Sick Days

It's rare for me to get sick. Until The Pumpkin started high school this fall, it was rare for anyone in this household to get sick. But after homeschooling his entire life, he joined older brother by jumping right into the pool of viruses that live in a school of nearly 3000 students (plus faculty and staff). He struggles mightily to fight them off, but some are just too much and he ends up taking many trips to the nurse's office, and staying home more often than either of us wants.

So now it's my turn to join him in his misery. Bleh. 24-48 hours of Bleh deserves some mindless channel surfing. But I don't have cable, just an antenna for free broadcast tv. It's fine when I want to watch a specific show, but pretty limited for channel surfing. I end up flipping from one negative political ad to another. It's not helping my headache.

"Negative ad" is really just a euphemism for outright lies and blatant distortions of the truth to influence your vote. Just another use of mass media to hack away at what's left of democracy. It's not about electing the best candidate for the job at all. Only taking sides, and promoting one set of ideas over all others, and winning. And shouting down truth-tellers so that voters only hear the stories that will promote the status quo.

When I think about all the voters who don't get their information anywhere else, it's no wonder our government always seems to be a mess. Who could work with any of these characters portrayed on tv?

It's no wonder so many people feel depressed this time of year. You feel like your vote doesn't count, like your opinion doesn't count, and your way of life doesn't count, unless you have enough money to donate to the right causes and the right candidates. And all the screaming about the end of the world if the wrong candidate should actually win.

But every year, every "day-after-election-day", life goes on. Those who did not win their race pick up the pieces and get back to business. The rest of us breathe a sigh of relief as the commercials go back to hawking prescription drugs for what ails us.

Good thing there's still radio stations that play music.