"All words are symbols that represent unspeakable realities. Which is also why words are magical." (Donald Miller tweet)

Monday, January 26, 2015

me and the west wing

Did you ever watch The West Wing?

(Not the actual West Wing.
I really don't pay much attention to US politics.
The rhetoric alone is enough to make my head explode.)

No, I mean the TV series.

I loved it.

CJ's determination to win respect. Toby's sad loyalty. Abbey got on my nerves a little, but President Bartlett was tremendously inspiring, and he loved her to bits. Leo - how could you not adore that humble, immovable man? Sam, passionately naive. Charlie, quietly observing all of the nonsense and refusing to be pulled into it.

I'll be honest with you, when Zoe was kidnapped at the end of a season, that was a rough summer for me. I still follow Josh and Donna on Twitter. They got married after the show, by the way. She's in Congress now, can you imagine?!



It's possible I'm blurring the lines between TV and reality.

Anyway, there was one episode in which a potential Supreme Court Justice was being vetted as the President's candidate, or some such terminology. And he was "this close" but then they discovered something he wrote in an obscure university paper, long ago, and it was awful, but it happened, he wrote it, and the press would have a field day, and that was that. Game over.

No new job for him.

It's been on my mind lately because I have to successfully debate a position in class on Friday from a theoretical perspective that I completely disagree with. And that wouldn't be so bad, except I also have to write a short position paper on it. I could write from a different perspective, but either way, I still have to debate from the assigned one, so that's double the research, and ... um ... that is NOT gonna happen.

So if you ever run across an obscure, short, position paper written by moi that attempts to support biology as a plausible explanation for race riots a century ago ... I'm just so sorry. I assure you that in *real* life, I recognize that theoretical viewpoint for the horse poop that it is.

(And so does my prof.
He just thinks it's effective to make us learn theoretical perspectives,
even awful, completely discredited ones, 
by knowing them well enough to debate them.

He's probably right.) 

And the thing is ... I need the 15%.

I can hear Toby yelling in frustration, even now. "She ... wrote ... WHAT??!!! How ... HOW ... can that ... even ... be POSSIBLE??!!!!"

Sigh. 

I'm never going to be a Supreme Court Justice. 

And I was REALLY looking forward to that "Thank YOU Mr. President" moment with Jed Bartlett, too.