I’m Not Outraged. Much.

I’m sorry that this space has been so inactive lately. I was on a real roll there for a while, able to write like the wind and post at multiple sites in any given week. But lately, I’ve fallen victim to a combination or poor time management and low inspiration levels. It’s been hard to get my head around any topic enough to pound out a few words on it so I’ve mostly been keeping quiet. Except on Babble. I’ve been all kinds of verbose over there. Amazing how a paycheck can motivate a writer, amirite?

Part of my issue has been my increasing reluctance to get involved with the news. Here’s my impression of any report on politics right now: Blah, blah, blah, FEEL OUTRAGE NOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!

Dude. Chill.

There are some things that require outrage like all the anti-choice legislation that the states have been passing. That shit is draconian and scary and infringes on medical care in terrifying ways. And I’m cynical enough to look a it all and see it as politicking in an election year. Those state legislators have nothing else to campaign on because they haven’t fixed the economy, they haven’t cut taxes to nothing, and they haven’t brought Jesus back to turn water into wine in the middle of Main Street. So they’re trying to eliminate abortion instead and going home to brag about it. It makes me sick that they’re willing to manipulate the lives of women to keep their jobs.

But then there’s all this other shit that isn’t worth the energy to get outraged about. Like Mitt Romney’s new house with an elevator for cars. Unless he displaced a colony of endangered birds to build it, I’m not gonna freak out. He’s a rich guy. He gets to have fancy houses. Ever were it thus. Or any story about lobbyists lobbying for what they want. Yup. Happens. It’s legal. It’s part of the First Amendment. Opponents of any lobby’s agenda should counter lobby. Now, I do reserve outrage for the PAC system that allows lobbyists to walk around handing out checks with astonishingly large numbers on them. I’d like to see ALL private money out of campaigns. But lobbying itself? Not outrageous.

What is pretty outrageous is the election-year ritual of governance coming to a grinding halt so all the participants can campaign. We’re not going to see a budget out of the Senate so count on a third straight year without a true budget resolution. And that means appropriations will get back-burnered too because there won’t be a top-line figure to start from and because chickenshit politicians are too wimpy to be caught spending money when voters might notice.  The President will spend his non-televised hours at fundraisers and won’t propose anything new until the second Wednesday in November. Everything will run on autopilot for the next 8 months because these jackholes all think running for office is the most important thing.

Not that the media talks about that. They talk about Mitt Romney’s mansion.

I don’t have the energy to spend the next 8 months dissecting every speech every candidate makes when it can all be summed up by saying “A candidate pandered to a special interest today.” Instead of campaign converage, I’d like to just see shots of frolicking kittens. That would at least make people happy.

So, that was a long way of saying there’s a whole lot of nothing going on in my head and consequently on my blog. I’ll try to do better soon.