniority, they'll get kicked to the curb in favor of the next crew of low-pay entry-level hires."
Which ties into "Cornered."
But, when I read the piece, I realized she has an even grimmer outlook, which is that they won't have to be eased out or bullied out, because the pace will drive them out anyway.
Constructive dismissal begins at the point of hiring.
Anthem for a new generation of journalists:
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