Comedy Central

Of late, I simply have not been able to get my daily dose of news.  It's partly that I don't wake to the radio, as I used to, and partly that I'm just slowing down.  Most of what I get is ---you might not believe this, but--- from reports posted on FaceBook.  Obviously, this results in a rather uneven news selection that isn't particularly healthy.

I do get a lot f news from the infamous Daily Show, with Jon Stewart.  This is a comedy show that delights in making fun of the various idiotic statements made by the loonier elements of the GOP, as well as the contradictions or self-serving statements made by the more notable hypocrites there.  Many of the things we hear from the Right would make even conservatives angry, if it weren't for the fact that they are so furious with the Democrats that they allow any sort of idiotic utterance through with little comment.  After hearing such a statement my blood boils to discuss it with somebody, but being surrounded by conservatives out where I live and work, there simply is no opportunity.  So the Daily Show is desperately welcome.

Despite the fact that, broadly speaking, the Daily Show is by liberals, for liberals, the tone of the show, and the level of liberalism to be found there is moderate, and the implied criticism of the conservatives mostly friendly ridicule.  OK, sometimes it is not very friendly ridicule, but still, a lot less vicious ---not vicious at all, in fact, except for the vicious humor--- than I would personally be inclined to dish out.

On October 30th, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has organized a big rally on The Mall, called the Rally to Restore Sanity.  I'm planning to attend, and so are many of my more like-minded friends from both sides of the political divide.  I keep wondering whether there will be some disruptive incident to spoil it, but I'm going to take the risk and go.  Evidently it will be mostly music and comedy, and I'm expecting some surprise appearances by celebrities.  At the worst, Jon may decide to declare his candidacy for the Presidency.

Many institutions we know and love have functioned for years based on what they were promised to be, at their inception: schools, the government, families, property ownership, the economy, employment.  These things are brought into being in an atmosphere of optimism, and so they function well on the momentum of their promise.  But soon, people begin to find ways of perverting them and exploiting them, and we discover that there are no defenses against these trends.

Just yesterday I think I found another instance.  I signed up for "mobile computing", where you buy a device that you connect to your USB port, and you get Internet access via what appears to be a cellphone network.  I chose the option to buy just a week's worth of access, limited to 300 megabytes.  (In other words, the total volume of material I upload and download is limited to 300 Mb.)  Unfortunately, the volume is metered by the service provider.  Now, with water use I let the water company assess my usage, no matter how reluctantly.  After all, how much can they fudge their estimate of how many gallons of water I use?  And there's a water meter, sitting right in my basement.  Similarly with the electric company.

Things become more complicated with the phone company.  But the worst is this Internet usage.  There really is nothing to prevent them from padding their metering of my Internet use with all sorts of costs.  If I download a piece of mail that is 3K on my hard disk, they could easily justify a claim that the actual cost of delivering that 3K is several megabytes, the cost of my computer requesting the file, their computer telling mine that it's too busy, and mine calling back, asking their computer to cut the crap and give over the damn file, and their computer saying What file? and so forth.  So I simply have no control over how much they charge me for the service.  On the other hand, they have a virtual monopoly over this type of Internet access, and so I'm a part of an essentially captive clientele.

Meanwhile, I have Internet access via DSL provided by the same provider.  Of late, I have not been able to get on the Internet; my connection to the router in my house is excellent; the router's connection to the Internet is awful.

Perhaps coincidentally, the service began to deteriorate moments after I asked to discontinue their home wiring insurance.  "Home Wiring Insurance" is an agreement where they will come in and fix any problem with the part of the phone circuit that lies inside my house.  What are the chances that my Internet access is jinxed because of something supposedly wrong inside my house?  Jesus is not going to be happy with them.  So something that was great at one time is now going down the tubes.

Congress is like this.  At first, congressmen were volunteers.  But somewhere along the line, they approved themselves a stipend, to offset the increasing costs of maintaining a residence in the Capital, until at this time each congressman makes close to $200,000 annually.  It is very difficult to slow down the rate of compensation of our representatives for obvious reasons.

In addition, every racket that a Congressman invents becomes something all Congressmen can exploit, making sure that they keep their activities under the radar.  There is Lying, Lobbyists, Pork, Influence peddling, and Shady deal-making.

I think the most recent invention is for conservatives to get elected as centrist liberals, but then switching parties for the next election.  This is further confused by individuals who are themselves confused: people with conservative inclinations, and a mix of conservative and liberal values; people with liberal inclinations, brought up to revere conservative values.  I thank fate a dozen times a day that my values are firmly liberal, even if I'm unwilling to give any liberal politician a blank check, because a few liberals have, over the years, often proved themselves to be rascals.  The stupid extreme of the Conservative block also contains rascals; the intelligent core of the conservatives is, generally speaking, honorable, even if wrong-headed.  What we are battling are a bunch of wrong-headed intellectuals, a few stupid rascals, and a few opportunistic crooks.  The crooks, not being ideological, are perfectly willing to switch parties at the first opportunity, in order to get whatever benefit they can, to make their personal fortunes and empires.

With all this smoke and fog, party politics becomes very difficult.  You can't depend on the Democrats for the clear-cut liberal values they have always stood for.  Some Democrats are confused about their values, while others are willing to compromise their values in order to satisfy their electorates.  (Possibly conservatives have similar problems, but while a Democrat administration is in power, they are unified in trying to get rid of it.)

I bet things would improve if we could buy Congressional Insurance.  You pay a certain amount every month, just to make sure that your liberal congressman remains a liberal.  However, there would be no way to control the rates going up and up.

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