September 26

 I started a couple of posts but never finished them. Sometimes I find that saying anything about the absolute inanity that passes for politics today grates on me. We used to quip (somewhat sarcastically) about the local news (as in Chicago since there isn't any real broadcast news in Northwest Indiana about Northwest Indiana) that the only question about what would be covered was whether the first story would be the latest shooting, car crash, fire, or petty political/social/legal scandal. It was all repetitive and mostly irrelevant. The only relevant portion was the weather and we can get better coverage on the Weather Channel so we don't tune in often. National news is just as repetitive and almost as irrelevant.

Every now and then some talking head says something intriguing. One of the repetitive stories over the last four or five days has been about a Republican Latina who won over a once reliably Democratic district on the southern border. Her slogan was "Dios, Familia, Patria." Even those with less than minimal Spanish language proficiency should be able to translate that as "God, Family, Country." Through out the interview the reporter never asked her what exactly she meant by those nice words. Does "God" refer only to the Christian god or does that encompass other people's god(s) as well? And how does your concept of "god" inform your politics? Moving on to "Family," what is your definition of family? Do you include same sex couples and their adopted children, or inter-ethnic couples and their children? And lastly how do you define "country"? What do you include and exclude in that definition?

Another commentator asked the question about definitions this morning when covering the so-called "Commitment to America" proposed by Rep. McCarthy which resembled Newt Gingrich's old (and very stale) "Contract With America" of almost three decades ago. A high sounding word salad which can be stretched to mean anything and nothing. Too much of our politics on both sides of the aisle are meaningless generalities.

Many of the commentators this morning were in a tither about the Italian election which returned a very real possibility of a far right government. Three parties of that political denomination have enough votes to get majorities in both houses of the legislature. One of those parties is definitely skeptical of Italy's continued membership in the E.U. while there two are less so and the woman likely to lead the government is in favor of remaining in the E.U. with some adjustment on the power relationship between Rome and Brussels. And, although she had been supported by Berlusconi (former prime minister and perennial pain in the fundament) who supports Putin, she supports Ukraine. Reading some of the reporting on the election, I don't know that there is that much to be concerned about and don't see what we could do if some of the hysterical scenarios came to pass.

Some time ago I passed on a story I read about the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates which might be appropriate to retell now. While Socrates was walking with friends another ran up to him breathlessly insisting he had new Socrates had to hear. The old philosopher stopped the young man and insisted he answer three questions. First was it good news. "No--actually its very bad." he replied. Second, is it true. "I don't know. I have just heard it. Third, do I really need to know. "Ah--I guess not." Then why tell me? I feel that way about much of the news. It is usually bad; it may or may not be true; and I don't really need to know much about the story because I usually can't do anything about it anyway.