flip-flopping

So when I listen to music these days, I usually just listen to the iPod on shuffle (who has time to deal with play lists?). I know, I know, it's people like me who are contributing to the death of the album, but hey, sometimes you just want random tunes (I do also occasionally listen to whole albums) - but I digress. The point is, today a couple of Jewel songs came up in my rotation, and at one point I really, truely thought Jewel (this is her first album) was good. But just today, not having heard them in a while, I kind of thought to myself, "blecch! what is this stuff?" (also my first reaction to cole slaw). So clearly my musical tastes have changed since high school, but also college, etc.

Just got me thinking, what a shame it is that politicians are so beholden to things they said or did so many years ago? Why do we dehumanize our political representation to the point of expecting them to always "stand for something" and to stand for it consistently? I suppose you want some core convictions to be guiding decisions, but why the heck do they get skewered for admitting their mistakes? It only seems to make them afraid to do so, and subsequently to stay the course no matter what. And I'm not sure that applies to just this current federal government either. I suppose the government should have to live up to certain higher standards than we expect of say, the guy working at Jamba Juice, but there has to be some leeway for human nature... of course, how much and to what extent is always the question.

Kool-Aid

You know, a lot of people fall into different crowds, and it seems like every crowd has its own version of Kool-Aid for you to buy into and drink for mind-numbing, opinion homogenizing goodness. It could be the "everything is caused by global warming" Kool-Aid, or the "war is good for democracy" Kool-Aid or simply the "my research is worthwhile and is better than that guy's, well, just cuz!" Kool-Aid. Point is, sometimes it's really hard to filter through all the sugar to the crux of what's really going on. And even if you are capable/able to do that - to understand for yourself that it's really just food coloring, sugar, and water, but maybe there's a hint of actual flavoring in there that you can grasp onto and savor - it's still tough to get away from it... I mean, everyone around you is drinking their own flavor of the stuff in some way or another - even the ones drinking their nice healthy organic soymilk shake with non-GMO blended fruits have, somewhere mixed into that cup, a few lingering crystals of processed complacency with some established portion of their lives. Well, lest this metaphor get even more out of hand, I suppose all we can do is be aware of our own biases and predilections, and try not to let them get in the way.