For the second time in a handful of weeks, we're looking after our neighbours' chickens and cat while they're out during normal feeding time. Dennis is the Chicken Whisperer of the household, so I'm on cat detail.
My sister (wisely, in light of years of sibling warfare) rarely ever asked me to babysit her three kids, so I still have some of that whole "being a corrupting influence" thing to work out of my system. Brioche (the afore-mentioned cat) isn't yet an adult, so she's a good candidate. Starting with the joys of the laser pointer.
She's crossing over from kitten to adolescent, currently in that phase when the ears, tail, and feet are waiting for the rest of her to grow into them. And in that time, her hunting style has changed. Kitten Brioche would tear pell-mell after the red dot, braking too late and sliding across the floor and into a chair. (Ooops--I made sure that didn't happen again.) Teenage Brioche (mere weeks later) slinks in the cover of shadow when possible, advances on silent paws, and darts in short bursts so as to easily pivot. Moreover, I think she may have started to clue in: At one point, the dot disappeared from her view, and while I was attempting to manoeuvre it back, she intently watched the hand that was holding the laser pointer.
One thing that hasn't changed, however, is the cat's preference for the dot over a string. As an experiment, I dangled the string tonight, let her catch it, and while she was wrestling me for it, shone the red dot in her line of sight. She immediately abandoned the physical "prey" already in her grasp for the flashy, infuriatingly elusive one. And I thought, "There's totally a metaphor in here."
Like an unlucky alignment of the planets, Thursday evening was Debate Night for both Canada and the United States. In the U.S., Fox News showcased the top ~60% of the candidates they will endorse for the next sixteen months. In Canada, the leaders of the Conservative, National Democratic, Liberal, and Green Parties held their first debate for the national elections coming up in October. (Shocking precisely no one, none of the Canadian candidates threw verbal molotov cocktails--either during the debate or the following day. Ahem.)
In short, there was a lot of politics in the air. And if internet forum comments are anything to go by, the similarities between (some) humans and Ms. Brioche can be marked. Particularly in the way they can be manipulated to ignore the hand holding the string or laser-pointer. But even more particularly in their tendency to abandon working toward tangible goals in favour of chasing phantoms.
On both sides of the border, roads and bridges are a mess. Health care systems are top-heavy. Educating the next generation too often devolves into political spit-balling. (In the U.S. it's passing off fairy tales and wishful thinking as "science"; in Canada it's segregating French and English as if they'll somehow contaminate each other like it's 1066 all over again.) Corporate welfare needs to end--period. The tax code punishes people for earning a living rather than siphoning record profits off an increasingly outsourced economy (esp. in the U.S.) The only plan for the coming grey boom is importing young people from other countries. (Which seems particularly counter-productive when automation and relentless off-shoring will increasingly steepen the ratio between workers and available jobs--another fact that no one seems to have the guts to look in the eye.) There is far, far too little daylight between the regulators and the regulated in industry.
There are no shortage of fires against which to hold our elected leaders' feet. And they will--regardless of party--try to sidetrack any issue that affects their campaign contributions. The current political machinery is geared to produce outrage. Outrage is not necessarily a bad thing, if properly channeled. But never, EVER follow "leaders" who encourage you to punch down, not up.
Like the "leaders" who waste millions of taxpayer dollars drug-testing welfare recipients to catch a mere handful. Like the "leaders" who shut down early voting, impose ID laws, and make people stand in line for hours to vote to stamp out fraud that was a statistical nullity to begin with. Like the "leaders" who amend constitutions to prevent same-sex couples from enjoying the rights of their hetero neighbours. Like the "leaders" who threaten, insult, or dox anyone who dares criticise them in front of God-n-everybody--thereby encouraging their posse to do the same. Like the "leaders" who can slash education budgets to punish those "union thug" teachers while building sports stadiums for prima-donna athletes.
That sort of thing is the mark of the red dot. Mercifully, Canadian voters have only about two more months before the election; we U.S. voters have sixteen moons of manufactured horse races, kerfuffles, ineffectual-to-non-existant fact-checking, bigotry, Breitbarting, grand-standing, and Borgia-class character assassination ahead of us. (Anyone up for a betting pool on when Trump rage-quits, rage-returns, then rage-quits again?)
Those sixteen months will take focus. But we're all smarter than cats: We know better than to waste our energies chasing the red dots that are wriggled in front of us. Riiiiiight??? Let's not get distracted by the flashy stuff. We have serious work to do in the ballot-box.
