Political Fiction

"I like being able to fire people."
"You didn't build that."

If either of these quotes makes you angry, but not both of them, you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

They were both taken out of context and neither reflects the intent the speaker was trying to convey at the time.  The thing that makes me angry about both of these quotes is that I fear a lot of Americans allowed one of these quotes, or any of many others like it, to decide their votes in the last presidential election.

If one of these makes you angry because it was taken out of context, but you fully agree with the other and think it reflects the attitude of the guy you didn't vote for, then you don't deserve the right to vote at all.  If you voted based on either one of these quotes, then you voted wrong.  Not because you voted AGAINST someone rather than FOR someone (sometimes that's the only choice) but because the guy you voted against doesn't exist.  He is a fiction invented by the opposition.

There was a time in this country when only landowners were allowed to vote.  It was an attempt to make sure the people selecting our leaders were responsble enough to inform themselves about the issues facing the country and the qualifications of the candidates to deal with those issues.  Sometimes I think we've gone too far in the other direction, allowing people to vote who decide based on a candidate's name, appearance, or any other equally irrelevant factor.  But this is the system we have.  It means each of us has to step up and hold ourself accountable.

Politicians use these sound bites because they work.  Sound bites like these are intended to evoke an emotional response, to fire people up against the other guy.  Politicians think a lot of people vote with their emotions.  Politicains think a lot of people won't bother to research the quote, listen to the entire speech, and understand what was really being said at the time.  It's your responsibility to prove them wrong.  I'm asking you all to do just that before your next vote.

Smart Cookie

Before heading to the grocery store, I asked my son whether he wanted anything.  "Pirouettes", he said.  "You mean those cookies you like?" I asked.  He said they aren't exactly cookies and my husband chimed in that they are.  So I went on a hunt for working definition of "cookie".

Google, my default first step for most hunts, yielded, "A small file used to communicate between a web browser and a web server."  Wrong kind of cookie, obviously.  Further down the list I found, "A small cake, usually round, flat, and crisp."  This didn't seem satisfactory either.  I make cookies shaped like christmas trees with my cookie press, so shape isn't germaine.  Aren't gingerbread men cookies?  Flat doesn't hold true either.  What about those round wedding cookie balls?  And to anyone who loves a chewy chocolate chip cookie, "crisp" is just a diappointment.  I gave up and went to the store.

As I stood in the cookie aisle, I browsed the boxes and bags containing a variety of shapes and textures that we would all agree count as cookies.  I found the Pirouettes, which don't say cookie on the container, by the way.  They say "rolled wafers".  Yet they WERE in the cookie aisle.  I looked at some other Pepperage Farm offerings, thinking maybe they don't describe anything as a cookie, but alas, they do. 

Again, I gave up.  I think maybe it's not possible to define cookie completely and concisely.  I guess cookies, in the end, are simply like pornography: you know them when you see them.