More Stupid Stupidness from the Stupid.

When I returned to college at the age of 28, I went with the bright-eyed naiveté usually reserved from newly matriculated 18 year-olds.

I was a political junkie and satisfied half of my political science major six years earlier, so it seemed wise to polish that off, but I was not prepared for how the political debate among the young'uns had changed from 1992 to 1999.

There was always a glut of dopes reciting Zinn without context, the occasional moron saying the latest currency fluctuation signaled the end of capitalism and the group of dippy sorority girls attempting to exercise some newly-found spine and belching out rambling incoherence. .

But in 1999, it changed.

And it changed to something akin to this:



And discussions usually devolved into fatuousness like this:



Now this is nothing new but I loved politics. It was like grown-up sports but it mattered. But something happened in the mid 90s; something that made willful ignorance an acceptable life course, something that's even more disturbing when it happens to 20 somethings.

It wasn't everybody, but the numbers were sufficient enough to drive any serious discussion about anything into a spiral of digressive stupidness. As with anything in life, even for the most serious of serious ventures, it has to have a component of fun. For me, it just didn't anymore.

I could blame the Republicans for being the evil fucks that they are. I could blame the Democrats for continuing to do their best rendition of Italian politics circa 1950. But mostly I blame the big, fat, stinkin' Belgians.

BTW, Sherri Shepherd plays Tracy Morgan's wife on 30 Rock, easily the funniest comedy on TV right now, even if the competition is a little weak, though it's superlatively funny. But I digress.