Election Day

Why is Election Day close to Halloween or all Saints day? Maybe the expectation of monsters and frightening events is the reason. After all, going through the surprise of people wearing scary costumes and celebrating the dead, one is already used to horror and no surprise when seeing the election results. Now that is the frightening event. What sort of monsters will one find with the result of the elections? Last night the new television series premiered called the ‘Walking Dead’ - another one of those shows trying to capitalize on the zombies’ genre. The real walking dead or zombies may probably come after the results of the election.

I am being unfair. I don’t mean the coming winners or losers but the state of gridlock in politics. Gridlock and division means no work gets done. When no work is done, then it’s like being dead. Maybe that is the reason for the recent popularity of the zombies’ show. The television show was quite good but slow. I guess the producers are trying to stretch out the plot into a season full of interesting episodes. But I don’t get to see my favorite shows like ‘Rubicon’ and ‘Mad Men.’ The AMC television network is hot, coming out with all these interesting shows. For instance, ‘Rubicon’ is about a conspiracy of intelligence leaders who manufacture a terrorist incident for profit.

There were some stories of a coming terrorist attack since last month. There were alerts in Europe especially in France. Over the weekend, there was a discovery of a bomb plot; to detonate a bomb mid-air. Perhaps there are a few folks who would like to create an incident to influence the coming elections. Similar to what had happened in the past in Spain and, perhaps, England. The plot in ‘Rubicon’ seems to parallel reality especially over the weekend. Luckily the good guys won and the plot was foiled. Now comes the ‘Walking Dead’ and we shall see if this prediction comes to pass as well after the election.

The economy is not doing well as most people have expected despite the recovery and avoidance of a double dip recession. The worst maybe over but employment is still high at about 9 +%.  The environment is not conducive to incumbents because as seen in the ‘mad men’ shouting about losing jobs, homes and savings. One finds it funny that people accuse the government of increasing its role in the economy and in the same breadth accuse it of not doing enough to create jobs and improve the economy. It’s disingenuous to say that wrong policies are the result of the current malaise. What should be celebrated, in fact, is what did not happen - a collapse of the financial system that would have caused a world-wide depression.

Last night I had a sinking feeling of disorientation; that I have been procrastinating for too long. Under the guise of learning, exploring or expanding one’s horizon, I have distracted myself to middle age. Watching ‘Into Great Silence’ and speaking with my friend who were over for a Halloween lunch made me realize how trivial one’s life is. Time is running out and one should focus on the essential goal. I wasted my time watching movies or reading books like ‘Happy’, ‘Linked’ and ‘The Junior Officers Reading Club’. All these books were marginal works that seemed to promise a depth or relevancy that was not there. It would have been better if one spent the weekend in a drunken stupor.