Cattle Politics

I'm not much of a t.v. watcher so when I do actually get a chance to sit and lose brain cells in front of the "dummy box"- as my grandfather used to call it, I expect at the very least to find something entertaining to watch. It seems these days, my pickins' are getting slimmer and slimmer. Tuesday night I found myself switching channels between updated New Hampshire primary results and bullshit t.v. We have 300 something satellite channels and just about all of them bored me. Eventually I settled on one of Atlanta's two PBS stations and watched a program on ranchers who enter their "best looking" cows into cattle shows. Yeah I said it CATTLE SHOWS. They're basically similar to the pompous dog breeder shows, but with cows- who knew it was that intense? These folks went on and on about what they do to their cows to prepare them for the shows- washing, trimming, feeding, pampering (how the hell do you pamper a cow?) etc. Whatever, to each their own. What got me was the judges and all the arbitrary bullshit they were talking about when describing the best cows in each breed category. Here are some quotes:

- This one has nice rounded shoulders

- The back on this one is nice and straight

- The legs have good muscle mass

-The bone structure in the rear is good in this one

- This one has good demeanor and attitude

Riddle me this Batman- how can you judge a cow's attitude? All the cows looked and acted pretty much the same to me, and if I was standing in the show room, I'm sure they'd all smell the same way too- like shit. Anyway, as I continued to periodically flick back to CNN/FOX"news" to see who was winning in N.H. I got hit with a HUGE epiphany:

This is exactly the same criteria a lot of voters use to pick their candidates.

Who has heard these quotes before?

"Hillary dresses the part."

"Mike Huckabee's minister background makes him a good candidate."

"Barack Obama has got a nice smile and pleasant demeanor."

"John McCain is too old to be president."

"Mitt Romney is a Mormon."

Sounds a little familiar doesn't it...

What happened to the days of picking a "leader" based on their record and capabilities instead of the lip service and tasty sound bytes they feed the media? Honestly, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Ron Paul are the "best" candidates if you ask me, and any of them would get my vote IF they were viable candidates rather than sidelined spectacles at the debates. But because they actually speak truthfully and look like hobbits, they're not "electable" by our country's fucked up election standards.

"I have The Precious...."

We might as well be turning in our voting registration cards and become cattle judges as far as I'm concerned. At least they know in the end that the criteria for making their decisions is basically......