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The Human Zoo/August 17, 2011
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around The Human Experience...
AND THEY'RE OFF: You know, honestly, we would prefer not to write about the 2012 presidential campaign right now. In fact, we would prefer to not even think about it. It's still the summer the year before the election, for Pete's sake. Can we get through next month's rugby Word Cup first, and then maybe the the coming Bottom Ten campaign?
Of course we can't. With multiple 24-hour news channels America can't afford the patience required to wait until 2012 for the campaigning for the 2012 election to begin.
This attitude is funny, because we generally enjoy presidential campaigns and elections here at the Writer's Shack. Always have, too. Even as kids we enjoyed watching gavel to gavel coverage of the conventions going back to the days before cable and on election night we were up until John Chancellor on NBC projected a winner.
Do Everything Turn, Turn: But there is a time for everything, and the time for presidential campaigning should not be now. It's like baseball season starting in February, or college football being played after New Year's Day, or Monday, January 2.
Uh, Wait A Minute Here: Actually, college football does last past New Year's Day, so that isn't a good example anymore, merely a real life horror story.
Fantasy Island: Ideally, everyone - candidates, states, networks, you name it - would wait until the spring before the election before campaigning. That's not practical because states are no different than anybody else and they want to get theirs, too, so the first caucuses/primaries are scheduled for early February, 2012.
Get Your Official Writer's Shack Policy Right Here: So if we can't wait until spring, how about waiting until after the first of the year before declaring? This would give candidates a full month to pester the good folks of Iowa and New Hampshire into voting for them, and would spare us seven months of listening to campaign blather.
OTOH: Why should the candidates be any different than the incumbent? The modern presidency, after all, is now nothing more than a four year reelection campaign anyway. One proof of that can be found in the recent debt ceiling crisis. While Congress bickered over which temporary, stop-gap measure they would pass, President Obama had a nice opportunity to grab the bull by the horns and propose a long-term solution to this nation's debt problem. Because solutions are out there. But they involve spending a lot less money than we do now and telling people currently feeding at the government trough that the gravy train is drying up.
Fly In The Ointment: But Obama, of course, is campaigning for reelection himself and he can't afford to annoy anybody anymore than those in Congress running for reelection can, so instead of a solution all we got was a measure that provided temporary relief while the tough decisions were put off until later because not only are politicians unwilling to do anything of substance, we as an electorate are unable to demand they do anything of substance.
Oh Yeah: The Iowa Straw Poll this past Saturday was won by Tea Party zealot Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Congresswoman. Ron Paul, who will be endorsed by the Writer's Shack if he's still in the race when we get around to endorsing a candidate, came in second, about a percentage point behind. Unfortunaely, this is probably more a tribute to Paul's organization than an indication of the depth of his support because Paul is still regarded as a libertarian whack job by a lot of people.
And He's The Whack Job? It's a sign of the times that Paul is generally regarded as part of the fringe element of the Republican Party. This is because Paul, a Congressman from Texas, routinely votes against tax increases and budgets that aren't balanced and, more than any other candidate, is for fiscal responsibility and civil liberties. By all accounts a God-fearing man, he has the good sense to leave his faith out of his campaign and not pander to the religious zealots who seem to think their world-view should be established national policy.
GREAT MOMENTS IN RACE RELATIONS: A Jew named Leo Frank is lynched in Georgia on this date in 1915, after being convicted of murdering a 13-year-old girl.
Frank had been convicted in 1913 and sentenced to death. In June, 1915, on the day before Frank's execution, Georgia governor John Slaton, who had been a partner in the firm that defended Frank, commuted the sentence to life in prison.
Eff This Noise, Special Southern Justice Edition: The commutation didn't set well with some, and a couple of months later Frank was kidnapped from prison and hanged.
Uh, Gee, Thanks Guys: Frank was pardoned in 1986 by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole.
Age Of Enlightenment: Frank must have really annoyed the whites down in Atlanta because there was a black guy standing by to take the fall. The black janitor at the pencil company Frank and the murdered girl worked at had also fallen under suspicion and, the South being the South, it would not have been unreasonable to conclude the janitor would have hanged had the whites wanted it, which they often did in the South back then.
Take Me Out To The Ballgame: Lou Gehrig breaks the major league record for most consecutive games played on this date in 1933, playing in his 1,308 consecutive game. He breaks the record previously held by Everett Scot, who had played in 1,307 games with the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees from 1916-1925.
Take Me Out To The Ballgame II: Pete Rose, back with the Cincinnati Reds, strikes out in his final major league at-bat on this date in 1986. Though he was manager of the Reds at the time, Rose never put himself back in the lineup, probably because he was batting .219 at the time and if he continued playing his career batting average, then at .303, might fall below .300.
Thought For The Day: The dreams that draw humanity forward seem always to be redeemed, if we believe in the strongly enough and pursue them with diligence and courage. - Richard Nixon
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Four current National League teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, began in the 19th century American Association.
Congratulations to Big Ed Delahanty for correctly answering the question in the comment box at the bottom of the August 15 column!
Today's Stumper: What pitcher did Pete Rose get his final major league hit off of? - Answer next time!
Comments? Recipes? Complaints? Email the Writer's Shack here!
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