Massachusetts hearbreak vs. reality

Scott Brown posed in Cosmopolitan magazine and offered his daughters up as "available". Martha Coakley either didn't care about getting elected or simple assumed the Democratic machine would do all the footwork for her and wring every vote out of their powerful base. Two worthy candidates equally committed to doing their best for the good citizens of the State, the Nation?

Guess not. And in the midst of incredulous Dems circling around, hand-wringing, and professing confusion, we find Massachusetts voters who succumbed to Scott Brown's excellent media campaign that made him a "star" on the level of George Clooney. Modest, confident, pro-active.

Apparently the people of Massachusetts have had it with doing the right thing for the greater good and decided to go with someone who seemed to "get" their micro level concerns and desires.

Martha Coakley had a weak media campaign. Old school. Negative. Harping. Uninspiring. Sad. She never seemed to be much of a candidate. More like someone along for the ride. So the Dems in Mass and the Democrats in DC as well as free-range political operatives cannot blame anyone but their mopey faced reflections. They picked a weak candidate and thought having one at all was enough.

The assumption seemed to be that Democrats who have been the representatives of the working class historically would be seen as the likely saviors for them again. Cutting bankers down to size. Turning around the mortgage fiasco. Summoning the "power to the people" (case is not a mistake) slogan to ignite a trail of compliant Mass voters.

Not so much. Time to rethink why people there did not see the Democrats as capable of doing the right thing. Too little too late? Or just just too little period.

AVATAR & DEPRESSION

Let's take a moment to imagine why some viewers are reporting disorientation, sadness & depression after viewing the film.

Haven't we lost the innocence that comes with hoping for an idealistic or even Utopian society/culture? Especially folks after the horror that was 2009. We were ALREADY depressed from the ugliness, the greed, the breech of the cultural code(s) about ethics and altruism.

People seem beyond hope, yes? At the end of their ropes. Plagued with self-doubt. Battered by a loss of civility. Crushed by financial burden.

So after the Avatar experience what might one be expected to feel that is socially acceptable? How can something so subjective as a response to a film have a paradigm, a limit, a correctness?

Through any number of complex social failures, we have nothing but the shit in our laps to contemplate and a vague (perhaps embarrassing), tiny flame of desire and determination that things will get better.

If a movie can do something beyond that and nothing else can, how can we shut down that option? Why should we? And if people are depressed post-viewing, perhaps that is because there is probably a seed of awareness brewing that the way we have been living in this culture is without merit and has killed off the better nature of our angels. And that awareness will help us to move in a very different, wiser direction ultimately. Which is a very good thing.