The pop-culture columnist Richard Roeper once said something to the effect that wearing a baseball cap backwards lowers the wearer’s apparent I.Q. by 15 points. 

I think the same principle applies to using e-mail to forward unfounded, out-of-context, or patently absurd political rumors to your friends in order to terrify them into voting for, or against, a political candidate. 

I’ve sworn off reading these e-mails — I don’t think I’ve seen a single one so far that I felt added to, rather than detracted from, the human condition.  They’re worse than spam, because they’re from your friends, so you feel as if you have to read them, and then, having read them, you sometimes feel obligated to reply.  Especially if the e-mailed rumor is particularly illogical or unfounded, in which case it becomes a delicate matter indeed to point out just how benighted it is without at the same time seeming to criticize your friend, who after all (probably) didn’t write the original e-mail and, caught up as they were in the pleasurable process of flexing their forwarding skills, perhaps didn’t even read it all that carefully. 

So from now, I’m going to avoid the “reply” button just as assiduously as I’ve always eschewed the “forward” button.   

It would be nice if I could rely instead on more “official” forms of punditry, but I’ve sworn off pretty much all political commentary in general, because (unless I’ve been looking in all the wrong places) it is literally impossible to find any that can’t be characterized as polemic, jeremiad, screed, snark, doctrinaire hectoring, screechy partisan propaganda, panicky hyperbole, ugly personal attack, lumpy masses of malignant rumors, embittered excoriation, or funhouse mirror distortion. 

True, if you decide to wade into the the smeary, bleary world of ink- and paper-based reportage, you can find a different kind of political commentary, which is to say the bland, balanced, fair to both sides and interesting to neither wallpaper paste known as the “editorial.”

But between these two extremes, there’s only a yawning gap.  If there’s a political commentator out there who’s well-informed, tough-minded, provocative, and informative, with a distinctive point of view but at the same time completely unpredictable and unclassifiable — so that you literally can’t tell at first glance or even second glance if the writer is a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat or a Republican (in other words, not Frank Rich) — I’d love to know about him or her.   

In the meantime, having stopped reading about politics, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to write about the topic either.  So when it comes to posting on this site (this is my first post), I think I’ll stick to my other interests — great music and books, retro and roadside Americana, food in all its forms, Japanese culture, certain sports, the business world, advertising, marketing, the movies, and so forth — pretty much anything but politics.

Although…before I leave the topic entirely, I found the following inexplicably hilarious item in today’s paper, from a gossip columnist named Bill Zwecker:

“George Clooney’s deep interest in world conflicts is leading him to put together a new film about Iraq, about a secret U.S. Army unit that attempts to create soldiers with paranormal powers.”

I think, if Zwecker and/or his editor hadn’t fallen asleep at the switch, that this item should have read:

“Although George Clooney claims to have a deep interest in world conflicts, his new film about Iraq will nonetheless focus on a secret U.S. Army unit that attempts to create soldiers with paranormal powers.”

And let me close by saying that not only will I never again post on a political topic, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, post again on the topic of George Clooney.

  

 

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