Re: Where are all the real conservatives?

Matthew,

Andrew Sullivan seems to think the problems with the current Republican Party have been blurred together with the idea of conservatism, thus obstructing it. He argues that for conservative ideals, which he finds appealing, to be viable again, the conservatives essentially need to start from scratch. 

This obviously raises the point of what a terrible hair day I'm having today. I tend to alternate between hair products. I buy one. I think its great. It IS great. By the time its empty though, I'm less satisfied. I get to Rite Aid and find myself attracted to the ideology of another product. I bring it home, and I know I made the right decision. By the time that runs out though, I'm again unsatisfied. I start remembering how good things were with that other product, so I want to go back to it. Or maybe I decide to buy a product that reminds me of the ideals of the original product, but packaged in a newer and more appealing way. 

The situation was desperate today. My hair is clearly on the wrong track and I'm going to see Daniel Radcliffe naked tomorrow. Daniel Radcliffe can't nakedly see me when my hair looks like this. Nor can the millions of gays that will surely be in the audience with me. I need CHANGE, and I need it by tomorrow at 8 PM. 

The cynic in me feels that our politics is tragically similar to my hair. Its a constant state of disappointment. It would be unheard of in modern politics for the same party to have two two-term presidencies in a row. By the time a party is running for its 3rd or 4th term, they've fucked enough things up that the opposition party can say, "Hey look, they suck too. Why don't you try us again?" And we do.

On the other hand, this cycle may be the beauty of democracy. I think what I've come to accept is that I will never find a hair product that I will be satisfied with for all time, but for the most part, my hair usually looks fine. 

Maybe the liberals get a few years to go crazy, but the modern conservatives get a few years to put their foot on the breaks. I think if you take a step back from that, the result over time is change, but measured change, and I believe that is your definition of true conservatism. It doesn't really have anything to do with my hair, but I think people on either side of the debate would probably be OK with it. Alright chief I'm going to bed, I've got a big day tomorrow. I'm gonna see Harry Potter's who-ha. 

I'm starting to be a little frightened of my iPhone.

I was happily listening to Sex Bomb while walking to the subway today when I saw a man who was also enjoying his iPhone. Just as he passed me he mouthed, "One time, one time" and threw a finger up

I never thought I'd be jealous of what someone else was listening to when I was listening to Sex Bomb, but in that moment, I wanted to hear nothing more than Killing Me Softly. I  especially wanted to mouth it in decreasing font sizes to signify the echo part.

Unfortunately, I don't have Killing Me Softly on my iPhone. In the days leading up to getting the phone, I was going through my iTunes library and unchecking any of the crappy songs I never want to hear. That way only the not-crappy songs would fill up my iPhone, which has less disk space than my old iPod. To break up the monotony, I was also gradually adding my phone numbers to my phone book. It's pretty impossible to do either of these tasks for more than 5 minutes before starting to sing a song, wandering over to the piano, and never returning to the computer.

And so, when I finally got it, I had two choices. I could either finish the tasks, or start playing with it immediately. In the easiest decision of my life, I just plugged it in and started pushing non-existent buttons. Rather than syncing all of my music, it allowed me to just choose a few playlists. I decided to be practical and choose two playlists, "Recently Added" (so that anytime I got new music it would be put on my phone right away) and "Gym" (the first playlist I could think of that had Sex Bomb on it), neither of which contained Killing Me Softly.  I also decided that I could just get by without calling anyone whose name starts with anything that comes after "G."

I wasn't really paying attention as Sex Bomb (why does no one use the Peppermint Disco mix?) finished, so I had already hummed along to several bars of the next song before I realized that it was Killing Me Softly. "Nice work, iPhone," I thought. Everyone knows that iPods are psychic.  They can always play a song that is perfect for your mood, even if you yourself hadn't actually been aware of what your mood was. So what if you hit skip 14 times before it decides to lay the perfect track on you. The iPod is just teaching you patience. 

The iPhone could take this psychic ability to a whole new level. It's connected to the entire world, at least when AT&T isn't being shitty, which isn't as often as everyone tells you. The iPhone decides you need to hear Killing Me Softly. It goes and finds Killing Me Softly. Apple is the GREATEST.

Right as L agreed to take us to the bridge, I realized that Lauryn Hill is the modern version of Frank Sinatra. Every time you are in a karaoke bar, someone sings a Frank Sinatra song and thinks that just because they can hit the notes, they are just as talented as Frank Sinatra. The same is becoming increasingly true for "Killing Me Softly." You may be able to go "oooh ooooh ohhh," or "New York, New Yooooooork" but the difficulty of those notes isn't what makes the song so special. Its that tone. Lauryn's tone is so great that the entire success of Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit was based around it. They filled a movie with incredible young singers,  but at the end, Lauryn opens up her mouth, and out comes the one sound so glorious it could convince the school board not to close the school, even though they can't afford to keep it open. There's  a reason that movie is legendary and Hillary Duff's similarly plotted Raise Your Voice is not.

Where this all inevitably leads though, is that Lauryn Hill may as well be as dead to the music world as Frank Sinatra. At least Sinatra gave us a billion albums. Despite only having one solo album, Lauryn currently spends her time disturbing her suburban neighbors with her erratic behavior while raising her five kids, who are each 1/4 part Bob Marley. Her voice currently sounds something like this:

I hadn't gotten upset about Lauryn moving to Crazy Town in several days, so I began to wonder why my iPhone had done this to me. Why would it make me so sad, going so far as to magically acquire a song that it didn't have previously. I took comfort when I remembered the guy on the street giving me the idea. Yea. That was it. The guy on the street made me want to hear the song, and the iPhone was just playing what I wanted. Unless...

The guy who gave me the idea was also on an iPhone. I'm not sure how we decided it was a good idea to take a device that already had psychic tendencies and give it the ability to communicate with every other device on the planet. Clearly, the iPhones are now working together. They will gain control of our lives slowly, so that by the time we realize its too late. This is a device that currently tells me where to have desert when out with friends and whether or not the G train is running. (It's not.) It doesn't take very long to go from "Lets make all the humans sad that Lauryn Hill doesn't make good music anymore" to "Let make all the humans kill themselves."

I would destroy it, but its just so sleek.  No. I've lost this battle, but there may still be hope for you. Resist.

UPDATE: While I was posting this, the internet apparently went crazy over a previously unheard Lauryn Hill song, in which she's in rich, full voice. Its unclear whether this track is just new or actually from the glory days, but one thing is clear: The iPhones are trying to throw off the scent. If you don't hear from me for any extended period of time, assume they've got me.

McCain obviously didn't count on the strength of the polar bear lover demographic

I still haven't quite decided whether I'm going to use this as a place for political commentary or just an outlet to tell Matthew stories, so I'll start with both. 

When I was a kid I slept with a stuffed Polar Bear. I'm using the very liberal definition of "kid:" anyone who hasn't started the 11th grade yet. 

He was my favorite stuffed animal because he was not just a bear, but a polar bear. Polar bears love to swim. I love to swim. Polar bears are white. I am white.  (I would later learn that polar bears are actually black. Apparently their fur is hollow and clear, which refracts the light or something. Either way, I was less racist by the time I learned that so it was all good.)

I brilliantly named him Teddy. If you're questioning my brilliance, you should know that when someone gave me a miniature version of him, I named him Franklin. So they were Franklin and Teddy Rowesevelt. Apparently at 9 years old I was already into politics and puns. 

As an actual kid, I carried him everywhere and worried he'd be lonely when I wasn't around. Eventually though, I realized that he wasn't real (OK it hurt a little typing that), but I didn't know what to do with my left arm while sleeping if it wasn't wrapped around him. (I think I just made a decision to find a husband named Teddy so I don't get in trouble for accidentally referring to him as Teddy in my sleep. I hope that Teddy the Husband is as soft as Teddy the Polar Bear.) 

Between 10th and 11th grade, I went on a 50 day cross country trip, and eventually figured out what to do with my left hand while sleeping, so I started a seven year streak of sleeping alone, with rare exception (Hey Lauren! Do you like our blog?) At Fordham though, I went to the Bronx Zoo, conveniently across the street, about a dozen times. I was dead sober for at least 10 of those visits. The first habitat you run into is the Polar Bears. Let me tell you. They are awesome. 

It is thus disgusting to me that John McCain would chose a running mate with such a  strong anti-Polar Bear stance. Say what you want about what the choice means about women voters, or how it undercuts Sen. McCain's message of experience, he's completely lost the Pro-Polar Bear vote. Sarah Palin fought to keep Polar Bears off of the endangered species list because she favors drilling in Alaska. Thankfully, she lost. Teddy and Franklin testified. Don't mess with the Rowesevelts. 

In all seriousness, Palin's one area of expertise is supposed to be Energy. Note: The Energy Crisis and the Climate Crisis are two different things. Palin is a big advocate of ending our dependence on foreign oil by using our own country's oil reserves. Gov. Palin, you see, remains "unconvinced" of pollution's role in Global Warming. I'm sure some of our loyal readers are also unconvinced, but isn't it better to err on the side of caution?

I'm sure its completely coincidental that by allowing more oil production in Alaska, it would further inflate her state's budget surplus. You see, Palin was able to create an enormous surplus by instating an Obamaesque windfall profits tax on oil companies.  

This all scares me because of how well she seems to be able to make herself sound like a Maveric, while actually holding extremely conservative values. She's an "energy expert." She just doesn't believe in Global Warming. She supports gay rights because, in spite of her faith, she believes her job is to uphold the Alaska constitution, which currently implies equal rights for gays. If anyone wants to AMEND that constitution to limit gay rights though, she'd be happy to sign. Now you're messing with Teddy the Polar Bear AND Teddy the Husband. 

Where are all the real conservatives?

Is it just me or politically has this country so confused it's traditional relationship with conservative and liberal values that we no longer have any idea what they actually look like. Set forth historically social conservatism as laid out by Edmund Burke is stated in terms explaining that change can occur but should occur in a gradual manner as to not destroy the economy or the world order. The best example of this is any revolution as it procedes to disorder the country. Currently it seems that social conservatives are not for slow gradual movements but for no movement at all. They don't want to legalize marijuana, they don't want to legalize same sex marriages or allow those individuals the right to see their loved ones in hospital, they seem pretty much the party of the status quo - let's keep drilling because I mean that's what we do right?

Now I know what your thinking, well what about fiscal conservatives? Hailing from New York my father is very much considered one of these. He has almost always voted Republican in elections but when I ask him about social programs or about same sex marriage or other hot button issues like abortion, my father states as long as they do not take any more of my money they can do whatever they want. Is the modern strand of conservativism what my Father stands for. By all social standards my Father is a liberal but one who does not want to part with his hard earned money. And while this current conservative regime has given us some tax breaks it has also given us a huge deficit. It has plunged millions of dollars into a war that my generation will have to bear the burden of. How is this fiscal irresponsibility anything like fiscal conservatism. Instead it seems much more like the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower, a conservative president, warned us of.

So today what does conservative mean? Conservatives would like you to believe that it means less taxes and a safer country. Liberals prefer us to think of it as a rolling back of civil liberties mixed with a demagogic stance on the world. Both seem to have their points and both seem to have their shortcomings. Despite a few key issues it seems like this campaign is slowly revealing the flaw in political parties: they don't make all that much sense. Obama is working very hard to unite both parties, at least the voters of both parties, and independents in a populist appeal for a government that works more efficiently than our current government. More efficient, meaning working better for less. So.... my father is voting for Barack? McCain is encouraging more troops be sent to Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly Iran to push them into a democratic revolution. So...Edmund Burke is a liberal?