I was pondering the amount of new, exciting, and utterly intelligent matter being put forth from my lowly brain these days, and my conclusion was alarming. Aside from having to use my math skills in my newly acquired carpentry job and my somewhat regular research on the production of methanol, it seems as if I have been shunning the very idea of thinking these past two months entirely. So I said to myself: "self... to bloody heck with what I've been doing on this blog! I can't expect a good turn out when all I post are school essays brought back from the shadowy depths of my folders." No my dear reader(s)! I told myself that I must come up with something fresh, new and provoking, with a colorful flourish to it and great sense of verbal play.
In conclusion! I have decided to turn The Thursday Post into a social/economical/political/ethical commentary. Suffice to say I have no idea how this is really going to turn out. I'm on a bit of an intellectual high right now, with the desire to be excessively wordy and rather rebelliously dubious. Perhaps in a few weeks I will settle down into my old habit of posting regurgitated class work... we shall see.
First order of business: Bill Clinton
Having spent some time with my politically liberal employer (one out of the two I work for the most), I have been exposed to not quite Republican views, and, heaven forbid, socially-commentating-country-western-hick-bands from Alabama (or somewhere nearby). That's right, now I spend a good amount of my laboring days listening to groups such as Steve Earle, James McMurtry, and The Drive-by Truckers. I enjoy most of it, but the music adds a completely new element to my life. It's as if a group of radical hippie protesters with guitars poetically broke into my brain.
One song by The Drive-by Truckers sparked a bit of an interesting conversation betwixt myself and said employer. Pardon my French, and I know that this will sound very, very strange, but the song is entitled (divert your eyes right about now ladies) "The President's Penis is Missing". Basically, the Drive-by Truckers argue, and my employer and many others agree, that a President who is helping our economy ought not to be discarded based on his sex life. In a nutshell, that's what they are saying. The media had their eye on the President's social life more than on what he was doing for the country. The argument my boss made was that, if the C.E.O. of a major corporation could be as promiscuous as he likes without endangering the stock of the company, why isn't it the same for the President? Why should we care?
First of all, let me be quite frank in saying that I have no idea what Clinton did for our country. All that I hear about him is regarding the scandal. I haven't done my homework and I am in no ways ready to critique Bill Clinton as an economical ruler. HOWEVER, I can in theory respond to the statements set forth in the previous paragraph. Why SHOULD we care? Well, I'd like to think that a leader's private life will influence his public life. The Truckers would like to say that personal morality has nothing to do with how great of a public leader the President can be. They would like to say that the office of the President is strictly a public job, and thus his private life is irrelevant (note to the band and to anyone else to whom it may concern: correct me if I am mistaken). But are not the public and private lives of the President but two different views of the life of the same man?! How can one separate the two?! To do so would be to cut a man in half, which is ridiculous! How can we trust a man who cheats on his wife not to cheat on the nation which he serves? Is this too harsh? Too unreasonable?
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Dude, you are strange. :D
And I am reminded of a line from An Ideal Husband when someone comments on the fact that in the old days, scandal made a politician more interesting whereas now we expect our leaders to be more moral than ourselves.
I would also like to think that a man's private life affects his public and that a public man ought to upstanding through and through, but on the other hand from history it seems that a lot of fantastic leaders had simply awful personal lives. What should we do about this? I don't know.
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