How the future should have been

Ha ha ha ha ha! Stupid people who don't know about the present!

622 days and counting...

OK, I was thinking about this during the last week (trying to avoid the broohaha about Anna Nicole Smith {did you know that CNN had an hour and a half of uninterrupted coverage when they discovered it? As The Daily Show pointed out, that makes it more important than a State of the Union, but less than 9/11}), and I was looking through the list of Presidential Candidates (announced and tipped) and compiled reasons why I won't be voting for them.

Mitt Romney; He's pandering to the Republican base on abortion and gay marriage (and quite possibly stem cell research, but he hasn't flipped his stance on this one, so you never know...). This turns me off. A lot. I don't like panderers. And I won't vote for someone who changes their convictions based on the base. Damn populists.

John Edwards, Hillary Clinton; They're pandering to the base on the war in Iraq. I'm not liking this either. I know that some of you (read all of you) will have a different opinion to the war than me, but I don't like it when people pull their support when it becomes unpopular (unlike Obama, who I respect and admire for opposing the war). Also I don't feel that we should just let a civil war happen and huge Iraqi casualties. An American life is not worth more than an Iraqi one. We just need a new President. And Vice President.

Barack Obama; I just don't like his views on a lot of issues. Like his voting record to make pharmacists supply the morning after pill. Or Catholic doctors perform abortion. I respect him, and think he's Presidential material, but I don't like his policies. Sorry. And it's not like he'd lose Illinois, anyway.

Sam Brownback; As Julian Mansfield put it, the Christian Coalition likes him. I don't. One Evangelical in the White House this century was enough.

Newt Gingrich Ha!

Tom Vilsack; He quit today, just two months after entering, and 11 months before the first caucus (in his own state). Wow, that's fast.

People who I'd consider voting for, conditionally;

John McCain; Stop pandering to the religious right. Stop it, or you lose my vote. And don't authorize torture. DON'T.

Rudy Guiliani; I like your federalist views, especially on gay marriage and abortion. But I don't like your civil rights history. Convince me I'm wrong.

Al Gore; I'm liking you more and more, especially on the environment. Persuade me.

Bill Richardson, Mike Huckabee; I don't know enough about these guys, but what I've heard I like. And they were governors.

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And for you out there who don't get a vote in the election, a nice fact about the biases of America. As far as I can tell, the homosexual and the Atheist are the only two not running for President. But it looks good for me, if I were to run.

Dumb People. And I miss Gumby.

You lucky people (the few of you who actually read this) get this amazing post because my vanity couldn't stand to be pushed off the bottom of the page by any new posts⁰.

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You know what I hate? People. That's right. People. Not any person individually, just as a function of society.

Firstly, as you are probably aware, the most tragic event in the world, with earth-shattering consquences happened! The most amazing actress (Naked Gun 33 ¹/₃, Hudsucker Proxy and Veronica's Closet)¹, the most beautiful playmate, the most interesting person in the world, has left us.

Ok, I can deal with this. Breathe. Breathe deep. The world just seems like it's over. That's what I assume from the news coverage that's been playing on least 2 of the 24 hour news channels since her death (which, to be honest, was untimely, tragic and unfortunate). Stop it people! They're only doing this because you watch it! Stop watching it, and maybe they'll report something good²! Stop watching infotainment!!!

Also, I watched Babel today. And, you know what, it gets a little bit preachy (as with most best picture nominated films), but that doesn't make it less true. What drives me crazy is people's arrogance and pride and stupidity when they interact with others. Just let insults go, people! Don't make a commotion, or start a fight, or start a feud over something that doesn't matter. Just sit down and shut up. I want to say more, but the more I type, the more I get a headache.

Humility. Emotion. Discussion. Politeness. Sense. Intelligence. Thinking. What's wrong with people that they don't willingly foster these "virtues", instead idolizing the Secretive, Stalwart, Proud, Rude, Irrational, Prejudicial ones?

Bad World! Bad! No cookie for you!

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⁰Gumby has nothing to do with this, but I saw a reference to the amazing stretchy thing and remembered the good ol' days of yore.
¹I'm proud of the way I did a third with a superscript and a subscript. One of the many simple things that made me smile today. Mind of a child, me.
²By good, I mean something that changes our lives, like this³, not necessarily something good.
³I really like Specter. He's one of the good Republicans that I'd keep if I had to reappoint the Senate. Him, Collins, Snowe, Graham, McCain. I would have kept DeWine, Chaffee and Allen, but they got booted out. That's a pipe dream...
⁴I know there's not a 4, but why is the number 3 so big? It almost looks like a normal sized number in either super- or subscript. So does 4, for that matter.

The lesser known American culture war (beyond the Blue and Red)

Since there are so many regions, it's difficult to pinpoint American cultural traits. What makes it even more challenging is the fact that Generation Y idealizes traditionally non-American values.

John Wayne and Robert Redford generally exemplify the traditional male American model. Assertive, confident, hard-working, and willing to laugh (despite often dire circumstances), their characters showed Americans what to aspire for (saying hello to your neighbors). Of course, the translation of values is rarely perfect; assertive can become belligerent (GIVE ME MY GODDAMN FOOD), confident shifts to arrogant (foreigners are worse than me in every possible way), hard-working means work-obsessed, and willing to laugh can turn into either 1) too stupid to do anything but laugh or 2) despair.

Our generation prefers men to be less traditionally Amerimasculine (the values in the above paragraph) and "unique." We do not idealize the hard-working; we prefer those who got rich quick. Our heroes are Chris Moneymaker (the amateur poker champ) and reality TV instacelebs. Apparently - I have not seen this poll with my eyes, and God only knows if I can trust the radio - a majority of Americans in my generation said that the most important thing to them was fame. We reject 9 to 5's and middle class jobs as boring, below us, and So Yesterday. Sites like MySpace allow us to cast ourselves in whatever unique sense we want, trendy people desperately argue that "they were doing this before..." and YouTube and blogs let us present ourselves to the world as non-TV instacelebs using any persona we choose. We want to be famous and have exciting, unique jobs, but we want them now. We don't like the idea of putting in 1 second of "9-5 drudgery." We rail against the idea of middle class suburbia (even though we grew up in it). In this way, we're also a hyperimage based culture. It's all about being famous, having people notice you, standing out, appearing to be cool. Eye contact is going out of style like small pox, assertive is suddenly scary, and people hate - HATE - the idea that someone can insult/laugh about their opinions (just read all of the hate mail for somethingawful.com's Your Band Sucks segment). Our new values are being "different," getting noticed, accepting relativism, and above all else, "not selling out" (to the Man, the record label, or really anything). I'm not exactly sure why, but we also love acting sad/whiny; my guess is that it's another way to get noticed.

It makes me wonder how Americans will be perceived around the world 15-20 years from now. Following the Great War, Americans - I think - were stereotyped with the traditional values; currently, we have the bad version of the traditional values. Who knows what we'll be known for in the future?