I get updates from Diana DeGette through the email machine tube. She tells me all the things that I want to hear, and lots of things I don’t want to hear. She’s told me about the evils of the war in Iraq, of the splendidness of Democracy, and so on. Today she’s told me about tomatoes. Why, in her own words, “sickness from the current salmonella outbreak has been documented in more than 1,000 people.”

For the sake of comparison, in 2006 alone, 72,507 people died as a direct result of having diabetes. 1.6 million developed the disease. 3,700 of those are children.

Okay, okay, the awful stomach nastiness that is related to salmonella is bad. It’s incredibly unpleasant. It’s sickness that is a result of a federal commission that has no teeth and cannot, in any secure way, ensure the quality of food in this country. They never have, they never will. They have no authority, no money, and no time to make sure that the food that is shipped around here each and every day is safe. We can’t track cattle we suspect have bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but we somehow should focus all our attention on these tomatoes.

And the diabetes thing? Oh, we run commercials and have a website featuring very old cartoon characters that even I don’t identify with telling kids about the food pyramid.

Okay. So long as we have all our bases covered. Thanks, Diana, for caring about what really matters. The tomatoes. Hopefully the Nanny State you so desire won’t cost too much.

So it seems that Tim Russert died today. Can’t say I’m too upset about that–I don’t know much about him, never watched any of his shows, and I am typically uninterested when news figures die (similarly, I didn’t wring my hands overmuch when Peter Jennings died).

That said, Wikipedia very briefly gave me another example of why there are dicks in every corner of the world, online and off.

See the captured screenshot here–I made no modification except to highlight “Ding dong the witch is dead!” and draw a big arrow on it.

Okay, so apparently he was on NBC and MSNBC, was quite likely a liberal thinker, and probably pissed some people off with his personal beliefs. That’s no reason to celebrate his demise. I recall celebrating Jerry Falwell’s death some time back and I was not right then just as whoever vandalized Tim Russert’s Wikipedia page is not right.

The offensive line has been removed, but the larger issue still remains: Are we such a polarized nation that even people who decried Bush’s “You’re either with us or with the terrorists” motif are just as eager to claim the other side evil? Falwell was a bad man who hurt many people, emotionally and psychologically, in his claims of moral righteousness. Tim Russert was a journalist. I recognize that no journalism occurs in this nation anymore that isn’t slanted one way or the other–We the People are simply uninterested in discourse that is not supporting our ideas. Your daily news is merely another echelon of the mighty Infotainment Empire which has insinuated itself into our dinner table conversations as much as it has helped define for ourselves who we truly are. We’re red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives, McCain supporters or Obamaniacs.

I suppose it’s nothing really new. I recall deep divisions between us all as Americans back in 1992 when Bill Clinton first ran for President. It just seems like those things that make us unique (and, as such, have made this a phenomenally successful nation) have become so unnecessarily important without cause that it has driven each and every one of us to stress over things that needn’t be so bothersome.

Take, for example, my glee if Obama is to win the Presidency in November. I will marvel to the sky about my luck in living in this fascinating, world-shattering time. I will shed tears for my future, which will feel immeasurably brighter. Those things might not happen if McCain is elected, but neither am I going to curse the sky about my awful luck and start glaring at anyone who gives me a second glance. I will not cut down my own personal hopes and aspirations just because a white rich guy is in that neat office rather than a rich black guy. Reality will come crashing down on me to remind me that, at the end of the day, my day is mostly unaffected by the President, whoever s/he is. I will continue going to work. I will continue enjoying my weekends. I will continue to cry at sad movies, laugh with my friends, and drink too much.

I will not go to John McCain’s Wikipedia entery and fill it up with “Fascist” repeated over and over and over, despite what I may think. On November 8th, I will deal with whatever happens.

Mostly because I’m not a dick.