eavesdropping at starbucks today i overheard the workers conversing; one was telling the other how they aren't going to vote in the presidential elections because they aren't informed enough. on the surface it seems a noble gesture; staying out of the way of people that know because they care. patriotic almost. but straightaway i realized how totally apathetic one has to be to not be up on candidates. even in primaries you're not dealing with more than 10 between the two major parties. it really takes a five minute introspection regarding what YOUR values are, then a determination of how much you want a government to impose them, if at all. from there, it's a pretty simple matter to find out if someone agrees with you or not. really, it's the height of laziness to not take five minutes and at least figure that out. maybe it wouldn't be such an annoyance if people didn't pour so much time and effort into vapid, asinine pursuits. gotta keep up with america's next top model, espn, and that wacky lie detector game show; God forbid we should come across something intellectually stimulating.
on a related note, i finished reading fahrenheit 451. excellent book. i'll end with a quote. actually two."School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"
"The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle."
-Ray Bradbury (amazingly, in 1953)
