Here we are some five months away from the next Presidential election, and I can honestly say that I feel absolutely nothing in terms of enthusiasm for this exercise in representative democracy. As a life-long Democrat I am totally under-whelmed by the campaign of Senator John Kerry. He is not so much a political visionary as he is simply the "Anti-Bush" candidate. He lacks any fire, brimstone, or innovative positions--nothing to inspire us to feel as if we are the hopes and the dreams of all mankind. In fact, it seems to me that Candidate Kerry has all but disappeared off the political radar, of late. Much has been going on in our country lately, and perhaps Senator Kerry was just swept up in the maelstrom.

With the recent passing of former President Ronald Reagan, which, in turn, led to a week of mourning, or as I like to call it, Reaganpolooza, Kerry has all but vanished from the political scene. The ongoing revelations of Iraqi and Afghan prisoner mistreatment at the hands of U.S. Military and civilian personnel, the 911 Commission findings, the daily body counts out occupation of Iraq, and now former President Bill Clinton's book hitting the bookstores, who can manage to stay focused on any of this stuff anymore? Maybe I am just getting caught up in the milieu this constant barrage of social/political/media manure is creating. But I have had enough! There just seems to be so much talk out there, but no one is really saying anything worth listening to.

I think that we all reach a saturation point in our collective mental states when all we hear on the 500 plus cable channels is just white noise: the crackling static that just seems to fade into the background of our consciousness. Are we still listening? Do we still care about what we're hearing? How can we sift through all this noise to the really important? Without that ability, we will hear hyperbole, misinformation, flat out lies and think that is important. I don't think that I am ignorant or apathetic to what is going on in the world around me, no, far from it. But I do think that it is becoming harder and harder to care about most of the things we are forced to think about daily.

In the past few weeks, we have had to face the growing national debate on issues like Same-Sex Marriage, the rhyme and reason of our continued role in the rebuilding Iraq, the coming of the $3.00 a gallon of gasoline, and the social implications of Vin Diesel's big screen return in "The Chronicles of Riddick." Sometimes this is just too much for the human brain to process.

One of the things that crossed my mind last night, as I channel surfed from MSNBC, to CNBC, to CNN, to Fox News, is that all these overpaid, overexposed, talking heads that provide their punditry on politics and social values don't really know any more about the mysteries of the universe than you or I. None of their opinions have any more weight or substance than those of the guy sitting next to you on the commuter train home. And how often do we really listen to that guy?

I am not too sure that I will ever get all that fired up for the Democratic nominee for President. And at this point, I'm not all that sure that Bush is the worst thing to happen to civilization as we know it. Don't get me wrong, I still think that Bush has to go, but I just wish we had someone a little better to replace him with. In the coming weeks I am sure that we will all rehash the whole Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky saga, everyone loves a good sexy story. I guess until we find one we'll have to use the Clinton/Lewinsky story instead. No doubt some Bush administration hard-liners will still try to argue that there was a connection between global terrorism and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, whether the rest of the free world agrees or not.

There will be those of us who will feel that Fantasia Barrino, the newest American Idol, is not getting the same Star treatment like her whiter counterparts. Hey, how many of you actually brought Rueben Studdard's CD anyway? And there might even be rumors of an impending divorce between J.Lo and Mark Anthony, but then again, it might only be a rumor.

I guess the point I'm trying so awkwardly to make is this: I think there is just too much information, real and imagined, that is flooding our airwaves. And maybe, just maybe, we all need to cut the TVs off for a minute to clear our heads. I know I do. []

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