Ready to flip that calendar? What will 2016 hold, in terms of expectations and surprises?
Some things we can know. There will be a big election. The two main political parties will settle on nominees, and then they’ll start slugging it out with each other, instead of the in-house nastiness of the primary season. We’ll have new sorts of nastinesses, and much of it will be ugly.
Most of us will grow very tired of being inundated with the onslaught of robocalls, push polls, third class political mail, and paid political advertising. The Political Action Committees will do much of the heavy lifting of the vilest stuff to keep the taint off the candidates as much as possible.
The TV ads usually fall into two general categories: positive and negative. The positive ads are so bland as to be meaningless. It would be nice if we could somehow all stipulate that we understand that all the candidates love their families, their country, the great outdoors, children and puppies and scenic vistas. Whether they do or not, they’ll tell us they do.
The negative ads are both uglier and more interesting. Some are despicable, misleading, and even blatantly untrue. But there is potential for the negative ads to be informative. Perhaps something like, “In the primary, my opponent said, ‘this that and the other.’ Here’s a video clip of my opponent saying exactly that.” Maybe something along the lines of “This is what people from the same party have said about my opponent.” Someone might oppose the use of corn for ethanol in South Carolina, but that would never be said in Iowa, a huge corn producing state.
Often during political campaigns, I’ll be asked to take a survey. Sure, I’ll say, if it’s a real survey and not a push poll. Surveys are designed to collect opinions. Push polls are meant to influence opinion.
An example of push polling could be: Are you in favor of the lower energy bills and strengthening the economy with more jobs, and less dependence on foreign oil cartels, by expanding the use of affordable, domestic, clean coal? As opposed to: are you in for or against the expansion of the use of coal? Or perhaps this: It has been reported that my opponent is said to have abused puppies. Will you stand against mistreating puppies? Call the other candidate and tell him you’re against this terrible practice.
2016 is also an Olympic year. I’m thinking I’ll have some of the guys from the gym over to watch rhythmic gymnastics (I like the ribbons most). The Olympics are the pinnacle for some sports, like track and field, swimming, weight lifting. Other sports can be interesting, but the Olympics are not the top competitive venues for some of those. Tennis, baseball, soccer, basketball are all part of the Olympics, but it’s not the top level of competition.
And then there are the sports that are judged, as opposed to measured or scored. A performance is assessed by a panel of international judges that assign a numeric value. We’ve seen nationalism trump performance too many times. Haven’t we all seen egregious results tainted by nationalism?
Living in Michigan, we’ll have the changing seasons, next year, like every year, we’ll have beautiful winter days, sometimes with blue skies and sunlight glinting off new snow. We’ll watch the gold finches turn bright again as the days lengthen, and the flowers join us. We’ll have perfect warm sunny days in summer, and the harvest of autumn, with the hardwoods putting on a color show.
There will also be rainy days and slushy days and days too cold and days too hot. Do we get what we deserve? I suppose so; we get a mixture, and I don’t doubt we deserve some of this and some of that.
There will be births and deaths next year. Achievements and illnesses. Joys and sadness.
The poet Kahlil Gibran talked of the constancy of both conditions, reminding us that both are with us. We celebrate our joys, and we mourn our losses. Life, at least in the broader context, goes on.
