I realize it’s been a while since my last blog, but circumstances have prevented me from posting in a while.  The circumstances I refer to are class. Normally I can pen out a blog during a lecture, but recently the courses have been requiring my attention. That being said, I hope everyone had a good Chinese New Year.

I’ve been paying some attention to the presidential race recently. While I will not go into my political preferences, I have noticed something I see as ironic in our voting/political system. Candidates tend to be bashed pretty hard if they appear to have ever flip-flopped their position on a given subject. Call me crazy, but hear me out. The whole point of democracy is to see the will of the people enacted. If the views of a politician’s constituents change while he is in office, regardless of the strength of his convictions, isn’t he obligated to represent their wishes? The irony comes in here. Politicians who are accused of changing their opinions based on opinion polls are hammered in the court of public opinion. But isn’t that the ideal candidate? Isn’t a candidate who looks at the polls to determine what his constituents want really the best representative to send to Washington?

I know it sounds crazy, but that’s just because we’ve swallowed the notion that our representatives should be stalwarts so firmly convicted that their views on a subject do not change regardless of what comes their way. I can’t think of any other job where refusing to do something in the job description the boss (this is an analogy….we=boss) wishes on the basis of convictions (with the obvious exception being illegal requests) would result in anything less than a reprimand. Shouldn’t the strongest conviction our elected representative have be loyalty to represent our wishes?

Speaking of political issues, I happened upon a cool site that breaks down in detail each candidate’s position on the “issues.” The site I am referring to is http://www.issues2000.org/default.htm (disregard the 2000 in the address, there is plenty of data on the 2008 candidates). One can see exactly which politician “strongly favors” your opinion on almost every issue out there. My favorite issue is the right to bear arms. Hillary Clinton, for example, firmly opposes this right. I find myself on the other side of the issue. Granted, I have no idea where one would go about finding a bear arm, but I firmly support your right to own one. What kind of a system to we have were bear heads and bear skin are readily accepted, yet the right to a bear’s arm is so politically divisive? It’s time our politicians stopped squabbling over petty issues like this and turned their attention to more crucial issues like gun control.

When I haven’t been watching political debates, I’ve been having “concerts” with my boy. He’ll play a song on the computer and we’ll take turns pretending to play guitar and sing. I generally have to do this while Karina is gone since she feels I have the voice of an angel…of death. Whenever I try to sing, all I hear about is how “off key” I am. Well, I’m not going to take it anymore!!

Who really knows what “on key” is? I see the invention of musical “keys” occurring a lot like Jim Gaffigan pictures the biological description of the seahorse. I shall paraphrase, but essentially he wonders why the male seahorse lays the eggs. He pictures a smarmy scientist showing a subordinate colleague a seahorse and claiming that it’s the male seahorse. But as soon as it begins laying eggs, the subordinate points it out. The proud scientist reacts by saying, “yeah…ummm… the male seahorses lay the eggs.” I think some musician back in the day plinked out a note on a stringbox (my guess as to what the first instrument was) that sounded awful. When someone pointed it out, he responds by saying that it is “on key” and they are obviously “tone deaf.” Fast forward a few thousand years and we have digital boxes, know-it-all musicians, and British reality show judges telling us what sounds good and what doesn’t.

Well, I will not fall for it anymore. Call me “tone deaf” all you want, I will not succumb to your band geek peer pressure. I’m going to make up my own musical scale that sounds good to me. And you know what, it’s just as legitimate as whatever “scale” everyone else pretends is right despite what your fancy tone tools and years of musical skill might tell you.

So the next time you (meaning everyone who has ever said “the song is in B minor, not A flat…duh”) or Simon Cowell sing, I will point out how far off my scale you are. I’ll say, “that was terrible, the song is clearly in Q-alpha and you were obviously singing in the key of 14-banana.”

Perhaps I can find a candidate to adopt my issue as one of his core values. Until then, I’ll be the guy at church and concerts squealing like a beautiful, beautiful banshee to the music.