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I have a problem remembering, when I go to vote in major elections, the details of just exactly why I don’t like a particular candidate. I mean, it’s been four years, right? But I’m making up my mind about Dubya’s next vote now and I want to save examples of the kind of stuff that influenced me so I can go back and remind myself later. Sort of like my own personal political institutional memory.

So here’s the first installment:

For Bush, secrecy is a matter of loyalty Administration’s tight control over flow of information draws charges of ‘arrogance of power’ in Washington

Hey! Without trying, I got my very own Googlewhack!

I was searching because my brother got this new professional tshirt screen printing setup and is looking for ideas for shirts to sell to his built-in market — the Catholic youth crowd. I have a coupla designs of my own, but was looking for ideas. I’ll have to post some of them here later.

I had a Postmodern Moment this morning.

I stepped into Einstein’s for a Bagel and I was immediately assaulted by a gaggle of choices, what with 20 types of bagels and 15 types of chream cheese, seven or so types of muffins, two types of scones, impractical sticky buns, and several hot breakfast sandwich items, some with enticing touches like ancho chile-lime sauce or low-fat turkey sausage with Monterrey Jack cheese.

I was paralyzed by my options. I stood gawking at the menu like an idiot.
I had to let several people go before me — People who were walking in that determined pace that said their minds were already leaving Einsteins and were on the way to work and they knew EXACTLY what they wanted so choose something already and get the hell out of my way.

I felt like I did when I went to D.C. and dared to STAND on the escalators going down to the subway instead of walking down — a mere tourist holding these important productive people back from their strategic positions in the queue for the Next Good Seat on the Next Available Train so they could catch up with their brains which were already waiting for them at work. So I was blocking the Bagel Escalator to the Breakfast Train and I needed to step off and let these people pass.

I finally did choose something — a sesame-dipped bagel stick (rather than a round bagel because, while it is the same volume, the stick shape maximizes surface area and everyone knows all the goodies, epsecially on a sesame-dipped bagel, are on the surface. Who said the geometry I learned in high school would have no practical use?)

But I ordered with a sigh because to choose meant that I had to NOT CHOOSE so much else and the idea of so much lost opportunity made me feel a bit like my choice was.. missing… something. No ancho-lime, no blueberries, no cappucino-flavored cream cheese.

I became nostalgic for the Neopolitan days of my youth when the choices were Chocolate, Strawberry, or Vanilla but I didn’t care because I was just glad to be eating ice cream.

Chocolate, Strawberry, or Vanilla. At age eight, I was a chocolate man — I’d always spoon my bowl from the chocolate stripe in that leaky-sticky box of Neopolitan ice cream, careful not to get any of the other flavors in my bowl. Then, I’d go for the strawberry stripe. Lastly, vanilla. But it was still ice cream, and it was still good.

And then there came Baskin-Robbins. Thirty. Two. Flavors. Oh. My Gawd.

My brother and I were wide-eyed in awe. I was a chocolate man, but there were TWELVE DIFFERENT TYPES of chocolatey ice cream goodness. My eight-year-old mind turned greedy. Luckily you got to take little tastes of the various flavors with those little wooden paddle-spoons. But a kid could only get away with two tastes before he’d get The Look, so you had to be judicious. It took time. Thought. Analysis of future ice-cream buying opportunities. Careful research, I tell you.

And then Mom would get impatient and threaten us: “If you don’t choose something NOW, I’m choosing for you!” Which would be bad ’cause you know you’d end up with the dreaded, boring Vanilla.

So the careful research went out the window. I’d blurt, “I’ll take the Jamocha Almond Fudge!” But as I was licking that fudge ribbon I couldn’t help wondering if the Rocky Road wouldn’t have tasted better…

Sigh. Innocence lost.

Now, I live in a wonderful time with lots of fantastic choices before me, but sometimes freedom of choice isn’t really freedom for me at all. The huge menu we all constantly have before us is a tyranny of options. So nowadays, more and more often, I find myelf ordering vanilla.

There’s freedom in vanilla.