He’s been tracking her for a while now… This is the third bar he’s followed her to and she hasn’t noticed a thing.

As soon as he saw her long, toned legs and dark brown hair he felt his stomach turn. He wanted her.

Of course, he wouldn’t dare go speak to her. She has been swatting away the well-dressed athletic-types all night, what chance would he have? A guy who has been consistently called “creepy”.

What could he say that would actually get a response from her? Never mind impress her…

It approaches 2:00am and the once crowded bar has dwindled down to just a few people. All that remain are a handful of drunk stumblers and a few folks ordering Uber.

And her.

She breaks from her group and heads to the bathroom. He slowly proceeds in the same direction.

She makes her way to a side corridor that leads to a hallway with two doors. He sees the bouncing brown hair disappear into the second doorway as it closes behind her.

He waits a second, looks around, takes a deep breath, and heads towards the same entrance.

Just before pushing the door open, he looks up. And there it is.

A small black and white sign… of a stick figure that’s wearing a dress. This restroom is for women only and isn’t “gender neutral”.

I guess that means he can’t go in, right?

Right…

Headline: “X Happened and You Should be Infuriated. Here’s Why…” 

As of late, it seems like there is a different hot button issue every week. It’s almost as if each time we get on the internet or turn on our televisions, there is something new that we should be upset or worried about.

One week it’s baby parts. The next, students asking for a safe space. Then brown water in Flint, Michigan. There was even a week when we were all pissed off about some lion.

We have a never-ending supply of “Shocking” and “You Aren’t Going to Believe…”

The sheer volume of these “Crazy” stories has raised the standards for what we think is truly outrageous. Things that, in the past, would have called for reflection and collective self-improvement are now hardly talked about for more than a day or two.

20 years ago, one out of every five things Donald Trump says into a microphone would have ruined his presidential run. Today, he has a legitimate shot to win the election. And it doesn’t really matter what he says because tomorrow Jayden Smith will wear a dress or a University of Oklahoma fraternity will sing a hateful song about black people.

But even these stories will be replaced by something else the next day, then they will be bumped and the process will continue indefinitely. All the while making us more and more numb to what is supposed to “Shock” us.

And it’s difficult to keep up with all of it… Much less actually weigh the different factors and make an informed opinion about each story.

Instead we take in a little bit of information about the topic du jour, scroll through a few opinions on the matter and side with whichever position is mostly supported by the ideology that we claim to have. If we identify as being liberal or a Democrat, then we typically take the opinion that most liberals or Democrats have. And the same is true if we are conservative or a Republican.

Since all of our opinions are posted and easily tracked, if we don’t stand with our team then it seems like we are uninformed or flip-flopping. And that’s taboo if you want your thoughts to be taken seriously.

This white washing of opinion has also made the news reporting generic. Our coverage isn’t fact-based, “hard” news reported from the scene of an event, it’s opinion… from a source that is open about their ideological slant and far removed from the happenings of the story.

And we don’t seem to care.

Sure, some nefariously present themselves as “hard” news sources and make their website look like a legitimate outlet, but most of the time they don’t. They acknowledge that they have a bias and we fully understand that we are reading an editorial to find out facts.

Headline: “X Happened and You Should Be Infuriated. Here’s Why…”

We don’t use information to get an opinion, we use our opinions to get information.

 

She wanted time to both fly-by and completely stop at the same time.

Sitting and waiting, she meticulously analyzes each piece of decoration in her kitchen and counts every tile on the floor. Anything to keep her mind off of what was going on in the next room over.

Even the slightest sound of movement from the den makes her heart skip a beat… Because that means the doctor is finished examining her son and will be reporting his prognosis shortly.

She keeps wondering if she is being stubborn. Is it naïve to think that immunization shots were actually harmful? Should she have listened to her concerned friends?  

At-the-same-time, she was angry. Angry at herself, at her husband, at all of the people that encouraged her strict organic lifestyle. What if they were all wrong?

What if the doctor’s report on her son’s condition is… the worst kind of report?

She cursed the alt-medicine professional that advised against immunization. The witchdoctor who said all her son needed was maple syrup and apple cider vinegar.

Then, she hears a stir from the next room over. It’s the sound of someone walking towards her.

She holds her breath. The door opens.

“He’s going to be fine… As long as we can bring him in right now.”

See, if kids eat a nutritious diet and have access to proper medical care they shouldn’t have to get immunization shots, right?

Right…  

Sittin’ On the Fence of an Issue; Wasting Time

News stories are no longer examined and understood on their own as sovereign entities. They are instead used as examples or case studies for a larger point of view, they are now ammunition in the war chests of the left and the right.

Sometimes the same story can even be used as a “told-ya-so” for both sides.

There are two hot-button issues, though, that don’t fit this mold. They can’t be used as ammunition.

With these two, it doesn’t really matter where the information we get came from or who wrote it because we’re probably going to form our own opinions on them. And since our opinion on every other issue is manufactured after about five minutes of reading ideologically slanted “news”, these are the only contemporary issues with any real political significance to them.

I’d even argue that they define American politics today…

The first, is the issue of gender neutrality.

There isn’t a topic out there with more memes or name calling associated with it than this one. On top of that, the reactions to it have somehow managed to be both vicious and hilarious (in the “it’s funny how mad they are getting” kind-of-way).

Still, some opinions on it are downright scary. Like those of the Facebook group that has a blood spattered bathroom wall as their logo and carries the mission to mercilessly beat any transgender person that tries to use a women’s toilet.

One thing is certain, since the onset of the gender neutrality wave we can easily tell which friends are fundamentally conservative and which are truly liberal… Because they are the ones that still tweet and post those “Shocking” and “You Aren’t Going to Believe…” articles about it.

But this is where the peculiar nature (and significance) of this “news” topic comes in… It widens the gap between the left and the right. Like, wider than it has been for quite some time.

It’s all or nothing with the transgender issue and any opinion on it is an extreme one.

If you think that there should be separate bathrooms for people who identify as being male and female, then you are automatically lumped in with the people who rant about “perverts” peeping on their daughters in a gender neutral bathroom. Even if you don’t want to physically harm someone who uses a bathroom that you don’t think is appropriate, because you don’t think it is appropriate you are likened to those who do want to cause them physical harm.

The same can also be said for the other side.

If you think transgender people should have the option to choose which bathroom they use, then you are grouped with those who think that every exception and difference should be accommodated no matter the cost or social expense. Even if you don’t agree that the transgender population is as degraded and oppressed as black people were before the Civil Rights Movement, because you think bathrooms should be gender neutral you are akin to those who want a million “she-man” march on Washington.

There is no middle with the transgender issue. Any opinion on it automatically defaults to the extreme left or right.

There is no need for a fence to separate the two, so we can’t sit on it.

The other politically significant issue today is that of childhood vaccination.

It’s fascinating because the split is not in ideology, but in polarity. It isn’t an issue that pins liberals against conservatives or Democrats across from Republicans, but extremists v. moderates…

One can arrive at refusing to vaccinate their children from either direction, they just have to be extreme.

For example, someone could be so extremely conservative that they don’t want any government sponsored substance injected into their children’s bodies. Simultaneously, another person could be so liberal that they don’t want any synthetically developed substance injected into their children’s bodies.

It’s within bounds of generally accepted political understanding to get to an anti-vaccination mindset heading either left or right. We would just have to move very far from the middle.

Unlike the issue of gender neutrality, where the fence is so small and meaningless that no one can sit on it, the fence separating opinion on this issue is so large that it really isn’t a fence at all. It’s a platform… That you can run freely on without worrying about falling off of to one side or the other.

We could lay down on the fence if we wanted to.

A million editorial “news” pieces could be written about these two issues and it wouldn’t matter, we’re going to form our own opinions on them. And since our opinions on every other issue are quickly and carelessly directed by ideological marketing masked as “news”, they are the only contemporary issues with any real political significance to them whatsoever.

 

A Tale of Two Dimensions

There is nothing unique or complex about Charles Dickens’ most renowned serial, A Tale of Two Cities. Basically, it just a political thriller that takes place in London and Paris during the French Revolution.

But it’s spellbinding… Even today.

And it’s due to the way Dickens pieces everything together.

He continuously presents an idea of “two”… Two cities, two schools of government, two types of people, etc. and these pairs are connected and intertwined through two main story lines. The compare and contrast method is certainly not unique to Dickens and has been utilized by writers both before and after his time, but in this piece, he pounds you over the head with it.

Even from the opening line:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…”

See, everything is presented in twos.

The method is so effective partly because Dickens is just an excellent storyteller, but it’s also because most people that read it (Westerners) have learned to view the world in two dimensions.

No, not like “2D” or “3D” television or those kind of dimensions… But two political dimensions, and perhaps even two metaphysical ones.

Western democracy hangs it’s hat on the idea that people have a say. That it is the populous who determines what happens through voting and election.

Although this is true, people do vote and whatever or whoever gets the most votes wins, the choice is ultimately reduced to two options that are pre-packaged and given to us by the powers that be. There is rarely a third option or independent party with any significance. Referenda are just a matter of yes or no, there is no “maybe” or “yes, but…”

Two political parties, two ideologies, a winner and a loser… Two dimensions. What’s key here is that only one of those dimensions contains the ideology we identify with… The “right” one. So naturally, the other is “wrong”.

This results in a very quick decision making process when faced with an issue. We immediately break it down into two opposing sides and determine which one is ours. It’s much less time consuming to decide between two movies than it is to open Netflix and pick one out of the thousands that are available.

Good thing every news story already helps us decide which side is “right” and which is “wrong”. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have time to form our own opinions and move off the fence.

We wouldn’t have a say in anything if it wasn’t simplified for us like that, right?

Right.