Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Dunk

Some interesting thoughts.
There’s a lot of complaining about the lengthy process in the United States of winnowing candidates, but this year has shown its great strength. It gives a wide variety of people the chance to have their voices heard, and it gives voters a chance to see the candidates over a period of time when their political masks slip. Some rise to the challenge, others deflate under the pressure of nothing to say.
Is the kind of multi-year presidential campaign we see now really a blessing? I'm not sure and at various points in the past I'd have said no. But I can see Jabbar's point.

He really is very good, too. I believe that even if it weren't for multiple championship seasons with the Lakers and his valiant co-piloting in Airplane, he'd still be writing about the current scene. He might not have the, um, honor of appearing in the Washington Post, but you could see him somewhere.

2 comments:

semiconscious said...

i've always had the greatest respect for 'lew', yet another u.c.l.a. 'acquaintance' (was waiting for the campus shuttle one day, suddenly sensed someone beside me, turned my head, & then actually did that comedy skit thing of eyes & head slowly moving upwards). that said, & while i also can appreciate the point he's making, i find i have less'n'less patience over-all when it comes to partisan politics in general, & u.s. partisan politics in particular. this's mostly because it's become more'n'more apparent to me, over time, that it's actually people like this fellow that end up deciding what the world looks like each day, as opposed to any of our 'elected' representatives...

but it's also because i just can't stand the whole gossipy, 'cult of personality', 'reality tv', 'freak show' atmosphere that accompanies the elections. i find that i just no longer have the stomach for it. oh, well :) ...

Ben said...

I'm enjoying that picture of you seeing Lew Alcindor at the shuttle stop. I'm guessing he got that a lot.

It's true that our elected representatives seem to have checked out, whether they know it or not. Which is a downer, because few of us know how to be represented otherwise. Or don't have the budget for it.

The gossip angle always predominates because so much of our media is equipped to handle nothing else.