Will they just answer the question??

While watching the debate two nights ago, I became increasingly frustrated with both candidates. Why, you may ask? One word: Digressions.
I know that that it is typical for a candidate to be asked a question, and then answer it in a way that connects to an issue that they would really like to discuss, rather than the question at hand. However, as someone who would like to know the stance of both candidates (especially in this election, which has been fascinating to me thus far) on the issues, it is difficult for me to follow them when they don't really give an answer to the question asked. What ground my gears that night, was that both candidates basically refused to answer these types of questions: "How do you stand on the 700 million dollar plan to bail out to bail out the companies on wall street?" "What will you do as president to fix this?"
Jim Lehrer continued to ask the candidates these questions, but it took them a lot of prompting to actually answer them. They digressed so much in fact, that I still don't know what they're going to do about this financial crisis. Here's a summary of both of their responses when asked the questions above: (these aren't exact words, by the way.)

Jim: (To both candidates) "What do you think of Bush's proposal to bail out the companies on Wall Street?"

Obama: "Well, I'm going to talk about my health care plan and how we need more money to fund education, and how we spend money on the war instead." (I agree with all of these points and ideas, but he just kept mentioning things that had little to do with the topic at hand)

When directed at McCain, he usually answered in this fashion:
McCain: "I have done everything in my power to control government spending! Down with the pork barrel!" (Once again, valid point, but this doesn't answer his question.)

But back to my point. I'm seriously frustrated with these digressions. After talking about secret messages and word choice in class, it seems to me that the candidates never feel like simply answering a question. Instead they must mention other policies or plans they feel strongly about, or talking about how their opponent wouldn't be able to solve whichever issue correctly. When will this end? When will a candidate finally be able to stay focused on the task at hand? I'm not sure, but I'm really getting sick of this.

What are We Fighting For?

So I was watching meet the press this morning, and the host kept talking about how George Bush desperately wants to win the "war on terror". Rudy Giuliani was being interviewed on the show and he talked about how McCain, if elected would win the war, as he was always supportive of the surge of troops to Iraq. Rudy was also talking about Obama's will to lose the war. How Obama, by wanting a time frame to withdraw troops during his presidency, is willing to give up and lose to the Iraqis. Mind my ignorance, but what exactly are we winning by staying in Iraq? What are we even fighting about anymore? I mean, I know that the initial reason was to eliminate nuclear weapons (which never existed), then to eliminate Saddam Hussein, and then to "create democracy" within Iraq. Because I'm pretty sure we accomplished most of these things, why are we there now? I really would like to know. Comments? Answers to my question? I honestly have no idea.

Life and 9/11

This might be three days late, but I've been thinking of my 9/11 experiences a lot recently and what my life would be like if it didn't happen.
The day it happened, I was sitting on my parent's bed at about 8 o'clock flipping through the channels, hoping to watch some looney toons. I worked the remote vigorously, as the same image appeared on every channel. I couldn't really make out what it was. It seemed to be a giant cinder block that had smoke coming out of it. Was this a joke? I laughed audibly, until my dad rushed into the room. He told me that a plane had crashed into the world trade center. I didn't know what that was, until he explained to me that it was a large building in New York City. And then it hit me: wasn't my mom on a plane right now? She had taken a business trip to New York and Burlington, VT and left from the Burlington airport this morning. I was dumbfounded. Could my mom be in the plane (or now, planes) that had crashed in the towers or the pentagon? I started to weep. I still couldn't even grasp the thought of my own mother, dead.
Luckily, an hour later, my mother called the house saying that she was about to walk onto her plane, when the airport shut down and was forced to rent a car and drive to Chicago.
That might have been one of the scariest moments in my life, however, I can't even remember life customs beforehand. I mean, I was young, so that could be a factor, but does anyone (especially my age) remember a time where it didn't take at least an hour to get through airport security? Or remember a time before our nation was at war? A time where our National Security threat level was below an orange? Or even a time before Salem-witch-trial-like accusations of being a terrorist occurred? I certainly don't.

Someone's Gotta Give

As I was cruising the internet yesterday, mainly youtube with my friend, Omar, we stumbled across The Onion's video page. As a humongous fan of The Onion, I was ecstatic. (For those of you who don't know what The Onion is, it is a satirical newspaper that makes me laugh so hard, I cry while reading it.) Anyway, on their page, they have fake news clips from relevant stories, poking fun at politics, celebrity icons, etc. Due to its intriguing title, we clicked on a video that read, "Pretend you give a [insert vulgar word here] about politics." (You can watch this video here. It's completely school-appropriate, don't worry. It's only the title that may imply it's not).

Anyway, After about five seconds, we were in hysterics. The premises includes a news team that is just tired of hearing about the upcoming election, so they have a guest speaker appear that talks about ways in which you can appear knowledgeable about the current issues and candidates.
The video goes on for about three minutes on how to make excuses to not talk about politics and expressing non-opinions. After losing my breath in laughter, I realized something: There are actually people in the world who do this. My most favorite line in the video comes from the "expert" speaking: "Here's another great thing to do: talk about how sad it is that some people don't get involved in politics. Blaming others for being uninformed is a great way to seem informed yourself!" This line put the icing on the cake. I think that almost EVERY student on the planet who is involved in politics one way or another is guilty of doing this [myself included]. At New Trier, and within classes I take, I hear political discussions all over the map in terms of knowledge. I hear clearly stated political arguments with evidence to back up the point, and I very frequently hear arguments that go a little somethin' like this:
"Barack Obama is a bad candidate. I like McCain. He's a ... maverick"
"But... Barack Obama likes ... change. McCain doesn't."
I feel like there should be a happy medium that everyone strives for. In hearing informed arguments (although there are VERY few that I hear) and hearing the sortof bare minimum isortapayattentiontocurrentevents types as shown above, I can't really tell how my generation is going to end up in the later years. Does this difference in terms of knowing about current events exist forever? I'm not sure, but in no way am I saying that I know everything about politics and the upcoming election. I try my best to keep up. I don't know everything about each candidate or their track record, and when I can't watch a speech or debate, I don't punish myself (too much). I hate to say this and sound elitist, but I wish everyone would at least try to keep up... just a little... maybe I'm overreacting and everyone's too busy to pay attention or just doesn't give a [vulgar word here as the onion stated].
So let's do the bare minimum and maybe turn on the news once in a while. It's really important for people our age to know what's going on outside of our own lives. What would happen to the world if everyone just cared about things that happened to themselves? Where would we be as a planet? Think about it.

Oh Hey

I'm Carrie. I like music. I don't like the willfully ignorant. The end.