Sunday, January 6, 2008

Bewildered

I have been sitting at my computer for about a half and hour either looking at the blank screen or at the snow falling outside and feeling the two are somehow connected. Right now there is no going outside because the weather is so bad, and there is nothing worth writing because my head is so snowed in. I tend to get this way when the world seems as bizarre and unreasonable as it has lately. Two things have been occupying most of my thoughts as of late, and although they are polar opposites, they seem to have a strange symmetry -- the Presidential primaries and Britney Spears. Really, it's like someone is playing a bizarre hybrid of "Meet the Press" and "Entertainment Tonight" in my head at all hours.

The Presidential primaries concern me simply because of my unhappiness with the current administration. In the past seven years I have come to understand how my parents felt during the Reagan era. At the time I just thought they were hippie radicals. I mean, really, who doesn't like the President? He's the President! And he eats jelly beans! However, now I see that Reagan's choice of candy was kind of like Bush's love of bizarre non-sequiturs -- quirky, but not funny enough to cover up a multitude of sins. Unfortunately, the way things are looking right now in the primaries I really fear I might be missing Georgie boy come January. Yes, yes, I know, it's really early in the race, but Mike Huckabee scares me. The last thing this country needs is to go more towards the evangelical Christian right. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Jesus, I just don't think he should be Vice President. The rest of the Republicans are almost as bad, with cellophane man Mitt Romney, senile John McCain, and pimp daddy Rudy Giuliani. Of course, most people I've talked to say there is no way a Republican will be elected. It's a race for the Democrats to lose. However, I've watched the Democrats over the past eight years, and they seem to really like losing. They may just make this their
coup de grĂ¢ce. Then the next two party election will be between the Republicans and the Whigs. Also, I don't know how I feel about the Democratic offerings. Obama and Hillary both don't have a lot of experience and tend to remind me of excellent mimics, rather than true leaders. I like John Edwards, but he doesn't have the razzle dazzle the other two do. Ryan likes Dennis Kucinich, but then again he also likes pickled herring.

Of course, as all the major networks constantly remind us, many people don't have any idea who is even running for President -- or that there is a presidential election this year at all. However, most of them can name both of Britney Spears children and tell you exactly what she was doing last night. Honestly, could the media attention being put on this woman be any greater. I really don't know who I feel worse for: Britney, her children, or the hundreds of people who have sold their souls to the devil in order to take money off chronicling her every move. I mean, let's face it, Satan has to be head of programming at TMZ. Then, of course, there is Jamie Lynn, who has pretty much been forgotten in the wake of Britney's meltdown, even though she went to all the trouble of getting knocked up.

I think though, the person I feel the most sorry for in all of this is me. I cannot beleive how much time I have spent reading about it, seeing it on television, and thinking about it. Really, I expect to start picking out yellow wallpaper soon just to have something else to fixate on. Why am I so obsessed? What does this have to do with my life? How does this effect me at all? And then I come to my answer. It doesn't. What happens with Britney has nothing to do with my life. That makes her so much easier to think about then say, the presidental elections. Both make me feel angry, and digusted, and somewhat impotent, but the outcome of one won't impact the future of my civil rights. Unless Britney decides to run for President.

Now I'm really scared.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What Brit Brit isn't news?
Rats.

Amanda said...

I can tell when I am bored with the whole election coverage, when I find myself contentedly watching E!'s Daily 10 "news".