73. My home town is not incorporated, but some estimates put us between 10,000 and 25,000 people. I also live about ten minutes from El Paso, Texas and a half an hour from the Mexican border. So I’ve grown up with a very weird sense of identity.
We’ve reached the era of 24-hour news programs with 24-minute news cycles. Unfortunately, the nature of this medium (friggin’ TV) has led to proportionally shrunken attention spans. As a result of this, political mistruths and claims have gotten to the point where they are analyzed in completely different cycles than when they are said.
Here’s an idea: instant fact checking during live events. It’s possible. I mean, places like 2008 Central already provide live blogging of presidential debates. All it would take would be a special C-SPANlike channel with FactCheck.orglike knowledge and American Idolstyle immediacy.
So, of course, it will never happen.
But a boy can dream, can’t he? I mean, can you just imagine what it would be like to see a debate that went something like this:
“We can solve the budget deficit by cutting wasteful spending”
(Note: ‘wasteful’ includes 15 percent from education, 33 percent of social programs, and 8 percent from transportation.
Source: Candidate X’s campaign Web site)
p.s. Candidate X’s record on the economy scares me.
