Dried up

When I was in the US, I started getting a lot of Google surveys again. Now that I'm back in Australia, they've stopped. The US economy is like the Australian economy on steroids. It's really hard to tell how much is smoke and mirrors. It's a weird thing going from giant empty grocery stores (after hours - open 24/7) with a zillion strange products (many of which you'd be ill-advised to consume regularly), to my neighborhood IGA in Australia, where for some reason, there's currently not even grape juice on the shelf. Did Australia make all of its grapes into wine? What the hell is with this country?!

Broken, painful system

Readers may have noticed, I spent the last two months in Indiana. It was not related to the highly contested Senate seat of Democrat Joe Donnelly; it was due to the death of my father. Of course the television was on during much of my time in Indiana, up until the 3:45 a.m. viewing of Fox News while waiting for the airport shuttle to ferry me out of Trumpistan.

The first hint that I was in a political battleground didn't come through The Tube, but via YouTube. Apparently the location detectors of my devices indicated I had entered a zone flush with advertising revenue, and so it began. Prior to my visit, I didn't know that Indiana had a Democratic Senator whose name was Joe Donnelly. My last update of Indiana politics was around 2013 when long-time Republican Senator and Obama mentor Richard Lugar was thrown out of office in favor of someone from the Tea Party. That'll teach anyone with political experience to mentor a young (black?) Senator from a neighboring state. Look where that went?!

And so, as if political ads weren't already abundant enough, the Supreme Court had ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that even more money should be available for political speech. Imagine: you're sitting in your easy chair, watching news about the latest shootings, home invasions, freakish weather, and foreign threats, and you're eagerly waiting for the commercial break so you can learn about a new medication for depression or better adult diapers to replace the uncomfortable ones you've been wearing. Oh, and those delicious menu items - the crunchy lettuce, tasty tomatoes, and 100% American beef that's piping hot and ready to be cooked on demand just up the street. Ah, domestic bliss.

But no. No commercials about depression; no adult diapers; no crunchy lettuce and juicy ripe tomatoes floating in space ready to land on a succulent burger. No, no, no. What you get is an ad for candidate A - CANDIDATE A! CANDIDATE A!!!! No. No time to think - with micro-second precision, you jump to the ad for candidate B - CANDIDATE B! CANDIDATE B!!! And just as you start to think, "huh - Candidate A says, but Candidate B says" NO! Another ad. CANDIDATE A IS UNAMERICAN!!! And another... CANDIDATE B BEATS HIS WIFE! - commercial breaks seem to be long enough for four - two on each side because... fair!

Does the hammering of FOUR carefully engineered, emotional political ads enamor you with either candidate? While initially amusing and falsely illuminating, carry that forward to every commercial break for two months and what do you have? Wow - candidates sure need a lot of money these days to bludgeon the voter into thinking that democracy is awfully smelly. Come election day we have a citizenry that holds its nose, voting at emotional gunpoint, and longing for commercials about the latest depression medication and adult diapers. Please. PLEASE NO MORE POLITICAL ADS!!! I'll vote! I'll do anything - JUST MAKE THEM STOP!!!