California Governor Gray Davis is supposedly going to be recalled, and already 358,000 people are moving to take his place.
Gary Coleman, Angelyne (Uh-huh-huh-huh, boobs), Larry Flynt, Arianna Huffington, are amongst the big-name candidates. Not Ah-Nud, however, as he is announcing tonight on Jay Leno (Taping as we speak) that he is not running.
My question: Should the Daria community nominate a CA native to join the ultimate rat race?
Chris Smith
On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 19:43:31 -0400, Reese Kaine opined:
If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.
However, Chad Page is my nominee as the Daria candidate.
Oh yeah...AH-nold's in the hunt now too.
"Michelle Klein-Hass" wrote in message news:...
I'm hurt, Michelle. What about me or Shelby?! Aren't we Californian enough??
On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 21:52:32 -0700, Kara Wild opined:
I thought about you two, but considering how good Chad is at being the chat op on #Daria+ he would be ideal. His calm demeanor and ability to find points of compromise in even the most heated situation are just the kind of skills needed to be a leader.
Either you or Shelby would be good too, don't get me wrong. But Chad instantly came to mind because of his "people skills."
"I have people skills, dammit!" -- the paranoid guy from "Office Space."
-.\\<-H-
"Michelle Klein-Hass" wrote in message news:...
I was kidding... I wouldn't want to spend $3,500 to run, though I can think of a few who would. <shudder>
Hmm, sounds like you haven't spent much time on the Paperpusher Board...
"Michelle Klein-Hass" wrote in message news:...
Tsk, tsk, Kara. First, "Favorite Authors", now this. Something tells me you're crying out for some *serious* attention... ;D
By the way, you should be pleased. You're now on my "FA" list, since you're planning to do some more 'Daria' fic stuff!
-Steven G.
[email] (Steven Galloway) wrote in message news:...
Well no one hates attention. ; > Personally I'd go with Don-O for governor, but that's just me.
I'm not really "planning" to. There are bits that I dribbed and drabbed out that I would like to finish someday, and hopefully I will. The only thing I plan to finish is that Wildfeed.
And what, a fav author can only be a fav author if he/she is active?
"Kara Wild" wrote in message news:[email]...
news:...
as he
the
enough??
If I could get a ride up to CA, I'd run. And after passing the idea around, Michael Pfeffer (Remember him?) wants to run. ;-)
It's always been Republicans & Democrats, we need a Daria platform!
Chris Smith
"Reese Kaine" wrote in message news:...
By the way, what is a Daria platform?
[email] (Kara Wild) wrote in message news:...
A free-thinker platform, I hope? :)
BTW, I'm a free-thinker (neither conservative nor liberal; I hate politics).
-John Cassidy Richmond, VA
"The monster a child knows best and is most concerned with is the monster he feels or fears himself to be." -Bruno Bettelheim
In article ,
Seems to be a lot of it about. Personally I have been screwed over too many times by politicians at many levels to trust them further than I could comfortably spit a rat.
It would be a shame if Daria would ever lose that honest edge which I have seen too many people lose when they become any sort of political activist.
I agree with Douglas Adams, myself. The wish to become any form of political leader should disbar you from ever becoming one.
Chika wrote in message news:...
Right. Politics is just an infantile pissing game. It's just too silly to really care about. In fact, both sides have as many minuses as they do plusses.
BTW, I'm also a fan of Tom Lehrer (I got into him when I listened to Dr. Demento stuff back in my New York years), who, in his many songs, pokes fun at politics and other things in the funniest way possible! Hmmmm . . . I wonder if Daria listens to Tom Lehrer . . . :)
Exactly! I love Daria too much for her to follow the trail of even her inspiration Jeaneane Garofalo, who's now better known for selling out to political activism (which cost her the aborted sitcom SPLICE O' LIFE) than the cutting-edge humor people knew her for. :/
-John Cassidy Richmond, VA
"The monster a child knows best and is most concerned with is the monster he feels or fears himself to be." -Bruno Bettelheim
On 17 Aug 2003 18:43:23 -0700, [email] (Ryuusei Productions) wrote:
'Politics' once meant the art and science of government and social policy. Today, it means the *business* of fighting for power between two (or more or fewer in some countries) parties with essentially identical philosophies when it comes down to the things that actually matter to real, working people in their daily lives.
There is still a kind of politics that can be done out there that is more than just vapid self-promotion. But it will not be done as long as the people who proclaim themselves the politicians are the ones we have now.
Personally, I believe no one who has ever held office should ever be allowed to hold another office. ;P
There are a lot more than two sides to things. Those are just the two that have the wealth and power to broadcast their message.
In real politics, there are fascists and communists, anarchists and libertarians, liberals and conservatives, Stalinists and centrists, social democrats and Yippies, monarchists and theocrats, not just Democrats and Republicans, which are two subvarieties of centrist-conservatives.
But at least JG is really hot.
"Sean Carroll" wrote in message news:[email]...
news:...
Joe Scarborough rips on Janeane almost nightly on his MSNBC show. I .... had no idea she dyed herself blonde.
The lady or the tiger? .......Neither, just not-so-mellow-yellow.
Chris Smith ----- "Duuh. DUUH? ...... Duh. DUUUUHH!!" - You'd have to watch the show hosted by the prick mentioned above to find out what that's about. ----- P.S.: This is not a plug for the show. I'd love to change the channel, but considering the alternatives, there's nothing else that's really worth watching.
[email] (Ryuusei Productions) wrote in message news:...
Except for the fact that it has a huge impact on our lives in many ways, including some we don't even know about. For example, if everyone just tuned out, the Patriot Act would be strengthened. It's because politicians went "Eh, let's not debate and just support our Prez!" that it passed in the first place.
Because being paralyzed by ennui is better?
Garofalo is what, 35? People aren't going to stay the same forever, no matter what happens. Usually the ones who do (*cough* over-aged rock singers *cough*) are just viewed as pathetic and caught in a time warp. So she's chosen another way to express herself. So what? I'm sure she would argue that she holds the same core beliefs as she always did.
In article , Kara Wild wrote:
One of the biggest problems in politics is that you can never totally win any given argument. Or, more simply put, "One mans' babe is another man's airhead". The trouble is that while some of us would dearly like to see the whole status quo go flying into whichever hell is most convenient, others actually like it. That's politics. The biggest problem with *politicians*, on the other hand...
Frank Zappa said it best. "Republicans are nice if you're a multi-millionaire/and Democrats are fine if all you own is what you wear/but neither of them's really right 'cause neither of them care..."
Possibly. Sometimes the best action to take is to take no action.
I'll say nothing here as Garofalo, to me, is little more than a name and a squidge of clay on the Deathmatch arena... :)
Chika wrote in message news:...
I won't deny that there are plenty of self-absorbed poseurs in politics. I also think there are a lot of hard workers; they just get overshadowed by the "larger than life" characters, the same way trouble-making prima donna athletes make it seem like all sports figures are spoiled prima donnas, which also isn't true to a large extent.
That's arguable. If people who currently choose to completely tune out at least bothered to vote, our voting rate might actually edge above 50% and it wouldn't fall upon the extremes of both sides to select and vote for a candidate. The candidates running might then also be forced to consider more points of view.
Is that still on?
In article , Kara Wild wrote:
That is one way of looking at it. The trouble is that when each side (or in my own country's example, all sides) fields a party that appears to consist, at least in the upper eschelons, of cheats and liars, then eventually this scares off voters. If we are screwed whatever we do, why even bother? That isn't to say that every leader has been a charlatan, but then not every leader has been an inspiration either!
It gets repeated over here a fair amount, and I have the fight in question on DVD. :)
Chika wrote in message news:...
I don't know what political options you have in your country, but things like our presidential primaries are *supposed* to offer us multiple options for candidates. There are a lot of bugs to work out (the parties often annoint someone and throw money at him so he gets all the exposure and, eventually, the votes) but the underlying ideas show promise. Right now, there's no obvious annointed one in the Democratic party, so it's rather interesting to watch the candidates duke it out. If people complain that primaries only lead to extremists being nominated... well, maybe they (the non-extremists) ought to cast a vote!
Similarly, the recall is there to get people more politically engaged. I'm opposed to the California recall and find its origins suspect, but I support the idea of recalls in general and, hey, at least it's finally forcing Gray Davis to sign popular legislation that he's been sitting on for ages. The "why bother?" attitude that pervades my country is rather self-defeating. There *are* options: people just have to shake off the ennui and find them.
In article , Kara Wild wrote:
Lucky you! :)
They will, if they feel strongly enough about something. The trick is to actually grab their attention with something that hits them close, not an easy trick to do, especially when they perceive flim-flam as, you have to admit, they have suffered from more than one politician wanting to get into office. When you get to the stage when *all* the current choices are perceived to be flawed in some way, Democrat, Republican or whatever, even the best options can be overlooked.
It wouldn't be the first time a political mechanism was used for the wrong purpose. As for voter indifference, it could be argued that people are just becoming used to the actions of politicians, especially when they want something from them. It's a little like the situation with the Roman Games, which started as little more than a country fair and became... well, you know how they became! The Games had to offer more and more pointless violence, blood and so forth to keep the masses coming back. When you offer up the same old whatever, people will inevitably grow bored of it. When people continue to act in a dishonest way, others will become mistrustful of them. When it is perceived that a system offers nothing, people will stop participating.
Yes, I know it's a little "catch-22", but there are more people than politicians, and in the end it needs somebody with the necessary to give the whole thing a shove to make it interesting again. Only then might you see an end to voter apathy.
Trouble is that often that can run hand in hand with some rather unpleasant side effects, as many countries have found out!
Chika wrote in message news:...
Your political traditions are different (though not so different... American traditions did grow out of them somewhat), but for my part, I don't think people should get involved in the political process just when it's convenient or when they're excited or when they "feel like it." We're a representative democracy -- that's what we do. Any form of government can become rich, and any form of government can have a powerful army (look at Ghengis Kahn), but what makes the US special is that we have the power to exercise our will regarding who speaks out on our behalf. Sure there are special interests, but would they be so powerful if people actually did their duty, paid attention to the issues, and voted without needing to be courted? Voted because it was the *right* thing to do, not because their interest just happened to be on the ballot?
In article , Kara Wild wrote:
Totally agree. The trouble is that while we might want to have a political process (no matter which country) that is right and true, human nature often corrupts this. It can affect some systems more than others, but in the end we all suffer.
Yup. As long as you choose the voice that is available to you. If it isn't on the ballot, certainly you have the right to take the "none of the above" route.
That depends heavily on the interest. Certainly some interests would gain and other lose if more attention was paid by voters. The trouble is getting people interested in the first place. Again, this all comes back to human nature.
Voting just for the sake of voting? Not something I would feel right in doing. Turn it the other way; if I was presented with two candidates, both of whom supported positions (not necessarily the same) that I could not, in good faith, support. Would I vote for the lesser of the two evils for the sake of "doing my duty"? Would I vote at all? If I don't vote because I cannot trust either candidate, am I being apathetic or am I addressing the issue by withholding my vote?
[email] (Kara Wild) sagely remarked in news:[email]:
I've been saying for some time that part of the reason our politicos are so superficial is because the voters expect so little of them. So cynicism has its downside. I know that's not a very Daria-like thing to say. I guess I'm a bit nearer to Jodie Landon today.
<Mack> Nothing personal, Steve, but the real Jodie Landon is way better. </Mack>
Steve Cross
The problem as of IICY?, though, is that Daria was just plain apathetic. Occasionally she might be roused to give a speech (graduation day) or, after being urged a dozen times, to go to the school board about the soda problem in "Fizz Ed." But otherwise, after Season Two, she was little better than a dog that lies around the house all day when it came to expressing her views. That, to me, makes her a more pitiable figure than if she risked her supposed integrity by becoming a political activist. She has a lot to offer and to never act just seems like such a waste.
Kara Wild wasted our time in alt.tv.daria on 26 Aug 2003 with:
Don't forget, she isn't an actual person.
Gamer wrote in news:Xns93E3DF3469340Gamer99278334687@ 68.6.19.6:
Of course not, Gamer. Do you honestly think we don't know that. The reason we talk of Daria as if she were real (and other characters too) is because we enjoy the show so much, and because they are more interesting and better-written characters than most of the ones we see on TV.
Steve Cross
Gamer wrote in message news:...
And yet strangely, we fans often forget that.
Why would we even care about a Daria plank if we all remembered she's a fictional character?
On 7 Aug 2003 21:52:32 -0700, [email] (Kara Wild) wrote:
Woah, are you who I think you are? Long time no see!
Had Alexandria triumphed and not Rome, the extravagant and muddled stories that I have summarized here would be coherent, majestic, and perfectly ordinary. -Jorge Luis Borges
[email] (Arthur Rimbaud) wrote in message news:...
I don't know... who am I? ; >
On 9 Aug 2003 14:17:47 -0700, [email] (Kara Wild) wrote:
Can anyone ever *really* know who they are?
Sean Carroll wrote in message news:...
Well I hit my head, so I don't think I do...
Just kidding!