What's remaining in Pandora's box.

Before I begin the originally intented blog, I am horrified by a word I just learned. I've been staying away from the media for a long time, since a few years after Bush took office, because they've turned away from real journalism and into political kowtowing for the sake of their ratings. I recently decided to start following more closely again, largely due to the upcoming Presidential race--I may be a Democrat, but I'm not a blind Democrat, and I like to know a little bit about who's running. I have read two articles today about books, Gore's The Assault on Reason and Obama's The Audacity of Hope. In both articles, I came across this word, "wonkish." I've always used the word "wonky," even before it became what is, apparently, a political word; I've always used it, and heard it used by others, to mean "slightly off, or slightly skewed," so I decided to look it up to see how the New York Times was using it. This is the definition that I found in the Urban Dictionary:

"Wonkism, which is the design of policy solutions that are too complex and subtle for the victims -- er, I mean the public, to understand."

This person (the Urban Dictionary is edited by its users) went on to cite two examples--one about former President Bill Clinton and one about former Vice President Al Gore.

Fuck you. And fuck you, New York Times, although you did redeem yourself with this statment: "[Obama's correct definition of 'values' is] hardly what the evangelical polemicists who have hijacked the traditional Republican Party have in mind."

It's not our fault that the current Administrations policy is exceedingly simple. After all, what's hard to understand about policy that leads to total dominance over the entire universe? No matter what the policy, we know its eventual aim: helping Bush & friends circumvent America's legal system in order to get what they want.

Onto the 'real' blog for today.

I'm still reading The Assault On Reason--it's not a book that you can skip through quickly. I was so impressed by Gore's handling of the subject that I wanted to see if other people were reading the book, as well, and if so, how many. I went to the NYTimes bestseller list--and by damn, there it is, at the top of the non-fiction list for the second week of the two weeks it's been on the list. I scrolled down through the list, and my heart started to glow at the number of other books I found on the list: a book about how religion poisons things by an atheist, a book about being environmentally sustainable by a best-selling novelist, a book about Einstein (science! yay!), a book questioning the non-existence of leaders by Lee Iococca, another book about science (yay!), and two books about economics.

It makes me happy that people are concerned enough about America to be both writing and reading about the problems in our society. And after everything was released from Pandora's box, the last emotion left was hope. The fact that so many people are taking an active interest gives me hope that things will turn around after we purge the current administration from the White House.

I hope.