COLUMN: What the world needs now is an iPod
I felt like I had a gift growing up. It seemed to me that whenever an opinion was to be had, mine was always the right one.
My taste in movies, music, pastimes, food and politics was perfect. I felt good about everything I thought of.
I have since realized that this childhood gift is what my psychologist terms a “lack of empathy” and that through bi-weekly sessions with him and a daily dosage of a little pill whose name I can’t pronounce, I can replace my early disposition with something a little more caring.
We all, I would hope, go through this at some time, and most of us make it through without being worse for the wear.
There are some souls, however, that actually are right about everything.
While the rest of us are growing up to be nurses, architects and lawyers, these people grow up to become conservative pundits and radio talk show hosts.
I am a liberal. This makes me a timid bleeding heart whose only hope for survival among the fittest is a large government with a $55 million a year program designed for people just like me. But this week I am an incensed liberal.
Bill O’Reilly has been making his comeback tour all across television and has stamped himself across everything I’ve tried to watch. From Oprah to “Fear Factor” to Letterman, he’s been promoting his new book, eating buckets of worms and fielding questions from the audience.
While watching him think deal or no deal and tell Oprah’s audience how the world works, I was amazed at just how right he was.
He was never stumped. He never doubted himself. This is a man of moral fiber.
Bill O’Reilly is a good, traditional American who has built his life on the timeless American value of never being wrong.
I wanted to believe the man – my liberal side has me always looking for the best in people – but Katie didn’t really see it.
She is one of those rational beings, called independents, who examine the whole issue and make their decisions on a case-by-case basis.
She thought Bill O’Reilly was making stuff up.
As she talked, I realized that it was this gift, the ability to make stuff up, and not a preternatural disposition towards being right that had carried me through my childhood.
It was a difficult realization, but was less difficult than accepting Bill O’Reilly’s gospel show.
Like O’Reilly, I am amazed that a slew of scandals involving Republican candidates, an upswing in violence in Iraq and the ramping up of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program are all occurring just before the midterm election.
It is, to say the least, foreboding for the incumbent party.
But unlike Mr. O’Reilly, I do not believe that the people and leaders of Iraq and North Korea are trying to influence the outcome of the election – I don’t think they care.
Honestly, I don’t even really care who wins Congress and if voting trends are any indicator, neither does 78 percent of America’s 18-29 year olds.
If 78 percent of young people in America can live happily without any real participation in politics, we ought to explore that. The answer, I believe, is three fold: cable TV, iPods and high-speed Internet.
If I didn’t have an iPod, I would probably want nuclear weapons too. And at the risk of oversimplifying the situation a little, I think we should get a fund together and send Kim Jong Il an iPod preloaded with songs by the Bee Gees and KC and his Sunshine Band. Sometimes it takes a gift like that, a gift that says, “I may not always be right, but I can boogie with the best of them,” to really smooth things over.
And if that’s not the right answer, I don’t know what is.
Zach Pendleton is a senior majoring in English. Comments and questions can be sent to
zpendleton@cc.usu.edu