Brian Gongol
Sometimes it's good to know when to talk and when to shut up. To wit: President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia after giving a much-too-long inaugural address. And while it might not be hazardous to your health, giving lectures that are too long don't actually work, since people's brains shut down after the first five or six minutes of lecture.
We're almost done with this election cycle, and the biggest swing vote may come from the much-neglected libertarian crowd -- people who think government just plain does too much. Whether you're part of that crowd or not, the best thing you can do is vote, even if you can't stand the major candidates. In fact, if you don't like any of the major candidates for any particular office, then you ought to just write yourself in.
Here's why: If you write yourself in, you're not going to get elected. But you'll register a protest vote -- it shows that you're an active voter, but you're not satisfied with the choices in front of you. It's just like magazine or newspaper sales or radio and TV ratings -- if you're not reading, viewing, or listening, we're not trying to win you over. We're trying to win the biggest share of people who are already reading, watching, or listening.
One final thought on the elections: What if we actually followed the letter of the law in the Constitution and elected one representative for every thirty thousand residents. Just think how different that would be -- instead of five representatives in the House, Iowa would have something like 99. That's like getting one for every county. Imagine the difference -- less money chasing every campaign would mean special interests would have less influence over each Congressperson. You'd have a good chance of actually knowing your Representative personally, and it would take Representatives forever to get things done. Maybe they'd actually have to read their own bills.
People who don't believe that some art is better than other art apparently haven't seen the Art-O-Meter.
Here are a couple of videos we talked about tonight: One ridiculous spoof campaign ad, and a really good way to not get a job.