Friday, November 04, 2005 "Do you enjoy the slaughter of innocent puppies?" "Yes." Just did an computerized phone survey, asking me several yes/no questions about the California initiatives. I'm guessing it had a Republican bent, given the following: Do you think only a man and a woman should be legally considered man and wife? Do you support Proposition 75, which requires that the big bad unions ask the poor defenseless union workers before using evil union money to buy elections? (the only one of these I've exaggerated) Do you have a favorable view of Governor Schwarzenegger? Are you a man? Are you over the age of 50? Are you a Republican? On the issue of abortion, if the choices are pro-life and pro-choice, do you consider yourself pro-life? That last one was a bit of a killer. No one wants to say they're NOT pro-life. I consider myself very pro-life, in the literal sense of the term. No one cares about the literal anymore. Psychologically, as I understand it (I mean, I don't have a doctorate in psych or anything), there's an instinct to want to say "yes" to those sorts of questions. To agree, to please. To fit in. And I actually hesitated on that question. Because who wants to say no to being pro-life? Even when it's the truth? In other news, I've been joking about how I haven't seen a single pro-Schwarzenegger billboard in LA so far, but yesterday I finally saw two of them, east of Highland on Santa Monica. And they're the most insidiously passive-aggressive pieces of crap I've ever had the pleasure of hating. "I'd rather save lives than play politics," a lady nurse says. "I'd rather teach kids than play poltiics," a lady teacher says. Something about it sticks in my craw. Maybe it's those pesky feminist instincts of mine, but when the message is to stay out of politics, not participate? There's just something wrong there. And I hate the fact that those ads are being paid for by the man who runs my state. I wonder if the firefighter billboard features a lady firefighter. And if it doesn't (which is most likely), will the duder firefighter prefer saving lives? That kind of repetition lacks poetry. Not that that's the biggest problem. I need to look up how the initiatives are polling. Does anyone know? | permalink blog • archives • photos • about • contact This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All content © 2004.