Insomniac Punditry

As an unfortunate side effect of my recent gig as a full-time designated driver, my internal chronometer has been turning Japanese (I really think so). I've always been a creature of the night, but in the face of a job that will require me to start at 7:00am, I find myself unable to get to sleep any earlier than 3:00am lately. This will not do me any favors come Monday.

Last night I tried Tylenol PM in an attempt to start me on the road to dreamland, but it was ineffective. Looking at the timestamp on my previous post should validate that claim. Late-night TV, I've found, has little to offer the insomniac, whether in the form of actual entertainment or sufficient catatonia-inducing boredom. Televangelists are too amusing (if unintentionally so) pundits are too entertaining in their single-mindedness (again, likely unintentionally so), and I just can't stomach infomercials without BILLY MAYS YELLING AT ME. Even the dryness of the news doesn't help - I just get bored and change the channel before anything can take effect.

Late night television has led me to a solid disillusionment with the state of the news in general and politics in particular. Though all parties claim to be unbiased with the constituents' best interests in mind, their viewpoints on any and all issues tend to follow one of two standard, predictable responses. No matter the issue, the opposing side (whether Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, Anarchist, Totalitarian, Green, Labor, or whatever flavor you prefer) will emphatically preach hellfire and damnation about how the issue in question will doom us all with its passage and plunge the country into war/socialism/revolution/poverty/etc. The affirmative side, on the other hand, will insist that the issue in question is full of singing unicorns, dancing fairies, and manna from heaven that we as a country can feast upon without fear for or children or their future, as through its passage we will have saved our civilization in its entirety.

While I don't mean to rehash the old Rodney King line of "Can't we all just get all just get along?" I would like to know what happened to compromise, cooperation, and above all civility? Instead of referring to opposed legislation as "an abortion" or a "road to socialism," or opposing something strictly along party/pundit lines, why not offer productive alternatives or compromises rather than simply "trash it and start over"? Instead of lambasting one's opponents as baby-killers, impediments to progress, and attempting legislative tactics to bypass them, why not attempt to compromise with the opposing sides and find solutions that - while not whimsically ideal - at least address the concerns of both sides?

Nonsense like this is why I refer to myself as "politically agnostic:" I believe that the ideal politician/party cannot exist in any one form and that man in general is incapable of ever meeting that ultimate ideal. Use your own brain and not Beck's, Limbaugh's, Olbermann's, Maddow's, or (for the love of all that is holy) Stewart's or Colbert's.