In reference to “Self-satirizing destroying U.S.”

Dear editor:

Idiocy is nothing new when it comes to politics. Every president, presidential candidate, party member (and those even lower on the totem pole of American productivity) have all made mistakes. We've been witness to conspiracies, poor lawmaking decisions, lethargic laziness, blatant greed, white-collar mischief. It's just another day in the salt mines of D.C.

Michael, why are the actions of Michelle Bachmann so shocking or surprising? What makes her stand out so much? I mean, after all, if we can make it through years of Bush Jr. and the havoc he perpetrated, surely she is a walk in the park? Oops, you're a republican? Then swap ‘W' with Clinton or something…

That aside, nobody outside the inner-circle can really know if some foreign entity intends to employ weaponry against us, albeit anything from a nuclear device to bad coffee beans that were not only frozen for more than 2 days but were also not from Starbucks! Gasp! What's the world coming too?

If we believe someone wants to FedEx us some juju without any proof, we might as well assume that everyone else does, too. After reality television and Kardashian music videos, can you really be surprised by the suspicions of another American regarding foreign enemies?! In the end, anyone with this subscribed precept could very well be spot-on with their convictions. I sometimes want to do harm against my country if not for the coward who egged my car a year ago, then definitely for the one who did a hit-and-run on it a few months back.

Seriously, we live in a world now where black and white no longer exists. Our entire infrastructure may be built around 1s and 0s, but these are only tools to programmatically determine for us the relative judgment calls we need to make against situations derived from the original ambiguity and Kafkaesque friction our systems were meant to fix in the first place.

We've imploded into a world that is intolerant of the unexplained but remember that those before us led us to this path that was approached with simple human inquisition and natural instinct. Michelle may be right, and yet, she may be wrong but in the end, it makes no difference because we still have yet to see SkyNet on the ballot—that will be my first and last vote. Whatever we do, let's not compare our present way-of-life to that of our forbears.  They lived in a world that was drastically different to our own and to believe that the two natures are equivalent is synonymous to believing that Justin Bieber is worth listening to. I mean, c'mon!

Oh, and for whatever worth it represents, the United States might be some sort of "satirical joke" to the rest of the world—and no, I haven't watched SNL since the cowbell went mute—but if we're being made fun of by other countries more so than not, it only goes to show that we're still the most popular kid in the class. If high school taught us anything, it's that the popular people always have the most fun!

The moral of this ramble is that you need to find the fruits you can grab onto and "ignore the noise." Live in the IT (ask Dr. Richard Schneirov over in the History Department what I mean by this). Find yourself, harness the puer aeternus, ignore the rest, and finally, understand that some people are just dogs with big barks and plenty of poop to litter the yard with.

Kindest Regards,

Casey J. Burk

Educational technology major