Day: January 30, 2004

For Worse

Judith Shulevitz weighs in on whether or not candidate’s wives are fair game to the public wondering who to support. I don’t quite understand her rant.

I think it must be really quaint to view the family as a single entity with a husband and wife (or 2 parents) and children (with slight variances to this theme). A lot of people in today’s society to think of the family unit as 2 individuals plus accessories (could be kids, could be homes, could be anything in the world). Color me old fashioned and traditionalist, but the family unit is not 2 individuals going about their lives; it is a single entity with a common goal and working toward that common goal. The root of family’s destruction stems from the idea that our own selfish goals and needs are attainable and do not need to be sacrificed nor compromised. We are, after all, highly capable individuals living to carpe diem.

As a single guy, I believed that people ought to take advantage of all opportunities, explore all possibilities and not limit oneself. Life is an adventure and it should be lived in that manner. You know, Captain Kirk style! On the other hand, I have also maintained that one of the single most selfless acts an individual can make is to get married. How do I arrive to this conclusion? Simple. Going from a single existence (e.g. man or woman is an island) to a shared one requires immediate and uncompromising sacrifice of one’s own interest. No longer can you consider yourself in a vacuum, or make unilateral decisions about how to live your life. You know need to consider your life partner. A successful marriage requires input from another person(s), absolutely needs compromise to sustain it, and requires communication beyond your inner cranial sanctum. This is not easy to do. As divorce rates and polls clearly show, it’s neither easy, nor successful. The two individual model has been an abject failure.

So when in a marriage, it is even more important to engage in family planning (i.e. how many kids?), financial planning (i.e. more than, do I have enough to hit up the ATM machine) etc. All of this requires considering a lot of issues beyond the “me, myself and I” person. So when someone embarks upon a political journey to the White House, it is perfectly normal to ask, well, who’s his/her other (better) half? Everyone knows, that it takes a strong and successful partnership to make a marriage work.

=YC

Super Bowl’s coming. Yes, there’s football, there’s “Survivor” (coming after the football) and there are the ads in between. Hmm… Hopefully this year’s Super Bowl’s ads will be interesting; I recall not being particularly thrilled by last year’s.

The other day, I finally saw the latest Priceline ad, the one YC referred in his commentary (I think I’ve linked it correctly). Amusing!

Ad’s summary: Priceline executives are trying to bring excite back to Priceline.com. Actor William Shatner is brought into a meeting with them; they tell him that they’re taking Priceline in a new direction. “My Priceline?!” says Shatner. Said executives reassure him that it’s still Priceline, still name your own price and all that, but more; so, Shatner’s no longer in the equation? “But, who can replace ME?” says Shatner. Leonard Nimoy emerges, “Hi, Bill. Let’s do lunch.” Shatner looks up, “Hi, Len. Sure. Lunch. What? Wait. Len?!” Nimoy, the new Priceline man? Hmm. Only Spock would do in Kirk. I loved the interplay; and, Nimoy and Shatner seemed like they were having way too much fun. And, yep, Shatner’s still one scary man.

Check out Slate.com’s latest “Ad Report”: scribe Seth Stevenson reviews the Linux ads – the ones with the weird platinum little boy (Linux himself) loading up info from such wise sorts as Penny Marshall (huh? how is she wise?); Henry Louis Gates (which is cool, since it’s not often that a professor gets to be in a mainstream commercial and outside of PBS or Sunday morning news shows); and others like Muhammed Ali. The latest Linux ad has the little boy inserted in weird black/white colored photos or whatnot. Apparently, they’re not just Linux ads; they’re IBM’s way of selling the brandname on CEO’s and other such types to irritate Microsoft or something. Stevenson thinks they’re cool ads. The first one was interesting to me; the latest ones looks surreal – just my opinion. Take it or leave it. I liked the Slate article, all in all.