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Saturday
March 20, 2010 Since 1922 |
I’m going Gray
By Luke Hales
Published October 1, 2009 All right, folks. I’m getting political now.
See, the bosses and I were talking about the page you’re reading the other day, and it was decided that we needed to focus more on the issues in some of our columns. Though I explained that I had enough issues personally to satisfy that need, I was corrected and told that we weren’t talking about personal issues, but the major issues in the news.
I was going to tell them that I personally felt that my major issues had already been in the news, but it seemed a tad redundant. Plus, by that time, the funny had worn off anyway.
I make no claim to being a political columnist. I’m not even sure I know how one is supposed to work.
I think I’m supposed to mention Washington, D.C and Congress.
Okay, that’s out of the way.
I think I also have to say why a decision made by our elected leaders was dumb, and why if they’d listened to me the dumbness would have been much less substantial.
At least, that’s what I gather from the ones I’ve actually read.
Make no mistake: I’m not a politics junkie. You won’t catch me reading The Huffington Post or listening to Rush Limbaugh or thumbing through one of Ann Coulter’s books.
That last one, about Ann Coulter, is not a political decision. It’s because she scares me. A lot.
And what’s worse is that I can’t even really shift my weight behind either of our parties. I’ve tried in the past, one way or the other, and as soon as I thought I was totally cool with whatever practice they were preaching, they’d do something that I thought was lame, thus turning my attention away from the Blue Team and pushing me back to the Red Team, or vice versa.
When you look at how we’re portrayed by CNN and Fox News and all those other stations with the really small writing at the bottom, it’s like we really are two teams. And, because we live in the age of reality shows and video games, of course those teams are stereotyped. All the Red States are allegedly made up of gun-loving pickup-truck-driving country-music-blaring ignorant buffoons. Seriously. And the Blue State folk are supposed to be the enlightened, compassionate and literate citizens of this gilded democracy, leading all those Red State people into a new era.
Guess where the people who came up with all that business came from?
Yup. They’re all Blue-Staters.
But see, here’s the deal: as us Red-Staters would say, “That ain’t right.”
Or “That dog won’t hunt.”
Both are accepted vernacular.
Besides being a gross and inaccurate generalization of a populace, it’s stupid, this whole “Divide up into groups and let’s fight over who’s right” business.
It reminds me of this show that used to be on the kid’s TV station Nickelodeon. This show was called “Double Dare,” and in similar fashion, a red team and blue team answered questions until the end of the show, when one team would go on to this obstacle course.
The thing about this obstacle course, of course, is that being on a kid’s network there had to be as much muck and slime as possible. These teams crawled through a Crayola universe of sticky, gooey stuff looking for flags, which I think were important. When they got done with this phlegm-dango, they were covered head to toe in what I can only imagine took hours to wash off.
Having finished what may be the longest metaphor in history, here’s my point: when we divide our country based on anything, whether it’s taste in music or taste in beer, it’s never a good idea.
Okay, that’s not really the point.
This is the point.
I’m not very good at making decisions, especially when I only have two choices. Coke or Pepsi? I’m going for RC Cola. “Star Wars” or “Star Trek?” Both have their individual merits. Are we talking Captain Kirk or Captain Picard? Old Obi-Wan Kenobi or young Obi-Wan Kenobi?
That’s pretty well the way my mind works all the time.
And this, FINALLY, is the while gist of this column. Get past the Red and Blue teams and “Double Dare” and slime and goo and me not knowing how to write a political column, and here’s, ultimately, why I’ve been dodging this assignment for the past 731 words.
I don’t have a team. I can’t have a team, because I don’t necessarily like either team. They both have ideas I can get behind, but in our country’s political state, you can’t pick and choose. You have to go all in. And I’m not comfortable doing that.
Why can we not have a third party that meets the needs of people like me, who are seeking another answer to our country’s problems? Why can some of us not meet in the middle and discuss these polarizing issues like health care, the economy, and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.
That does it. I’m starting The Gray Party. It’s gray because those of us stuck in the middle know that the world doesn’t operate in black and white. It’s gray because it takes people of all kinds, of all races and all mindsets to make a country work.
And it’s gray because … well … I like gray. If you don’t fancy it, there’s always red and blue.
Or pick another color.
Let’s really make this country a Crayola universe.
Luke Hales is the assistant managing editor for The Baytown Sun.
Published October 1, 2009 All right, folks. I’m getting political now.
See, the bosses and I were talking about the page you’re reading the other day, and it was decided that we needed to focus more on the issues in some of our columns. Though I explained that I had enough issues personally to satisfy that need, I was corrected and told that we weren’t talking about personal issues, but the major issues in the news.
I was going to tell them that I personally felt that my major issues had already been in the news, but it seemed a tad redundant. Plus, by that time, the funny had worn off anyway.
I make no claim to being a political columnist. I’m not even sure I know how one is supposed to work.
I think I’m supposed to mention Washington, D.C and Congress.
Okay, that’s out of the way.
I think I also have to say why a decision made by our elected leaders was dumb, and why if they’d listened to me the dumbness would have been much less substantial.
At least, that’s what I gather from the ones I’ve actually read.
Make no mistake: I’m not a politics junkie. You won’t catch me reading The Huffington Post or listening to Rush Limbaugh or thumbing through one of Ann Coulter’s books.
That last one, about Ann Coulter, is not a political decision. It’s because she scares me. A lot.
And what’s worse is that I can’t even really shift my weight behind either of our parties. I’ve tried in the past, one way or the other, and as soon as I thought I was totally cool with whatever practice they were preaching, they’d do something that I thought was lame, thus turning my attention away from the Blue Team and pushing me back to the Red Team, or vice versa.
When you look at how we’re portrayed by CNN and Fox News and all those other stations with the really small writing at the bottom, it’s like we really are two teams. And, because we live in the age of reality shows and video games, of course those teams are stereotyped. All the Red States are allegedly made up of gun-loving pickup-truck-driving country-music-blaring ignorant buffoons. Seriously. And the Blue State folk are supposed to be the enlightened, compassionate and literate citizens of this gilded democracy, leading all those Red State people into a new era.
Guess where the people who came up with all that business came from?
Yup. They’re all Blue-Staters.
But see, here’s the deal: as us Red-Staters would say, “That ain’t right.”
Or “That dog won’t hunt.”
Both are accepted vernacular.
Besides being a gross and inaccurate generalization of a populace, it’s stupid, this whole “Divide up into groups and let’s fight over who’s right” business.
It reminds me of this show that used to be on the kid’s TV station Nickelodeon. This show was called “Double Dare,” and in similar fashion, a red team and blue team answered questions until the end of the show, when one team would go on to this obstacle course.
The thing about this obstacle course, of course, is that being on a kid’s network there had to be as much muck and slime as possible. These teams crawled through a Crayola universe of sticky, gooey stuff looking for flags, which I think were important. When they got done with this phlegm-dango, they were covered head to toe in what I can only imagine took hours to wash off.
Having finished what may be the longest metaphor in history, here’s my point: when we divide our country based on anything, whether it’s taste in music or taste in beer, it’s never a good idea.
Okay, that’s not really the point.
This is the point.
I’m not very good at making decisions, especially when I only have two choices. Coke or Pepsi? I’m going for RC Cola. “Star Wars” or “Star Trek?” Both have their individual merits. Are we talking Captain Kirk or Captain Picard? Old Obi-Wan Kenobi or young Obi-Wan Kenobi?
That’s pretty well the way my mind works all the time.
And this, FINALLY, is the while gist of this column. Get past the Red and Blue teams and “Double Dare” and slime and goo and me not knowing how to write a political column, and here’s, ultimately, why I’ve been dodging this assignment for the past 731 words.
I don’t have a team. I can’t have a team, because I don’t necessarily like either team. They both have ideas I can get behind, but in our country’s political state, you can’t pick and choose. You have to go all in. And I’m not comfortable doing that.
Why can we not have a third party that meets the needs of people like me, who are seeking another answer to our country’s problems? Why can some of us not meet in the middle and discuss these polarizing issues like health care, the economy, and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.
That does it. I’m starting The Gray Party. It’s gray because those of us stuck in the middle know that the world doesn’t operate in black and white. It’s gray because it takes people of all kinds, of all races and all mindsets to make a country work.
And it’s gray because … well … I like gray. If you don’t fancy it, there’s always red and blue.
Or pick another color.
Let’s really make this country a Crayola universe.
Luke Hales is the assistant managing editor for The Baytown Sun.