Listening to Michael Hedges' music always clears my mind. Similarly, a trip to the Hirshorn Gallery or the East Building at the National Gallery of Art, or MoMa -- you get the picture. It's a cleansing experience, and makes me appreciate art and what good it does for us.
On the other hand (it's always the other hand that gets in trouble) it clears things up for me and allows me to see the incongruities (geez) in life and the things that we take for granted. Like today ---
Hundreds (thousands?) of people stood in long lines at Build-A-Bear Workshops to get a bear for the price of the age of their child. For those of you doing math, that means that a 4-year-old could get a stuffed bear for --- four dollars. Need I go further? Inexplicably, more than half of the bear-enthusiasts were turned away because ... well, they ... um ... over-booked.
Yes, the company did not anticipate that huge numbers of humanity would stand in line for several hours to get a stuffed animal for a kid ...
... a kid, by the way, who will never understand the value of five dollars. How long does it take mom and/or dad to earn that money? A half-hour? A half-minute? Regardless, the value of the prize is lost on a kid who only wants a cotton-stuffed version of an animal that could eat him in a minute.
The parents, however, driven by guilt and a strange sense of giving, want to do that for their kids, because - well, they're our KIDS and we'd do anything for them, including taking valuable time off of work to stand in line to get something that they could just as easily order online for maybe three-times the cost? After all, nothing is too good for our kids ...
... including talking on our phones while we are driving them around, texting while driving, or any other dangerous activity that you might be involved in while your precious children are present. But, I digress.
After all, you're looking out for them, right?
OK then, that includes voting, and I'm hoping that you did, because a scant 40% of registered voters did so in the last presidential election. I'd guess that your vote would be more important than standing in line for a stuffed animal - right?
According to statistics, no. So, perhaps we should be working with retailers to encourage you to go out and vote? Maybe, if we provided the same incentives that baseball teams or retailers provide, we could get you to stand in line to vote?
Hot dogs for a dollar. A free t-shirt. Twenty-percent off your taxes? Whatever it takes to get you off your ass enough to care as much about the future of our country as you do about getting a fucking stuffed animal for your over-privileged child.
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