Continuing Education

Here was a good use of 2 minutes

When I turned this thing on this morning I was surprised to see the news feed on the European Union winning the Nobel Peace Prize and Forest people becoming tour guides. Nothing about the Vice-Presidential debate last night. Then again, I watched a bit of the debate last night and I guess I'm not so surprised.

My life and work requires I attend a fair number of continuing educational programs through the course of a 3 year credentialing cycle. By this point I have learned to steer clear of the "fluff" and spend my time at meetings that offer substance. Believe me, there's a lot of fluff out there but I don't have time for fluff. I'm hungry to both stay current and learn what's new and coming next.

The debate process has become fluff. I'll acknowledge there's value in realizing an individual doesn't have answers or seeing their weaknesses exposed but, for my time and money, the process has become fluff. Tuning in to the debates is not where you go to learn about what a candidate and his party have to offer.

In fact, the entire campaign process has become fluff. The danger here, however, has more to do with failing to learn than with wasting one's time. Political fluff leaves people dependent on spin and deceit and manipulation of information. It's not about informing a democracy, it's about winning an election.

Perhaps with respect to informing a constituency the debates do succeed on one level: You may not receive much of substance with respect to what, how, and why of a particular candidate but you do get to observe behavior. It just may be that, in this age of political spin and slight of hand, behavior-- a person's ability to converse, their carriage, that wholly subjective sense a person gets of another based on sight and sound-- is all we really have to go on. The good news is this: in the case of the televised debates, you can leave class after the first 5 minutes and still get an "A" in the subject.