Thalia, Give Me Strength...

While wading through all of the various responses to the current Presidential campaign, I'm struck by our unfortunate tendency, in this media-rich society, to assume that all forms of media are created equal. I'm not talking about whether or not we watch Fox news or approve of the current rash of robocalls. No, I'm talking about a much more basic set of distinctions: we seem to have somehow forgotten the difference between serious communications and comedy.

Journalists and politicians are serious people, and they are restrained by the nature of their roles from saying certain things which they might otherwise wish to say. Journalists aim to be objective, or at least balanced, and ideally do not express partisan views; politicians are restricted on the one side by an understandable caution about saying anything that might undermine their own positions, and on the other side by the ethical considerations involved in trying to undermine the other guy's position. These constraints come with the territory; there are some places you just don't go.

But comedy is the wild card, the joker in the pack, and comedy gets to go pretty much wherever the hell it wants to; that's in the contract, so to speak, and has been since the days when Aristophanes' rampaging mob of Athenian wives - ancient spokespersons of the Politically Incorrect - set out to stop a war by witholding sex. Comedy can break the rules; indeed, comedy is all about breaking the rules. It's about inversions and reversions and exaggerations and ironic reversals and the crossing of boundaries. It can be blatantly partisan, or it can lambaste both sides equally - no holds barred. Why? Because comedy is not meant to be taken seriously.

So I have to admit, I'm confused by seeing so many complaints out there about statements made by the likes of Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, and other politically-oriented comics. The complaints go like this: "Oh, everybody cries foul if we say something that isn't pretty, but Stewart can say anything he wants and get away with it???"

Short answer: well, yeah, actually, he can. And not (as some have charged) because he's a liberal, but because he's a comedian. His statements are opinion, cast in a comic light, and are not intended to be taken literally. The comedian is a different animal from the journalist and the politician; we are not meant to mistake the comedian's words for facts, he has never claimed to be unbiased, and he is not a spokesperson for anyone or anything. He may be discussing serious topics, but always with a jocular turn. And if we share his opinions - or if we can get over the fact that we don't share them - we just might laugh.

As a rule, comedians are not required to play nice. And it's a good thing they're not, because one of the functions of comedy is to allow audiences to release tensions - tensions we carefully hold in so that we can play nice with each other, at least most of the time. How many of us have dearly wished we could publicly yell a resounding "f*** you" at the political figure of our choice? Alas, Mother taught us not to be impolite, and it's too late to change now, and what would the neighbors think - but ahhh, how it does the heart good to hear someone else say it! The comic is a labor-saving device as well as a face-saving device; he does it so that we don't have to, so that we can preserve that sometimes fragile sheen of respect between the factions. And in doing so, he also allows us to dissipate tensions and frustrations that might otherwise surface in words that will later be regretted, words that burn bridges - or even in real violence. In campaign season especially, we might all give silent thanks to the Muse of Comedy for this service.

Journalists and politicians expect to be taken seriously. In return, they are expected to guard their words and their motives, and set an example of what our society considers "good behavior" for the rest of us. When they don't, they can be called to task.

But comedians are expected to breach the walls - to be, among other things, a social pressure-valve. When they're too polite, that's when I'll start to worry.

The Perils Of Convenience, or The Incredible Drowning Car

(Since I started this thing, I guess I'll just keep writing. Read on, whoever you are... we'll see if I have anything else interesting to say!)

Contrary to the usual run of things these days, I was in my late twenties before I had ever owned a car. I'd had a driver's license since high school, but was simply never bitten by the bug, the gotta-have-my-wheels bug. A bookish teenager without any social life to speak of, I was far more interested in telescopes, rocks, Bach, jazz, science fiction and Shakespeare than I was in parties, clubs, or hanging out. My city had a good public transportation system, and my idea of a fun afternoon was hopping a bus to the library, or perhaps to the mall to browse through the bookshops, lust over expensive optical equipment I couldn't afford, and eventually ride home happily clutching a new quartz-crystal geode or one of those wonderful heavy-paged turtleback Audubon field guides. It never occurred to me that I "needed" a car.

In my mid-twenties, I worked in a retail store about forty minutes' walk from my home address. I rode the bus on weekdays, and walked when the buses weren't running. There were even a couple of Sundays when I cheerfully slogged there and back through knee-deep snow, arriving wet and cold but in good spirits. I was chubby but energetic; I sweated a lot and I wouldn't win any speed medals, but I preferred to get around on my own; I liked the sense of independence. I did sometimes accept a ride when I was tired, or running late, or had somewhere else I needed to get to quickly; in later years I discovered taxis and occasionally took a cab. But I never really felt underprivileged or deprived by my carless condition; in fact, I never really thought about it much at all. This was my normality; I had somehow settled comfortably into a way of life that most of the people around me found unthinkable. (A new roommate who worked the same shift in the same store once marveled, when I entered: "I left you at home an hour and a half ago, with no visible means of transportation, and here you are!" My response: a bewildered, "Uh, yeah...?")

It was several years later that I finally joined the ranks of car owners, and it happened only through the coincidence of perfect timing and the generosity of a family friend. Certainly, owning a vehicle opened new options for me. Over the following decade, a short succession of used cars - none too expensive, and replaced only at breakdown - gradually taught me that, yes, I could consider attending a class out of town if I wanted to, or an event in another state; I could visit a friend in another city, or a shop that lay beyond the purviews of public transportation. Cool.

But at the same time as such adventures were becoming possible, owning a car was turning into an everyday "necessity" for me. As time went on, I rarely used the gift to its full potential, to explore a wider world; with a few notable exceptions, I remained mostly within a familiar small circle in terms of both geography and activity. That powerful machine became merely a way to get from any given Point A to any given Point B with the least possible amount of time and (especially) effort, without those Point A's and Point B's actually becoming more interesting, challenging, or advantageous to my growth. Why cross that big parking lot on foot if with a few rounds of circling you can cadge a closer spot? Why walk to the corner store if you can drive? Even just going out "for a change of scenery" now meant getting behind the wheel - but the landscape might as well have been a movie background rolling past, a visual shift between scenes, because the trip itself was always the same - for it is the driver's sad fate that no matter what kind of space the car is in, you're still in the car. (It reminds me of a line from one of Robin McKinley's heroines, explaining why she goes about barefoot: "I like to know where I'm walking. In shoes I'm always walking on shoes.")

And every so often, I'd stop and think... it really wasn't so bad hopping buses. Untethered, with merely a few familiar stops as landmarks, no need to remember where I parked or return to where I started, unencumbered by anything I couldn't carry in a backpack - not to mention unencumbered by maintenance schedules, insurance policies, auto loan payments, and that chronic low background noise that softly but constantly whispers, What if it breaks down? I actually thought, on more than one occasion, that I might do better to simply bail out and hand the car back to the dealership.

I didn't, of course. That would not have been a sensible - or even plausible - thing to do, by the standards of the culture in which I was raised. To give up both property and privilege, on a whim? To waste what I'd already spent in payments? To give up midnight runs to the drugstore for chocolate and cold medicine? To force my lazy body into movement again? To deny what is taken for granted among the vast majority of my acquaintance - that it is necessary to have a car, and normal to want one?

Hmph.

Why all this pondering and reminiscing? Because earlier this month, my car and I got caught in a flash flood at the bottom of a rainy road. It was one of the wildest things I've experienced; suddenly we were splashing through more water than I'd ever imagined that section of road could hold, and I couldn't steer to turn aside. I managed make it partway onto the curb, but my motor had cut out and that was the end; I scrambled out of the car through the passenger-side as water rose up through the driver-side floor, and stood in the downpour laughing as I watched the teetering vehicle, one front wheel on the curb, bobbing gently in the waves. Incredible.

And that was that. Water in the engine, water in the computer, and a verdict of "totaled" from my insurance company has left me currently carless for the first time in a decade. And quite comfortable with that situation, thank you very much.

On previous occasions when an old, paid-for car finally broke down for good, I was a commuter, working a good half-hour's driving distance from home; concerned family members urged me to make an immediate grab at the first decent-seeming car I could afford - "afford" being, in that state of quiet quasi-panic, a somewhat stretchable term, involving a co-signor, a very long loan period, and monthly payments that my budget wasn't really prepared for. Well, I suppose I did have to do it, practically speaking. Not so, this time: I'm not currently a commuter, the insurance valuation was sufficient to pay off the remaining debt on my auto loan... and I've realized that I have no intention of incurring another one right now if I don't have to. I don't need the stress, I don't need the financial obligation, and - regardless of what anyone else might think - I don't need the car. At least, I don't believe I do. And I'm going to find out.

The old bus routes are still there, changed some but still covering a goodly portion of the city. The fares have increased, but set them against the current price of gas and they really don't seem all that bad. Yesterday I went grocery shopping with a large shoulder bag and a backpack; I huffed and puffed and grunted and groaned a bit, but sometimes that's good for the spirit. Standing outside on a fall day is hardly the worst thing I could be doing with my time - and when fall passes into winter, well, hey, that's what snow boots are for.

I have realized that, for me, this utterly indispensable thing really is utterly... dispensable. I'm making a bet with myself that my quality of life will go up, not down. Any takers?

Angry Republican Mobs and Pandora's Box

Greetings, out there. Allow me to introduce myself. I am an intelligent adult.

My political views may not match yours, but I try to look at the issues carefully and think them through for myself, instead of simply voicing a "party line" or choosing the candidate who seems the most like me. I would like to think that you, as another intelligent adult, try to do the same.

I am very, very disturbed by the recent news from out there in Campaign-Land, and I hope that you are, too.

We all know that politicians often turn to mudslinging and political poison as a way to discredit the opponent. We even expect it, as cynical as that view may be. No presidential campaign would be complete without it. But there's mud, and then there's mud with razor blades in it. I ask you, very seriously, to consider the difference.

Recently, in the wake of a negative-campaign claim that the opponent is "palling around with terrorists," a new and disturbing dynamic has been showing up. Cries of "Traitor!" and "Kill him!" are not exactly standard fare in your everyday political rally - at least, not here in the good old U. S. of A.

But even more troubling is when the speakers - presumably also intelligent and responsible adults, people whom we have elected, or might elect, to run our country - do little or nothing to contradict or even calm such an angry crowd. A crowd which is showing signs that, given the right stimulus, it could become a mob.

Pandora's Box has been opened, and a few late-spoken sane-and-soothing words, even if sincerely meant, will not shut it again.

Now, you may agree or disagree with John McCain's politics or Barack Obama's politics. That's fine. You may consider Sarah Palin to be the best hope of modern feminism or an empty-headed ditz; that's your call. But I ask you, please, look carefully at this particular dynamic, and at the question of whether an ethical line has been crossed.

The cry of "terrorists" has certainly been used before as a political tactic, and recently. It is arguably the reason why our current incumbent gained a second term; people's fears of a 9/11 repeat made them seek safety in the known, rather than risk an unknown. But in that case, the rallying cry was about who had the experience to deal with terrorism, who could best defend us from the treacherous Outsider.

This use of the "terrorist" card, however, is different, for this one implies that the political opponent IS the Outsider, a dark and dangerous figure who has somehow infiltrated our formerly secure boundaries to threaten all that we hold dear. This provokes a visceral reaction in us; the Outsider, the Other, becomes an object to be destroyed at any cost, a devil to be driven out by the sword, if we hope to preserve ourselves and our children and our way of life. This new game is no longer about which human being is most qualified to govern - because the opponent is now cast as somehow inhuman, not so much a person as an evil force.

Such demonization is more than just a convenient campaign tactic. It is a release of certain other demons that we haven't seen in mainstream politics since the days of the civil rights movement. It is a shift into territories where the mudslinger is no longer simply pushing the trigger of our general fears, but is now actually aiming the barrel of the gun at a human target.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are the gun.

Please, no matter where you are on the political spectrum, consider the facts as we know them so far:

1. Candidate X accuses Candidate Y of being friends with a terrorist.

2. Candidate Y says that he knows the man in question, who was responsible for violent anti-Vietnam-war protests forty years ago, but has no particular ties to him.

3. A number of major newspapers investigate the issue, and find no actual evidence of any close relationship between the two.

4. Candidate X claims to know that the relationship is really much closer than everyone thinks - but offers no facts or evidence to support that claim.

5. Instead, this unsubstantiated claim is used to demonize Candidate Y, inciting a violent emotional reaction which is allowed or even encouraged to run its course in angry shouts and threats at rallies for Candidate X's campaign.

This, as it festers, is the stuff that assassinations are made of. It is already at the point where a verbal protest - too little and too late - only further incites the roiling emotions; belated attempts to stuff Pandora's demons back into the box, however earnestly intended, become merely part of the show. It is a superb show, a skilled display of human manipulation. And as such, it is very, very dangerous.

Whether you agree or disagree with the values that Candidate X talks about, please, look at the values that he has actually shown to us by these actions. Actions may not always speak louder than words, but they often speak more accurately, and they are harder to take back.

Sure, dirty politics is a fact of life in America. We accept it, even relish it for the gossipy fun it produces. But this isn't just "politics as usual" - and the difference is as clear as the difference between pointing the finger and pointing the gun. It's the difference between a suspension of politeness and a suspension of ethics. And it's a question of how such a dangerous tactic would play out, and against whom, when played not from the campaign trail but from the White House.

Dear Thinking People Everywhere, please don't legitimize that gun in the hands of the McCain/Palin campaign. Because if we allow this tactic to win, that gun could next be pointed... anywhere. Because, let's face it: whether you're a supporter of the Religious Right or a supporter of Gay Rights, chances are good that someone, somewhere out there, considers YOU to be the Other - the Outsider, a dark and demonic figure, a shadowy threat to all that is right and true.