Brecklin or The Fly

A lifetime ago (2009) I got to “interview” Bruce Willis during the Sonoma International Film Festival. I envisioned a 1:1 sit down at Ramekins and prepared a series of deep questions about a variety of deep topics. Fortunately, I knew that the power of my local Sonoma paper credential might not grant me full access so I also prepared a series of quick A or B questions.

It didn’t turn out as planned. https://www.bohemian.com/northbay/killing-bruce-willis/Content?oid=2173456

The poll feature on the bottom of my Zoom classes comes in handy. On Friday we talk current events during advisory and last Friday I created polls about a couple of questions from the VP debate, we only got through one question, Brecklin or the Fly.

Out of 19 students in advisory, 16 knew about the fly, 3 didn’t know either and 0 knew about Brecklin. Now, I’m not saying my classroom is a perfect sample of politics in America but I bet everyone reading this knows about the Fly and only a few know Brecklin.  This is a problem.

Why do we care so much about the fly (It was, not surprisingly, the focus of the intro skit on Saturday Night Live) and ignore the most important question facing our country? Here’s how Brecklin put it:

“When I watch the news, all I see is arguing between Democrats and Republicans. When I watch the news, all I see is citizen fighting against citizen. When I watch the news, all I see is two candidates from opposing parties try to tear each other down. If our leaders can’t get along, how are our citizens supposed to get along?”

Out of all the issues of this election, this is the umbrella topic that shades all others. Democracy is not working because of our polarization and it shouldn’t be this way. We need more than our VP candidates saying that their people are going to do better. Their people have gotten us here so why should we expect anything different? Sure, one candidate has promoted division and the other unity but when Joe gets in office will things really change?

I’m in the “get people to care” business and right now business is like a restaurant during Covid: waiting nervously until things change and we can return to normal. But what if we decided that normal wasn’t working before all this craziness?

I hated seeing Kamala Harris flip flop about fracking but I understand it. Fracking brings a lot of jobs to swing states and because the electoral college is racist and unfair, candidates have to make promises to win swing states. Oh, you didn’t know about the electoral college being racist and unfair? Here’s a video that explains it much better than I can, https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000007319217/electoral-college-abolish-eliminate.html

We need connection and unity to solve problems like fracking and climate change and abolishing the electoral college. Sure, we can disagree but at the end of the day we have to realize we are all in this together.

This week’s confirmation hearings will get ugly regardless of how many Civics lessons senators give their peers. Next week’s debate will get ugly regardless of how many rules the moderator tries to implement. And if ever there was a time when you need a media vacation, the next three weeks would be perfect as the barrage of turds being lobbed will be substantial.

The answer? Forget the fly, listen to Brecklin.