Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Primary View

Want my vote? Come and get it.

Politics are useful enough, but I would give all the thumb waving and podium thumping ever mine to give for one candidate who might actually promise, let alone accomplish, something useful. Consider this platform.

From here forward, by federal law and its full range of punishments, no person shall ever be able to ask the first question that comes to mind. The second question is fine, as is the third or any subsequent question. But the first shall be forever banned.

Imagine the possibilities. No newspaper reporter would hate the virgin moments of each new encounter because that dreaded question--"so how long have you been at the paper"--would never come to sound. A teacher would not be asked each fall how her students are. No one would have to lie to minor acquaintances by responding coyly, "fine."

How much more interesting would this world be if people asked questions of others that required actual thought? Perhaps then the answers would follow suit. And an entire existence known as humanity would find itself in a place public policy, reform and promised idealism could never naturally take it--among the intriguing.

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