TV News LIES

On one side, a hope-and-change machine started up, despite signs of sputtering, stuttering, and stalling out from time to time.  But, it always responded well to CPR, then would get right back on track, going down the center of the road.

On the other side, a blockade machine was built.  It swerved hard right all the time, otherwise working flawlessly, halting all forward progress with random exclamations of "NO!" and "One term only or else!" and "Over our dead body!"

That was four years ago.  Feels more like forty.

There's really nothing for it, not at this stage.  Propaganda, marketing, and psychological operations have done all they can.

Voters who remain undecided should seek professional assistance as soon as possible to prevent injury from overwrought hand-wringing, or other long-term damage. The rest of us will struggle on and try to do what we think best.

* * * * *

Many will see today as the last full-spectrum day of candidate drum-beating, tambourine-shaking, and stump-smoldering speechifying.  There may be a regretful tear at this realization and news.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the world's most expensive election but were afraid to ask:  Here's the tale of the single-most psychotic leadership-selection method, and in the world's most heavily-armed nation -- a country totally unafraid to randomly flex its military and financial might, whimsically, this way or that -- and it can be found right here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20163081

It provides a crisp, clear 3-minute view of the infernal inferno of an election process we bright Americans have created for ourselves and then rapidly, placidly accepted -- if we dare look, and if we dare see.

There's nothing like going to another country to get news about your own.  At least the internet / internets / internest / interwebz / internexus -- whatever you choose to call it -- makes dashing out for an electronic paper tons easier than before, boarding an international flight every morning in your PJs.

There are at least three advantages that come to mind.  First, the United States no longer has a press corps interested in journalism -- they have become professional softball lobbers and the current culture's fluff-and-product-placement pimps.

Money, success -- it all gets tumbled and jumbled around together, mixed together and stirred ' round and 'round.  It's little wonder we've lost track of everything that might rightly be beneath any banner called Success.  We usually restrict Success to dance a jig on the rusty insignia of a battered money clip.

Maybe this is a Big Step Up for the Species.  Hard to tell.  We used to invoke Success only on the heads of dead animals we were dragging back to the hearth in the cave.

To be successful, be successful.

Hmmm.  That one almost demands a Homeresque "D'oh!" be parked at the end to spike its inscrutable truth.  On second thought, the only thing here that's obvious is that this opening thought's going to take a few more tries to fully flesh out.

Here's Sir Arthur Helps, from 1868:  "Nothing succeeds like success."  Getting warmer.

All right, with apologies, let's start again.  This time, we'll go a few laps 'round the ol' philosophical cul-de-sac.  After all, if you're going to contemplate the broader Moneygoround, then gathering one's thoughts aboard a conceptual merry-go-round may prove useful.