Post Primary Day Observations

I don't believe the Shortblog is the place for me to talk about politics, so I won't tell you who I voted for in yesterday's primary.  I'll just say I was obsessively checking the stats last night after yesterday's primaries.  It's the most I've cared in my 28 years of voting.  It's the first time I made ever made a matrix of the issues and my beliefs in order to make an informed vote.   

I've also noted how driven by the media this election is.  It's a little scary and feels cultish to me.  I suppose it's always been like this, but I'm only just starting to observe the power the media has in whipping people up about...anything!  For me, a writer, it highlights the power of language: the language we use in communicating with others as well as the language we use in our own thoughts and beliefs.  Fascinating.  I've been analyzing everything I say lately personally and professionally - why do I believe that?  Why did I choose that word?  How does that belief affect how I behave?  How does it affect people to whom I talk?   

I try to read foreign news media as much as I can.  For example, why is there so little coverage of the Zimbabwe situation in American media?  Zimbabwe is near and dear to my heart after I spent a month there way back in the days before I had a child.  And how many Americans really understand or care about what's going on there?  Not many I know.  But everyone knows about the countries the celebrities care about!  Blech.   

I had to cancel my subscription to The Economist when I got laid off from IBM last year because it was too expensive.  Anyone wish to donate their old copies to this hungry reader?   Maybe I should just go to the library...seems precious little time for that these days.  And I'm tired...when I read lately, I veer towards brain candy reading - cheesy romantic novels and I like them!   

I'm hungry on many levels...and tired on more.  And I'm feeling jaded and grumbly today.   

Comments

[SusannahS]

Hi Annie,
I stumbled across your link on the LemonGrass Girls blog, and I couldn't help but see your question about the difference between mashed and pureed potatoes.
As the "Official Potato Masher" in my family (we each have our own specialty for Thanksgiving and other holidays), 'mashing' is the act of manually smooshing the potatoes with a hand-held implement (I use my great-great grandmother's potato masher which she brought over from Germany in 1890). Pureed potatoes are processed in some sort of food processor/blender-type thing, and it actually changes the consistency of the potatoes--it breaks down the starches and results in gloppy, glue-ish 'taters.
That's probably more than you ever wanted to know. :)