Reflection on Voting the Image

So, I got a couple of stern comments a while back when I posted about my disillusionment in the election process in America. Basically, I have a hard time voting not because I think my vote doesn't count, but because I think that one votes not for a candidate but an image concocted by a political machine. Well, an interesting article in this weekend's Parade (yes, we read Parade, give me a break) verified my skepticism.

The most striking quote comes from an Nixon administration internal memo dated around the time of the 1968 Presidential Election. Nixon's image advisor wrote:

The response is to the image, not to the man...It's not what's there that counts, it's what's projected. [The selection of a President] has to be an act of faith...This faith isn't achieved by reason; it's achieved by charisma, by a feeling of trust that can't be argued or reasoned.

At the end of the article, the author cites statistics showing that campaign ad budgets no longer reflect who wins elections, which suggests, according to him, that Americans are beginning to move away from voting based on image. I think this trend reflects more a distrust in political advertisements, and I definitely believe that the image machine is still full functioning giving us nicely manufactured products that bear little resemblance to what kind of President the person will actually be. This is why I have a hard time voting.

What Can I Say?

Is that not awesome?

Reflections on Stickin' It to Skybus

Take that, Port Columbus International Airport! It's 6 a.m. and we're sitting in Concourse B of said airport waiting for our flight to Kansas City via Chicago O'Hare. Both Kathi and I haven't slept for almost 24 hours, and we are rockin' it out! We're on our way to visit our friends, Meryl and Neal in Kansas for the weekend.

Let me weave for you the tale of our struggle to actually get to Kansas City. About a month ago, using the financial windfall from our recent tax return, we purchased tickets to fly out to KC to visit our friends. Lucky for us we were able to get inexpensive tickets our a regional discount airline. Well, last week this regional discount airline - let's call them Skybus - declared bankruptcy and shut down all of their flight operations.

In a scramble to try and salvage the fun-filled weekend we had planned, we managed to get relatively comparable tickets using William Shatner's keen negotiating skills (aka Priceline.com). Well, those tickets happened to be with American Airlines. For those of you following the news, American Airlines this past week canceled over 2,000 of the domestic flights to conduct emergency maintenance on their MD80 airliners. It just so happens that the Chicago to KC leg of our journey was one of those canceled flights.

Well, crap. Let me just acknowledge how amazingly friendly and helpful the customer service lady from American Airlines was (really, no sarcasm intended). She managed to get us on a United flight from O'Hare to Kansas City within 10 minutes! Kudos to American Airlines!

So, we drove down to Columbus after work tonight (or last night...uh...what time is it??) and stayed over at our friends Randy and Sarah's. Wouldn't you know it, Ravi was in town. We decided to just stay up all night capping the entire experience off with a killer 4:30 a.m. breakfast at Waffle House. Kudos to you Waffle House!

Now fast forward 2 hours. We're waiting for our flight to board riding our 3rd wind. Reading over this, I'm astonished that it's this coherent. Regardless, I say poop on you U.S. airline industry.

Random Signage IX

Man, it's been a while since I've posted. Anyway, we found this sign in Magnolia, Ohio. It was in front of a out-of-business restaurant. Obviously wasn't the best marketing idea.