Libertarian Librarian

Busy, busy, busy. October and early November nearly always are-- this year doubly so as I work on an actual book that I am actually getting paid to write. Nice. But it takes up much of my non-work time, and I am not blogging much at work since I'm busy there and I don't want to abuse the privilege.

Plus, I'm feeling a bit burned out on writing, since I'm doing rather a lot of non-blogging writing. Wah, wah, wah. Anyway, that's why blogging has been light, and probably will be for a few more weeks. John, feel free to jump in, if you wish (actually, that's an open invitation-- feel free to blog whenever, if you have a topic you wish to discuss).

Meanwhile, read this. It falls quite nicely into the OTIT (Oh That Ivory Tower) category, which is a pet peeve of mine anyway.

Congrats to the Tigers! Oh. And the Cardinals (St. Louis, not Arizona-- ye gods how did they manage to blow that game against the Bears last Monday?). Baseball is almost over. Eh.

Can't wait for November 8. Sooooooo bloody tired of political ads. Near as I can tell, all candidates hate me. All candidates want to screw me out my money. All candidates want my country/state/region/community to go down the crapper. They are all crooks and liars and they hang out with bigger crooks and liars.

Of course, there is some truth to much of that, but boy is it tedious and numbing. My daughter, who is eight, saw an anti-Jim Doyle ad (I don't recall if it was a Mark Green ad, or a 3rd party one) and after it was over said, "Boy, Jim Doyle is a pretty bad person, huh?" Now, I'm not a big fan of Jim Doyle, and I hope he loses in a few weeks, but he is not a bad person. Bad governor, yes, bad person, no. At least not in the Manson/Hitler/Dahmer sense.

So, I took five minutes to explain that the ad was trying to make Jim Doyle look bad as a politician, and that it might or might not be particularly valid, and that it didn't mean that Jim Doyle was a bad person. Which she got, but you get the idea-- ads are so negative now, that kids hear them and think "Wow, that's a bad dude."

Icky, icky, icky. And pathetic that we've gotten to this place where painting your opponent as bad-- even evil-- is the way to go.

I renew my call-- write-in a candidate this November. Someone you trust, someone you think can actually do the job right. Vote your conscience for a change. If enough of us do this, it will get noticed.

Labels: Politics