IndigNation             WHAT'S GOT YOU HOT?

A few weeks ago I happened to wander into a Starbucks (California Avenue, Palo Alto, if you’re keeping track). I know, I know, that’s hardly an event of earth-shattering improbability, because if you’re anywhere in the world where there’s electricity and internal plumbing, you’re scarcely more than 5 steps from a store. Anyway, I digress.

While stirring the honey into my tea (it’s only in private I stir the tea into my honey), I picked up the comics section of the local newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News. One strip - I forget which - was yet again making fun of President Bush’s rather unorthodox pronunciation of the word “nuc-ular”, and I opined that I thought that was disrespectful.

Anyways, standing next to me was a chap who on hearing me pulled a face and looked at me askance. The good lady wife determined that he was a Democrat (what else do you expect, it was Palo Alto after all - home of the sandal-wearing Volvo-driving yoghurt-knitters). Call me an old-fashioned traditionalist, but I was raised to respect others, even if I disagreed vehemently with the position they held. I didn’t like the policies of Bush Senior; found Clinton reprehensible; and have no love for President Bush (though he was probably the lesser of two evils, both times around).

Now I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but it seems to me that when you open your mouth and spew invective about The Chimpenfuhrer’s single digit IQ, or Clinton’s finely observed “I did not have sex with that woman (see pages 1 through 283 for definitions of what does and does not constitute sex)”, it says more about YOU, your intellect and your manners, than it will ever say about whomever you rail against. If you feel you have to make a comment about President Bush’s avoidance of military duty, or Al Gore’s wooden appearance, then… wait, strike the bit about Al Gore.

All I’m saying here is don’t hate the player, hate the game. There’s an old German saying which, paraphrased, says something like “sweep the snow off your own steps first”. Let’s get a little respect back into the political process, debate the issues with civility and humility, because right now we’re about one step back from those guys in South Korea and Taiwan who punch each other out on the floor of their lower house. Woah, guys, democracy isn’t determined by the first to land a sucker punch to some guy’s nutsack!

PS. Ignore this when you’re talking about that crazy fucker Ross Perot.

Thank you and good night.