When penguins die the indebted cry

I had a funny, yet frightening conversation with a dear friend yesterday. We went to a yogurt establishment. Yoasis, I think it's called. As far as I'm concerned, I paid an exorbitant amount of money for what tasted exactly like frozen vanilla Yoplait. And then a dollar for a bite of mango. Yes, it was tasty. No, it was not worth the cash. Anyways, the topic of politics inevitably reared its greezy head. I asked for whom she was planning to cast her vote. She proclaimed that under no certain terms would she vote for Hillery. I asked if she were going to vote for Obama, to which she replied with a maybe. I also asked if she knew a single thing about him beyond his baseless "change" rhetoric. Of course she, like most of the rest of America, did not. After explaining a few of my thoughts about said candidate, she said, "Well, are you gonna vote for McCain?" I replied that I might, as I feel like he is, to an extent, the less of three evils. The other two being socialistic evils.

I strongly disagree with socialism, for the most part. Do I love McCain? Hell no. But I hate him the least. That, however, is not the point of this post. The point of this, was her immediate response. "But...I heard that McCain is like...really terrible." To which I said "OK, pause right there. Listen to exactly what you just said. 'But I heard that McCain is like...really terrible.' You are going to completely base for whom you vote on 'heard McCain is terrible.'"

This, I believe, will be the way most of America votes. "I hate Obama, I heard he sucks." "I'll never vote for Hillary, people say she is evil." "McCain is just another Bush. Thats what my bff said." Damnation people! (There it is, I have been caused to use an exclamation point, which I think is the most stupid, incorrectly and ubiquitously used piece of punctuation in our language. Few sentences truly necessitate an exclamation point.) Don't let opinions you have HEARD cast your vote. Look at their policies! Listen to what they say, or more importantly what they are NOT saying!! OK!

This is scary to me. I suppose that uninformed voters elect most of our presidents. I feel this is one of the most direly important elections of our time. There is the conundrum of a horrifying war to be solved. The economy is beginning to spin out of control like a dizzy penguin slipping off the side of an iceberg into the open mouth of a greedy Orca. On an energy level our country has become a cheap Saudi whore, willing to do anything for the next oil hit. $3.55 a gallon. Eff that. There are supreme court justices to be chosen--do you want liberals or conservatives interpreting our constitution? Some candidates want to socialize our health care--others simply don't give a damn.

Figure it out. This is not one that we can ignorantly vote upon. Get informed. Visit their websites. Read their policies. Listen to different sources of opinion about the candidates. Quit overly using exclamation points. You are not doing good. You are doing well. "We was" is never correct. "I seen" is never OK.

I love you.