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Recounts!
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A volunteer helps ready ballots for a possible recount in Virginia’s Senate race after Webb’s narrow victory.
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Every American has a computer that can track packages across the globe, yet –for some reason– we turn to retired jewelers and unemployed vegans each time an election becomes uncertain. Is that guy checking to see if he can still return some thing at Sears, or determining who controls a seat in the world’s most powerful government? Why use the computer that calculated Earth’s population, when “Herb from East Mayfield” can eye-ball the votes? I’ve worked in computers for ten years and have never heard, when results seemed inconclusive, some one propose, ‘replace the computers with retired plumbers- then we’ll know for certain!’. Christ, we don’t even choose who plays in the Rose Bowl without a computer. Some how, college football gets a mainframe that can predict weather, but the US senate gets the old guy who always thinks he’s been charged twice for ketchup. You may not understand how your senator got elected, but every one knows which school has the best run defense.
Political Cartoons
This election also confirmed my oldest view of popular culture: I would rather be caught weeping to a Meg Ryan movie, than enjoying a political cartoon. There is no form of art or entertainment less hip then a political cartoon- I feel like I’m watching a mime every time I read one: “was this even cool before radio?Why is every one wearing name tags? Is that a ‘robber baron’??” If it were not for the occasional critique of SUVs, the modern political cartoon could be seamlessly included in a 19th century pamphlet against the Whig Party. Because, after 200 years, political cartoonists are still drawing the same damn picture each week: donkeys fighting with elephants, while a disappointed Uncle Sam shakes his sunken head- plus, every thing –from the train tracks to the rocks– is labeled with the name of some scandal. The surest sign young people are laughing at you, not with you? Your humor (from last week) is indistinguishable from a parody of Henry Clay’s failed presidential campaign:
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Cartoons from this Week
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from 1 to 2 centuries ago
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by Sean Flannery
20/11/2006
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