when?

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm pretty much always late to the dance, when it comes to current television shows or entertainment trends.  I can't commit to the crushing demands of a weekly series and haven't had cable in several years, anyway.  

Last night, we were watching TV and for whatever reason, this episode of West Wing was cued up on Hulu.  After watching it, I was struck by a couple of things.  First, I wish people debated like this.  I wish there was enough respect for one another as human beings, that politicians could actually let each other finish a point and could break from the soundbyte script and actually say what they believe with conviction and honesty.  I realize those things are oxymoronic in terms of the reality of the politican, but it would be nice to hear the truth about what they think, without the "experts" chiming in to tell them how they should almost-kinda lie and tell people what they want to hear, because it's better for poll numbers.  Hey, a girl can dream, all right?

Second, and perhaps more importantly, I was flabbergasted at how that fake debate could literally happen - almost verbatim - in the next presidential election cycle.  Hell, it's almost an exact script for the last two elections we had.  This totally feeds into my notion that we, as a nation, are a bunch of sitter-arounders and waiters.  We don't ever actually do anything.  We don't ever actually WANT to do anything.  We just want to yell at the other guy for not doing anything, while remaining sedentary ourselves.  Then, at the last possible second - right before everything is about to collapse due to inaction - we somehow "come together" to push something sub-par through which is far less thought out and filled with loopholes, exceptions and favors.  It's disgusting. 

When does the blame game stop?  When do we as a constituency get our act together and actually research issues, bring up initiatives ourselves and stop being so damned lazy?

Seriously, when?  I think now would be a good time, but why don't we just wait on it and have a think.   

and yet again.....

Notes from the universe manages to freak me out by dropping in with EXACTLY the thing I needed to hear on exactly the day I needed to hear it.  It's really bizarre.  And cool, but mostly bizarre.  Today I received the following:

The more you believe in appearances, [tallgirl], in the story told by your physical senses and in the circumstances that you now find yourself in, the less control you have over them.

What's real, [tallgirl], is your power to change them. 


And there you have it.