The good thing about having your own blog and a whole bunch of buddies who are like minded is that every now and then one of them steps up and literally writes the blog for you. Such is the case with the following missive I received from talented reader Shaun "Hooter" Daniels, Alameda Ca. Kudos and thanks to Shaun who is absolutely correct in his assessment about the sophmoric and supremely irritating MTV get out the vote effort. Am I against people exercising their right to vote? When the voter is an ill-informed, pot-smoking, Hillary-loving, tree hugging, Birkenstock wearing teen I am. The Founding Fathers would be horrified to see who exercises the franchise in this modern era. In any event, a shout out to Hooter for the effort and apologies to those tuning in this week and finding no posts. Here is Shaun's assessment in italics...

You want to know what the greatest threat to our democracy is right now?

It's not the terrorists.

It's the whole "get the teenagers out to vote" MTV Rock the Vote type movements, pumped up by flashy teen-oriented TV ads. The problem is, most 18 year olds don't know shit about anything of weight or importance. They don't read the newspapers or watch politically oriented television because it's boring and then will vote emotionally - "War is bad, Bush wants war, Bush must be the antichrist" or " Kerry protested the war in Vietnam, let's all be like the Hippies we see on TV and vote for him!"

I tried to talk a little politics with a 19 year old and she knew nothing of the history of the middle east, nothing about arab culture, nothing about the political stances of the candidates, nothing about the rise of Islamofascism or their motivating issues. In short, nothing - other than she wanted to vote.

I'd much rather see an ad campaign that urges our teenagers to read a few newspapers - the front page instead of the comics - so they won't base their decisions on fucking Doonesbury.

Mark my words - Bush can be thrown out of office by a nation of stupid kids.


Sadly,

Hooter

A passionate point made by the astute Mr. Daniels. Obviously I survived my sojourn into enemy territory and the People's Republic of California. I did receive much input while there. Seems the Friday Featurette has been much missed the past couple weeks so she will make a return tomorrow. Also, I will continue to link interesting news items and the recipe will be staying but won't return for a couple weeks. I will be in Washington D.C. this Monday and still don't know whether I will be taking a computer with me or not. If I do, look for trenchant commentary and historical asides from our Nation's Capital.

Smilin' Paul Villa U.S. Senate 2004
cyber-Congressman, R-Reno
Proud Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and 2 SUV Family